Mister Witton sat a moment, gazing down with pride at the destruction of the man who had so often caused Nicholas pain. First in his service when Nicholas the boy was little more than sixteen, David had witnessed bitter years of turmoil and spite, wilful misunderstanding, unjust punishments and the harsh rejection of any affection or warmth. David had considered killing the foul old man many years ago, but had decided to wait. Protecting his master by killing that master’s father was not an easy decision. Now setting the fire was an even more challenging choice.
But the stars were singing. Beyond the tall glass window and its gleaming diamond reflections, a hundred spilling stars shone their music across the paths and hedges below, even down to the glittering water’s edge. There could be no mistake.
At first, followed by long months of doubt and self-loathing, David had thought setting the flames to the castle hall had been a mistake of disastrous misunderstanding. At the time his master’s enforced marriage to Peter’s mistress, a woman of stubborn ignorance who had been taught to loathe her new husband, was a wretched business which David had believed he must end as quickly as he might. Finishing the union in fire and death had been the direct order from above. Then it had somehow proved wrong. For it was Nicholas who had suffered, rushing to save, to extinguish and restore, declaring himself the hero he surely always had been, but near dead from the flames. Not only, but now, with the marriage proved a success, it was hard to see why the order from the singing stars had been sent at all.
Yet David thought he understood. It was that very disaster which had burned away the hatred and ignited the love. The blossoming happiness of his master’s marriage was, David decided, the direct result of the initial misery.
The wife, who had initially arrived at the castle in sin and immorality, had been cleansed also by fire. David had found her alone in the lord’s bedchamber, bathed in soot and sleeping in ashes. He had caressed her, and even, he admitted, desired her, seeing her that way. He was aroused by her acceptance of the flaming destruction, and her own wickedness thus washed clean in embers. By wallowing in ash, she had acknowledged the filth of her past, and so was saved. And it was the stars, the fire and David which had saved her.
And so, one by one, by such acts of salvation never noticed and never seen by others, David Witton had continued to destroy any creature or cause which threatened his master. The flames that destroyed the village eaten by pestilence, where the guard had dared to threaten. The hypocritical father-in-law who had disrespected a man he should have felt overwhelmingly honoured to welcome into his own paltry family. The old witch who had murdered the unborn Chatwyn infant, and who, if left alive, might have stood witness against the family. Immorality, impropriety, and deliberate wickedness against the preaching of Holy Church. One of the most important, of course, was the eradication of the vile brother and his whore. And there had naturally been others. A valet caught stealing. A villager spreading gossip and rumour.
The stars were never wrong.
And there must always be fire, for fire cleansed. Fire had killed his own father, another brute without love, who had worked in the woods beyond London, felling trees for the charcoal furnaces and the casting of the cannon. David had been fourteen, still nursing the bruises his father gave him each evening, when one day the whole forest burned and his father with it. His mother, sodden in drink as always, claimed she had lit the fire, though David doubted it. It had surely been the stars, knowing best as always.
Then the year afterwards he had watched her burn when she tumbled cupshotten onto the hearth. The woman had screamed and disturbed the neighbours, but it had seemed a reasonable justice. And it had given David his freedom. Shortly afterwards, tramping north, he had found Chatwyn Castle and the master he loved.
So he took the spill he had folded ready, held it to the remaining candle flame, and then lowered it to the earl’s flabby oozing carcase. The old man’s hair was a frizzled grey but it turned dark, singed into carmine prickles. Springing into tiny dancing flamelettes, each with a perfect golden heart, while the sagging degenerate features turned to melting lard.
But the fire did not immediately spread, and the household would quickly smell the danger and rush to stamp out and douse the burning body. The house might yet be saved, even while the flames obeyed their destiny and the cleansing was achieved.
He hoped the threatened invasion from France would come indeed. His master, too badly wounded to join any battle, would be safe. But David, in his master’s place, would have one more opportunity to prove his worth.
Backing slowly from the chamber, David turned to the door, did not look back, and strode from the house. On the morrow he would journey north again and back to Chatwyn Castle. He would take the news with him, of his master’s newly inherited rank and rise to the family title; Earl of Chatwyn.
Outside the stars were still singing. David smiled.
SATIN CINNABAR
Dear Reader,
Once again we get to the end, so where should we go from here? Can we recapture that wonderful journey to Medieval England? Are you ready for the next expedition? Join Alex in his medieval venture.
England, 1485. Alex has just survived the bloody chaos of the civil war at Bosworth, he’s lost both his father and his King. But has found instead, a young girl disguised as a boy, hiding from the soldier’s intent on rape.
Becoming a servant may be Alex’s only option in a world turned upside down… His closest cousin has been murdered and he finds himself accused.
If you loved ‘The Flame Eater’, Then this could be the next book for you, with even more mystery and just as much fun.
And do remember that when a reader leaves a review, an Author Angel gets their wings!
Acknowledgements and Historical Notes
My novel is fiction and my principal characters are fictional. But I am, as always, strict concerning the absolute historical accuracy of my settings, background situations and various authentic figures of the past.
Anyone can make mistakes. I probably do, although unwittingly, and I apologise for any that may creep in. But I make every effort towards accuracy, and in this I am exceedingly indebted to friends who know more than I do, and to the many non-fiction books which have provided for my endless research over the years.
Christopher Urswick is a genuine historical character, priest and personal confessor of Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor who eventually became the first king of the Tudor dynasty. Urswick later supported Tudor’s invasion, and before this acted as a messenger between the exiled Henry in Brittany, his mother in England, and John Morton who had escaped abroad in 1483.
Polydore Vergil, Henry VII’s official biographer who obtained his information directly from his king, tells us that back in early 1485, following the persistent rumours that King Richard III was considering marrying his niece, Elizabeth of York, (a slightly absurd rumour which we now know as untrue since at the time King Richard was negotiating to marry the daughter of the King of Portugal, and the Portuguese Manuel to marry Elizabeth) Henry secretly sent Christopher Urswick to England with a letter for the Earl of Northumberland, seeking a marriage with any one of the Herbert girls, who were the earl’s sisters-in-law. The letter was intercepted, Vergil informs us, and was never received by Northumberland. At that time this comparatively unimportant exile and proclaimed traitor was by no means an obvious candidate for marriage to a young English heiress, closely related to one of the greatest of the existing nobility.