Chapter 24
Ciana O’Leary inhabited a world that was radically different from that occupied by her wealthy cousin.
A few simple inquiries brought Sebastian to a small shop in an eighteenth-century brick building in Little Windmill Street, off Piccadilly.
Pushing open the shop door to a pleasant jingling of bells, he found himself in a narrow room crowded with a bizarre assortment of objects: Iron cauldrons of various sizes, baskets of acorns, polished stone ax heads, bells, runes, and hagstones jostled for space with reed pipes, drums, rattles, flowing hooded robes, bunches of herbs, several shelves of books, and clusters of quartz crystals.
And everywhere he looked were various-sized carvings of animals rendered in stone or wood: horses, stags, boars, ravens, bears, snakes, and strange mythological beasts, all mixed up with images of men dressed in animal skins with horned or antlered headdresses.
The air was heavy with the scent of incense and herbs and something else, something elusive Sebastian had smelled before but could not name.
“Interesting shop,” he said to the raven-haired woman behind the counter. In her late twenties, she was slim, fine-boned, and striking. The resemblance to Emmanuel Royston-Jones was slight but inescapable.
“Thank you. I think.” She rested her forearms on the counter and folded her hands together before her. “Or was that not intended as a compliment?”
Sebastian drew a calling card from his pocket and laid it on the counter beside her hands. “The name is Devlin.”
“I know who you are.” She didn’t even glance at the card. “Why are you here?”
“I understand you’re a cousin of Emmanuel Royston-Jones.”
“And exactly what is it to you if I am?”
“He tells me you consider yourself a modern Druid.”
She straightened abruptly. “So?”
“Have you noticed that his friends are being murdered in ways that precisely echo what are thought to be three of the ancient Celtic methods of human sacrifice?”
She stood stiffly before him, her arms now crossed at her chest, her face closed and hostile. “What precisely are you suggesting? Modern Druids do not practice human sacrifice any more than modern Greeks or Romans do.”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m trying to understand who is killing these men, and why.” He held out the carved wooden wolf. “Have you ever seen this?”
She stood as if frozen, the only movement the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Then she swallowed and shook her head. “No.”
He cast a significant glance around the shop. “You’ve never had anything like it for sale?”
“Not like that, no.”
He brought his gaze back to her face. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me what it was used for.”
He was still holding the piece out to her, and after a moment she took it, turning it over in her hands. “Where did you find it?”
Not Where did it come from? he noticed, but Where did you find it? He said, “It was at the top of Primrose Hill, not far from where Marcus Toole was killed.”
She handed the carving back to him as if it had suddenly begun to burn her fingers. “The Druids held a ceremony on Primrose Hill a few weeks ago for Samhain. Perhaps it was dropped then.”
“Perhaps.” He tucked the piece away. “So it is somehow related to Druidism?”
“It could be.”
He nodded to a nearby shelf that held a number of different books, some new, some very old. “I see you carry works by Iolo Morganwg. Do you admire him?”
“I admire some of his work,” she said, her voice guarded.
“But not all of it?”
She hesitated, as if choosing her words carefully.
“We may not know exactly what the ancient Druids believed, but we can study the folktales, legends, traditions, and songs that have come down to us through the ages and perhaps find a wisdom that resonates with something within us. Or at least within some of us.” She pressed a curled fist to her chest. “For me, a large part of that is a recognition of the divinity of nature and the need to revere the earth and seek to live in harmony with it. Respect it and protect it.” She uncurled her hand to fling it out in the direction of the Thames.
“All you need do is look at what’s happening to the Thames.
It’s dying. Between the new coal gasworks and letting people empty their flush-down pedestals into the sewers, the river is turning into a cesspit.
When I first came to London five years ago, we were eating salmon caught from the Thames.
Are there any fish even left alive in it? ”
“I wouldn’t want to eat them if there are,” said Sebastian. He let his gaze drift again around the strange assortment of objects she had for sale. “Do you know if Marcus Toole considered himself a Druid?”
She gave a quick, startled laugh. “You can’t be serious. The only thing Marcus Toole worshipped was pleasure—and himself, of course.”
“How well did you know him?”
She shrugged. “I met him a few times when I was with Emmanuel.”
“Are you related to Royston-Jones through his mother or his father?”
A strange smile played about her lips. “My mother and Emmanuel’s mother were sisters—Lady Elizabeth and Lady Jane Royston.
Lady Elizabeth married a nasty but extraordinarily wealthy man and has lived a long life of comfort and luxury with someone she despises, while her sister, Lady Jane, fell in love with a dashing but poor Army captain, married him in defiance of her parents, and was blissfully happy until she died sixteen months later in childbirth.
” She paused, her gaze hard on his face.
“Which of the two do you think made the wisest choice? Your answer will tell you a great deal about yourself.”
“Your father was a Captain O’Leary?”
“No. Captain Sean O’Leary was my husband. He died at Almeida.”
“I’m sorry.”
She twitched one shoulder, blinked, and looked away.
He said, “Who do you think is killing these men—Keebles, Toole, and now Upcott?”
“I have no idea. How could I?”
“Why do you think the killer is styling his murders to look like Celtic sacrifices?”
She brought her gaze back to his face. “Perhaps he hopes to throw blame onto someone who considers himself a Druid. He could even hope to discredit the entire movement.”
“Do you know someone like that? Someone with such hostility to modern Druidism that they would kill in an effort to destroy it?”
“No.” She opened her mouth as if to say something else, then closed it and began again.
“Those men—the ones who’ve been killed—were horrible people.
They enjoyed hurting others; they thought it was fun.
Because they were wealthy and came from old, ‘good’ families, they believed they could do anything they wanted, anything at all, and get away with it.
And the sad truth is that they did—get away with it, I mean.
All of it. Perhaps someone decided it was time they were stopped. ”
Sebastian studied her flashing eyes, the angry color staining her cheeks. “Who do you know that they hurt?”
“No one, personally. But Emmanuel used to talk to me about some of the things they did. It bothered him.”
“Then why was he their friend in the first place?”
She huffed a soft, humorless laugh. “Have you ever met Zacharia Royston-Jones?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“He’s a harsh, ruthless, fiercely ambitious man.
He wanted his son to be every bit as cold, insensitive, and callous as he is, except that wasn’t Emmanuel.
So when Emmanuel was a boy, his father tried to make him be that way, and in the process he almost destroyed Emmanuel.
Then he sent him off to Eton, and Emmanuel…
” She paused. “I think it all came close to killing him before he fell in with Bridgewood and Toole and the rest of them. They protected him and made him feel accepted, and even though some of the things they did troubled him, he found a way to live with it. But then he met Annie. She was good and kind and giving, and she saw and cherished those traits in Emmanuel. I don’t think she ever came out and told him what she thought of his friends, but he knew.
And he started distancing himself from them. ”
“How did she die?”
“She caught measles from one of her little sisters.”
“How tragic.”
“Yes. I’m not sure he’s ever going to get over it.” She hesitated, then said, “You think Emmanuel is in danger?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it depends on who is killing his friends, and why.”
He saw the leap of fear in her eyes and thought she might say something more.
But she didn’t.