Flight of the Falcon (Byrdes of York #1)

14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Hugh

H ugh watched as Andrew reeled back from the sarcophagus and hid his face in Percy’s neck. His lover held him, whispering to him and rubbing circles on his back. Percy looked at Hugh and motioned that they would be in the other room. He nodded.

“C’mon on, love.” Percy led the shaken Andrew from the room and Hugh moved closer to Falcon.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Not sure…” Falcon leaned over and pointed out to him that the sarcophagus didn’t appear to have changed from the last time they’d viewed it. Something had upset Andrew though.

Hugh followed Falcon in examining the sarcophagus and whistled. Made of black marble and coffin shaped, it looked as though it weighed a ton.

He opened his inner eye and as he did so, several sigils and engravings came into view. Some of them were written in Latin and one of larger engravings stated: Hispana Nonus , which translated as ‘Spain Ninth’.

“The Ninth Legion.” He pointed out to Falcon who had his hand on his shoulder so they could both see the engravings and sigils.

“I wonder if this is what Father McKenzie was talking about? And what does the Ninth Legion have to do with a black marble sarcophagus?” asked Falcon.

Hugh shrugged. He didn’t have an answer. He only knew it referred to the Ninth, and it had been known as the Hispana legion, though they were not in fact from Spain.

“Guys!” Percy’s voice called from the outer room, and they moved through to join them.

Looking slightly better, Andrew sat in the same wingback chair as earlier. He had a glass in hand and was sipping its contents slowly. Percy hovered over him, keeping a close eye on his lover.

“Are you okay?” Hugh asked as he leant against the library table nearest to where Andrew sat.

“I… I… will be.” He gulped the last of what Hugh realised was brandy down in one mouthful. Looking at the table behind him, he could see where Percy had sourced the drink from. A large decanter stood there with its stopper secured.

“How was the brandy?” he asked out of curiosity.

The other man smiled at him; his first smile since he’d seen the sarcophagus. “It’s surprisingly good, considering its age!”

He laughed with Andrew and it broke the tension that had been in the underground room.

Andrew sighed and took hold of Percy’s hand, who squeezed his fingers in return. “I guess I should explain.”

“Yes please,” Hugh replied.

“When I was part of Lady Emma’s coterie in Leconfield, I met an Antiquarian called Gilead Summerbell. He was part of Lady Emma’s social circle. She supported him in his quest to collect old documents and artefacts. He had quite the collection, including a 15th century gate which had stood at the entrance to Beverley Guildhall.” He laughed. “Gilead had bought it from them some years earlier and erected it in his back garden.”

“Wow!” Hugh said. Fancy having something like that in your back garden. “What happened to it?”

“I think it was moved in the 1990s to outside the historic Friary in Beverley .Anyway, I digress.” He paused, clearly gathering his thoughts.“As I mentioned before, I visited the gentleman’s club here in York with Edward and Thomas – another member of Emma’s coterie. It was at Gilead’s invite that we attended. He was an honorary member of the club as he visited the Philosophical Society in York many times and some of them were members at the club. To cut a long story short, he became mixed up with a secret society.”

“ Hispana Nonus ?” Hugh asked. “Exactly! You saw the engraving?”

Hugh nodded and explained to Percy who hadn’t been in the room about the connection to the Ninth Legion, then told them both about Father McKenzie’s asseverations regarding the Ninth.

“And the sarcophagus?” Falcon asked.

Andrew closed his eyes as though remembering. “That was something else Gilead had in his garden at one point. There were many statuary pieces and other things there. I never saw it in situ, but he described it sufficiently to me that I recognised it.”

“Where did that come from?”

“Beverley again, in the yard at the Minster there. Seemingly they were digging a grave and they dug up this marble tombstone shaped as a coffin. Of course, Gilead had to have it.”

“How did he get involved with the Hibernia Nonus ?” Hugh asked, fascinated by the story Andrew was telling them.

“He was blackmailed. Gilead was a homosexual in a world that didn’t recognise homosexuality. He was caught with a local man by a member of the society. He thought he’d been set up. This man – I think his name was Jarratt – insisted Gilead help them search for various documents that had been lost for many decades, if not centuries.

“He was reluctant to tell us this, but he wanted to warn us to be careful. We were in a highly unusual relationship – one woman and five men. Society was already incredulous that Emma lived in the Hall with so many men, despite being married to Thomas. It gave them some privacy, but Gilead was worried about the rest of us.”

Percy pulled Andrew towards him and kissed his forehead. Hugh also kissed Falcon on the lips. Once again, he was reminded of how lucky they were to live in the time they did when they could love who they wanted to, whoever they were and whatever their sexuality, without worrying about being arrested.

“Do you know what’s inside the sarcophagus?” Hugh finally asked him. “Not what.” Andrew replied. “It’s a who.”

Hugh gaped at him. “There’s a body in there?”

“No.” Andrew replied. “If the spell they had Gilead find worked, then there’ll be a sleeping vampire in there.”

“What!” Falcon cried, and the room broke out into a hubbub as they all started talking at once.

“Vampires don’t exist!” Hugh exclaimed. “They’re myths!” Falcon shook his head. “No, they’re real.”

Hugh turned to him, his mouth open in surprise. “You’ve met one?”

“So have you,” Falcon replied with a slight grimace.

“What!?” He couldn’t think he’d ever met any kind of creature of the night. “Francis,” Falcon said, reaching out to touch Hugh on the shoulder.

“Your father is a vampire? But… I’ve seen him out during daylight! He eats food!”

Hugh began to feel as though he was estranged from reality. Surely Falcon was jesting.

The other man nodded.

Andrew and Percy were quiet and Hugh realised he was the only one in the room who hadn’t known that about Francis. He turned, taking the glass Andrew had been drinking out of earlier before rounding the library table. Unstopping the brandy decanter, he poured himself a generous slug and drank it down straight away. He slammed the glass on the table, the brandy burning on its way down. He coughed.

“Okay.” He turned back to the others. “Say that I believe you. How do you know that’s a vampire in there?” He turned to Andrew as he asked the question. The other man joined him at the table.

“Gilead came to us one day in a fright. He’d been looking for this spell in many old documents for a long time and eventually he’d found it. He came to ask our advice, but all we could do was tell him not to share it with the Hibernia Nonus . We were going to meet with him later that week. We never got there. A couple of days after his visit, the chimera attacked the Hall, Edward died and I was dragged through time.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t even know what happened to Gilead. I haven’t thought about him since I arrived in this time.”

Falcon

Falcon nursed his bottle of beer as he sat outside The Judge’s Lodging . It wasn’t too busy this early in the evening, but he knew later on it could get quite raucous. He’d waved Andrew and Percy off on the train back to Beverley and stopped here to try and work out what they should do next.

Hugh had returned to the maisonette as he’d had a call from Imogen and needed to sort something out with her about Swales’s disappearance. He’d agreed to meet up with him later, but Falcon knew he was still shocked by his revelation about Francis.

“He said he was at school with John and the Swales twins?” he’d asked as they were walking back from Ogleforth.

“He did. What he didn’t tell you is that he was wearing a glamour to make him look younger. He was investigating some of the strange goings on at the school and went as a pupil to fit in. His friendship with John was real though.”

“Did he know?”

“Yes. I don’t know how or when, but I think it’s about the time he gave John the Ordo token.”

Hugh had just shaken his head as he’d fielded a call from Jack Speight, letting his policeman friend know about Swales’s goon without giving away where they’d found him. Speight had said he’d get the force to find a magic user who could lift the spell trap from him. Falcon didn’t hold out much hope of that happening.

His phone rang and he fished it out of his pocket. Francis’s name appeared on his screen.

“Dad! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, son. Sorry I was out of communication for a while. I’ve been helping sort out John’s funeral.”

Falcon could hear the sorrow in his father’s voice. He knew he and John had been close, though he wished he’d shared more before sending him to talk about the tunnels. He knew Francis would have his own reasons for keeping information from him, but he still worried.

“You there, son?”

“I’m here. Can you come join me?” “Where are you?”

“In the courtyard at The Judge’s Lodging , nursing a beer.” “On your own?”

“For now. Hugh will be back later to join me. I need to update you on what’s been happening.”

“I’m at the shop. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Order me a beer, will you?”

Falcon ended the call, caught the eye of one of the waitresses and ordered his father a beer, declining another one for himself.

The outside lights were coming on when he saw Francis enter through the open gates. He raised his beer in his direction and his father came over, dropping into one of the chairs around the table.

Francis took a sip of beer, before blowing out his breath in one long exhale. “It’s been a hard couple of days,” he acknowledged.

Falcon just nodded and sat with his dad, silently drinking for a few moments before Francis spoke again.

“Funeral’s next week, in the Minster. It will be a full service. If you want to come, you’ll be very welcome.”

Falcon nodded again, but didn’t add anything. He wasn’t a fan of church services, but he could see himself joining his father to offer his support.

“Andrew and Percy came through today,” he reported, before going on to tell him about what they had found, and Andrew’s assertion that it was a vampire in the sarcophagus in the inner room.

“You’ve had a busy day! How did Hugh take it?”

“I’m not sure he believes me!”

Francis laughed. “He’ll come around.”

“Have you any idea who it might be?”

Francis shook his head. “I wasn’t in York at that time. I was in Paris for most of the latter half of the 19th century. I only came to York in the1930s. I didn’t know about the gentleman’s club Andrew mentioned.”

Falcon looked up then and saw Hugh coming towards them. His step faltered as he noticed that Francis was with him, but Falcon grinned at him and Hugh returned the grin. He ordered from a passing waitress before joining them at their table.

“Hi.” Hugh bent down and kissed Falcon on the cheek. He grinned and moved his head so he got his lips.

“Francis.” Hugh acknowledged the other man.

“Hugh.” Francis grinned. “I understand you had an interesting day today.”

“You could say that.”

Falcon watched as Hugh tried to unobtrusively examine Francis. He could tell he was looking with his inner eye. He shook his head after a few moments.

“You really are a vampire,” he declared in a whisper just after the waitress deposited his beer and left them alone.

Francis grinned again. “Guilty as charged.” “Is it rude to ask how old you are?”

Falcon laughed. That was always what everyone wanted to know, once they found out and accepted the truth of his being.

“I was born about 3,000 years ago.”

“That’s… amazing!” Hugh looked surprised but clearly interested in what had happened to him. “You must have seen so many interesting things.”

Falcon knew if they got his father started on some of the stories from his life he’d not stop for hours.

“Hugh,” he broke in before he could ask anything else. “How did your call go with Imogen?”

Hugh turned his attention back to Falcon and shrugged. “She’s staying there for now. She and Gil are investigating what happened to Robert. It’s being treated as a priority by the police and the powers that be. I think the idea that Ian, not Robert, had access to confidential documents for weeks is sending them crazy.”

“Do they know about the tunnels and the rooms?”

“No. So far, we’ve managed to keep that just to those of us who have been there. After our discoveries today, the less people that know about this for now, the better.”

Falcon and Francis agreed with him. It wouldn’t do for it to come out that a sleeping vampire was been held in stasis under the streets of York. Whatever the Hibernia Nonus had been doing was a mystery.

“Had you heard of the Hibernia Nonus before?” Falcon asked his father.

Francis grimaced before shaking his head. “I don’t remember anything about them, but as I was telling Fal earlier, I was in Paris at the time they were operating here. You have to remember, though, it wasn’t unusual for secret societies to thrive in the upper echelons of society in the 18th and 19th centuries. You just have to look at the Hellfire Club .”

“Weren’t they involved in devil worship?” Falcon asked.

“There was no real proof that they were. Of course that wasn’t the only club, the best known are The Masons , not that that was a particularly secret society.”

They drank their beers, enjoying the mild May evening.

“In the meantime, we should investigate Gilead Summerbell and see what happened to him,” Hugh said.

Falcon nodded as he finished his beer. Setting the bottle on the table, he stretched.

“Ready to call it a night?” Hugh asked. “Yep. Dad?”

“I’ll see you both tomorrow. I’m going to head home soon.”

Falcon joined Hugh as he got up from the table. They said goodbye to Francis who remained to finish his drink. He was staring off into space.

“Is he okay?” Hugh asked.

“He’ll be fine,” Falcon said as he took Hugh’s hand and began moving through the crowd out onto Lendal. People were beginning to spill out of the bar opposite now and the pavement and road were full. He manoeuvred them through towards Stonegate.

“You coming back with me?” he asked, pressing a kiss to his man’s cheek. “I think I can manage that!” Hugh laughed.

Falcon grinned and turned left through the alleyway to the arcade. The outside lights were on and Falcon looked towards the shop and the figure waiting for him there.

“Hey, Raven!” He greeted his brother who’d been away for a few weeks. “Didn’t know you were back.”

“Just got back earlier tonight. We need to talk, Fal,” he said while looking at Hugh. “You can talk in front of Hugh. We need to catch you up as well.”