difference. Who knew the mysteries of animals?
There were relics of the occupants in among the chaos of rocks and boulders: bottles, tins, labels floating on the placid surface of the pool. They ventured inside, but Fitz didn’t want to see the spot where Ned had lain for so many hours, so they kept away from it.
Saddest discovery of all lay in a cave branching off the laboratory. Familiarity with the enormous masses of collapsed stone had imbued all three men with confidence when moving among the chaos; there seemed to be little chance, a week and more after the explosion, of further subsidence, especially given the continued dry weather- even in Manchester it was not raining.
A smell of decay had perfused the air inside the laboratory, a smell that stimulated Angus to explore the wall beyond the fire alcove more closely than anyone had thus far. Behind a boulder he found a tunnel that had not collapsed; heedless of shouted warnings from Fitz and Charlie, he entered it. Ten feet farther on it opened into what had been yet another huge cavern, now mostly obliterated. Here the stench was almost intolerable, emanating from the carcasses of donkeys.
Fitz’s and Charlie’s curiosity had overcome their caution, but none of the three wanted to linger there.
“The poor things died of injuries, or were partly buried,” Angus said. “Many more probably lie completely covered.”
“At least it tells us how Father Dominus brought in his supplies,” Fitz said, leading the way back to the laboratory. “A donkey train! Given that a number must have had to carry various donkey edibles, I wonder how many beasts Father Dominus had?”
“Fifty at least,” said Angus. “One for each person, with a few more for good measure. It would be interesting to know whereabouts he shopped. I’ll set enquiries afoot, if only to gratify my own curiosity. My money is on Manchester.”
“Did the children drive them?” Charlie asked.
“Occasionally, perhaps, if a few were used to deliver drugs, but from what Mary has said, I imagine Brother Jerome usually managed the business alone by stringing them together.”
“Mary is rather close-mouthed about her experience,” Fitz said, frowning.
“Yes, she is.” Angus extinguished his torch and walked out into the fresh air. “I know not how her mind works, I confess. Most females are agog to tell of their adventures down to the very smallest detail, but she seems not to trust that our reactions will reflect her own standpoint. I suspect this may have something to do with a childhood and young womanhood spent in a repressive atmosphere.”
“Angus, I congratulate you!” Charlie cried, beaming. “To have read that aright, you must love her very much indeed. Mary’s papa was the only male influence in her life during Longbourn days, and he detested her. I believe the result of that is her mistrust of men. She’s so intelligent, you see, that it goes against her grain to accept the male sex as superior.”
All of this philosophising lay too far from Fitz’s heart to bear; he gave a snort and said, “If the old man hid any gold here, it’s buried for time immemorial. I suggest we climb the hill and see what else came down.”
There were dimples and hollows in the surface of the hill where something underneath had collapsed, but as they ascended higher they became aware of stout bushes growing where bushes would not have grown had Nature done the planting.
“Look, Papa,” said Charlie, uprooting a bush. “There’s a roundish hole that goes far down, getting narrower.”
“Ventilation wells,” said Fitz. “The amount of light one of these admits would be negligible.”
The higher they ascended, the less evidence of subsidence they encountered until, near the hill’s rocky crown, there were no dents or dimples in the ground, though the bushes still grew to conceal holes. Wedged in one they had found the carcass of a sheep, and decided that Father Dominus had patrolled regularly to remove ovine bodies before shepherds found them. Which may have given the hill a bad name among shepherds, and caused them to avoid it as grazing for their flocks.
“I don’t understand,” said Angus as they paused beside a bush. “All he had were fifty-odd children, yet under here he might have housed a thousand, given the number of ventilation wells. Why bother with these upper caverns, or are they mere tunnels? If they’re tunnels, he had some reason to keep going.”
“We’ll never know what drove him, Angus,” Fitz said with a sigh. “We don’t even know how long he suffered his madness beyond what he told Mary about an enlightenment in his thirty-fifth year. Certainly he retained his skills as an apothecary, and they were considerable, else his nostrums would not have worked, and we know they did. I believe Mary has not told us everything she knows about Father Dominus-look at how long it took her to speak about the possibility that he had hoarded gold. Somewhere during his life he must have had a business or a shop, and at a different time in his life he must have had access to gold-if Mary is to be believed.”
“No!” snapped Angus. “If Father Dominus is to be believed!”
“I cry pardon.”
“It is rather delicious to speculate on the old boy’s life,” said Charlie, playing peacemaker. “What if at one time he did have an apothecary’s shop, a wife, children? And if so, what has happened to them? Did they die in some epidemic, leaving him gone mad?” He giggled. “It would make a good three-volume novel.”
“Perhaps they’re still alive, and wondering whatever happened to their dear papa,” said Angus, grinning.
Charlie pulled out the last bush on the hill. “I’m going down to have a look,” he said after peering into the hole. “This one is wider, I’ll fit.”
“Not without rope and torches,” said Fitz.
“Not at all!” Angus cried.
But Charlie was already loping down the hill.
“Fitz, you must stop him!”
The fine dark eyes looked ironic. “You know, Angus, it will do you good to father a few children. I’m sure Mary is up to the task, so don’t let her wither on the vine, please. Lady Catherine de Bourgh had Anne when she was forty-five. I grant you that Anne was no recommendation for a late child, but she did show it is-er-possible. Mary is barely thirty-nine.”
Face crimson, Angus spluttered out an incoherent reply that had Fitz laughing.
“What I’m saying, my friend, is that sometimes it is necessary to let go the leading-strings, no matter how your heart cries out against it. I’ll let Charlie explore knowing the dangers, just stand up here myself praying to every god I know.”
“Then I’ll pray too.”
Back came Charlie leading Jupiter, laden with rope, torches, bags. “Papa, this beautiful animal is game for anything! I wish I rode heavier! Then you wouldn’t have him. Such a gentle nature!”
“You’ll never have him, Charlie. He’s my last link to Ned.”
Fitz tied one end of a long rope around his waist with Angus three feet in front of him; the two men took the strain as Charlie descended into the depths holding a torch and a tinder box. At thirty feet the rope suddenly slackened; Charlie was on the floor of the cave, and safe thus far.
“Not too deep!” came his voice, thin but audible. “It’s the second-to-last cave, quite small. I think it must have been Father Dominus’s room-it has a table, a chair, a desk, another chair, and a bed. Like a monk’s cell, not even a rush mat on the floor. There are two openings, almost opposite each other. One’s sense of direction is uncertain down here, but I’ll look into the unscreened opening first.”
“Charlie, be careful!” was wrenched from Fitz.
The two men waited what seemed an eternity.
“It’s just a tunnel leading downhill,” came Charlie’s voice at last. “The other is curtained off with black velvet from above the top of the aperture-the material drags on the floor, as if he wanted to keep all light out. I’m going in.”
“The nadir of parenthood,” Fitz said between his teeth. “Take heed, Angus. No one can escape it.”
They waited then, speechless, ears straining for Charlie’s voice, dreading a vast rumble.
“I say, Papa, it’s amazing! Father Dominus’s temple to his God, I think. Utterly black. Haul me up!”
The Charlie who emerged from the hole was covered in dust and cobwebs, and minus his torch and tinder box, left below. He was smiling from ear to ear. “Papa, Angus, I’ve found Mary’s gold! The temple cave was small and absolutely round-it was a great help to be a classical scholar, for it leads me to think that he interpreted this particular cavern mystically. Round like a navel stone or a Roman temple to a numinous god, with its altar in the
