A Corpse in Shining Armour

CARO PEACOCK

A Corpse in Shining

Armour

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

About the Author

By the same author

Copyright

About The Publisher

Dry lightning flickered over the black waters of the lake, throwing the pine trees on their rocky promontories into relief against a copper sky then back into darkness, like some gigantic experiment in stage lighting. No thunder could yet be heard, but to a sensitive ear the whole atmosphere seemed to hum with the electric charge, setting nerves on edge and making repose an impossibility. The dark tower at the very edge of the water might have been designed and built to suit the humour of the coming storm. It stood at the tip of a rock ridge that stretched out from the land like the arm and claw of some great lizard of prehistoric time. Silhouetted against the pulses of lightning, the blunt column of the tower seemed as old as the rock it stood on, though it had been built five hundred years before, in a time of feud and warfare that had raged round the lake shores. Nothing in the wildness and antiquity of the scene would have told the observer that time had moved on five centuries or, to place it with precision, to the night of 26 August, 1816.

Nothing, that is, unless the observer had been daring and impudent enough to scramble up the steep rocks from the lake and peer through the window that made one narrow rectangle of lamplight in the dark bulk of the tower, to the room inside. The young woman who sat on a chair by the window, staring out at the lightning, wore a loose dress in pale silk quite in the latest style. Her travelling trunk and hat boxes piled by the wall, the writing case open on her desk, her lamp on the table, were all of the best and most modern quality. The novel that lay face-down on the table beside her was the latest production of the Author of Waverley. Although not perhaps quite in the first rank of beauty, the young woman was pleasant to the eye. Her light brown hair, let down for the night, hung over her shoulders in a shining cloak. Her hands were white and well-shaped, her features refined and regular, although her somewhat square forehead and determined chin hinted at strong opinions and a certain stubbornness.

The hypothetical observer at the window might at first glance have taken it for a picture of domestic repose. Closer observation would have revealed quite the reverse. The young woman was anxious, even perturbed. Perhaps it was the effect of the storm on a highly strung nature that made her restless. She would get up, walk a few paces round the room, pick up a pen from her writing case and put it down unused. Then she would return to her seat by the window and take up her novel, but even The Antiquary seemed unable to hold her for more than half a page. She ran a hand idly through her hair then withdrew it as if stung by the tiny crackle of electricity that the contact generated. Several times she sighed. Once she said softly to the empty room: ‘Is this what the rest of my life will be?’ And sighed again, as if giving herself the answer.

When the storm broke at last and rain beat down on the waters of the lake, throwing up miniature stalagmites of water back to the dark sky, it seemed to bring some relief to her restlessness, though not her sadness. She blew out her lamp and, illuminated only by lightning flashes, moved over to a day bed set against the wall, heaped with quilts and cushions. She slid off her velvet slippers and covered herself over with a quilt, as if intending to sleep only a short time. Her eyes closed. For a while there was no sound but distant thunder and the hiss of rain into the lake. The lightning ceased. Tower, rocks and fir trees sank into darkness.

‘Who’s there?’

She was suddenly awake, not knowing how long she’d slept. The room was almost totally dark. She knew at once what had woken her. Heavy footsteps were coming towards her door, thudding on the stone flags of the anteroom that led from the outside of the tower. She jumped up, heart thumping, clutching the quilt to her chest with chilled hands.

‘Is that you, Cornelius?’

The door opened. A shape came in, darker than the darkness of the room.

‘Cornelius?’

No answer. The darkness came towards her.

CHAPTER ONE

London. June 1839

At one end of the lists the Knight of the Green Tree was fighting to control his horse, a raw-boned chestnut hunter of sixteen hands or so, over-bitted and nervous of the flags fluttering in the breeze. The knight’s helmet was too big for him, threatening to tip down over his eyes, but with the reins and shield in one gauntleted hand and a lance in the other, he couldn’t do anything about it. At the other end of the lists his opponent waited patiently on a wall-eyed roan that looked as if it might have done a morning’s hard work pulling a brewer’s dray. The opponent wore no helmet, only his own thatch of hair the colour of good hay. He’d buckled a dented metal breastplate over his waistcoat, but unlike his opponent he had no arm or leg armour. His shield was plain wood. When his blue eyes caught mine he grinned like a schoolboy.

‘Are you ready, gentlemen?’

The man in the top hat acting as marshal sounded impatient. It had taken ten minutes or so to get the chestnut facing approximately the right way, with the wooden barrier of the lists on the rider’s left hand.

‘Yes.’

The knight’s voice echoed round his helmet. The man on the roan simply nodded, then they set off down their own sides of the barrier, lances pointing across their saddles towards each other’s shields. The chestnut pranced and curvetted like something out of a circus. The roan came on at a heavy canter, slow but straight as a steam piston and was past the halfway point when they met. A crack of wood, a noise like a shelf-full of saucepans falling, shouts from the spectators and a scream from one of the ladies. The Knight of the Green Tree was on his back in the sawdust, the chestnut up on his hind legs and the bare-headed man cantering on as if nothing had happened, tossing away the butt of his shattered lance. Muted applause and laughter broke out from a group of grooms standing near me.

‘Got ’im fair and square.’

One of their own had triumphed, although they couldn’t make a song and dance out of it with all the gentry panicking about the unhorsed knight.

He lay there on his back, helpless in his armour as a foundered turtle. Men of his own class ran to him, shedding their hats and the air of polite amusement they’d shown so far. The bare-headed man threw the roan’s reins to another groom, jumped off and ran to calm his opponent’s horse. I arrived at the fringe of the group as somebody managed to take off the knight’s helmet. It revealed a head of dark curly hair, matted with sweat, a face that would have been unusually handsome if it hadn’t been as red as a boiled lobster from being tin-canned, a pair of merry brown eyes.

‘A shrewd blow. Well done, Legge. Where is the man? And where’s Marmion?’

He was still pinned to the ground by the weight of his armour, his friends kneeling in the sawdust round him fumbling to unbuckle it piece by piece. In spite of that, he managed an amused drawl. The other man had managed to get the chestnut down on all four feet by now. He came up leading it, so that the horizontal man could see that it was unhurt.

‘He’s well enough, sir. How about you?’

Amos Legge’s Herefordshire accent was as strong as when I’d first met him, in spite of two years as the most popular groom in Hyde Park.

‘Well enough too, I believe,’ said the knight. ‘Thank you, all. I might just manage to stand up now.’

This to his friends, who had succeeded in unbuckling breastplate and greaves. They helped him cautiously to his feet. He took off his gauntlet and shook Amos Legge by the hand.

‘I believe by the rules of tournament my horse and armour would be forfeit to you, Legge, only I’d be devilish glad if you don’t claim them.’

Amos laughed.

‘We’ll get him schooled to it all right. He’s a bit green, that’s all.’

‘Green as my green tree. I suppose you’ll tell me I am, too. What did I do wrong this time?’

Since as far as I could see the answer to that was ‘everything’ I was impressed by Amos Legge’s moderation in replying.

‘You need to sit deeper in the saddle, like I was telling you. Get your seat right and it doesn’t matter how hard somebody clouts you, you’ll stay put.’

‘Give me ten minutes to get myself in order, then we’ll take another run at it, if you’re agreeable.’

Amos seemed willing, but the man in the top hat shook his head.

‘Your time’s up. The Knight of the Black Tower’s booked in next.’

The face of the young man changed. He was still smiling, but the smile had become hard and mocking.

‘So he is. I suppose I should leave the field to him then.’

The faces of his friends had changed too. Until that moment, they’d been laughing and relieved to find him unhurt. Now they seemed embarrassed. One of them actually took him by the arm and seemed to be urging him to come away. He shook the hand off.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a scene. Same time tomorrow then, Legge. Brown will take Marmion back.’

Moving stiffly, still wearing his arm and shoulder armour, he strolled with his friends into the Eyre Arms Tavern by the jousting ground.

While Amos Legge was handing over the chestnut to the man’s groom, I sat there on my own horse, Rancie, wondering why a crowd of rich young men, in this summer of 1839, should develop this craze for jousting–a sport that had died out around four hundred years ago. As far as they’d bothered to give a reason, it had to do with Queen Victoria’s coronation the year before. Some of the upper classes and a few newspaper editors had whipped themselves up into a state of annoyance because the ceremony of the Queen’s Champion had been neglected. From time immemorial, so they said, a knight in full armour had ridden into Westminster Hall at the coronation banquet and thrown down his gauntlet in challenge to anybody who denied the new sovereign’s right to the throne. Little Vicky had contrived to get herself crowned without this. A good thing too, I thought. The coronation had cost enough as it was, and besides it’s not fair to a horse to ride it into a building full of the over-excited upper classes. But some of the young bloods fancied themselves as Queen’s Champions. With their heads full of Walter Scott and antique ballads they’d decided to hold a tournament in the old style.

The tournament was fixed for the end of August, two months away, at the Earl of Eglington’s castle in Scotland. But this was June, the height of the London season, and the would-be champions needed somewhere to practise without leaving the pleasures of the capital. The ideal place turned out to be the extensive gardens of the Eyre Arms Tavern, just north of Regent’s Park and conveniently close to the leafy lanes of St John’s Wood, where men of fashion kept their mistresses. There was even a terrace on the roof of the tavern where spectators could enjoy the fun. Fashionable London found it a great diversion from the usual round of afternoon calls or drives in the park. It was my first visit. I’d collected Rancie from the livery stables on the Bayswater Road, where Amos Legge worked, and ridden the short distance out there on my own.

Amos Legge strolled across to me, now freed from his breastplate.

‘I’d no idea you were such a knight at arms,’ I said.

He grinned and patted Rancie’s shoulder.

‘Back home, we’d go at each other on cart horses with kitchen mops, riding bareback too. Wasn’t a lad between Ledbury and Leominster could have me off.’

I guessed that his barnyard experience was earning him a lot of extra guineas. The young bloods might have been born in the saddle, but they couldn’t compete with Amos in terms of horsemanship.

‘Your Knight of the Green Tree seems a good-humoured fellow,’ I said. ‘Who is he?’

He glanced up at me.

‘Miles Brinkburn.’

Amos Legge missed nothing and must have seen the change in my face.

‘You’ve heard of him?’

In fact, Miles Brinkburn–whom I’d never met–was one of the two reasons for riding out there that afternoon. I wasn’t quite ready yet to admit that, even to Amos.

‘He has an elder brother,’ I said.

‘That’s right. Stephen Brinkburn.’

‘Is he here?’

‘Should be. He’s the one who’s supposed to be going next, only he’s late.’

‘Stephen Brinkburn is the Knight of the Black Tower?’

‘That’s right.’

Which explained the change in Miles Brinkburn’s expression.

‘Is the brother a pupil of yours too?’ I said.

‘Not a pupil, no. He rides better than his brother. But he wants me to look out for some new horses for him. He’s just going to take a run or two against the Railway Knight.’

‘Railway Knight?’

It was true that people who cared about money were talking up railways as the next thing to make everyone’s fortune, but as a title it was hardly medieval.

Amos laughed and pointed towards the back of the tavern. Two servants were trundling out something that looked like an enormous version of a child’s toy. It was a life-size wooden horse with a wooden knight in the saddle, the whole thing mounted on a wheeled platform.

‘They give it a push and it runs on rails down the list,’ Amos explained. ‘Comes in useful if a gentleman wants a bit of extra practice.’

The Knight of the Black Tower still hadn’t arrived, so most of the spectators were watching three riders in normal costume but carrying lances, taking it in turns to charge at a figure like a scarecrow with a shield on its chest, set up at some distance from the lists.

‘What’s that?’

‘They call it a quintain,’ Amos said. ‘You have to hit it square in the middle of the shield. If you hit left or right it swings round and clouts you with its arm, like that.’

One of the riders galloped at the scarecrow figure and just caught it with his lance on the outside of the shield. It swung out a jointed arm with a flail on the end, hit him in the chest and almost had him out of the saddle. The spectators on the roof laughed and jeered. It sounded as if some of the men had been drinking already. The second rider tried and missed the target entirely. The third dropped his lance.

‘Want a try?’

At first, I didn’t realise that Amos was talking to me. He must have seen something in my face that I hadn’t intended to show.

‘Well, why not? I don’t suppose we could do any worse.’

I was half-appalled to hear myself saying it, but it had been in my mind that Rancie and I could do better, even though I did have the disadvantage of riding sidesaddle. He gave me one of his mischief-making grins, walked over to a pile of lances stacked against a tree and came back holding one.

‘Like this, see. Point it across her withers and ride straight at it.’

If it were to be done, it must be done without thinking about it. I tightened my right knee round the pommel of the saddle, pressed my left heel lightly against Rancie’s side. It only needed a touch. As usual, she read my thoughts and cantered straight as a swallow towards the quintain. I kept my eyes on the centre of the shield and concentrated on keeping the lance steady. It was lighter than I expected and when the point of it hit the shield square in the centre, the top of the lance broke like a barley straw. Amos’s whoop of delight told me that we’d got it right first time.

I don’t think the spectators on the roof had realised I was going for the quintain until I struck it, but now laughter and cheering broke out. I knew my face was going red. I hadn’t intended to make a spectacle of myself. I’d felt as if Amos and I were two children in a barnyard together, daring each other, and for a moment had forgotten everything else. I glanced up at the terrace and blushed even more hotly when I saw that the loudest cheers were coming from the young man who’d ridden as the Knight of the Green Tree. Miles Brinkburn was actually on his feet, applauding. Since the thing had to be carried off somehow, I bowed from the saddle to acknowledge the applause and, carrying my splintered lance, walked Rancie back to where Amos was standing.

Luckily, a new arrival distracted attention from me. Another knight had appeared at the far end of the lists on a useful-looking dark bay, a group of friends with him on foot. He was in armour and carried a shield with the device of a black tower. Stephen Brinkburn. He had not yet put on his helmet, so I had the chance for a long look at his face. He was less striking than his younger brother, though by no means bad looking. His hair was light brown and worn quite long, his nose an aristocratic beak. Above all, he looked serious, as if this craze for jousting were no game. More than that, he looked like the kind of man for whom nothing was a game. I thought that when they’d played cricket at their public school, the younger brother would have sent balls flying in all the wrong directions while the elder one frowned over the rule book. One of the friends handed up his helmet. He settled it carefully on his head, not moving until he was satisfied that the eye slit was at exactly the right level, then took his lance from another friend.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the lists, the servants were manoeuvring the Railway Knight on to his set of rails. When they were ready the marshal looked inquiringly towards the Knight of the Black Tower. The silver helmet gave one heavy nod and he levelled his lance.

‘The shield!’ somebody yelled at the servants. ‘Take it off.’

The shield of the Railway Knight had been loosely covered with a piece of sacking, presumably to protect it. It was dangerous because if it had flown off when the wooden knight gathered speed it might have caused his opponent’s real horse to shy. The servants were just giving the Railway Knight a good shove to set him off on his career down the lists, but at the last moment one of them managed to twitch off the piece of sacking.

The metallic bellow that sounded when the shield was revealed was louder than the galloping hooves of the dark bay and the hiss of wheels on rails. It sounded like some furious and gigantic elephant in a cave. It took us all a moment to realise that the bellow was coming from inside the helmet of the Knight of the Black Tower. As he bellowed, he drove his horse towards the Railway Knight at a speed that looked suicidal. When his lance struck the Railway Knight’s shield square on, the force splintered the lance like kindling and rocked the wooden rider. The artificial horse trundled on to the end of its track. The rider reined in the bay at the end of the list with a force that brought his forelegs off the ground, then spun him round like a circus trick-rider. He rode across the grass, over a flowerbed and straight at the back of the tavern as if he intended to propel himself and his horse inside. The spectators on the roof had been too stunned by his bellow to applaud what had, after all, been a very accurate hit. Now some started shouting at the rider to stop and others screamed. Only one of them seemed unalarmed. Miles Brinkburn sat there with a smile on his face like a child at a pantomime.

Stephen Brinkburn drew his horse up by the steps that led to the spectators’ platform, dropped the reins and began taking off his helmet. It revealed a face white with fury, jaw set. He dropped the helmet, flung himself out of the saddle and– still in armour–started clanking up the steps to the platform. By then, some of his friends had caught up with him.

‘Leave it, Stephen, he’s not worth it.’

‘For God’s sake, Stephen, you’ll get into the newspapers.’

He took no notice of them. Miles Brinkburn had left his seat now and was standing at the top of the steps, the smile still on his face. From several steps down, Stephen launched himself at his brother. For a man encumbered with metal plates, it was an astounding feat of athleticism or fury. Miles hadn’t expected it and was knocked off his feet. The two of them slithered all the way back down the steps, Stephen clanking and Miles yelling something about taking a joke. They hit the ground with Miles underneath. Stephen aimed a punch at him with a gauntleted hand that would have knocked him senseless if it had connected, but one of Stephen’s friends managed to push it aside at the last moment so that it clanged against the bottom step, knocking splinters out of it. One of the splinters pierced Miles’s face, just below the eye socket, drawing blood. He yelled, managed to pull himself out from under his brother’s weight, struggled upright and delivered a kick to Stephen’s jaw. Stephen saw it coming and rolled aside so that the kick struck the back of his neck and was partly deflected by armour plating. As Miles drew his foot back for another try, Stephen grabbed his ankle so Miles hit the ground again.

They lay there for a moment, panting and exhausted, their faces only inches apart. Blood was pouring down Miles’s face and on to his teeth, his lips drawn back in a snarl. No pretence about jokes now. Stephen’s expression was intent, almost blank. It seemed a battle out of space and time, like a tiger fighting some plated monster from a prehistoric era. The sheer oddity of it must have paralysed the friends surrounding them, because after that one attempt to intervene they’d stood gaping, mouths open. At first they might have regarded it as part of the afternoon’s diversion, but now raw hatred was in the air, like the smell of blood. Miles rolled over, grabbed two handfuls of Stephen’s hair and started thumping his head against the ground. Stephen’s hands clawed for Miles’s throat. One of the friends let out a shrill yell.

‘Stop them, somebody. They’ll kill each other.’

Up to that point, Amos Legge had been watching with the air of a man who’d seen worse. In his book, if the gentry wanted to fight among themselves, that was up to them. Now, moving in his usual unhurried way, he pushed through the crowd of friends and stood over the two writhing bodies.

‘That’s enough. Just calm yourselves down now.’

I’d heard him use exactly the same tone in parting a couple of fighting terriers in a stable yard. The sheer solidity and calmness of him froze the two men. He bent down, untwined Miles’s fingers from his brother’s hair, set him on his feet like a nursemaid dealing with a fractious child and delivered him into the hands of a group of friends.