Page 25 of The Shadow Key

‘No. No,’ she says again, shaking her head. ‘They would not do such a thing.’ But doubt now is clawing at her insides, burying itself like a worm.

Above them a goshawk lets out a sharp screech. Together they look up, watch it glide through the air before disappearing into the treetops. Pryderi shifts beneath her; Gwydion in turn pulls at the reins she still holds, and suddenly Linette is overwhelmingly tired.

Henry Talbot narrows his eyes. ‘I deserve to know why they should dislike me so.’

‘Yes. You do. But now is not the time to tell you.’

‘Someone shot at me!’ he says again, voice raised and pinched. ‘These villagers, they—’

‘Dr Talbot,’ she snaps, ‘I shall not have you slandering my people in such a manner.’ The physician opens his mouth to counter her with a reply, but Linette holds up her palm to stop him. ‘I’ll discuss this only when we are both calm, and not before. Is that perfectly clear?’

And with that she instructs Pryderi forward, into the now silent trees.

CHAPTER EIGHT

It is a relief to return to his room, finally to be alone.

He can still hear the gunshot in the cavern of his memory, the sound it made when it whizzed past his ear. If he had been only one inch to the left …

Henry sits on the bed, removes the bullet from his pocket, balances it again in the centre of his palm.

At Guy’s Hospital he removed his fair share of slugs. Henry can recognise the lead shot of a Brown Bess musket down to the small balls fired by a standard pistol. This one – despite its flattened tip resulting from the impact of the tree trunk – looks to be of middling size, typical of a pistol or hunting rifle.

The type of gun it belongs to tells him two things. First, that it was a weapon meant for shooting large game. But second and more damning … such a gun could only have been fired at close range. Which means that despite Linette Tresilian’s protestations, whoever took a shot at Henry could see him, and knew exactly what they were doing.

But why? Why would someone shoot at him?

He thinks of the villagers he met down in the square. The pretty dark-haired girl. Rhiannon, was it? Henry felt her resentment, her narrow-eyed glare sharp as knives. He thinks too of the young men with whom he shared the cart from Abermaw, the distrustful looks of Plas Helyg’s servants. And the reserve of Mrs Morgan had been as palpable as ice.

Henry does not understand it.

According to his hostess the villagers had been attended by one Dr Beddoe from a town across the estuary. If that were the case then that gentleman would have been no worldly use to them at all if they required immediate attention. Surely they would be pleased to have a new doctor, one that was so readily available? The gatehouse is a mere fifteen minutes away from the village square on foot …

The gatehouse. This too he does not understand. To go to such violent lengths of destruction – why? And, of course, there is still the matter of Dr Evans.

Henry places the bullet onto the coverlet, reaches into his other pocket for the vial he retrieved from the debris of the gatehouse.

Now he is alone, he can look at it with keener attention, and Henry holds the bottle up to the light shining through the window. It is the work of a master craftsman, the shape of it delicate and flimsy, not like his own bottles at all. In contemplation Henry tilts it. Stops. Squints. What he had previously mistaken for dirt is, in fact, the smallest bit of brown liquid, half-congealed at the bottom. Intrigued, Henry pops the gold Turk’s-head stopper, lifts the vial to his nose. Frowns.

The faintest hint of sour fruit.

Still looking at it he opens his medical bag with one hand, means to bring out one of his own vials of tincture to compare … and pulls back with a hiss. A small bloom of blood pools on the tip of his finger, red as berries. Henry peers inside the bag.

‘Damn.’

Some of the bottles are broken; it must have happened when the satchel fell in the forest. He had not been able to bring many supplies with him from London – the governor expressly forbade it – and so these items were the last of his personal supply. Henry sifts through the ones still intact, finally brings out a small bottle of laudanum.

Reddish-brown, this. Similar in colour, yet …

Henry sniffs this one, too. Not sour like the other – laudanum is sweeter. Again, he tilts the strange vial this way and that in the light, watches the congealing liquid slide right to left.

‘What are you?’ he murmurs, but no answer comes.

Henry shakes his head. It is too much for his tired mind to fathom. And though it is not much past midday he is tired, overwhelmingly so. His body aches like – and here he almost laughs – the Devil. All of a sudden it seems as if the past few days of travel, along with today’s early start and the ride down to the coast, have caught up with him and taken their toll. Henry grimaces, shifts on the bed. His buttocks are sore, his spine stiff. And his head! He lies down, succumbing at last to the headache that threatened earlier, its insistent tug …

A knock on the door wakes him. It takes a moment to rouse himself, a moment more to realise the room is filled with long shadows, that the light outside the window has dimpsed. The knock comes again – more impatient this time – and when Henry opens the door it is to find the housekeeper, Mrs Evans, standing on the other side.

‘Miss Linette requests your presence at supper, sir.’

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