Authors: April Taylor
“Master Ballard, I have important business that will not wait. I am to conduct you to His Majesty straightaway. Luke, pray as you never have before. He is in as great a rage as I have ever witnessed, and it is all directed at you.”
Chapter Twenty
Luke dropped back onto the settle, his mind filled with panic. Would he ever get used to living a finger-snap away from death, or was his fear more readily accessible because of his talent? Not until Joss growled did he recognize a trance was imminent. That she would protect him was not in doubt. He could only pray that Byram would think Luke’s collapse a response to the news of the King’s fury. Then blackness overtook him.
He walked through a large chamber. Mullioned windows with ornate stone embrasures looked out over a small knot garden. He watched richly dressed ladies stroll along gravel paths. Prickling unease at the back of his neck made him swing back to the open door.
A column of black mist hovered there and he knew that to walk out and confront it would mean certain death. Heat blasted his back. Turning to the window, he saw the brickwork in flames. He was trapped. There was no escape. His mind screamed at him to move his feet, but both means of flight were blocked.
A cold, clear part of his brain accepted that his only chance was to engage the darkness still floating outside the door. Waiting for him. Praying for strength, he moved towards it.
“Luke, Luke. Wake up, man.”
He jolted and saw Byram trying to reach him. Joss blocked the captain’s path, snarling. Quickly, Luke laid a hand on her head and she subsided.
“I pray pardon, Byram. Today is full of ill tidings.”
“You are not one of those milk-livered scuts who swoon, Master Ballard.” Byram’s face showed confusion but no fear. “Are you ailing?”
Luke rose to his feet and managed a shaky laugh.
“Tired, my friend. Just tired.”
“You will need all your wits about you shortly. I suggest you take one of your own remedies.”
“A fine idea, and one with which I concur.” Luke was not soothed by the sight of his hands shaking as he poured out the last of the restorative Rob had made.
* * *
Rob tried the Ship Inn first. Most of its patrons were river traders, so having walked through the throng and heard nothing save tales of cargoes going across to Antwerp, he eased himself out of the door.
The other tavern was the Black Boy. He hoped for more luck here. A minstrel sang about the sweet and merry month of May, but his takings were small and he soon departed. Rob purchased a jug of ale and sat unnoticed in a corner, close to a large group around a table. The funeral seemed to be the main topic of conversation, although Rob could hear little until a sour-faced woman raised her voice.
“It do be a shameful thing he has done,” she declared, shaking off her companion’s warning nudge. “Nay, I’ll not be quieted. We all knew Edith and a more God-fearing, beautiful child never walked this earth.”
“They say he was forced into it by the Outer Green apothecary,” said another.
“We all saw how much he didn’t want to have the girl in his churchyard, and if Master Ballard played a part in changing his mind, then I for one calls God’s blessings down on his head.”
Rob frowned into his beer. It would not do for him to join the discussion. He must remain still and listen. The conversation swung from the funeral to the iniquities, as the villagers saw it, of Frayner’s behavior.
“It don’t surprise me,” a large red-faced man said. “Father Frayner, indeed. Anyone less like a father to his flock I cannot imagine. Why, he called me a drunkard and said I was not fit to live. Threatened me with God’s ire, he did.”
“And what did you say, Master Rede?”
“I may have a few now and then, but I knows better than to backchat a priest. I didn’t say nothing, just took off my cap and hung my head as if I was actually listening to him, the turdy-gaited villain.”
Rob’s foray around the market the previous day had given him an inkling of the general opinion towards the priest, but the burst of raucous laughter that greeted Master Rede’s rejoinder opened his eyes further. That his parishioners hated the priest was obvious, but they also ridiculed him. Rob wondered if Luke could use that.
“I don’t care what you calls him,” the first woman said. “I calls him ungodly. Didn’t Our Lord tell us to treat our neighbor as ourselves?”
Then Rob’s prayers were answered. One of the younger women spoke up in a timid squeak.
“I don’t understand what he’s done to upset you so.”
The first woman looked down her nose.
“That is because you is stupid, Mary Puttle, so I’ll tell you. He only said half the prayers over the poor child’s coffin. He was careful to say all the bits about God’s wrath and the price of sin and all that, but he never said nothing about Jesus dying for us and saving us. And,” she added, waving her tankard at the assembled company. “He never said the Lord’s Prayer neither, nor asked for light perpetual to shine on her. You mark my words, he’s made sure Edith stays in purgatory. She’ll be stranded, cast out, lost, poor little mite.”
The woman’s companions looked round in fright and Master Rede shook her arm.
“Hush, Martha,” he said in a low voice that Rob could only just hear. “Don’t use that word. Purgatory is a papist creed. You know ears are everywhere, and not all are friendly. We get into heaven by faith alone. Finish your beer.”
The woman sank her nose back into her ale. She drained it and poured another, but she remained silent. Rob waited until the conversation turned to other topics before slipping out of his seat and ambling through the door. Time to get back and let Luke know what was being said.
* * *
“You’re going to have to reassure him somehow, Luke. This last incident with the mirror in the Queen’s confinement room has sent Her Grace half-mad with terror. She is wailing about seven years of bad luck.” Byram nodded to the sentries as they entered the palace.
“Problem is, Captain, that, so far, none of it makes any sense. Not only can I find nothing to connect the deaths, these random attempts to frighten the Queen do not sit right. If they really wanted to harm her, why go to all the trouble of staging things that she might hear about but not witness?”
“What do you mean?”
“If they wanted to shock her into losing the child, they would have put the body of Edith Brook where she would find it. And this latest victim. No possibility of the King allowing her anywhere near it. Rob tells me you’ve identified the body.”
“Aye, Walter Magot. Worked on the timber wharf.”
“Then the question is not how did his body end up in the courtyard of the palace but who put it there?”
“Could have been anyone for any reason. What is it to do with your investigation?”
“As yet, I do not know, but it is an unexplained death near the persons of the King and Queen and, as such, I cannot disregard it.”
Luke rubbed damp palms on his tunic. He had faced many frightening things in his life, but nothing, he decided, matched the apprehension he felt at being the target of his monarch’s wrath. Had it been Great Harry, he would not have been given a chance to explain, but it was not the young Henry’s way to condemn a man unheard. That did not mean he would not be condemned
after
he had been heard. After all, what use was a Privy Inquirer who had so many threads in his hand but was unable to weave them into a rope that could be put around a traitor’s neck?
Byram escorted him up through the King’s Bayne and into Henry’s privy apartment. Henry and his mother were seated on a dais under a cloth of state. Luke did not know whether to be relieved or not that only Queen Anne, Gwenette Paige and Byram Creswell were present. He fell to his knees, not daring to look up into his King’s face.
Henry’s voice took on a tone of silky danger that unnerved him further.
“Master Inquirer, we have a situation we ordered you to clarify and investigate. And yet, here we are, and your only achievement has been to reduce our Queen, so near her time, to hysteria. Your incompetence puts our heir at risk. What say you in reply? Tell us why we should not order your immediate arrest and let your neck stretch. Or mayhap we could reinstate Death by Boiling.”
“Your Majesty...”
“Do not dare to interrupt, you clay-brained hedge pig.” Henry’s voice bellowed in a sudden crescendo. Luke could feel a terror rising in his throat so tangible it was almost as if he could chew it. Even Joss’s unseen presence failed to calm him.
“My lord.” The voice belonged to Queen Anne.
“Madam?”
She dropped to her knees before raising her eyes and looking directly into his.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty, for being so forward, but I beg you in all mercy to give Master Ballard time to explain. He has proved his loyalty and bravery in the past. I beseech you to hear him before you condemn.”
Henry’s fists clenched.
“Very well. Master Ballard, you have a champion in my mother. Speak. Let us hear what progress you have made.”
Luke stayed on his knees. Had the King bidden him to rise, he did not think his legs would have supported him. His vision from the trance was becoming a reality. He was trapped between the dark power of his enemy and the searing fire of the King’s anger.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rob walked back through the west gates of the palace well pleased with his efforts and anxious to tell Luke the villagers’ opinions regarding Frayner. It would not do, of course, to let Alys hear his story. Indeed, it was not until he was almost at the kitchen door that he considered the effect on Alys if she heard what had been said. The problem was how to keep her from gossip that would be rife on the streets of Hampton. She was intelligent enough to be suspicious if he suddenly decided to go to market instead of sending her. He must seek Luke’s counsel.
The thought that a priest could have so far betrayed his calling as to leave an innocent soul at the mercy of the Devil was horrifying. He, too, had seen the look Frayner had directed at Alys. It had made his fists clench of their own accord. Rob recognized predatory cunning when he saw it, and he was sure that was what had been in the priest’s eyes. It portended ill for Alys and for Luke. Mayhap it would be better if Alys were elsewhere, but the prospect of separation from her made his stomach curl. Why, he could not imagine. She was not the prettiest wench Rob had ever encountered, but the recollection of her frightened face brought out all his protective instincts. When he had answered to Luke that he would follow Alys wherever she went, he had said no more than the truth.
Rob knew that Luke did not suffer the fair sex with equanimity. If he were not to lose Alys, he would have to leave the apothecary. But he could not countenance that. Without him, Luke was no match for all the matrons trying to get their daughters suitably married. The daughters themselves were by no means averse to a prospective union either.
Rob remembered Bertila telling him that Luke’s very vulnerability in the domestic field brought out the mothering instinct in most girls. In the past year, the boy had done his utmost to make his kinsman more approachable. If he left him now, Luke would be easy meat for shrewd matriarchs. No, he could not leave his post. Neither could he think of life without Alys. Marry, but love was a complicated business.
When he entered the house, Alys sat by the fire. Rob took one look at her troubled face.
“What has happened? Where is Luke? Why are you alone?”
Alys turned to look at Rob through a haze of tears.
“Thank God you are come at last. The captain came for Master Ballard. He has taken him to the King and says the King is beyond anger.”
Rob stared at her and grasped her hand. “Come with me, Alys. It is dark and there are things abroad in the night that dare not face the light of day. You must not be alone.”
“Where are we going?”
“We must get into the palace. If Luke is in trouble, then my place is with him.”
She rose and put her small hand in his. “And my place is with you. Come, I know an entrance that will gain us access unseen.”
Rob could not decide if he was delighted or bemused that this chit of a girl was leading him by the hand into the fastnesses of Hampton Court. They crept from the kitchen door, keeping out of the moonlight, skirting the Tiltyard and through into the orchard. Alys put her hand over Rob’s mouth urging him to silence as she led him from shadow to shadow.
They reached the home park and a small door set into the brick wall. Ears alert, they eased their way into a dark, musty corridor.
“This is where some of the maids sneak out to visit their swains,” she whispered.
“And how many swains have you visited?”
She squeezed his hand.
“I have had none until now and I feel sure that you will be my first and only,” she said.
Despite the urgency of the situation, Rob could not refrain from leaning down to brush her lips with his.
“How do you suggest we find Luke?” he breathed.
“Does he know anyone in the palace?”
“Mistress Paige.”
“Then, if you have the courage, let us go to the Queen Mother’s apartments.”
“One thing, Alys.” Rob caught at her arm, his mind suddenly full of questions. “Until I came home tonight, you were almost afraid of your own shadow. Now, you find the courage to creep into the palace and suggest that we go to Queen Anne’s apartments. What is the reason for this change?”
* * *
Bertila perched on the edge of Corbin’s bed, spooning bread and milk flavored with cinnamon into his mouth, her lips clamped together. She knew that if she once relaxed, she would break down and that would cause this most beloved of fathers more grief than he already carried.
“You must eat, Father.”
He shook his head, turning his face away from the spoon. For her entire life, Corbin had been the one constant strength she had known. He had grieved at her scar and comforted her when her mother had died, although she knew well that his own grief was almost unbearable. They had been each other’s stay during the dark months after her loss.
The previous summer when she thought that love had at last favored her, she had discerned the anxiety in his eyes. When it all came to naught, he had tended her with understanding and as much devotion as any mother. He had rejoiced at the removal of her scar and encouraged her to go out into the world more.
Now he lay in bed like a carved statue. Worse than that, his expression told her that he was on the verge of giving up. She took his hand.
“Father, look at me.”
Knowing that tears she was unable to control streamed down her face, she no longer tried to hide them. The time for that was past. She had to jolt him from this lethargy.
“When we lost Mother, we promised that we would look after each other. I know we have been through a grievous ordeal, but we are out of it and as safe as anyone is in these uncertain times. You must eat. Please, Father. I could not bear it if I lost you, too.”
“Nothing left for me,” he mumbled.
“That is wrong, Father. Does not the Bible say that it is not up to us to count our days, but to accept the days given us? If you surrender to this weakness, not only is your soul in danger, but you will leave me alone and defenseless.”
He lifted a shaky hand. “Luke...” he began.
“Luke does not want me, or I him. Nay, what I want is that you eat and get strong again.”
Once more she held up the spoon. With a sigh, Corbin opened his mouth.
* * *
“Your Majesty, I am aware of the events that have happened, but they make no sense. It does not matter how much I juggle the facts, no coherent explanation presents itself. If someone wanted to hurt the Queen, surely they would be more direct?”
“Not if the aim is to lose the heir,” the Queen Mother said.
“It seems to us that you do not have skills enough for this task,” the King said. “Mayhap we should appoint another to the post.”
A flicker of his last trance came into Luke’s head. He could see the flames on the brickwork, relive the dread of being between two implacable enemies. He shot a glance at Gwenette.
“I believe Master Ballard has thought of something,” she interrupted.
“Is it not amazing what a little fear can do?” The King glared at his mother’s servant and she colored and bobbed a curtsey in apology for speaking out of turn.
“Bricks,” Luke said.
Henry pounded his clenched fist into his other palm.
“Have you lost your wits?”
“Your Majesty.” Luke spoke with urgency, holding his hand up so that he could calm the clamor of his tumbling thoughts. “A moment. Aye, could that be it?”
“You speak in riddles, man.”
“Bricks.” Luke looked at the King. “Sire, do you remember when we last met and I said I could not make bricks without straw?”
“Aye. We thought it a weak excuse then and we have not changed our mind.”
“I am anxious not to get this wrong, Sire, Your Grace. Please bear with me.”
“Oh, for God’s sake man, stand up. You are putting a crick in our neck. Stop prattling like a leaky pump and speak before we change our mind and have you flogged.”
Luke climbed to his feet, his thoughts still flying. He held up his fingers and counted the items off as he spoke.
“To begin with, there was the writing. The first at Whitehall, from the story of Belshazzar told in the Book of Daniel. Next the quotation from Exodus and then that second one repeated here at Hampton Court. Oh my eyes, I have been blind.”
“You will be if you do not explain and quickly.” Henry ground out the words between clenched teeth.
“Sire, I thought that the threat was to you directly, accusing you first of turning away to false gods, the new faith. The second message seemed to place you as Pharaoh, another biblical tyrant. Then Edith Brook was found in a bath full of her blood. After that someone let loose hundreds of frogs, and then we found the body of a man we now know to have been called Magot, covered in flies.” He looked round at them all.
“Bricks without straw,” he said again. “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he forced the Israelites to make bricks without straw, and then God let loose the plagues. First of all the river turned to blood. The girl’s name was Brook. She was found in a bath of blood. Then the frogs were let loose in the palace. Now the man called Magot was smothered in flies.”
Henry leapt to his feet. “God’s Nightgown.”
Luke nodded. “Aye, Sire, I think we have it now. The plagues of Egypt.”
The King turned white to his lips. “I have just received reports that there appears to be a murrain on the local cattle herds.”
Luke closed his eyes and his shoulders sagged. “Then we can expect boils and firestorms shortly.”
It was as if time stood still. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. And then the King cleared his throat.
“Which makes it even more urgent that you catch the malefactor now, Master Inquirer.”
Silence fell again. None dared give voice to the dread that Luke could sense pervading the room, but he knew the instant everyone had finished progressing through the order of the Biblical pestilences. He should have been feeling triumphant and vindicated that he had put the pieces of the puzzle together, but he could not. He knew he should speak but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, refusing to form the words. Articulating them would be tantamount to giving them power. He met Gwenette’s anguished gaze.
Finally, the Queen Mother gave a loud cry and sprang to her feet. Forgetting all protocol, she shook the King’s arm.
“I will say what we all know, Henry. We must protect Madeleine. The final plague was the death of the firstborn.”