A Crowning Mercy (40 page)

Fame was eluding Faithful Unto Death. He fretted over the problem, prayed about it, and paced long hours in his comfortable, upper chamber. The answer to his prayers, when it came, was astonishingly simple. It was late one night, the candles bright on his desk, when he was reading the newest
Mercurius Britanicus,
London's chief news-sheet, and he scanned the latest account of Parliament's siege of York. It was going well, the commanders of the army winning the renown denied to Faithful Unto Death, when suddenly his hands shook with excitement. Of course! His melancholy torpor was over, he seized paper and ink and sharpened a goose-quill with fervent expectation. For two hours he wrote. He corrected, amended, and it was well past three in the morning when he leaned back, tired but happy, sure that he was at last to be rewarded.

He was not mistaken. The editor of the
Mercurius
had been given small news to print since the glorious victory of the Saints at Marston Moor. The fall of York was daily expected, indeed he had already set the story in type and waited only for the messengers, but in the meantime there was not much to inflame London's passions. Then, into his dusty, crowded office, came Faithful Unto Death with his account of Dorcas Scammell. The editor liked it.

The story was printed at great length. It told of the devil appearing in London and burning down part of Thames Street. It described the murder of Captain Samuel Scammell, 'a doughtie warrior of ye Lord', and the editor commissioned a woodcut that showed Dorcas Scammell's cat tearing the throat from an armed man whose sword was being restrained by a leering Satan. Campion, nails held out like claws, urged the cat on. The artist gave her black hair, a sharp nose, and missing teeth.

The story then paid tribute to Ebenezer Slythe who had 'putte familie love aside, preferring the Love of Almightie God, and in Sorrow and Pain broughte His Sister from Lazen', yet that brief acknowledgement of his patron was as nothing compared to the glory given to himself by the Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey. He had written his account in the third person, and it dwelt lovingly on his discovery of her witchcraft, of the devil's mark, and how he had pinioned her to the floor 'strengthened by the strength of Him who is Mightier than the Devil'. In his account, the Reverend Faithful Unto Death described the subduing of the witch as a titanic battle, a mighty foretaste of the clash between good and evil at Armageddon, but one which, strengthened by the Lord, he had won. Then, with a stroke of genius, he condemned Campion properly.

The Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey had been puzzled when Ebenezer insisted on forgetting the presence of the crucifix in the jewel about Campion's neck. He had asked Ebenezer and the young man had smiled. 'Don't you think there are enough plums in the pie, Brother Hervey?' Brother Hervey did not. Catholicism was the matter which scared Londoners. Witchcraft was not common in the capital, happening more in the country areas, but if Faithful Unto Death could give London a witch who was also a Roman Catholic then he knew he could arouse the interest and fanaticism of the mob. That groundswell of public hate and indignation would carry Faithful Unto Death to fame.

Mercurius Britanicus
revealed that Dorcas Scammell was a Roman Catholic. She bore, about her neck, a crucifix. 'Itt was a strange Crucificks, that emblem of the Devil, that the Witch wore. She was att pains to Conceal it, to which end it had beene cunningly hidden within a jewelled Seale so that noe man might Perceive its proper nature. Yet Almightie God in His goodnesse Revealed it to His Servant Faithful Unto Death Hervey and thus Defeated the Wiles of the Evil One as Wee praye He will continue so to doe.'

The Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey was pleased with his work. He had tied witchcraft to Catholicism and both to the Royalists, and in so doing he had ensured himself the lion's share of the credit. The editor of
Mercurius,
sensing that the tale would prove popular with his readers, wrote his own comments on the story. He praised Faithful Unto Death and warned Protestant England that the devil was indeed in the land, and then he spoke of Faithful Unto Death's determination to grub out all witches who would destroy the purity of the kingdom of God. At Faithful Unto Death's urging he added a further paragraph. Faithful Unto Death, he said, did not want women to live in fear. Any woman, be she poor or rich, could visit the Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey in Seething Lane, and there he would prayerfully examine her and issue, for a trifling sum, a certificate that bore witness to the absence of the devil. Thus armed, no woman needed to fear.

It was a stroke of genius. Within days of the
Mercurius
being distributed, Faithful Unto Death Hervey was besieged by women who sought his certificates. Fame was his overnight. He was asked to preach in the city, in Westminster, in parishes far from London, yet he could not accept all the invitations. He was busy, toiling day and night with the women who came to consult him; whose bodies he searched minutely for devilish protuberances. He worked faithfully in God's vineyard, a happy man at last.

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'Christ on his cross! Who did it? For God's sake who?' Sir Grenville Cony, newly returned to London, was furious, more furious than Ebenezer had ever seen him. The small man thumped a fist down on the
Mercurius.
'Are there nothing but fools in this city? I go for two weeks, no more! And when I come back! This!' He sat, hands clutching his great belly. 'For God's sake! How, Ebenezer?'

Ebenezer shrugged. He stood staring across the river at the Lambeth marshes. 'Hervey, I suppose.'

'Hervey! Damned Hervey. Wasn't he warned?'

'Not in so many words.'

'Christ! Are words so damned expensive? Why wasn't he warned?'

Ebenezer turned his expressionless gaze on Sir Grenville. 'It was my fault.'

The confession of guilt seemed to mollify Sir Grenville. He picked up the
Mercurius
and stared at the crude woodcut. 'You must always, always, know what your people are doing. God! Men are such fools! If you didn't point it at the ground for them they'd piss up their nostrils. God's bowels, Ebenezer!'

Ebenezer well understood Sir Grenville's anger. The
Mercurius Britanicus,
as the most important news-sheet of the rebels, was distributed far from London. Copies went, fresh from the press, to the cities of Europe where money had been lent to the warring sides. The bankers of Florence, of the Low Countries, of Venice were desperately interested in the war's progress. One battle could mean their loan was safe, a defeat could mean ruin. As Sir Grenville had shouted earlier, the
Mercurius
was available in Amsterdam before it reached the Parliamentary army in the north. He had shrieked a question at Ebenezer: 'And who's in Amsterdam?'

'Lopez.'

'Lopez! That damned, filthy Jew. Lopez!'

Now Sir Grenville shook his head. His voice seemed to be a moan of pain. 'That bastard priest described the seal! For God's sake! The seal!'

'You think Lopez will come?'

Sir Grenville nodded grimly. 'He'll come, Ebenezer. He'll come!'

'What can he do? He can't take her from the Tower? You have two seals.'

Sir Grenville leaned back, his gaze sour on the younger man. He remembered his astrologer, Barnegat, saying an enemy would come across the seas and Sir Grenville was inflicted with a sharp stab of pain in his belly. Aretine! That damned Aretine! He feared Kit Aretine. But Aretine was dead, his grave halfway across the world in the American wilderness. Sir Grenville shook his head. 'There's nothing he can do, Ebenezer, but he might try. I don't want complications. Do you understand? I want that damned girl dead and then we will have nothing to fear.' He rubbed his white, round face with both hands. 'We must bring the trial forward. Look after that! See Higbed. Tell him we'll pay whatever's necessary. But bring the trial forward!'

'Yes.'

'And double the guard on this house! Triple it!' The bulging eyes still had anger in them.

'You're certain you want me to do that?'

'I am certain. God! I am certain!' Sir Grenville remembered the handsome face of his enemy, he remembered the reckless daring that had eventually put Kit Aretine into the Tower. His voice was gloomy. 'Lopez got a man out of the Tower before.'

'Not this time.' Ebenezer smiled.

'Get that trial forward, Ebenezer! Get it forward!'

Ebenezer shrugged. He raised his eyebrows as he drew his hand across his neck. Sir Grenville shook his head, though he was tempted simply to have the girl killed.

'No. Aretine's dead, Ebenezer, but the bastard had friends. If the girl dies, there'll be a vengeance. But they can't take vengeance on a whole country. No. Let the law kill her, and then no one can accuse us.' Sir Grenville looked at the sentence in
Mercurius:
'Ebenezer Slythe putte familie love aside, preferring the Love of Almightie God, and in Sorrow and Pain broughte His Sister from Lazen'. Sir Grenville began to laugh, his fat shoulders heaving up and down, and the laugh grew louder. It was a strange contrast to his previous anger. He held a shaking finger out to his protg whose face, pale and cold, was not amused. 'You'd better get yourself a bodyguard, Ebenezer! A bodyguard. You're rich enough!' He put his frog-face back and bellowed with laughter. 'And watch your back, Ebenezer! Always watch your back!'

On the day after the tribunal they fetched Campion again, dragging her from the horrid cell and forcing her up winding stairs and down long passageways. She thought that she must face another ordeal, and she whimpered at the horrors she imagined, but to her surprise the guards took her into a pleasant, well-lit building and pushed her into a sunlit, warm room. The floor was carpeted. The windows, though barred, were large and velvet-curtained. Two women waited for her. They were kind, in their matter-of-fact way, and they stripped her, bathed her, washed her hair, and then put her in a great, warmed bed. One of them brought a tray of food, hot food, and sat by her and helped her eat. 'We're feeding you up, dear.'

It seemed to Campion that every thought, every action, took minutes for her. She ate clumsily, still not understanding what was happening, though the feel of clean skin, of freedom from lice, of hair that was washed fine, was wonderful to her. It seemed heavenly. She cried, and the woman patted her.

'That's all right, dear, you cry. It's good for you.'

'Why are you doing this?'

The woman smiled. 'You've got friends now, dear. Friends. We all need friends. Now eat up all the pastry! That's it! That's a good girl.'

They let her sleep. When she woke it was evening. A fire burned in the small parlour and one of the women waited with a jug of wine and yet more food. Campion wore a great wool robe, and her hair was tied in a ribbon. The woman smiled. 'Warm enough, dear?'

'Yes.'

'You sit by the fire.'

It was marvellous to be clean, to be warm, but she still felt filthy inside. She shrank from the memory of Faithful Unto Death touching her, sliding his dry hands over her skin. Nothing, she thought, could ever be the same again. She had been mired in Hervey's filth, and it could not be removed. Yet what did it matter? She had no future. Someone had paid for this comfort -- she assumed it was Lady Margaret for she could think of no one else, and she knew it to be a kindness that her last days on this earth should not be spent in filth. She looked at the woman. 'How's Toby?'

'Toby? I don't know any Tobys, dear. We've got a syllabub in the kitchen. Would you like some?'

The next day, standing at the barred window of the bedroom, she looked down on a small, greying man who walked up and down in the tiny courtyard beneath her window. He walked the same course every day so that his shoes had made scars on the grass. One of her new gaolers nodded down at him. 'That's the Archbishop, dear.'

'William Laud?'

'That's right, dear. He's been cut down to size.' She laughed. 'He'll be cut down some more soon, I shouldn't wonder.'

Campion watched the Archbishop of Canterbury as he walked, up and down, up and down, his head bowed over a book. He was a prisoner like her. Like her he faced the services of the executioner. He looked up once, saw her, and gave a slight inclination of his head. She raised a hand and he smiled. Thereafter she looked for him each day, and he for her, and they would smile through the window bars.

Then, as if her blessings could only increase, a lawyer came to see her. He was called Francis Lapthorne and he exuded certainty that she could win her trial. The Grand Jury had committed her to judge and jury. She asked Mr Lapthorne who had sent him, but he just smiled and winked. 'Now that would be dangerous, Miss Slythe, most dangerous. Even stone walls have ears! But be glad I'm here.'

She was. 'How's Toby?'

He smiled. 'You have nothing to worry about. Nothing! Do you understand?'

A smile spread on her face, a smile of such delight and love that Mr Lapthorne was touched. He was a youngish man, in his thirties, with a fine face and a deep, expressive voice. He laughed at her happiness. 'You're crying! Let me give you a handkerchief.'

He laughed too at the evidence of the presentment. 'You a witch, my dear? It's nonsense! Nonsense! Now that Goodwife could be, oh yes! A secret, black and midnight hag if ever there was!' He was full of plans. He would summon witnesses from the London watch who had fought the fire at Scammell's yard and he would take statements from them that none had seen the devil that night. He scoffed at the thought of a cat killing an armed man, or of Campion murdering Samuel Scammell. Campion's spirits began to rise. On his second visit he made her recite the Lord's Prayer and he applauded her when she had finished. 'Wonderful! Wonderful! You'll do it in court?'

'If no one sticks a knife in my back.'

'They tried that, did they? I wondered. Dear, oh dear!' Mr Lapthorne shook his head. 'If only I had been there. Still! I'm here now!' He pulled a leather bag on to the table and took from it a quill, an inkpot, and a great sheaf of papers. He unclipped the lid of the ink and pushed it, with the pen, towards her. 'You've got to work now, Dorcas.'