“So what do you make of that?” Atticus whispered after he had pulled the door of the cottage shut behind him and let the latch drop back into place.
Lucie’s eyes were moist and glistening as she glanced back at the shabby cottage.
“I had forgotten that I always did get far too involved in the troubles of the patients, Atticus. Close enough to care; far enough not to care.”
She shook her head as she struggled to compose herself. “It is very unforgiving sometimes though. He’s in a living hell, poor soul. He can’t leave his hovel unless it’s to go out alone onto the moors, chasing a delusion, weighed down with his fake armour, or to go and get his filthy orange water from the draw pump. And he can’t leave the torments of his mind ever. They are always there: the anxiety, the despair and the memories of his lost sweetheart.”
“And his morbid dread of a dragon,” Atticus added.
“Yes, that too, Atticus, you’re right; he has a particular fear of a white dragon. I don’t understand that part at all.”
“Oh, I believe I can shed some light on it,” Atticus replied, taking his wife’s hand as she stepped up into the style. “The battle between the White Dragon and the Red Dragon is a very famous allegory from Arthurian legend.”
“Uther’s sketch showed exactly that; a battle between a red dragon and a white dragon and he mentioned that his armour had been made to re-enact the battle between them at a fête.”
He squeezed through after her, wincing as he felt a waistcoat button scraping against the big stone in front of him. “Exactly so, Lucie. In the Arthurian legends, there is a tale told by Merlin, Arthur’s magician, about a long running battle between a red dragon, which symbolised the Celtic Britons, and a white dragon, which represented the Anglo-Saxon invaders of the time. Merlin prophesied that the Red Dragon, the Celts, would prevail during King Arthur’s lifetime, but that after his death the White Dragon, the Angles and the Saxons would overcome it until Arthur is finally awakened again at ‘The End of Days’ to restore the Red Dragon’s supremacy.”
“And he thinks that Arthur has been awakened? That he has risen again?”
“It would seem so, but not only that he has risen, it appears he is also paying him house calls and bringing him his hallowed relics to boot.”
Lucie sighed. “It’s a great pity to see Uther as he is. As Sir Hugh said, his life isn’t much better than those of the cattle in the field over there – except for his art that is; he’s an exceptionally talented artist. He’s obviously a very brave man, too, in spite of his refusal to join in the massacre at Lucknow. He saved the life of Sir Douglas after all.
“And do you know, under all of his dirt and his unkempt appearance he is a fine-looking man. He has a certain vulnerability which makes him very appealing.”
Atticus grunted.
“So why, Lucie, does he let himself remain like that? Why doesn’t he simply snap himself out of it?”
Lucie frowned. “In the time I worked at the mental asylum I learned that it is very often just not possible to do that.”
“But it’s an affliction of the mind,” Atticus protested. “I can train my mind as I please; I have complete control of my thoughts. Surely he must have complete control of his too?”
“Atty, that is the whole point of it; he has not! You heard him describe his life story, how his father was so cruel and how he was deeply affected by his experiences in India. His mind is out of balance; it can’t be controlled by anyone. It is his moods and his illness that control him, not the other way about.”
“I see,” Atticus said dubiously. He mentally pigeonholed Lucie’s explanation for deeper thought at a later date.
“Ah, here is our cast of what I hope should be the murderer’s footprint. With luck the plaster of Paris should have hardened sufficiently for us to lift it if we’re very careful.
“So, Lucie, let us see exactly what manner of boot he or she was wearing.”
Atticus laid his bag carefully onto a large, flat stone which had long ago fallen from its place in the wall and been smothered by the thick grass. Then, stooping and prising his fingers around the cast, he gently eased it free of the sucking grip of the mud.
“Good Lord,” he murmured, carefully plucking away at the wet earth that still clung to the surface. “How very curious.”
Lucie knelt beside him. “It looks like the shell of an armadillo – an elongated armadillo.”
Atticus Fox regarded it thoughtfully for several minutes, turning it over and over in his hands. It was indeed exactly as his wife had described it.
“Good Lord,” he repeated softly.
“It’s the boot of a knight isn’t it?” Lucie said.
Atticus nodded. “I believe it is, yes – a knight’s sabaton. One of King Arthur’s sabatons, do you suppose?”
Lucie looked at him, uncertain as to whether or not Atticus Fox could really be hinting at the existence of the preternatural.
“It sounds utterly inconceivable I know,” Atticus continued, “But could Michael Britton be right? Could King Arthur really have risen again?”
Lucie glanced at him uncertainly. “Surely not. You can’t really think that, can you?”
Atticus grimaced. “Who knows? Perhaps someone has cut the garter and blown the bugle horn after all. I think it’s a very good question, Lucie, a very good question indeed, and one we might well give some thought to on our way to the Broomlee Lough…”
His voice tailed away as he saw tiny explosions of realisation in his wife’s eyes. “What is it, Lucie? What’s wrong?”
“‘Who drew the sword, the garter cut.’ That’s what the legend says, Atticus. The cloth I cut away from Sir Douglas’s throat – the tablet-woven silk – it was a garter. And if I remember correctly, one of its ends was frayed and worn. But I think – in fact I recall for certain now – the other had recently been cut.”