A Death at Fountains Abbey Read Free Page B

My own fear, sharp and solid as a stone in my throat. We must all travel blind to our deaths, but to feel its slow, creeping approach with every turn of the wheel is a horror beyond imagining.
    The simple roll and pitch of a carriage could return me to that morning in a heartbeat. Somehow, Sam understood this and took the seat facing backwards in order to spare me. How he had come to guess at such a deep-buried feeling I couldn’t say – and there would be no profit in asking. I was lucky to squeeze ten words out of the boy in fifty miles. But we had travelled together four days in succession with no other company, facing one another as the carriage rumbled along. Perhaps he had simply read the truth in my eyes. It was an unsettling thought, that he had been watching me so carefully.
    You can’t trust him, Tom. Kitty’s voice again in my head. You know what he is.
     
    We had travelled no more than a quarter hour when I saw a boundary wall ahead, ten feet high and stretching off into the distance. The horses pulled harder with no need for the whip, eager to be home. ‘Is this Mr Aislabie’s estate?’
    Pugh twisted in his seat. ‘One corner of it. It’s Aizelbee , sir.’ I’d pronounced it Ailabee – the French way .
    I hunched lower in my coat. It was a bright morning, but there was a sharp wind blowing in from the east. Sam was sitting on his hands to keep them warm. Feeble city folk, the pair of us.
    ‘Will we pass Fountains Abbey?’ Fellow guests at the Oak had mentioned the ancient monastery at supper. According to the – somewhat biased – landlord, they were the largest and the most splendid ruins in the country. And haunted, naturally.
    ‘No, sir,’ Pugh replied, and fell silent for once.
    We rode through the tiny village of Studley Roger. Sam released his hands and clung to the edge of the carriage, taking in every detail as we passed through the hamlet. The size of the windows, the shape of the chimneys. The doors left open to the fresh air. A couple of muddy lanes. But nothing familiar, not really. And no tavern , I noticed, mournfully. No rowdy coffeehouse, the air clogged with pipe smoke, the latest newspaper laid out upon the table.
    ‘Second house upon the left. How many geese in the yard?’
    Sam blinked. ‘Seven.’
    This was a game we had played along the road. At least, I had played it and Sam had humoured me. He’d been raised to remain alert to his surroundings. In the city slums, there were threats and opportunities lurking in every doorway. Information could earn a boy his supper, or save his life. But I suspected Sam had a particular talent for it, something he was born with: a precision of mind far beyond my own or anyone else’s, for that matter.
    We arrived at an iron gate, decorated with a coat of arms and flanked by a pair of stone lodges. An old man hurried out from one of them, waving his hat in greeting as he pulled open the gate. We rode through at a brisk pace, on to an oak-lined avenue. Thick branches reached out across the path, forming a tangle of shadows beneath. The sun, filtered through the leaves, cast a soft green light upon our skin.
    I smiled at Sam, thinking of the rookery of St Giles, where planks and ladders criss-crossed the rooftops, creating high pathways through the slums. ‘Like home.’
    He frowned in disagreement.
    ‘Mr Aislabie plans to chop all these down,’ Pugh said, waving at the trees. ‘Limes are better for an avenue. They grow straight. Oaks grow gnarly.’ As we crested the hill he slowed the horses. ‘If you’d look behind you, sir.’
    I turned to see a magnificent view, the long avenue of oaks leading straight back towards the gate. From here we could see the valley below and then, rising on a twin hill, the town of Ripon. Through some trick of perspective, it appeared as if one could reach out and steal it. The avenue had been laid out so that the cathedral crowned the view precisely.
    Pugh was smiling, waiting for a compliment as if