Chapter 3: THE MANOR

In the misty morning, after a hearty breakfast, the Judge is driven back to Albury Hall. In the hazy daylight, he can see this building was once an old Abbey, which has a stone bell tower, part of an old chapel which has been incorporated into the Tudor mansion.

This time the front door is opened to him almost immediately. The sour-faced housekeeper, Mary Durnley, reluctantly lets the bewigged and black gowned Lord Chief Investigating Justice into the vestibule, the walls of which are lined with stuffed heads of bear, boar and impressively antlered deer. She introduces herself to Ferdinando, and starts to apologise but her words are strangled in her throat as Ferdinando waves them aside with a loud snort. Soon the house is in uproar as servants decant from their morning chores to attend to the early visitors.

“We is all spooked, by what’s befell the Master, my Lord,” says the bowing housekeeper, “before this we was all gay an’ free as breeding sand martins.”

Ferdinando notes she is a short, stout, blonde-haired young woman, who cannot be older than five and twenty years, far too young a woman to run a country house. Ferdinando idly wonders if she was Sir Valentine’s mistress. The knight’s father, Lord Albury, is a famous philanderer, a seducer of younger women, as no doubt was the striking, tall, dark-haired woman who helped him from the Privy Council Chamber a couple of days ago. Though the peer was as old as the Judge. Ferdinando, ever vigilant of revealing facial expressions, had noted that, although not conventionally beautiful, that tall woman had attracted admiring attention from King James Stuart, forced by his Ministers to give up his several regular mistresses upon his coronation a couple of years ago and a new-born baby Prince of Wales at home to tire his Queen to the detriment of any royal rutting.

“We have the Master safe in the tower, Sire, it bein’ the bes’ place where ‘ee be locked up safe. I tooks the liberty of sendin’ for the Vicar, expectin’ your callin’ this morrow, tho’ not this early in the day. He’ll be by directly, no doubt. Come, Sire, this way.”

Without prompting, a couple of tired-looking servants outside the locked tower door tell Ferdinando that Sir Valentine was raving all night and had only quietened down his bitter vitriol since dawn. He has them unlock the door and finds Sir Valentine chained to a bed in utter darkness, other than the candle light from the corridor coming through the door. The odour in the room is terrible with sweat, vomit, urine and particularly pungent defacation.

Sir Valentine strains fruitlessly, strapped to his bed, foaming at the mouth and screaming foul obscenities and ungodly oaths. Questioning is futile, the Judge decides, the Lord is clearly insane and even soils himself further, during the unintelligible exchange, before fainting away into restless fevered sleep. The Judge leaves that dark, depressing chamber room and ponders for a moment.

He asks the housekeeper, “Pray, why have you not opened the window shutters to let in the light, and air the fetid stench within?”

The housekeeper prevaricates, “The Vicar ‘ee says Demons ‘ud come an’ spirit ‘im away durin’ the night.”

Ferdinando nods in deference to the Vicar’s advice and orders more candles be brought and fetch towels, hot water and soap, as well as a fresh change of apparels for their suffering master. This request sends the housekeeper scurrying for more servants to be removed from other services.

The arrival of candles wakes Sir Valentine, who starts to shout obscenities at the top of his voice once more.

“‘Ee were like that all night, sire,” offers one of the tired servants, “fair puts the willies right up us it do.”

Possessed, insane, rambling, confused, expelling oaths and blasphemies one minute, wheedling for release the next, or even begging to be put out of his misery at the very least when his other entreaties fall fallow. That is Valentine’s revolving cycle of pleas and entreaties, but answer questions put by the Judge? No. It is as if the madman hears nothing, his whole consciousness turned in upon himself.

A different voice materialises inside the Judge’s head, one he has never before heard. An older, full grown female this time he believes, calm, collected, yet insistent. She says to Ferdinando, “I know you can hear me, just as well as you can hear ... her voice. Make no rash judgement here, we have him in hand. Go back to the Rose Rent Cottage, my Lord, or all mankind will end before its time ... in Judgement Day.”

As Ferdinando listens to the quiet voice within him, the madman’s eyes clear for just a moment on the words ‘Judgement Day’, then back to madness he goes.

It is as if Valentine also heard exactly what he had heard, even though Ferdinando was certain the voice was only inside his head. He cannot have heard, but maybe some sanity was returning to the poor man. Where was the voice coming from? Within the possessed man? Was this the voice of Satan himself, that the man’s father, Lord Albury, despaired of only the day before yesterday? The two weary servants look terrified being in the same room as the man who had raved safely beyond the locked door all night.

Just then, Mistress Durnley and the Vicar enter the room, followed by female servants carrying bowls, jugs of steaming water, towels and clothes.

The door is locked behind them, with the two male servants, the female servants cowering by the wall, John and Nathaniel, his coachmen, Mistress Durnley and the Vicar inside with him, so Briant has his servant Handley slowly loosen the prisoner’s bonds, while the madman lay relaxed, watching wild-eyed as the chains are unlocked.

Immediately Valentine is free of his bonds, he eludes Handley’s clutches and tries to open a shutter to leap out the tower window, surely to his death. Mistress Durnley, the vicar and Ferdinando’s strong coachmen restrain him until he is stripped of his clothes, washed, dressed and locked up in chains once more.

While the madman is restrained, Briant thinks he finds more words forming in his head again, the same older woman’s calm voice, though a little deeper, darker, ‘Leave us be, my Lord, we have this situation in hand now. Allow him to remain secure and alive and he will harm no one; set him free, be it physically or mortally, and all mankind is surely done for!” It was not the voice of a madman, but of a woman, insistent and warning, yet full of reasoned, gentle, kindly persuasion.

In his long life, Briant has seen madness before. Madness that causes man to do frightening things, much worst things than try to commit suicide. But this communication inside his head was beyond his experiences, except once, and that once only, and a long, long time ago, as long back as his memory goes. He was unaccustomed to such, but now two distinct voices on three separate occasions in two days, less time even, within the passage of twelve hours, according to his modern watch. What was happening to him?