Spectred Isle (Green Men #1)(38)

“The road isn’t going there anyway.”

“We’re leaving the road. It’s terribly dull.”

Saul thought about that, then licked a finger and held it up. “All right. The road to Swaffham Prior runs southwest from Burwell. The prevailing winds in Cambridgeshire are southwesterly, coming off the sea. Therefore, if we walk into the wind, we’ll give ourselves a good chance of heading for Burwell. So, that way. Yes?”

“How in blazes do you know about Cambridgeshire’s prevailing winds?” Randolph demanded, sounding somewhat affronted.

“They’re always worth noting. They shape landscape and human behaviour. The world changes when the wind does.”

“How handy to have an archaeologist around. Of course, the question is whether we can trust the winds here to be as they should, but that keeps life exciting. Very well, over the fields and far away?”

Saul stepped up onto the verge, and looked out at the land. It should have been fields, with neat lines and rows of crops; instead it was all grey-green, reeds and rank grasses.

“When you said you think Burwell Castle will be here,” he began, carefully.

Randolph stepped over the verge and into the fen. He was wearing what looked like handmade leather shoes and an extremely elegant grey tweed suit, neither of which seemed appropriate for a marshy walk. Saul followed. The ground underfoot was springy, if not precisely wet or boggy.

“Let’s cut a little away from the road. I very much doubt we can follow it,” Randolph said. “To answer your question: I don’t know when we are, if that even applies. I don’t know what’s ruling this. I do, however, know that we have a common factor in everything that’s going on. That blasted medieval thug is a key part of the picture, so the place of his doom should be relevant. I’m banking on that.”

“I’ll take your word. But if he’s a malevolent force then how is Camlet Moat not malevolent?”

“Protections are not necessarily kindly. In the story you heard, the dear old chap swore an oath to be Master of London, yes? To protect it with all his might. And the holy knights came to make him keep that oath, like it or not. Took him back to the Temple, where they hung him on a tree.”

There was something precise and rather nasty in Randolph’s voice. It made Saul look round. “Something wrong?”

“Can you see the road from here?”

Saul turned. He couldn’t see anything except reeds and low scrub. “No.”

“Let’s head into the wind, then. Tell me something: did Peabody give you any instructions when he sent you to the Southcott Oak?”

“He didn’t send me to the oak. He sent me to Oak Hill Park because he thought there would be a point of his pattern there. It was sheer chance that the oak burned then.”

“Was it?”

Saul blinked. “Wasn’t it?”

“That’s the question. What set Peabrain off on this path, any idea?”

“It could have been anything. No, wait, it was a book. Someone sent him a book, privately printed. I don’t recall if he had it when he sent me to Oak Hill Park, but it was definitely what set him on to Camlet Moat. And brought us up here, actually, because of Abchurch’s collection.”

Randolph tapped his fingers together. “Because of this book. Who’s it by? Who sent it?”

“I haven’t read it. Blank cover. Major Peabody said it was sent to him anonymously by a mysterious contact.” He held up a hand as Randolph whipped round. “He always says that kind of thing, even when he got it in a bookshop. It’s part of his fantasy. He claims that he’s had a brilliant inspiration, or that his patterns have revealed some wonderful secret, and then I find the precise words in whatever he’s been reading. He’s desperate to make a wonderful discovery. It seems grossly unjust that all this is happening to me rather than him.”

“Speak for yourself. I prefer it this way.” Randolph tilted his head. “So when you say that it was chance you happened on the Southcott Oak—in fact he might have read it in this book? Sent you to ‘discover’ something he knew very well you’d find, thus proving his theory to you?”

“He certainly sent me to the west side of Oak Hill Park,” Saul said. “And there wasn’t much else there.”

“No. If you’d asked anyone for an interesting local landmark—the park keeper, even—they’d have pointed you to the tree. Which caught fire. Blast and damn.”

Randolph strode on, faster. Saul hurried to keep up, trampling on thick rank grasses that grew in clumps. “What’s the significance of the oak?”

“Don’t know. That was Aunt Clothilde’s job. One can assume it catching fire wasn’t a good sign, though.”

“So little is,” Saul said. “What are you afraid of?”

“Everything. Most specifically, of being trapped here failing to carry out the last remnants of my duty to my lineage, city, and nation. Christ, I’m useless. I should have listened to the Shadow Ministry.”

“Are they really called that?”

“Department for Special Affairs. I don’t actually think I should have listened to them, needless to say. That was just an outpouring of dismay. Anything else about this book?”

“It mentioned Temple Church too,” Saul said reluctantly. “It does seem to have focused on Geoffrey de Mandeville.”