`Are they dead?' Sebastian asked, his gaze hard on the countryman's beard-shadowed face.
`They ain't been found, have they?'
`No,' said Sebastian. `No, they have not.'
`Ye think 'e's tellin' the truth?' Tom asked as Sebastian leapt up into the curricle's high seat.
Sebastian glanced back at his tiger. `How much did you hear?'
`Most o' it.'
Sebastian gathered his reins. `To be frank, I'm not convinced Forster has the imagination required to invent such a tale entirely out of whole cloth. But do I believe him? Hardly. I suspect he went out to the island that night on a treasure-hunting expedition. But he may indeed have seen something.' He turned the horses heads toward Enfield Chase. `I think I'd like to take a look at this sacred well.'
The island lay deserted, the afternoon sun filtering down through the leafy canopy of old-growth elms and beech to dapple the dark waters of the moat with rare glints of light.
`Ain't nobody 'ere,' whispered Tom as Sebastian drew up at the top of Camlet Moat's ancient embankment. `I thought they was still lookin' for them two boys.'
`They are. But I suspect they've given up hope of finding any trace of them around here,' said Sebastian, his voice also low. Like Tom, he knew a reluctance to disturb the solemn peace of the site.
Without the scuffing sounds from Forster's shovel or the distant shouts of the searchers they'd heard the day before, the silence of the place was as complete as if they had strayed deep into a forgotten, enchanted forest. Sebastian handed his reins to the tiger and jumped lightly to the ground, his boots sinking into the soft leaf mold beside the track. One of the chestnuts nickered, and he reached out to caress the horse's soft muzzle. `Walk 'em a bit. I shouldn't be long.'
`Aye, gov'nor.'
He crossed to the island by way of the narrow land bridge. The trenches dug by Sir Stanley's workmen had all been filled in, leaving long, narrow rows of mounded dark earth that struck Sebastian as bearing an unpleasant resemblance to the poor holes of churchyards. But he knew that in a year or so, the grass and brush of the island would cover them again, and it would be as if no one had ever disturbed the site.
Sebastian paused for a moment, his gaze drifting around the abandoned clearing. One of the more troublesome aspects of this murder had always been the question of how Gabrielle Tennyson and presumably her cousins had traveled up to the moat that fateful Sunday. The discovery that Gabrielle sometimes drove herself here in a gig opened up a host of new possibilities.
It was an unorthodox thing for a young woman to do, to drive herself into the countryside from London. Perhaps she thought that at the age of twenty-eight she was beyond those restrictions. Or perhaps she considered the presence of her nine-year-old cousin and his brother a sufficient sop to the proprieties. But if the Tennysons had driven themselves here that fatal day, the question then became, What the bloody hell happened to the horse and gig? And why had no liveryman come forward to say he had hired the equipment to them?
Sebastian turned to follow the path he'd noticed before, a faint trail that snaked through the brambles and brush to the northeastern corner of the island. It was there, in a small clearing not far from the moat's edge, that he found what was left of the old well.
Once neatly lined with dressed sandstone blocks, the well now looked like a dirty, sunken wound. Ripped from the earth, the old lining stones lay jumbled together with wet clay and shattered tiles in a heap at the base of a gnarled hawthorn that spread its bleached branches over the muddy hole. From the tree's branches fluttered dozens of strips of tattered cloth.
Sebastian drew up in surprise. They called them rag trees or, sometimes, clootie trees. Relics of an ancient belief whose origins were lost in the mists of time, the trees could be found at sacred places to which suppliants with a problem - be it an illness, grief, hardship, or unrequited love - came to whisper a prayer and leave a strip of cloth as a token offering that they tied to the branches of the tree. As the cloths rotted in the wind and sun and rain, the suppliants believed their prayers would be answered, their illnesses cured, their problems solved. Rag trees were typically found beside sacred wells or springs, for dipping the cloth in holy water was said to increase the power of the charm.
He understood now why Tessa had ventured out to Camlet Moat by moonlight.
He watched as a hot breeze gusted up, flapping the worn, weathered strips of cloth. And he found himself wondering how many other villagers came here to visit the island's sacred well.
Quite a few, from the look of things.
He went to hunker down beside the pile of muddy stones. The desecration of the well had obviously occurred quite recently. But it was impossible to tell if the man or men who'd done this had found what they were looking for.
A faint sound drew Sebastian's head around as his acute hearing distinguished the distant clatter of approaching hooves, coming fast. He listened as the unseen horse and rider drew nearer, then checked. A man's low voice, asking a question, drifted across the water, followed by Tom's high-pitched reply.
Sebastian stayed where he was and let the current owner of Camelot come to him.
Chapter 28
Dressed in the supple doeskin breeches and well-cut riding coat of a prosperous country gentleman, Sir Stanley Winthrop paused at the edge of the clearing, his riding crop dangling from one hand. `Lord Devlin. What brings you here?'
Sebastian pushed to his feet. `You didn't tell me the island was the site of a rag tree.'
`I suppose I didn't consider it relevant. Surely you don't think it could have something to do with Gabrielle's death?'
Sebastian turned to let his gaze rove over the ancient hawthorn with its tattered, weathered offerings. `It's an interesting superstition.'
`You consider it a superstition?'
Sebastian brought his gaze back to the banker's face.
`You don't?'
`I think there are many things on this earth we don't understand, and the power of the human will is one of them.'
Sebastian nodded to the pile of muddy stones at his feet. `When did this happen?'
`Gabrielle found it this way when she came up here a week ago. There's an old legend that Geoffrey de Mandeville buried his treasure beneath the well.'
`Any idea who's responsible?'
`Some ignorant fool, I'm afraid. Obviously searching for gold.'
`De Mandeville's gold? Or Dick Turpin's?'
`Ah, you've heard the stories about Turpin as well, have you?' Winthrop stared down at the muddy mess, and Sebastian caught a flash of the steely rage he'd glimpsed briefly once before. `Unfortunately, both have become associated with the island.'
`Did Miss Tennyson tell you who she thought had done it?'
`She told me that she had her suspicions. But when I pressed her to elaborate, she said she had no real proof and was therefore hesitant to actually accuse anyone.'
`She never said she suspected your foreman, Rory Forster?'
`She suspected Rory? No, she didn't tell me. How very disturbing.'
Sebastian studied the other man's face. But Winthrop once more had his emotions carefully under control; the even features gave nothing away. Sebastian said, `Why didn't you tell me Miss Tennyson returned to the island the evening before she died? Or that you were here that evening too?'
Winthrop was silent for a moment, as if tempted to deny it. Then he pursed his lips and shrugged. `If you know we were here, am I to take it you also know why?'
`I'm told you have an interest in Druidism. That you came here last Saturday dressed in white robes to enact a pagan ritual in observance of Lammas. Is that true?'
