Death Plays a Part

Guinevere’s stomach growled under the delicious food smells wafting at her from the eatery’s terrace – beef, fried fish – but she didn’t have time to sit down. Maybe the bakery offered something to eat on her way up to the castle?

She discerned the sign BAKERY rocking in the sea breeze and further down there was also a bookshop with a table outside full of second-hand books. The golden lettering over the large window read THE COWLED SLEUTH. Apparently enough tourists visited to sustain several businesses on such a small island.

In front of the bakery Guinevere put her suitcase down and used both hands over her eyes to spy inside. Behind the counter on shelves were all kinds of loaves of bread: braided, round, oval. There were also jars of something and packages of flour.

She told Dolly to wait for her and went inside. A sweet scent of baked goods wafted around her, and on the counter a model of a cupcake with generous pink icing made her mouth water. ‘Hello,’ she greeted the woman behind the counter. ‘Do you have some small bread or bun?’

‘Ya. Look here.’ The woman – in her forties with reddish-blonde hair swept back in a ponytail – waved a hand at a basket full of buns and rolls. Her arms were bare and there was some flour left under her right elbow as if she had recently been preparing fresh dough. ‘We’ve got cranberry, cinnamon, or lemon with a twist. All freshly baked this morning.’

‘I’ll have lemon with a twist, please.’ Guinevere fished a few coins from her pocket. ‘There are quite a few shops here for a small island.’

‘All family-owned. Have been around for generations. A B&B too. If you’re looking for a place to stay.’

‘I have a place to stay. I’m going to work at the castle, cataloguing the book collection.’

‘You don’t say.’ The woman looked her over as if trying to fit her appearance with the task she was hired for. ‘You’re with the historical society then, I suppose? They’ve been doing a lot at the castle lately, also for this trial re-enactment.’ She nodded at the wall where a rack held tourist information. The same blue flyer Guinevere had accepted at the train station took centre stage.

The woman put Guinevere’s bun in a napkin and handed her the change. ‘It’ll bring some life to the castle. It can use it. The whole island can.’

She gestured to the baskets with bread that were still quite full even though it was almost the end of the day. ‘There’d be more tourists out here, you know, if the castle was open to the public. Maybe not all the rooms, but a few. To give people an idea of what life was like there in the old days. There’s so much beautiful furniture inside – and paintings. A shame when nobody gets to see them but his lordship.’

Guinevere didn’t know what to say to that. Lord Bolingbrooke was her employer, and she didn’t want to criticize him, even unintentionally. Word of it might get back to him, and it would be a bad start to her summer experience. She asked quickly, ‘Can I just walk up to the castle? Is there a path?’

‘Oh, yes, between the houses. Just turn right from here, and you’ll see the pole with the signs on it. You can’t miss it.’

‘Thank you, and good day.’

The woman replied with a greeting in Cornish that Guinevere didn’t understand. To prepare herself she had gone online to look for some easy words and phrases to use, like good day, how are you?, I’m new here, et cetera.

But it had turned out that even the simplest things looked quite complicated to her untrained eye. Especially the frequent combination of consonants that seemed enough to put her tongue in a twist, and she had decided she wasn’t going to insult the locals by mutilating their language to their faces. Unless she found someone who could teach her to speak it with ease it was best to stick to what she knew.

Outside the bakery Guinevere bit into the bun and relished the combination of fresh lemon and sweet heavy dough. Dolly looked up to see if a bit of it was forthcoming, but Guinevere had a strict ‘no human food for dogs’ policy. Her friends at the theatre had never stuck to that rule though, and Guinevere was certain that as soon as Dolly made friends here on the island, she would get her treats as well. She was just too cute to resist.

Like the woman in the bakery had said, a sign on a wooden pole directed them to the path that led up to the castle. All kinds of plants grew here, some wild, others clearly cultivated, forming an inviting sloping garden up to the castle walls. Bright colours contrasted with the endless blue skies overhead. The sense of freedom was intense, and if she hadn’t been carrying a heavy suitcase, Guinevere might have thrown her arms overhead and whooped out loud.

The overfull streets of London seemed far away, and even missing her friends was less painful as the beauty of this new world invited her in. There was life everywhere: bees and bumblebees humming about, butterflies landing on the path in front of her resting a moment before taking to their wings again, and even something flashing away into the undergrowth that could be anything from a mouse to a lizard.

Through a closely planted grove Guinevere reached the castle walls, towering over her with their archer slits and holes where canons had poked through in the past. Right in front of her was the large entry gate. In the tall, wooden doors decorated with metalwork was a much smaller door, used in the old days to get in and out without having to open the huge doors. It stood ajar.

As Guinevere didn’t see a bell beside it and guessed that knocking wouldn’t bring somebody out of the huge structure, she pushed the door open and stepped into the yard.

To her surprise it wasn’t an empty, barren affair but a warm, welcoming courtyard full of wooden baskets filled with small orange trees and blossoming plants. Opposite to her position were a few metal chairs around a table that held a large lantern. Braziers full of half-burned wood suggested people sat out here at night. With little artificial light around, you had to have an amazing view of the night skies, all the stars overhead.

As Guinevere walked across to the door into the main building, she caught a flash of reflected sunlight to her left. There between all the natural beauty was a big chunk of metal.

The motorcycle that had passed her on the causeway.

She was sure it was the same one, as the silver helmet the driver had worn lay on the leather saddle.

Guinevere grimaced remembering the noise and exhaust fumes. Could the owner of the castle be fond of motorcycles? It seemed at odds with what she had expected of Lord Bolingbrooke: an older bookish man with a passion for history and plants and the beautiful island he lived on.

But maybe he was eccentric or tried to maintain his youth by blasting around the countryside?

The door into the main building did have a bell, and after she had rung it a couple of times, an old man in a simple pullover and dark trousers opened the door. He held a stack of paper cups in his hand. He looked her over with a hitched brow. ‘I thought it was an early arrival for the rehearsal but I’m sure we’ve never met before.’

‘I would like to speak to the owner of this castle,’ Guinevere said. ‘Lord Bolingbrooke.’

‘Do come in.’

The hallway was formal with lots of wood panelling along the walls. She saw antlers and a mounted pheasant in a corner, a large wooden trunk with metalwork on it at the foot of the stairs, upon which sat an enormous brass pot with a flower arrangement. Probably from the castle gardens. Guinevere recognized the same yellow roses she had seen outside.

A door to her right stood open, and inside that room a long table was covered with a cloth and plates stood ready, cutlery in a basket, sandwiches on a tray covered with plastic wrap. Preparations it seemed to receive guests. For this rehearsal the butler had mentioned?

The butler took her to the foot of stairs. ‘You can leave your suitcase here. His lordship is upstairs in the library. You can’t miss it.’

He was the third person to tell her that she couldn’t miss something, so maybe it was the local way of putting things. But as Guinevere came to the top of the stairs and saw the two corridors leading away from it, she wondered how on earth the man could be certain she wouldn’t pick the wrong door. There were so many, all looking exactly the same. Oak panelling with a metal bar in the middle and a metal doorknob. It seemed to be shaped differently though for each door. She discerned a seal, a beaver – or otter perhaps; a swan in flight, its long neck stretched out; and another bird with a long neck, maybe a stork or a heron?

Then she heard the voices.

Yelling voices it seemed.

Dolly also turned her head in that direction and whined. She never liked a tense atmosphere. The doggy put her ears flat against her head and lowered her rear to the floor, reluctant to push on.

Guinevere hesitated herself, then walked in the direction of the yelling, half curious what it could be.

The door with the swan head door handle flew open, and a man stepped into the corridor, calling into the room, ‘… be happy to see me, but you need not give me this.’

‘You can take your trust and stuff it,’ a voice from inside called and, to accompany the latter words, something flew out of the open door and almost hit the man in the corridor. He managed to jump out of its path at the last instant, and the object shot past him and hit the wall, falling to the floor and spinning in circles.

It seemed to be a …

Metal thing, round, with a hole in it …

Guinevere cringed as another object flew from the room and hit the wall with a deafening clang.

The man had now spotted her and came in her direction. ‘Yes?’ It sounded curt, not surprising when you were caught in the middle of a fierce argument like this.

The man was tall and muscled with a suntanned face, blue eyes, and short blond hair. He wore a grey T-shirt with faded jeans and trainers on his bare feet. He looked her over as if he was trying to remember where he had seen her before.

Guinevere said, ‘I’m here about cataloguing the books.’

‘Aha. Let me announce you before dear Father breaks even more ancient armour.’

‘Armour?’ Now Guinevere realized that the metal object with the hole in it was the helmet of an old knight’s armour. It had been joined by a piece of shin plating.

The man called into the room, ‘Here’s Guinevere Evans to see you about the books. Cataloguing the whole lot, you know, getting it into a computer for posterity?’

Guinevere was surprised that he knew her name without her having told it to him.