Airman

Chapter 4:

TREASON AND PLOT

Conor did not return home after his meeting with Isabella; he was too elated. He felt as though his heart were half its previous mass. Somehow, against all the laws of science, just sharing his thoughts with the princess seemed to make him lighter. So even though he was already late, Conor decided to preserve the feeling by passing an hour alone in his favourite hideaway. Somewhere he had not been for several months.
More times than he could remember, Conor’s parents had forbidden him to climb the keep turret. In general, he respected their wishes, but every boy has some secret transgression that he cannot surrender. For Conor, it was his perch high in the eaves below the north-east turret. This was the place where he felt closest to his nature, where he felt that the race for flight could actually be won by a boy and his teacher.
But this evening he was not thinking about heavier-than-air flying machines as he squeezed out through a medieval murder hole, and clambered along the ivy to the wooden trestles that had been put in after the chemical fire in Nicholas’s apartment. Tonight he was thinking about Isabella. Nothing specific. Just contented, warm thoughts. As soon as his back rested on the tower’s familiar mouldings, Conor felt a familiar peace settle over him. He was surprised to find the spot a tight squeeze. Soon, he would outgrow this hiding place, and he would have to find another high spot to dream of flight.
Conor sat, watching the sun set over the ocean, sharing the view with the dozen or so gulls that hoped against hope that someone would leave an open barrel of fish inside the curtain wall. Across the bay he could see a large fire somewhere in Kilmore, and the beam from the Hook Head lighthouse already cast its cone of light across Saint George’s Channel. It was a beautiful early summer night and presently the narrow patch of water between the Saltees glimmered with moonshine as though bridged.
Directly below his feet, a team of guards were running a cannon drill. And on the Great Saltee Wall, Conor was sure he could see his father striding between watch posts, dark cloak flapping behind him.
He was not tempted to call out. Better to delay his next punishment for this offence as long as possible.
Conor, I could search the world for another swashbuckling scientist, but I doubt if I would find one like you.
He smiled at the echo of the words in his mind.
Conor’s thoughts were interrupted by a regular scraping along the stone inside the tower. Feet on the steps. In all his climbs to this lofty spot, the only footsteps Conor had ever heard on those steps besides his own were his father’s coming to fetch him down. Declan Broekhart was fifty feet below on the Wall, and so it could not be him.
Conor twisted slightly in his cramped position, so that he could hang back on a creeper and peep in through the murder hole’s leaded glass. The wind caught his hair as he leaned from shelter, and he had a sudden powerful recollection of how he used to adopt this same position as a younger boy.
I would pretend to fly. I remember that.
Conor smiled at the memory.
Soon, there will be no need to pretend. Victor and I will design the machine, and I will fly it past Isabella’s window.
A figure moved inside the turret. Conor saw a shadow first, made jumpy by a jarred lamp, then the dark shape of the lantern held low to light the steps only. Shards of light flickered across the deep folds of cloth and face. The colour red sprang to life under the light. A red cross. Then a heavy brow and glittering eyes. Bonvilain.
Conor stayed still as a gargoyle. Bonvilain had almost inhuman perception. He could spot a seal’s head in stormy seas. The marshall would have good reason not to approve of Conor’s loitering so close to the king’s offices, and could justifiably shoot him as a traitor.
I will sit without breathing or stirring, until the marshall is well gone. Then home quickly.
The sight of Bonvilain’s sharply shadowed features had quite sucked the joy from the evening. That would have been the end of the day’s adventures, had not something else gleamed in the lamplight. Something that Conor knew well. A long-barrelled revolver, with a band of pearl grip poking from below Bonvilain’s fingers.
It was, without the shadow of a doubt, Victor’s Colt Peacemaker. This was extremely curious. Why would Marshall Bonvilain be prowling the serving passages of the castle with Victor’s pistol?
You’re making a mistake. That can’t be Victor’s gun.
But it was. Conor’s keen eye had picked out enough detail to know he was not mistaken. He had studied the gun countless times, breath fogging the glass case.
There must be a thousand explanations for this. Just because you do not know the reason, doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
It was true and sensible, but Conor was a boy and a scientist, the most curious breed of human alive, and he could no more turn away from this than a convict could ignore an open door. If Bonvilain had Victor’s gun, then his teacher should know about it, and know why. His teacher had long suspected that the marshall was not to be trusted and here could be the proof.
Conor waited several moments, until the last light of Bonvilain’s lantern danced past and darkness had closed behind the marshall, then swung himself monkeylike to the sill built into the murder hole, an action that would have had his parents clutching their hearts in shock.
Had the window creaked on his way to the murder hole? He couldn’t remember as it hadn’t been of vital importance at the time. Conor tested it with a gentle prod. No creaking, just a slight rasp of dust in the hinges. Safe enough, surely.
He slipped inside, arms first, walking along the floor with his hands until his feet dropped to the floor behind him.
Conor crouched on the uneven granite, listening. The sound of his own breath hitting the stone seemed enormous. Bonvilain would hear it surely.
But no. The marshall’s footsteps continued at their previous pace and Conor could see faint flickers from the lamp ahead. He turned his face to the light, and followed Bonvilain up the spiral staircase on all fours, feeling his way, staying low.
This passage led to the serving door in King Nicholas’s own apartment, which was bolted shut and guarded whenever the king was in residence, but when Conor slid his head round the corner, the door was unguarded and wide open. No guard meant no king. And if King Nicholas was not in his apartments, why would Bonvilain be skulking around up here, armed with another man’s pistol?
A myriad reasons. There are things that you do not know. For example, King Nicholas may have asked for the gun so that he could have a replica made for Victor, to complete the set. A birthday present.
Unlikely, but possible.
Conor crept through the doorway, quiet as the curious breed of tailless Manx cat that had taken hold on the island. The light ahead was dim, but steady. Bonvilain was still. Had he heard something or was he listening to something? Waiting or spying?
Conor’s stomach twinged. He should go back now. Really. Interfering in the marshall’s business was a serious business. Bonvilain was never reluctant to cry traitor, and good men had been gaoled for less.
But the revolver. Victor’s revolver.
Half a dozen steps more, Conor promised his prudent half. I will peek round the next bend, then retire. Little or no risk.
Not exactly true, but Conor proceeded nonetheless, searching out every step with probing fingers before mounting it. He hugged the floor and wall, seeking the darkest shadows and inched his face around the final twist in the stairs.
Bonvilain was half a dozen steps above; the lantern rested at his feet, casting sharp triangles of light upwards. His face appeared demonic in this light, but it was just the angle. Surely.
Suddenly Bonvilain’s head turned towards Conor’s position, and he had to fight every instinct not to stand up and flee. He was invisible, cloaked by the dark. After a long breathless moment, Conor realized that the marshall’s main intention was not to cast his eyes down the stairway, but to move his ear closer to the wall. He was listening to something. Or, more likely, someone.
And another detail, in his left hand a dark lump. Light glinted on a chiselled edge and Conor saw that Bonvilain held a brick. He had removed a small brick from the wall and was eavesdropping on whoever was in the king’s apartment.
Words floated down the stairwell, and because of the turret’s acoustics they were as clear to Conor as they doubtless were to Bonvilain himself.
The king’s voice. And Victor’s. So the marshall spied on his own king.
Conor closed his eyes and strained his ears, trying to make sense of what he heard, when what he should have been doing was running just as fast as his young legs would carry him. Running to fetch his father.
Inside the king’s apartment, Victor Vigny was seated in one of a pair of Louis XV armchairs by the fireplace. The main door crashed open and in bounded King Nicholas, balancing two frosted tankards on a tray. With great pomp and much bowing Nicholas I presented Victor with a cold glass of beer.
‘That is fantastic,’ said Victor after a deep swig. ‘Colder than the backside of a polar bear. The refrigerator is working well, I see.’
Nicholas sat and took a drink from his own glass. ‘Perfectly, though the ammonia is a little dangerous. Those Germans need to find a new gas.’
‘Someone will,’ said Victor, wiping away a foam moustache. ‘That’s progress.’
‘Can you imagine the benefits of reliable refrigeration?’
‘You mean beyond cold beer?’ joked Victor.
Nicholas rose to pace the floor, the subject of progress never failing to excite him.
‘We can trade with the United States. Fresh produce. And we can export too.’
‘Diamonds don’t need freezing,’ quipped Victor.
‘Other things. The Plantago. And we can freeze produce out of season, in a giant warehouse. Strawberries and salmon all year.’
Victor was suddenly serious. ‘You, my good friend, have bigger fish to worry about.’
‘What have you heard?’ asked Nicholas, sitting once more.
Victor sighed. ‘It is as bad as you feared, and worse. My man on Little Saltee tells me that Bonvilain works the prisoners to death. As far as he can tell, many of the inmates are guilty of nothing more than vagrancy. We can’t prove it yet, but by my count at least half of the diamonds go missing between the mine and the treasury.’
‘Dammit,’ swore Nicholas, hurling his glass into the fireplace. ‘Bonvilain is a plague. A blight on the Saltees. He treats the islands as his personal property. I must be rid of him.’
Victor nodded towards the fireplace. ‘A fine beginning. Crystal in the grate should have the marshall quaking in his boots.’
The king’s eyes flashed fire for a moment, but then he settled, and looked towards the grate, perhaps regretting the loss of a cold beer.
‘How long have we been together, Victor?’
‘If I answer this, will a speech be next?’
‘Oh, I am missing my beer now.’
Victor relented. ‘Twenty years, Nick. Every fair in the blessed United States, and now the top of this fine castle.’
‘All that time and what have we achieved? Victor, we can help people here. Not just a few shillings to the needy, actually help. Make things better forever. It’s all in the machines. We can build them. Look at young Conor Broekhart. Have you ever seen a mind like that?’
‘I know it,’ said Victor with a touch of pride. ‘Isabella knows it too.’
Nicholas smiled. ‘Poor Conor.’
‘I think poor Conor has no idea of the hoops Isabella will trot him through.’
The king could not stay happy long. ‘Damn him! Damn Bonvilain. He is a tyrant. I am the king, am I not? I will be rid of him.’
‘Careful, Nicholas. Sir Hugo has the army on his side. Declan Broekhart is the only one who could sway them. The men look up to him. We should invite him to one of our talks.’
The king nodded. ‘Very well. Tonight. I cannot wait another day. I will see Bonvilain in prison before the month is out. The future will only wait for so long. This island is trapped in the Middle Ages because of that man. His guards are murderous thugs and his justice is self-serving and vicious. After seven hundred years, the alliance between the Trudeau and Bonvilain families is about to come to an end.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Victor, tipping back the rest of his beer.
Bonvilain came through the serving door with the Colt already extended, walking with confident measured strides. There was no overblown villain’s preamble, Sir Hugo had been in too many life-or-death situations for that. He allowed himself one sentence only.
‘Victor Vigny, you have killed the king.’
Both Frenchman and monarch reacted quickly, neither bothering with protestations or pleadings. There was murder in Bonvilain’s eyes, not a single doubt about that. Victor hurled his body across the room to shield his friend, while Nicholas’s right hand dropped to the Smith and Wesson revolver that he always wore slung low on his hip in the American style.
Victor, the younger man, almost achieved his goal, but no matter how quick the man, the gun is quicker. Bonvilain fired and the bullet clipped the webbing between the Frenchman’s outstretched thumb and index finger, which deflected the bullet slightly, but not enough to save the king. Nicholas fell back in his chair and was dead before the Smith and Wesson dropped from his fingers.
Bonvilain grunted, satisfied, then picked up the king’s gun and turned it on Victor Vigny, who lay on the hearth rug, blood streaming from his hand.
‘You almost made the distance,’ said Bonvilain admiringly. ‘Commendable effort.’
Victor looked into the marshall’s eyes and knew his own life was over.
‘So, I am the murderer?’ he said.
‘Yes. You shot the king with your own gun. There is a test they are developing in Scotland Yard that can match the bullet to the gun. I shall have an expert shipped over. I have also employed a Dutch handwriting expert to forge letters from you to the French government detailing the Saltee defences. I ask you, do these sound like the actions of a man who has trapped the islands in the Middle Ages?’
‘Nobody will believe that I killed the king,’ protested Victor. ‘He was like a brother to me.’
Bonvilain shrugged. ‘Not many knew that. You were his secret spy, remember? Spying on me. Now, to business. I am sure you have a dirk in your boot, or a Derringer in your beard, or some other spy trickery, so fare thee well, Victor Vigny. Tell your master that the alliance between the Trudeau and Bonvilain families continues a while longer.’
‘You will never stop us all,’ cried Victor, valiantly jumping to his feet, a dirk in his hand, pulled from some fold of clothing.
Bonvilain tutted, shooting Victor four times in the chest. A little excessive perhaps, but he was understandably upset — after all, the king had been murdered.
A thought struck him.
Stop us all. What had Vigny meant by that? Were there more spies on the islands?
‘Or were you toying with me, Frenchman?’ he asked squatting down and curling Victor’s fingers around the grip of his own Colt Peacemaker. ‘Leaving a few doubts behind to prey on my mind?’
The main door opened and a sentry entered.
‘Am I supposed to come in yet?’ he asked.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Bonvilain, irritated that it had been necessary to involve a sentry. He would have to be disposed of at the earliest opportunity. ‘You see what has happened here? You heard the gunshots and came in. They shot each other, simple as that. You don’t need to offer any opinions. You say what you saw.’
The sentry nodded slowly, though this was not the first time he’d heard these simple instructions.
‘I say what I saw. Yes, Marshall. And you won’t kill me?’
‘Of course not, Muldoon. You wear the red cross. I don’t kill my own guards.’
Muldoon was obviously relieved. ‘Good news for me. Thank you, Marshall. I appreciate being allowed to continue with my worthless life.’
Bonvilain was struggling not to end Muldoon’s worthless life immediately. ‘You should probably go and raise the alarm.’
Muldoon bobbed his head. ‘Yes, Marshall. Absolutely. But who is that boy behind you, sir?’
Bonvilain blinked. ‘Excuse me?’
Conor was a sharp young man, and it hadn’t taken him long to realize what was happening. Apparently Victor was not just the royal tutor, he was also a spy for King Nicholas. Bonvilain must have listened to this conspiracy blossom from his spot behind the wall, and intended to put an end to it, before it put an end to him.
But why Victor’s gun?
His teacher’s own voice chided him.
For goodness’ sake, boy. Is it not obvious?
Conor paled in the darkness.
Of course. Victor’s weapon. Victor’s crime.
When Bonvilain went through the door, Conor had already formulated a rudimentary plan. He would rush through two paces behind shouting a warning. Victor should react quickly and disarm Bonvilain without undue difficulty.
He was on his feet and halfway up the stretch of stairs, when the first shot rang out.
So quickly? So quickly? Who had taken the bullet? Perhaps King Nicholas had fired first and all was well. Only one shot, after all. One shot for one man.
Conor kept moving, but carefully now. He did not want to be shot for a traitor by his king or teacher. They would be nervous, on the lookout for Bonvilain’s men, and there was no need for a warning now. It was too late, one way or the other.
The boy eased into the doorway, squinting against the sudden lamplight. His eyes adjusted in time for him to witness Victor shot down as he rushed Bonvilain. He froze, speechless, as his eyes took in the tableau of horror before him. The king, dead. Victor too. Horribly. And Bonvilain grinning and talking to himself like a madman. Now he was placing Victor’s gun in the Parisian’s hand. These events were nightmarish. Too brisk to be true. They skimmed the surface of reality like skipped stones on a flat sea.
A knock on the door, and in comes a sentry. Conor recognized him from his corridor-roaming with Isabella. A dullard, in the watch because of some relation. But a subject, nonetheless, and so should be warned.
Conor was a breath from shouting when the sentry began to converse with Bonvilain. The man was a part of things! Bonvilain would escape completely. The king would be dead and Victor’s memory blackened. It was unbearable.
This plot must be stopped. Bonvilain could not be allowed close to Isabella. Conor stooped low, creeping to Victor’s side, using the furniture as cover. The Parisian lay on his side, as though comfortably asleep. His eyes were wide with surprise and blood bubbled on his lips. Dead. Dead.
Conor fought the tears. What would Victor have him do? What would his father have him do? Stop this conspiracy. He had training aplenty to do it and there was a loaded gun inches from his fingers.
Then Victor’s eyes blinked and found focus. The Frenchman lived for a stolen moment.
‘Don’t do it, boy,’ he whispered, showing a remarkable grasp of the situation. ‘The Martello tower in Kilmore. Find it and burn it. Bonvilain must never learn our secrets. The eagle has the key. Go now. Go.’
Conor nodded, the tears coming freely, dripping from his nose and chin.
Martello tower. Kilmore. Burn it. Go now.
He might have left then and avoided years of heartache, had not the Parisian rattled out his final breath.
Dead. Again.
Conor was stunned. To lose his friend and mentor twice in as many minutes. They would never fly together now.
They would never fly.
The Broekhart in him took over, pushing down the scientist. Victor had been trying to protect him, but there was no need; Conor was trained in all the weapons of combat, including Oriental and Indian, had they been available.
Conor prised the Colt from Victor’s hands. The pearl handle against his palm brought both confidence and sadness. This was a gun he had twirled a thousand times while Victor chided him for a show-off.
He twirled it again to settle himself, then popped out the cylinder, checking the load. Five shots left. Plenty for some wounding. Conor came to his feet, the tears on his face drying quickly.
The sentry saw him first.
‘But who is that boy behind you, sir?’ he said dully.
Bonvilain turned slowly, already pulling a sad face.
‘Ah, young Broekhart,’ he said, as though Conor was expected. ‘A terrible tragedy.’
Conor aimed the Colt at Bonvilain’s chest, a large enough target. ‘I heard everything, Marshall. I saw you shoot Victor.’
Bonvilain dropped the act. His face was once again its sharp self. Angles and shadows.
‘No one will believe you.’
‘Some will,’ said Conor. ‘My father will.’
The marshall considered this. ‘You know, I think you might be right. I suppose that means I must kill you too, unless you kill me.’
‘I could do it. And that oaf too,’ said Conor, cocking the Colt.
‘I am sure you could, theoretically, but the time for theory is over. This is not the practice field, Conor; we are at war now.’
‘Stand where you are, Marshall. Someone heard the shots. They will be coming.’
‘Not through these walls. No one is coming.’
It was true and Conor knew it. Victor had told him that one night he and Nicholas were testing fireworks in the grate and not a soul in the palace had heard.
‘You, soldier. Put down your rifle and sit on the chair.’
The sentry did not appreciate being ordered about by a fourteen-year-old boy, but then again the boy seemed very familiar with the weapon in his fist.
‘This chair? There’s blood on it.’
‘No, idiot. That chair. By the wall.’
The sentry laid his weapon on the stone floor, shuffling across to a stool by the wall.
‘This is a stool,’ he mumbled. ‘You said chair.’
Bonvilain took a sneaky step forward, hoping that Conor was distracted by the sentry’s inanities. Not so.
‘Don’t move, traitor. Murderer.’
Bonvilain smiled. His teeth were glossy, like yellow pearls.
‘Now, Conor, I will explain to you what I am about to do. I intend, and this is a promise, to take a leisurely walk across the space between us and then choke the life from your body. The only way you can stop this coming to pass is to shoot me. Remember, this is war – no school today.’
‘Stay where you are!’ shouted Conor, but the marshall was already on his way. Five steps divided them. Four now.
‘Take your shot, boy. Soon I will be too close and it will be difficult to get a bullet past my hands.’
I chose badly, Conor realized. I should have fled down the passage and fetched my father.
He had never shot a person. Never wanted to.
I want to build a flying machine. With Victor.
But Victor was dead. Murdered by Bonvilain.
‘I am upon you,’ said the marshall.
Conor shot him twice, under his outstretched arms in the upper chest.
I had to do it. He gave me no choice.
Bonvilain’s steps faltered slightly, but he kept coming. He was purple in the forehead, but the light in his eyes never wavered.
‘And now,’ he said batting the gun from Conor’s fingers, ‘to choke the life from your body. As promised.’
Conor was lifted from the floor, his arms and legs flapping, battering ineffectively against the marshall’s flanks, which seemed to jingle when struck.
‘I am a Templar, boy,’ said Bonvilain. ‘Have you never heard of us? We like to wear chain mail going into war. Chain mail. I have a vest on at the moment just in case things did not play out as I planned. Prudence is never wasted, as we see here today.’
This revelation did not matter much to Conor now. All he knew was that Bonvilain still lived. He had been shot, but lived.
‘You hold him, Marshall!’ said the sentry, reclaiming his rifle. ‘Hold him still and I will shoot him.’
‘No!’ shouted the marshall, imagining the indignity of an epitaph that included the phrase accidentally shot while strangling a youth.
‘You prefer to do it yourself,’ said the sentry, sulking slightly.
Bonvilain thought as he strangled. He held in his hands, literally, the solution to his Captain Broekhart difficulty. Victor Vigny had been right: Declan Broekhart was his only real opposition in the Saltee Army. Surely there was a way to win the captain’s loyalty from this situation. And if it required a little manipulation, was that not his speciality?
An idea poked from the depths of Bonvilain’s brain, like the head of a sly serpent from a swamp. What if the rebel Victor Vigny had not acted alone. What if he had an accomplice, the sentry for example. The sentry was certainly expendable.
Bonvilain felt a shiver run up his spine. He was on the verge of brilliance, he could feel it. For Bonvilain, it was moments like these that made life tolerable. Moments that presented him with a challenge worthy of his specific talents.
‘You there, idiot,’ he said to the sentry. ‘Open the window.’
‘That one?’ said the sentry, though there was but one window in the apartment.
‘Yes,’ said Bonvilain innocently. ‘The one overlooking the cliffs.’
?

Conor awoke from near strangulation in a damp windowless cell, where he languished for hours. His solitude was interrupted periodically by a brace of guards who stomped with considerable gusto on his slim frame. On their final visit, the pair stripped him of his clothing and bundled him into a Saltee Army uniform.
As yer own clothes stink of blood and fear.
Conor wondered about this briefly through his pain. Why a soldier’s uniform? Before his addled brain could reach any conclusion, the beatings recommenced, backhanded blows across the face. One eye closed and he felt the blood flow down his nose. The guards propped something soft on his head. A towel perhaps? To staunch the flow of blood maybe? It seemed unusually compassionate.
There were more confusing meddlings with his person. One swabbed his cheeks with what smelled like gunpowder. The other scratched on his arm with an ink pen. It went on for what seemed like hours.
When the guards were satisfied with their arrangements, the fatter of the pair clamped a set of manacles on Conor’s wrists and a lunatic box over his head, pulling the head cage’s leather mouth strap tight until it forced Conor’s teeth apart, ratcheting back between his jaws. The only noises he could make now were groans and grunts.
The cell itself was a ten-foot block of hell, and Conor could not credit that such a place existed on Great Saltee.
The walls and floor were granite. Hewn from the island itself. No bricks or mortar, just solid rock. There was no escape from here. Water trickled through grooves worn by centuries of erosion. Conor did not waste a second thirsting for it. The combination of lunatic box and manacles meant that he could not pass anything through the metal grille to his mouth. In any case, the grooves themselves were flaked by salt. Sea water.
They left him for an age, wallowing in his misery. The king was dead. Isabella’s father murdered by Bonvilain. Victor was gone too. In the blink of an eye, his mentor and friend cruelly killed. And what was to become of Conor himself? Surely Bonvilain would not leave breath in the body of a witness. Conor felt the weight of the cage upon his head, the gall of manacles chafing his wrists and the threat of his impending murder heavy on his heart.
The metal slab of door swung, dragging on the hinges. A tallow yellow light filled the room with a sickly glow, and in that glow stood the unmistakable silhouette of Sir Hugo Bonvilain. The king’s marshall and murderer. Because of this man, Isabella was an orphan.
Rage took hold of Conor’s body, filling his limbs with strength. He lurched to his feet, arms outstretched towards Bonvilain.
The sight cheered Bonvilain tremendously. The man actually whistled as he grasped the lunatic box’s grille, stuffing his thick fingers between the bars. He stepped to the side and casually swung Conor into the wall, wincing at the clang and clatter.
‘I used your own momentum against you,’ he said, as though school were in session. ‘Basic training. Basic. If one of my men made that mistake I’d have him flogged. Didn’t that French dandy teach you anything?’
Bonvilain squatted, propping Conor against the rough damp wall.
‘A great day, isn’t it? Historic. The king is gone, apparently assassinated by rebels. Do you know what that means?’
Conor could not reply even if he wanted to. If it had not been for the pain, this would all seem like a cruel dream. A night terror.
Bonvilain rattled the lunatic box, to make sure he had Conor’s attention.
‘Hello? Young Broekhart. Still with us?’
Conor tried to spit at his captor, but all he could do was gag.
‘Good. Alive for now. Anyway, about the king being dead, let me tell you what it means. It means an end to these ridiculous reforms. Money for the people. The people? Unwashed, uneducated rabble. No more money for the people, you can bet the blood in your veins on that.’
Everything King Nicholas has done will be undone, thought Conor dully. All for nothing.
‘Isabella becomes queen. A puppet queen, but a queen nonetheless. And can you guess what her obsession will become?’
Of course. It was so obvious that a boy could see it, even in Conor’s dazed state.
‘I see by your eyes that you can guess. She will dedicate her life to stamping out the rebels. It will consume her; I will make sure of it. There will be no end to the number of rebels I will unearth. Any merchant who refuses to pay my tax. Any youth with a grudge. All rebels. All hanged. I am closer now to being king, than any Bonvilain has ever been.’
This statement hung between them, heavy with centuries of treason. Creak of manacle chains and drip of water.
Bonvilain yanked Conor’s head as close as the bars would allow, and unhooked the box’s mouth strap.
‘Before he died your teacher said that I would never stop them all. Was Victor Vigny working with the French aeronauts? Or La Légion Noire — the Black Legion?’
Conor’s lip was swollen from one punch or another and his jaws were shot with pain, but he managed to speak.
‘There is no Black Legion. You will destroy the Saltees fighting an imaginary enemy.’
‘Let me tell you something, little man,’ snarled the marshall. ‘If it weren’t for the Bonvilains, these islands would be nothing more than rocks in the ocean. Nothing but salt and bird droppings. We have nursemaided the Trudeaus for centuries. But no more. These islands are mine now. I will milk them dry and Queen Isabella stays alive so long as she does not interfere with that plan.’ Bonvilain rattled Conor’s cage. ‘I am interested to hear what you think of this plan, young Broekhart.’
‘Why tell me, murderer? I am not your priest.’
Bonvilain shook the lunatic box, as though it were a mystery gift.
‘Not my priest. Very good, I will miss our exchanges. I tell you, little Broekhart, because these are the very moments that make life worth living. I am at my best in the thick of action. Stabbing, shooting and plotting. I enjoy it. I exult in it. For centuries, the Bonvilains have been behind the throne, steering it with their machinations. But never anything like this.’
Bonvilain was almost dazed by happiness. Everything he had planned for was now within reach.
‘And you, my little meddler, have transformed a good plan into a perfect one. It’s your father, you see. He is a great soldier — I can admit it. A wonderful soldier. He inspires great loyalty among the men. I was planning to remove him, and weather the storm. But now the rebel Victor Vigny and you, his indoctrinated student, have killed the king. Your father is honour bound to protect the new queen with every breath in his body. And because I will promise to keep his son’s name out of the investigation, Declan Broekhart will owe me his reputation, and so you have made him loyal to me. For that, I thank you.’ Bonvilain leaned closer, his face stretched in pantomime sadness. ‘But I have to tell you that he hates you now and so will Isabella when I tell her my version of tonight’s events. Your father, I would go so far as to say, would kill you himself, if I would allow it. But that’s family business and none of mine. I should let him tell you himself.’
And with that Bonvilain hooked up the lunatic box’s bridle and threaded the manacle chain through a ring on the wall. He stood, his knees cracking, his huge frame filling the cell, his broad scarred brow suddenly thoughtful.
‘You would think I suffer, with all the people I have killed, the hundreds of lives I have destroyed. Should demons not visit me at night? Should I not be tormented by guilt? Sometimes, I lie still in my bed and wait for judgement, but it never arrives.’
Bonvilain shrugged. ‘Then again, why should it? Perhaps I am a good man. After all, Socrates said: There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance. So, as I am not ignorant, I must be good.’ He winked. ‘Do you think that argument will fool Saint Peter?’
Conor realized at that moment that Bonvilain was, in a very dangerous way, completely mad.
Bonvilain came back to the moment. ‘Anyway, let us continue the philosophical discussion some other time. Why don’t I fetch your father? I fancy he has a few words for his errant son.’
Bonvilain strode jauntily from the cell whistling a Strauss waltz, conducting with an index finger.
Conor was left on the floor, neck aching from the weight of his cage. But in spite of the pain, there was now a spark of hope. His father would see through this charade surely. Declan Broekhart was nobody’s fool and would not leave his son to wallow in a filthy cell. In minutes, Conor felt certain, he would be free to expose Bonvilain as a murderer.
Bonvilain had not even bothered to close the cell door. A moment later, he shepherded Declan Broekhart into the room. Conor had never seen his father so distressed. Declan’s back, usually ramrod straight, was hunched and shuddering and he held on to Bonvilain like an old man leaning on his nurse. The face was the worst thing. It was dragged down by grief: eyes, mouth and wrinkles running like candle wax.
‘Here he is,’ said Bonvilain softly, with great compassion. ‘This is he. Just a few seconds.’
Conor inched along the wall, straightening himself.
Father, he tried to say. Father, help me. But all that emerged from between his swollen, hampered lips were thin groans.
Declan Broekhart loomed over him, tears dripping from his chin.
‘Because of you,’ he whispered. ‘Because of you…’
Then he lunged at Conor, reaching not to embrace, but to kill. Bonvilain was ready for it. He restrained Declan Broekhart with strong arms.
‘Now, Declan. Be strong. For Catherine. And for young Isabella. We all need you. The Saltees need you.’
As he said this, Hugo Bonvilain peered over Broekhart’s shoulder and winked merrily.
This combination of grief and lunacy were like physical blows to young Conor. He recoiled from his father, drawing his knees to his chin.
What was happening? Was the world mad?
Declan Broekhart gathered himself, dragging a sleeve across his brow.
‘Very well, Hugo,’ he said haltingly. ‘I am composed now. You were right. That wretch is nothing to me. Nothing. His death would not restore anything. Little Saltee can deal with him. Let us leave here; my wife needs me.’
Wretch? His father was calling him a wretch.
‘Of course, Captain Broekhart. Declan. Of course.’
And so Bonvilain led him out. Two soldiers together, comrades in grief.
What? What is this? Declan? Little Saltee?
Conor used the last of his strength to moan around his mouth strap, calling his father back. And his father did turn back, if only for a moment. If only to deliver a few final withering remarks. He vented these words with his eyes closed, as if to even look at his son was more than he could bear.
‘Your foul actions have taken my king from me,’ he said. ‘And worse, much worse — because of what you have done this day, I have no son. My son is gone, and this…’ Declan Broekhart paused to struggle with his rage, eventually calming himself. ‘My son is gone, and you remain. A word of warning, traitor. If I ever see you again, it will be on the day I kill you.’
These were words that no man should hear from another, but from father to son they were indescribably harsh. Conor Broekhart felt as though he was indeed broken-hearted, as his name suggested. He could do nothing but raise his manacled hands to the lunatic box’s grille and tug repeatedly, jerking his injured head until the pain drove those hateful words from his head.
‘Insane,’ said Bonvilain sadly, leading Declan Broekhart from the cell. ‘But then, he would have to be, to do what he did.’
As they left the cell, Bonvilain could barely maintain his show of grief. The waiting guards were ready to draw cutlasses, but Bonvilain shook his head slightly. His manipulation had worked so Declan Broekhart would live for now.
‘Take the captain back to his carriage,’ he instructed the guards. ‘I will watch the prisoner myself.’
Declan grasped Bonvilain’s wrist. ‘You have been a friend today, Hugo. We have had our fiery moments in the past, but that is behind us. I will not forget your speedy apprehension of the traitor. And I trust he will pay for his part in the king’s murder, and for what he did to Conor. My son.’
Broekhart’s face cracked in grief once more.
How weak the man is, thought Bonvilain. There is no need for such hysterics.
‘Of course, Declan. He shall pay. You can count on it.’
They parted with a handshake and Broekhart half walked, half stumbled along the length of the stone corridor. Bonvilain returned to Conor’s cell, to where the wretched boy lay unconscious. A tiny fly in the master spider’s web.
Bonvilain knelt beside him. He found himself feeling a touch sorry for young Conor.
It’s natural, not weakness, he told himself. I am human after all.
It was incredible, really, how easily the entire thing had been accomplished. Allow the king to set up his meeting with Victor, then blame the Parisian for Nicholas’s murder. Conor Broekhart had been a delightful bonus, a way to keep the father loyal. Admittedly he had toyed with them both a little, but that was the skill of it. His god-given talent to manipulate people.
The final part of the plan had only occurred to him after Conor had surprised him in the king’s apartment. Following his near strangulation, the boy’s face had been so swollen that he was barely recognizable. Even his own mother wouldn’t know him. Bonvilain had ordered the youth to be dressed as a soldier, a ratty old ball wig arranged on his head and his chin coated with gunpowder stubble. The final trick was to have one of his sergeants, a gifted man with pen and ink, to draw a quick copy of the regimental tattoo on Conor’s forearm. A small touch, but enough to make an impression. With the blood, shadows, wig and uniform, it was unlikely that Broekhart would know his own son. Especially if he had just been informed that his son had been wrestled out of the king’s window, trying to defend Nicholas, and that this prisoner was one of the traitorous soldiers involved in the plan. A sentry’s corpse had already been found at the base of the Wall, Conor’s dead body must have been swept south by the currents.
Of course, if Declan Broekhart had recognized his son, then Bonvilain himself would have immediately slit his throat. Conor could have taken the blame for that too. A busy day for the boy. Regicide in the afternoon, patricide in the evening.
But now, thanks to Bonvilain’s little games, Declan Broekhart thought his son was dead and Conor thought his father despised him for being a traitor. Sir Hugo had utter control over the Broekhart family and should Declan ever turn against him, then Conor could be resurrected and used to blackmail his father. Unswerving loyalty in return for his son’s life. Bonvilain knew that toying with Conor was unnecessary and cruel, but that was the fun of it. His own brazen audacity thrilled him.
Bonvilain clapped his hands gently three times.
Bravo, maestro. Bravo.
I love this, thought Bonvilain. I exult in it.