Blood Ties

by C. C. Humphreys

  ‘It is gone, Anne,’ he whispered. He was not sure if he spoke to the woman who was there or the one who was not.

  She held him there against the horse, feeling his heart shudder, his shallow breaths. She knew he had been sustained by his little hope, that somehow the hand would still be here, undisturbed in its meagre tomb, that his son had not violated his life’s faith, that a monster had not risen from the dead. If all that were true and the quest of the hand over, he could return to Tuscany, try to make amends to Beck, seek the rest that, surely, he had earned. She had hoped for it, prayed, in her own way. Yet in her mind she knew Gianni had too great a start on them and in her heart she held the vision of the tormented land.

  But which of the four ways do we now take? she thought. Neither the Fugger nor Erik had overheard the grave robbers’ destination. Closing her eyes did not help – her visions took in the consequence but did not extend to the practicality of tracking their quarry. In the sky, between tatters of cloud, she could see Polaris, the North star, that they had followed up from the coast. Should they take that road, continue north? Without knowing her brother’s intentions, any direction they took could be opposite to the one they needed. She could get no sense of where Gianni was in the world. Back? They would have met him on the road south. East, where a gradual lightening finally showed the approach of day? Down to the coast by the mountains, over the next range and the next and finally into the Italian States, thence back to the heart of his beloved Church? Or …

  It was when she turned to the west that she saw the figure, a shape she’d taken to be just part of the midden, emerging from the shadows beneath the gibbet, as if drawn by the moon. A hood was bent over, hands tightly clasped against a stomach, the back leant into the wooden upright.

  ‘Father!’

  Her gasp brought Jean away from the horse, which, spooked, skittered away with its companion to the field’s edge. He looked at her, followed the direction of her hand, froze. At last, when there was no movement from any of them, he whispered, ‘Was he here when we arrived or is he newly conjured from the earth? Hell’s spawn or human?’

  She whispered back, ‘I do not know.’

  They waited, watched, holding each other. They could see the apparition’s cloak was brown, his feet bare in sandals, that a puddle of rain water had gathered in the lap.

  ‘I will go and see.’ She took a step forward.

  ‘No.’ Jean’s throat was dry, the word came out in a rustle. Clearing it, he said, ‘I will.’

  First, he went to his horse, calming it with gentle sounds, reaching up to the pack. His hand touched the hard outline of a sword hilt beneath some sacking, but he wasn’t ready for that. In a saddle holster lay a powderhorn and a pistol, a wheelock. He carefully poured a little fresh powder into the pan, lowered the serrated edge onto the flint. With the weapon held before him he moved cautiously toward the gibbet.

  He was a step away when the hood lifted. He thought about firing, put pressure on the trigger, felt it give slightly. A swift pull and the spark would fly, a lead ball would send this demon back to whatever hell it had come from. Then the demon spoke, a single word.

  ‘Rombaud,’ it said, and Jean saw within the brown folds of cloth, the face within the shadows. Though it was a face from any nightmare, he knew it had not come from fresh from hell. For he had seen it many times, under swung blades, through a sheen of blood, within the walls of agony. Nineteen years before he thought he had seen the last of this face as it fell to this same ground, pierced through the eye by the Fugger’s dagger, and though he’d been told this corpse yet walked the earth, Heinrich von Solingen speaking his name froze him where he stood, his useless finger struggling to pull the trigger.

  They remained like that until a woman’s voice ended the silence.

  ‘Is this him, Father? Is this your tormentor?’

  ‘Tormentor.’ The word came to the scarred lips as if they tasted it, the voice without colour. ‘I tormented you. I thought to watch you die.’

  ‘By what pact with Satan are you yet living, Heinrich von Solingen? Here, upon this ground, nineteen years ago, I thought I had watched you die.’

  ‘Well, you can watch me die now.’

  As he spoke the hands clasped in his lap parted and the puddle there Anne had assumed was rainwater suddenly filled with entrails and more blood. The face whitened, the one eye closed.

  ‘No!’

  Anne’s cry took her forward before Jean could stop her, hands reaching out to push back the awful flow, the remorseless rush of death. And a hand, slick with blood, closed over Anne’s there, the grip unbreakable.

  It was Jean who cried out now, stepped forward with pistol levelled, and it was Anne’s other hand that halted him.

  ‘No, Father.’

  She had never been able to bear any suffering, be it a rat in a snare, a rabid dog. Now she held the hand of the man she knew had inflicted such pain on one she loved. Yet her voice, when it came, was gentle.

  ‘Be at peace, friend.’

  ‘Peace. Friend.’ Once more he sampled words, the strangeness of them in his mouth. ‘I have not known either of these things.’

  ‘You will soon perhaps.’

  He looked through her, past her in distance and time, then settled back. ‘I have been told I am a sinful man. I can remember the reasons why I am called that. Rombaud bears scars that prove it. But …’ There was a shudder, a grimace of pain. ‘Something happened to me here when that knife entered my head, when I should indeed have died. It cut the cord between the sins and their reasons. I feel neither guilt nor joy in them. They just are.’

  His voice faded as he spoke, the eye fluttered as if to close. Then it fixed on hers.

  ‘You have the same eyes as your brother.’

  Anne leant in closer to hear, to speak. ‘You know him?’

  ‘I led him here. He took what was buried here. He put a knife into me here.’ His hands parted to another run of blood.

  ‘You lie.’ Jean came forward, the pistol before him. ‘Do not believe him. You know your brother. He is many things, but he is no killer. He is training to be a priest.’

  The voice came again, a whisper now. ‘He is as good with a blade as you are, Rombaud. Maybe better. Hard to tell, as I offered no resistance. He came back for me, when the other, the Englishman, rode off, content to leave me here, since I wouldn’t leave. So you have your wish. You can watch me die, upon this ground, and blood of your blood the cause of my death.’

  Anne took again the hand that had loosened in hers, placed the other to his head, warmth to its ice.

  ‘Friend, can you help us? Where has he …’ She flinched as she thought of her brother, the havoc he had wrought here, havoc that was beyond even her skill to heal. ‘Where has he taken what was buried?’

  She thought she was too late, felt the pulse fade within his hand, sensed the door opening above her as it had for Guiseppe Toldo, as it would for everyone. Murmuring words to smooth the passage, she suddenly felt her grip returned, lips moved.

  She leaned in. ‘What is it, friend? What?’

  Words came. Only a few. Then he was gone. Beyond any doubt, Heinrich von Solingen was finally dead.

  She folded his hands back into his lap. Standing, she looked at her father.

  ‘London,’ she stated, brushing past him, moving to the horses. ‘Gianni’s taken the hand to the Tower of London.’

  The words sliced through him, severing the vague hope that here would be an ending, that he’d done all he could, that he could not chase the chimera if he had no notion of the direction it had taken. He was at the crossroads again and the way had been chosen.

  ‘London, he said, as simply as Heinrich von Solingen would have done.

  Where it all began. London.

  TEN

  LONDON

  The peril was clear. If Elizabeth didn’t take immediate action her defences would be overrun. Yet what could she do? Hope was dwindling, each sacrifice costing her more, him
less. On her left side, Renard’s white queen had advanced, threatening her king. Now the Fox strove to support the assault with mastery of the middle ground. It could only be a matter of time.

  Renard was dictating the game, as he always knew he would. Playing white, he acted and she reacted, it was the nature of chess. Yet he was only playing this game to emphasize his dominance in their other, more vital struggle. Renard’s queen, England’s queen, threatened to end Elizabeth’s game, her very life. And as on the board so in the world, for Elizabeth could not reach her sister. Mary continued to deny her an audience where she might plead her cause. The struggle seemed hopeless.

  No! She banged her hand down hard upon the table. Surrender was not in her nature. There had to be another way.

  Rising, Elizabeth crossed to her window, seeking an escape through the thick, leaded glass. Above the brick wall a dozen paces away, the tops of the willows on the Surrey bank of the Thames swayed in a gentle spring breeze. They seemed so close, as if she could reach out and touch them … were her windows not barred against opening, were the gate in the wall below not locked and patrolled, were she not still a prisoner here at Hampton Court, able to leave her chambers only when some higher authority bid that she must or could. Only three people had that authority: Mary, whose thoughts were poisoned against her; Renard, who liked to keep her close; and …

  The thought of that one other made her turn to study the board anew. After a moment, she laughed bitterly. ‘Yes,’ she said out loud, ‘in this, alone, does chess not parallel my life, Renard.’

  On the board, she could not reach Renard’s king. Yet in the two weeks since the game had begun, scarcely a day passed without seeing him.

  Philip. The thought of the Spanish King turned her back to the warmth outside that beckoned her from her cage. Just the day before he had taken her once again into Bushey Park, opposite the palace gates, a walled area her father had established for his hunting pleasure while in residence at Hampton; though yesterday they had exchanged the hounds and spear of the stag chase for the jesses of the hawk. Philip had presented her with a falcon, a young male, newly trained and untested by royalty, and she had been delighted when her gift soared to his great height, then stooped to take a pigeon on his first assay. Her heart had soared with him, her mind and body flying as free as him for his one glorious escape. Philip had sensed her sadness when the bird was held and hooded again. In an aside that none but she could hear, he had whispered, ‘He will fly again soon, my lady. As you will.’

  Philip! She pictured him now, his slight stature, refined features, reddish beard. The vision made her smile. She knew she should not like him as she did. She knew her people hated the very idea of him and the Spanish match. She had tried to remain aloof, treating him with little more than a cool courtesy when he came to see her the day after her interview with Renard. Yet he was not the arrogant Castillian his unwilling subjects supposed him, but a cultured and sensitive man, full of charm and humour, and he showed her the first kindnesses in a long age. He promised to speak to the Queen on her behalf, he took her out of her cramped rooms and into the fresh air of spring, her England’s most glorious season. That first day, when he discovered she delighted in the chase, he lent her his favourite mare, took her into Bushey Park, demonstrated his skill in single-handedly killing a fiercesome stag they had chased down, displaying a courage of which even her father would have approved.

  She found her thumb and forefinger resting on the white king and she quickly withdrew them, rubbing them on her skirt as if to remove some taint. The idea of Philip was different from his reality, for he was part of Renard’s scheme against her, indeed the ultimate goal of it. She had never mentioned it to the King or questioned him about it. It would have seemed a breach of etiquette somehow for all he would be able to do was deny. And Philip was always absolutely proper in his attentions to her, speaking of his admiration for the Queen his wife, his respect for her courage and her faith. Yet, despite all the correctness, when they were out on horseback, or walking beneath the avenue of elms that swept to the east of the palace, in the silence that followed laughter or the ending of some heated Classical debate – for he was as well-read in Latin or Greek as she – Elizabeth would sometimes catch him glancing at her and there was a passion in the look she had seen before when men looked at her, a passion that made her both excited and afraid.

  Well, thoughts of Philip would not help her in the game, in either game! Renard would be expecting her next move by nightfall. She had not seen the Ambassador since that last disagreeable meeting, had received nothing more by way of contact than written responses to her moves. Concentrating now, breathing deeply, she sought a way to thwart him.

  There was one move, almost her only option, which would protect her for a while. Dipping her quill in the inkwell, she was just bending over the table to scratch it down on some parchment, when she heard the key in the door behind her turn. It was about the time that Kat, her servant, should be returning with her noonday meal.

  ‘Set it down there, Kat, by the window. I can at least gaze out of my prison bars. And then you can take this to the poxy Fox, may God rot him further every day.’

  ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t say, “Amen”.

  She rose from her bent position, took time to blot the parchment, replace the quill in the inkwell. When she was ready, she turned to face him, smiling.

  ‘Ambassador. Are you yet living?’

  ‘No thanks to your good wishes, I am.’ Renard stooped in the low doorway. ‘May I enter?’

  ‘You don’t usually ask permission for anything, do you? Please.’

  ‘Ah well, you see, the King tells me that I must mend my ways.’ Renard entered, a smile on his thin lips. ‘After all, you may be his Queen one day.’

  Elizabeth stiffened. ‘I may be … Queen, it is true, though God preserve my sister and her throne. I am grateful though to his Majesty for this lesson to you in etiquette. I expected no less from him. Would that he heard all my thoughts on you.’

  Renard ignored the barb, moving past Elizabeth to study the chessboard. After a moment he said, ‘So you still threaten. That is good. No, I do not think I will let you have my knight.’ His long fingers closed over a rook, lifted it from the board, set it down in a new hole. ‘Checkmate in about seven or eight, I fear.’

  ‘Oh, was my move that good?’ said Elizabeth, moving up beside the Ambassador who glowered, then forced a smile.

  ‘Speaking of knights, I should introduce you to one of mine. Enter, sir!’ he called, turning. ‘Oh, you already have! So silent, these Jesuits.’

  Elizabeth looked to the door where a man of some thirty years now stood, black-cloaked, the hood thrown back, dark hair streaked with grey, his pale face composed of features that showed some breeding. The man bowed.

  ‘Thomas Lawley, your Highness. Your servant.’

  ‘I am grateful you address me with that title, sir. Few around here do.’

  ‘My loyal servant has been away on an errand for me. No, errand is too small a word. A mission? Well, almost a crusade, wouldn’t you say, Thomas?’

  The Jesuit glanced at Renard, returned his gaze to the Princess. Now he was before her, Thomas felt a pang again, similar to the one he’d felt in the chapel in the Tower, down in the grave of this woman’s mother. Yet he kept his face impassive.

  ‘I believe I have been about God’s work, yes. I could not have done what I have done otherwise.’

  There was something in what he said, the tone in which he said it, that hinted of regret. Elizabeth saw the apology there, saw the troubled decency of the man, and her fear grew as she saw it.

  Renard continued. ‘Oh yes, a crusade, I think. And with better results than some of our illustrious ancestors had on theirs. Tell her Highness what you found in France, Thomas?’

  She knew before he spoke and the knowledge caused her legs to weaken. She felt she might have fallen so decided to step forward instead, toward the man who was regarding her wi
th something close to sadness in his gaze.

  ‘Yes, tell me, Master Lawley. What evil thing have you found to help my enemies practise upon me?’ She was pleased how firm her voice sounded.

  His reply came evenly, uninflected. ‘We found the skeleton of a hand, my lady. It was buried in a casket in the middle of a crossroads in the Loire, beneath a gibbet beam.’

  ‘And what has this to do with us?’

  ‘The hand had – has – six fingers.’

  There it was, as clear on the man’s honest face as if it was laid before her, as if she felt again a strange touch she’d forgotten, except in a dream of happiness from a distant past. She did stumble now, toward the man and he caught her, supported her, and she hated the weakness in her that needed his arm to help her to a chair. Hated above all the triumph that her weakness provoked in the Ambassador. She sensed his smile, his fox eyes fixed upon his prey.

  Still, she was Harry’s daughter, and if her legs betrayed her, her mind would not.

  ‘Well, Renard, what are you waiting for? Why do you not produce this … this blasphemy, and have done?’

  ‘My lady! Has our game taught you nothing? I do not run with all my forces at my enemy. I come to them in stealth, square by square, until success is certain. Unlike you, I do not bring my queen forward until I am sure of victory.’

  She saw an opening. ‘You have not seen this … desecration, have you? You cannot know its effect.’

  ‘I have not seen it, no. But my trusted friend here has.’ He put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder. ‘It is now in the safest place in the kingdom – the Tower. And timing is everything. The Queen, poor lady, as you know, is not yet come to her crisis. Your mother’s hand will have its best – or worst – effect when she has just lost all hope. Nothing would save you then.’ He leaned in, his voice losing its venom, gaining a honeyed quality that Elizabeth found even more distasteful. ‘But why should we talk of such unpleasant outcomes? Perhaps I am deceived and the Queen will be delivered of a healthy child, a Catholic heir to a Catholic throne. And then your promise to marry Philip – such a noble, handsome Prince, is he not? – will not matter. It is so little a thing we ask of you, a signature no bigger than the scrawled chess moves we have been exchanging.’ He moved to the table, dipped the quill in ink, bent over a blank parchment. ‘Why not sign here, let us fill in the details later?’