Her expression took on a faraway look, as if she were telling a faery story to children. "I saw it in Sir Alfred's mother when I first came to Grimsgrave. She were elderly then and nearly an invalid. But she lived in mortal hatred of cats. Whenever one came to Grimsgrave, she drowned it herself in the pond. I daresay tha's what gave Lady Allenby the idea."

"Lady Allenby?" I asked.

Mrs. b.u.t.ters' smile was infinitely sad. "The twins, my dear. Ailith's children. Lady Allenby drowned them in the pond in front of the house, just after they was born."

Brisbane went a shade paler under the olive of his complexion, and Portia and I exchanged shocked glances, but Rosalie's expression did not change.

"You knew she had been pregnant," I said suddenly. "You gave her raspberry leaf tea when I first came here."

Rosalie nodded. "She bore the twins last year. She was too old to bear for the first time, and the birth tore her womb. It has never been strong since. She used to come to me for remedies. The raspberry leaf was soothing."

Portia shook her head. "Ailith bore illegitimate twins? And her mother killed her own grandchildren? I cannot take it in. They must have all been mad as hatters."

"They were," I said softly, casting a glance at Hilda. She was silent, her head resting against the back of her chair, her eyes closed. I went on. "Mad enough to let Redwall embalm the children and make mummies of them. But he left clues in their wrappings, a pair of amulets, the knot of Isis and a golden ram. They were tokens to symbolise the parents. The knot of Isis stood for Ailith, the tall, golden G.o.ddess. And the ram stood for..." I glanced at G.o.dwin, the sheep farmer who had been so poorly used by his cousins. I cleared my throat and proceeded. "The ram was the symbol of the G.o.d Osiris, the husband and brother of Isis, and it stood for Redwall Allenby."

Hilda gave a low moan of disbelief and dropped her head into her hands. Portia stared at me. "Ailith Allenby gave birth to twins fathered by her own brother?"

"Yes," I told her, gaining confidence as I finally remembered what had stirred in my mind when I had seen the little sketches of the Isis knot and the ram in Redwall's journal.

"Redwall left a clue in his journal. He sketched the knot of Isis and the ram and beneath it he wrote, Seven Days, the t.i.tle of an Egyptian love poem." I paused and cleared my throat, then began to recite.

Seven days since I saw my sister, And sickness invaded me; I am heavy in all my limbs, My body has forsaken me.

When the physicians come to me, My heart rejects their remedies; The magicians are quite helpless, My sickness is not discerned.

To tell me "She is here" would revive me!

I glanced around to see a mixture of horror and revulsion and sadness on the faces gathered in the little cottage. "Egyptian love poems often used the terms *brother' and *sister' when referring to lovers," I finished. "But Redwall meant them quite literally. He must have begun his seduction of Ailith even before he returned home from Egypt. She was his golden G.o.ddess, his sister-queen, and to his mind, she was his only worthy consort."

"Madness," Portia breathed.

"But it is true, isn't it, Mrs. b.u.t.ters? It makes sense, really. They were always together, thick as thieves when they were children. Only the Allenby pride, twisted to madness by now, would not let them marry outside of their own blood. And Redwall began to study Egyptology. There was a strong precedent there for fraternal marriage. The G.o.ds did it, and so did the pharaohs. Cleopatra married two of her brothers. It was a means of keeping the blood pure and the power within the family. And so these two beautiful, mad individuals came together and conceived a pair of twins."

"Yes, it is true," Hilda said, opening her eyes slowly. She rose and came to the table, moving as stiffly as an old woman. G.o.dwin stood and she took his seat, leaving him to stand next to the fireplace. She began to speak, and it was akin to watching a purge. The words flowed out, slowly at first, then faster as she released them.

"They were lovers. I saw them at it once, at the chapel by the river. They had always been close, and when he left for Egypt, Ailith was the one he wrote to every week, without fail. I do not know if it was the distance that blunted him to the fact she was his sister, or if it was his illness."

"His illness?" Portia prompted softly.

"Malaria. He contracted a virulent form of it," Brisbane put in. "He was dosing himself with quinine, ma.s.sive amounts."

"Oughtn't that to have made him better?" Portia inquired.

"Not the amount he was taking. The cure can be worse than the ailment. He was already suffering from a touch of deafness and spells of dizziness, as well as hallucinations. I warned Lord Evandale that he wasn't to be trusted in that state. Lord Evandale sent his doctors, but Redwall would have none of it. He was too far sunk into his depravity by then."

"It was a pretext," Hilda put in bitterly. "An excuse for him to do what he liked. Mama indulged him so, and Ailith did as well. Only I saw him for what he truly was-a monster. But I never imagined that there might have been children. It is too horrible to be believed."

She lapsed into silence, and I resumed the thread of my narrative. "I wonder if Ailith was horrified when she realised she was going to bear a child? Perhaps it had all been a dream to her, something not entirely real, a bit of play-acting. A romance of sorts for a girl with a romantic imagination who had never had a lover. And then she knew she would have to tell her mother what had happened."

"She was not horrified," Mrs. b.u.t.ters corrected, her chin quivering with indignation. "She was proud, proud as the devil she was. She actually thought her mother would understand. She and Redwall went to her hand in hand. They wanted to go right away together, to start anew and pa.s.s themselves off as man and wife. Lady Allenby persuaded them to stay. She told them Ailith would require nursing after the birth, and tha' she was the one best suited to do so discreetly."

"But she did not approve, did she?" I asked.

Mrs. b.u.t.ters shook her head. "Tha' was when her religion became an obsession with her. She prayed for hours on her knees, until sores opened and when she could no longer kneel, she lay right on the floor before the Crucifix. She never said, but I think she was praying for G.o.d to take the child before it was born. She shut Ailith in her room and told everyone she had taken a bad chill and must not be disturbed. And every day she went on her knees to beg G.o.d to intervene. Ailith delivered twins, healthy, beautiful children. It must have seemed to Lady Allenby as if G.o.d himself had forsaken her. But she knew what she had to do."

Mrs. b.u.t.ters paused in her story, looking into the depths of her teacup. "She took the babies from Ailith. She told her they must be cleaned before they could be swaddled. And she carried them out to the pond and drowned them, praying over them all the while. Then she took them back inside and dried them and gave them to Redwall. She told him sometimes healthy babies die for no reason. He were out of his mind with grief and sickness. He would believe anything she told him. He wanted to preserve them forever. He began to mummify them."

She nodded toward G.o.dwin. "You knew. Ailith had been able to hide her pregnancy for a very long time. She favoured those wide, old-fashioned skirts, she did. But at the end, you knew she was carrying. You're a clever lad and you've seen enough ewes at lambing to know what breeding looks like.

You listened at doors and peered in windows as well, and you knew what had happened. You went to Redwall and Redwall promised you a sum of money to be quiet, did he not? He also promised to leave you the farm in his will," she added.

"A promise he didn't keep," G.o.dwin put in, his face flushing.

"Did you know about the children, G.o.dwin?" I asked him. I thought of Ailith's insistence that he had been there, but she had said quite distinctly that "she" had taken her babies. I wondered which version was the truth. G.o.dwin's eyes held mine for a long moment, then he nodded.

"Aye. And I would not have thought it possible, but Redwall hated me the more for it. The thieving b.a.s.t.a.r.d would have cheated me. He meant to take the gardener's cottage from me, told me so just before he died. He would have turned me out to starve if he'd lived."

Minna, completely unconscious of the fact that her betrothed had just confessed a very st.u.r.dy motive for murder, patted his arm consolingly.

I turned suddenly to Brisbane. "Did you know whose children they were?"

He fixed me with a steady look from those deep black eyes. "When I saw the amulets together, I knew."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I demanded, but he said nothing more. His quarrel with the Allenbys was long and deep and he had done his best to keep me at a remove from it. Perhaps he had meant to use the information against Ailith, I surmised, or perhaps he simply had not decided what to do with it.

"She knew you meant her harm," I told him. "That is why she poisoned you. It was not Lady Allenby at all. With one stroke, she thought to remove you and see her own mother hanged for the crime. A perfect revenge upon you both."

"Except that I did not die," Brisbane said softly.

"No, you survived, and in an unexpected act of clemency, you did not turn Lady Allenby over to the authorities. You sent her to a convent," I finished.

"For her own protection," Brisbane said. "Ailith planned to destroy us both, and her initial plan would have done it. Once she was thwarted, there was no telling what she might do. If Ailith Allenby was so determined to see her mother hanged, then she would likely try again. I had to get her straight away from Grimsgrave. That left Ailith only one victim to vent her wrath upon."

I stared at him, scarcely comprehending his carelessness. "You rage at me, but you are without a doubt the most headstrong, wilful, obstinate, reckless man I have ever known."

Brisbane did not rise to the bait. He merely shrugged, wincing a little at his st.i.tched ribs. "She had to try, and she did today on Thorn Crag. I had not expected a direct attack, and my failure to antic.i.p.ate her nearly cost Valerius his life."

"She might have poisoned you again!" I pointed out, aghast.

"Not likely, my lady," Minna chimed in. She was still holding G.o.dwin's hand, stroking it gently. "Mr. Brisbane did ask me to prepare all of his food from a store I was to keep locked in the pantry. I was never to leave it unattended for a minute, and if I stepped away, I was to throw it out and boil an egg for him instead. Eggs is hard to tamper with," she said sagely. Then she gave a sheepish little smile. "Poor Mr. Brisbane has eat a lot of eggs recently."

Brisbane gave her a warm smile. "You did very well, Minna," he told her, and the girl blushed deeply.

I felt a surge of anger and battered it down. It was maddening that he had entrusted himself to Minna and not to me, but given my complete uselessness in the kitchen, it was probably all for the best.

"What happened today on Thorn Crag?" Portia asked.

Brisbane did not look at me. He stared into his cup as he replied, his words clipped. "Valerius came to Thorn Crag to speak with me. He wanted to discuss a private matter and thought we would not be overheard there. It was pure bad luck he was still there when Ailith arrived. She attacked him with a rock, leaving him unconscious. Then she came at me with a knife she had taken from Redwall's collection, an Egyptian embalmer's knife," he clarified.

He reached into his pocket and drew it out, laying it in the centre of the table. Light gleamed off the black obsidian blade. There were G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses wrought in small gold figures on the grip, with a chain of images set within a cartouche. It looked like something one might use to practise the dark arts, and I turned away.

"Julia arrived just as I disarmed Ailith and she fell from the crag," Brisbane finished smoothly. He flicked me a significant look, then let his gaze slide away. I opened my mouth, then closed it sharply.

"Miss Ailith fell?" Mrs. b.u.t.ters asked.

"Miss Ailith fell," I told her, my voice ringing certain.

The process of moving us all back to Grimsgrave in the rain was slow and torturous. Valerius had roused a little, and taken some broth. Rosalie offered the use of the cottage to nurse him, but we decided it would be more comfortable and suitable for everyone if he were removed to the Hall. John-the-Baptist was dispatched to the Gypsy encampment to secure horses and willing hands. They came, a dozen Roma men, dressed in high boots and checked neckerchiefs, leading glossy horses whose tails and manes were plaited with silken ribbons that hung limp with the rain.

I glanced around just as we left the cottage to find Brisbane. I watched as he mounted a borrowed horse in one fluid motion. He caught my eye then, and held my gaze for a long moment. Then he turned his mount in the direction of Thorn Crag and kicked it hard in the flank. Portia prodded me then as we moved to the horses the Roma had provided for us.

"Where is Brisbane going?"

I did not meet her eyes. "Someone has to bring Ailith home," I told her.

I turned away then and John-the-Baptist laced his fingers to provide me a mounting block. I hefted myself onto the back of a sweet little piebald mare and turned her head toward Grimsgrave.

We must have looked a mad sort of parade as we rode slowly back to the Hall, a motley crew of injured and heartsick. The Gypsies, always superst.i.tious about matters relating to death, were sombre and said little. From time to time I searched a face, wondering if any of these were cousins or uncles of Brisbane's. Here and there I caught a resemblance, in the curve of a high cheekbone or the imperious profile. John-the-Baptist rode next to me, keeping one hand on my bridle and a careful eye upon my face. I must have given him cause for worry because he heaved a great sigh of relief when he helped me to dismount in the forecourt of Grimsgrave.

He pressed my cold hands, startling me with his sudden gesture. "You will be fine now, lady. You are safe here."

I looked up at the bleak faaade of the Hall, then at the dark waters of the pond, and shook my head. "I do not think I will ever feel safe here. This is a house of too many secrets and too much pain."

He smiled his gentle smile, his moustaches curving upward. "Lady, a house is merely stones. And this house holds no horrors now."

I did not believe him, but I smiled to be polite and thanked him for his kindness. He ducked his head. For an instant I thought I detected the faintest trace of a blush staining his cheek. But darkness had fallen, and in the fitful light it was impossible to tell.

He mounted his horse again and whistled to his kinsmen. Two of them had carried Valerius inside and they returned, taking up the reins of the spare horses. They rode off then, saying nothing, but lifting their hands in farewell.

Hilda had hurried inside with Mrs. b.u.t.ters to attend to Val, and Portia and I were left quite alone in the suddenly empty forecourt. My sister put her arm about me in an unusual and welcome gesture of affection.

"I cannot believe you and Hilda were stupid enough to trail a murderess to Thorn Crag," she scolded. "You might have been killed."

"We had no choice," I said simply. "She meant to kill Brisbane and very nearly Val as well. There was no time to bring help."

We moved slowly into the hall.

"I still cannot believe it. She was such an odd, fey creature, at times reserved and elegant and at others almost childlike," Portia said.

"And cunning," I pointed out. "It was she who gave me the journals her brother kept in Egypt. She knew I would eventually recognise the photograph of Brisbane and deduce that he had been responsible for Redwall's disgrace. Perhaps she thought I would leave then, go back to London and leave the field clear for her to murder Brisbane at her leisure."

I gave a great shudder and Portia herded me upstairs as I talked, giving Morag quick instructions and seeing me safely into bed. Morag asked no questions, but I knew from her expression she would expect a full disclosure of the day's events the next morning. She brought up a cup of hot milk with honey and left us alone again. Portia fussed with bed-warmers and stoking up the fire before she drew up a chair and made me finish my tale.

"What happened after Redwall mummified the children?" she demanded.

"He planned to sell the estate and raise more funds, perhaps to leave with Ailith after all, but he died before he could do so. Lady Allenby and her daughters were left with the house, but no money at all to keep it. They were forced to sell it, and most of the furnishings and art. Only Redwall's collection was kept."

"I wonder why?" Portia mused.

I yawned broadly. "Sentimental value? Or guilt perhaps? We shall never know...." My voice trailed off then.

"Sleep now, Julia. I will go and sit with Valerius. If there is any news, I will come."

I wanted to nod, but my head was far too heavy. I thought I felt the brush of lips to my brow. Before I could respond, I fell fast asleep.

THE TWENTY-NINTH CHAPTER.

We must not make a scarecrow of the law.

-William Shakespeare.

Measure for Measure.

I rose sometime later, when the fire had fallen to cold grey ash and the moon had risen high above the crag. I could just make out the cool white glow of it, though the rain still fell softly against the windowpane. I slipped my arms into my dressing gown, tiptoeing silently down the stairs.

The door to Brisbane's room was ajar, as though he expected me.

"You ought to be abed," I told Brisbane. He was stretched out upon his bed, book in hand, still dressed, even to his mud-splashed boots and his uncle's shirt.

He laid aside the book.

"I cannot sleep," he said simply. A gla.s.s full of amber liquid stood on the mantel and he rose and took a deep draught of it.

I put out my hand. "Whisky?"

"From my great-uncle Aberdour's personal stock," he said, handing me his gla.s.s. I took a long sip, feeling its shocking warmth clear down to my toes.

"G.o.d bless the Duke of Aberdour," I said faintly. I handed the gla.s.s back to him and he finished it off.

"Where did you put her?" I asked. His knuckles were white against the gla.s.s.

"The inn. That is where the inquest will be held, so it seemed the simplest." He flicked me a glance. "You will have to give evidence. I am sorry for it, but there does not seem to be a way around it."

I folded my hands together. "Very well. I am sure it will not be so very terrible. We will say she fell, since that is the story we have already told. It will save a verdict of suicide being returned, and she will be buried in hallowed ground. Perhaps that will give her mother some comfort."

Brisbane stared at me, his black eyes wide. "You are the most singular woman I have ever met. You threw yourself at a murderess today and yet there you sit, cool as a d.u.c.h.ess, calmly plotting to perjure yourself in front of a coroner's jury."

"What would you have me do? You are the one who said she fell. If that was not the story you wanted told, you ought not to have told it," I pointed out waspishly.

He shook his head and poured out another measure of whisky. "You really do not understand, do you? You have been so insulated from the world you do not have the faintest notion what the jury will make of you."