Read A Corpse in Shining Armour Online
Authors: Caro Peacock
A Corpse in Shining Armour
CARO PEACOCK
A Corpse in Shining
Armour
Contents
Dry lightning flickered over the black waters of the lake, throwing the pine trees on their rocky promontories into relief
against a copper sky then back into darkness, like some gigantic experiment in stage lighting. No thunder could yet be heard,
but to a sensitive ear the whole atmosphere seemed to hum with the electric charge, setting nerves on edge and making repose
an impossibility. The dark tower at the very edge of the water might have been designed and built to suit the humour of the
coming storm. It stood at the tip of a rock ridge that stretched out from the land like the arm and claw of some great lizard
of prehistoric time. Silhouetted against the pulses of lightning, the blunt column of the tower seemed as old as the rock
it stood on, though it had been built five hundred years before, in a time of feud and warfare that had raged round the lake
shores. Nothing in the wildness and antiquity of the scene would have told the observer that time had moved on five centuries
or, to place it with precision, to the night of 26 August, 1816.
Nothing, that is, unless the observer had been daring and impudent enough to scramble up the steep rocks from the lake and
peer through the window that made one narrow rectangle of lamplight in the dark bulk of the tower, to the room inside. The
young woman who sat on a chair by the window, staring out at the lightning, wore a loose dress in pale silk quite in the latest
style. Her travelling trunk and hat boxes piled by the wall, the writing case open on her desk, her lamp on the table, were
all of the best and most modern quality. The novel that lay face-down on the table beside her was the latest production of
the Author of Waverley. Although not perhaps quite in the first rank of beauty, the young woman was pleasant to the eye. Her
light brown hair, let down for the night, hung over her shoulders in a shining cloak. Her hands were white and well-shaped,
her features refined and regular, although her somewhat square forehead and determined chin hinted at strong opinions and
a certain stubbornness.
The hypothetical observer at the window might at first glance have taken it for a picture of domestic repose. Closer observation
would have revealed quite the reverse. The young woman was anxious, even perturbed. Perhaps it was the effect of the storm
on a highly strung nature that made her restless. She would get up, walk a few paces round the room, pick up a pen from her
writing case and put it down unused. Then she would return to her seat by the window and take up her novel, but even
The Antiquary
seemed unable to hold her for more than half a page. She ran a hand idly through her hair then withdrew it as if stung by
the tiny crackle of electricity that the contact generated. Several times she sighed. Once she said softly to the empty room:
‘Is this what the rest of my life will be?’ And sighed again, as if giving herself the answer.
When the storm broke at last and rain beat down on the waters of the lake, throwing up miniature stalagmites of water back
to the dark sky, it seemed to bring some relief to her restlessness, though not her sadness. She blew out her lamp and, illuminated
only by lightning flashes, moved over to a day bed set against the wall, heaped with quilts and cushions. She slid off her
velvet slippers and covered herself over with a quilt, as if intending to sleep only a short time. Her eyes closed. For a
while there was no sound but distant thunder and the hiss of rain into the lake. The lightning ceased. Tower, rocks and fir
trees sank into darkness.
‘Who’s there?’
She was suddenly awake, not knowing how long she’d slept. The room was almost totally dark. She knew at once what had woken
her. Heavy footsteps were coming towards her door, thudding on the stone flags of the anteroom that led from the outside of
the tower. She jumped up, heart thumping, clutching the quilt to her chest with chilled hands.
‘Is that you, Cornelius?’
The door opened. A shape came in, darker than the darkness of the room.
‘Cornelius?’
No answer. The darkness came towards her.
London. June 1839
At one end of the lists the Knight of the Green Tree was fighting to control his horse, a raw-boned chestnut hunter of sixteen
hands or so, over-bitted and nervous of the flags fluttering in the breeze. The knight’s helmet was too big for him, threatening
to tip down over his eyes, but with the reins and shield in one gauntleted hand and a lance in the other, he couldn’t do anything
about it. At the other end of the lists his opponent waited patiently on a wall-eyed roan that looked as if it might have
done a morning’s hard work pulling a brewer’s dray. The opponent wore no helmet, only his own thatch of hair the colour of
good hay. He’d buckled a dented metal breastplate over his waistcoat, but unlike his opponent he had no arm or leg armour.
His shield was plain wood. When his blue eyes caught mine he grinned like a schoolboy.
‘Are you ready, gentlemen?’
The man in the top hat acting as marshal sounded impatient. It had taken ten minutes or so to get the chestnut facing approximately
the right way, with the wooden barrier of the lists on the rider’s left hand.
‘Yes.’
The knight’s voice echoed round his helmet. The man on the roan simply nodded, then they set off down their own sides of the
barrier, lances pointing across their saddles towards each other’s shields. The chestnut pranced and curvetted like something
out of a circus. The roan came on at a heavy canter, slow but straight as a steam piston and was past the halfway point when
they met. A crack of wood, a noise like a shelf-full of saucepans falling, shouts from the spectators and a scream from one
of the ladies. The Knight of the Green Tree was on his back in the sawdust, the chestnut up on his hind legs and the bare-headed
man cantering on as if nothing had happened, tossing away the butt of his shattered lance. Muted applause and laughter broke
out from a group of grooms standing near me.
‘Got ’im fair and square.’
One of their own had triumphed, although they couldn’t make a song and dance out of it with all the gentry panicking about
the unhorsed knight.
He lay there on his back, helpless in his armour as a foundered turtle. Men of his own class ran to him, shedding their hats
and the air of polite amusement they’d shown so far. The bare-headed man threw the roan’s reins to another groom, jumped off
and ran to calm his opponent’s horse. I arrived at the fringe of the group as somebody managed to take off the knight’s helmet.
It revealed a head of dark curly hair, matted with sweat, a face that would have been unusually handsome if it hadn’t been
as red as a boiled lobster from being tin-canned, a pair of merry brown eyes.
‘A shrewd blow. Well done, Legge. Where is the man? And where’s Marmion?’
He was still pinned to the ground by the weight of his armour, his friends kneeling in the sawdust round him fumbling to unbuckle
it piece by piece. In spite of that, he managed an amused drawl. The other man had managed to get the chestnut down on all
four feet by now. He came up leading it, so that the horizontal man could see that it was unhurt.
‘He’s well enough, sir. How about you?’
Amos Legge’s Herefordshire accent was as strong as when I’d first met him, in spite of two years as the most popular groom
in Hyde Park.
‘Well enough too, I believe,’ said the knight. ‘Thank you, all. I might just manage to stand up now.’
This to his friends, who had succeeded in unbuckling breastplate and greaves. They helped him cautiously to his feet. He took
off his gauntlet and shook Amos Legge by the hand.
‘I believe by the rules of tournament my horse and armour would be forfeit to you, Legge, only I’d be devilish glad if you
don’t claim them.’
Amos laughed.
‘We’ll get him schooled to it all right. He’s a bit green, that’s all.’
‘Green as my green tree. I suppose you’ll tell me I am, too. What did I do wrong this time?’
Since as far as I could see the answer to that was ‘everything’ I was impressed by Amos Legge’s moderation in replying.
‘You need to sit deeper in the saddle, like I was telling you. Get your seat right and it doesn’t matter how hard somebody
clouts you, you’ll stay put.’
‘Give me ten minutes to get myself in order, then we’ll take another run at it, if you’re agreeable.’
Amos seemed willing, but the man in the top hat shook his head.
‘Your time’s up. The Knight of the Black Tower’s booked in next.’
The face of the young man changed. He was still smiling, but the smile had become hard and mocking.
‘So he is. I suppose I should leave the field to him then.’
The faces of his friends had changed too. Until that moment, they’d been laughing and relieved to find him unhurt. Now they
seemed embarrassed. One of them actually took him by the arm and seemed to be urging him to come away. He shook the hand off.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a scene. Same time tomorrow then, Legge. Brown will take Marmion back.’
Moving stiffly, still wearing his arm and shoulder armour, he strolled with his friends into the Eyre Arms Tavern by the jousting
ground.
While Amos Legge was handing over the chestnut to the man’s groom, I sat there on my own horse, Rancie, wondering why a crowd
of rich young men, in this summer of 1839, should develop this craze for jousting–a sport that had died out around four
hundred years ago. As far as they’d bothered to give a reason, it had to do with Queen Victoria’s coronation the year before.
Some of the upper classes and a few newspaper editors had whipped themselves up into a state of annoyance because the ceremony
of the Queen’s Champion had been neglected. From time immemorial, so they said, a knight in full armour had ridden into Westminster
Hall at the coronation banquet and thrown down his gauntlet in challenge to anybody who denied the new sovereign’s right to
the throne. Little Vicky had contrived to get herself crowned without this. A good thing too, I thought. The coronation had
cost enough as it was, and besides it’s not fair to a horse to ride it into a building full of the over-excited upper classes.
But some of the young bloods fancied themselves as Queen’s Champions. With their heads full of Walter Scott and antique ballads
they’d decided to hold a tournament in the old style.
The tournament was fixed for the end of August, two months away, at the Earl of Eglington’s castle in Scotland. But this was
June, the height of the London season, and the would-be champions needed somewhere to practise without leaving the pleasures
of the capital. The ideal place turned out to be the extensive gardens of the Eyre Arms Tavern, just north of Regent’s Park
and conveniently close to the leafy lanes of St John’s Wood, where men of fashion kept their mistresses. There was even a
terrace on the roof of the tavern where spectators could enjoy the fun. Fashionable London found it a great diversion from
the usual round of afternoon calls or drives in the park. It was my first visit. I’d collected Rancie from the livery stables
on the Bayswater Road, where Amos Legge worked, and ridden the short distance out there on my own.