“I have a thousand questions.” Timon began to pace in the cold, wet grass. “Clearly these secrets were the cause of Harrison’s murder. But are these secrets, in fact, what motivated King James to commission his new translation?”
“Yes,” Marbury said instantly.
Timon held a finger to his lips. “Are we overlooking anything? We must be thorough in our thoughts. Men kill each other for so many reasons, and the most obvious answer is not always correct.”
“By which you mean . . . ?”
“One man may quarrel with another in the street,” Timon explained, “because the first bumped the second. They fight. One dies. All others would say, ‘He died because he bumped another man in the street.’ They would fail to take into account that the killer had been jostled a hundred other times and taken no offense. What made that particular moment different? What gave that day a funeral? Perhaps the killer quarreled with his wife earlier in the day, or his finances were in disarray, or his mistress had been taken by another man. Any one of a dozen nuisances may change a man’s disposition from courtesy to murder.”
“I had never quite thought of things in that light,” Marbury marveled. “But you appear to be trying to talk yourself into believing there may be some other motive for Harrison’s murder.”
“Because my true suspicion, that the crime concerns these secret texts, leads us toward too many other troubling questions.”
“Especially King James’s reason for commissioning his new Bible,” Marbury asserted.
“Exactly. What man would want to investigate a king? If only I could discover more about the King’s motives.”
“I may be able to help with that,” Marbury said softly. “As it happens, I had a hand—a very private hand—in aiding James against the Bye Plot. The details are boring. I chanced to overhear these English Catholics discussing their plan to kidnap King James and force him to repeal anti-Catholic legislation. I reported it to the King, and he was saved. As a result, I have a bit of the King’s favor.”
“But that plot was revealed by English Jesuits,” Timon objected. “Father Henry Garnet, specifically, fearing retribution against Catholics if the plan failed—”
“That was the public face of it,” Marbury interrupted, looking away.
Timon’s thoughts raced. “It would have been more politic to let it be known that Catholics themselves condemned the plot.”
“If you say so.” Marbury’s face was a mask.
“And yet James used the plot as an excuse to order all Catholic clergy to leave England.”
“Did he need an excuse?”
Timon stared at Marbury. “You amaze me, Deacon. Who would have suspected that you were a man of such mystery?”
“Indeed I fancy that I may be, in my world, what you are in yours.”
“Which is why you mention your work for the King,” Timon surmised. “You have some relationship with His Majesty that might allow you to ask him certain questions.”
“In fact,” Marbury whispered, “I have a coach in our stables which the King has given to me for the express purpose of keeping His Majesty informed of any dire news. A murder among his translators would seem to be of such a nature, especially since James knew the deceased. I could take advantage of such a visit to—”
“You must leave at once,” Timon insisted. “I know what I must do.”
Before Timon could finish his thought, sweeping footsteps in the darkness startled both men.
They had been watched; the killer had lingered. Someone was running in the shadows that surrounded them, running directly toward them.
12
“Father!”
Both men turned in the direction of the harsh whisper. Marbury held his hand up imploring Timon not to speak.
“Anne?” Marbury called softly.
“I heard a gunshot,” she insisted.
“All is well,” Marbury ventured. “I heard it too. It was nothing. Please return to your bed.”
Silence.
“Anne?”
After another second, Anne appeared out of the shadows. She carried a single taper and was dressed in a thick, azure, quilted robe. The perfection of her cheek reminded Timon of a painting by Giotto, Mary after the Annunciation.
“Has someone been shot?” Her voice was solid as the stones in the wall.
“Anne, go back to bed!” Marbury snapped. “Why on earth would you—?”
“Brother Timon,” Anne continued, breezing past her father, “have you shot someone?”
“Brother Timon was nearly shot by Mr. Lively,” Marbury corrected. “Why would you assume that it was Brother Timon who—?”
“Did you imagine that I would believe, even for an instant, that this man was actually to be my tutor?” Anne’s face was crimson in the moonlight. “The scholars in the hall will be fooled because they don’t care about me and they won’t pay attention to my tutor. But I can tell the difference between this man and any other teacher I have ever had, because I am not an idiot!”
“I thought you liked Brother Timon.” Marbury shivered a bit and wondered if there were enough logs beside the hearth in his study.
“I like him very much,” she snapped. “I can learn from him; he is exceedingly wise. But he is hardly here in Cambridge as my tutor. And I wonder why he smells of nutmeg so strongly.”
“I cook,” Timon responded.
“Your response comes a bit too immediately,” Anne insisted accusingly.
“Anne!” Marbury’s voice hardened.
“Where did you find him, Father?” Anne demanded.
“I would prefer to remain primarily anonymous,” Timon said quickly. “Mistress, with great apology, you must at least pretend to believe that I am here in Cambridge as your tutor.”
“But you are in charge of this investigation, are you not?” she demanded.
“A coincidence,” Marbury assured her before Timon could respond.
“No!” Anne exploded. “Brother Timon’s mental dexterity, which I witnessed yesterday in the hall, will prove a discomfort to the translators. If one of them is guilty of this horrible crime, that one may reveal himself unbidden in some ill-advised trick to hide the truth. Nothing so confounds a clever man as his attempting to be too clever. Timon is just the person to provoke that sort of behavior in these scholars. You must believe that the assassin is one of the translators.”
“Yes,” Timon lied.
“Splendid.” Suddenly Anne could not hide the thrill she felt at the possibility of having stared into the eyes of a murderer.
“Not necessarily,” Marbury insisted hastily. “I would have Brother Timon eliminate them first, of course.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, Brother Timon,” Anne began, holding up her candle, staring into its flame, warming her fingers over it, “you do recall my interest in the theatre?”
Both men were obviously bemused by her change of subject.
“Of course,” Timon responded hesitantly.
“I was just now thinking of a beautiful line from one of our plays—something more recent than your ancient Greek one, a bit of dialogue in which you and my father may find some solace at the moment. It says, ‘That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.’”
Anne leveled a bold stare, over the flickering candle’s flame, directly into Timon’s soul.
“Your meaning?” Timon demanded softly.
“Does it really matter what name we call our Savior?”
The full import of her words struck Timon with the same force as the killer’s pistol had hit his head. Anne had been listening in the shadows. She had heard everything.
“You are a brilliant student,” Timon confessed. “You have taken to heart my first lesson: that the plot of our play is revealed primarily through dialogue—dialogue which, it would seem, you have overheard, making your character a tacit part of it.”
She nodded once, a thin smile upon her lips. “But if the play is all talking and no forw
ard action, then the plot lies dead upon the stage. And to provide us with that action, I believe, my father is away tonight—to London.”
Timon found himself transfixed by the color of her hair, in disarray about her shoulders, even as he realized he would have to kill her as soon as he killed her father.
13
In his rooms, Marbury gathered up several necessities and crammed them into a leather pouch.
James sent the secret documents to the translators, Marbury thought, his mind racing, and those documents may well be the cause of Harrison’s murder. The King’s instruction when he sent his royal coach was to use it in the event of an emergency. If our troubles do not constitute an emergency, I cannot imagine what would. And surely His Majesty would know the true import of the documents he sent us. Could it be that the King could solve the murder?
Thus preoccupied, Marbury hastened down the stairs and into the night, through the cobbled courtyard, to wake a certain coachman.
The boy’s hovel was adjacent to the stables. He was well paid from the King’s coffers, in secret, to rouse himself and have his horses ready at a moment’s notice.
Marbury moved silently past the horses and tapped on the boy’s door with the fingernail of his index finger. He had never availed himself of this particular service before. The King had commissioned one such coach for each of the three groups of Bible translators, to be used for anything deemed too urgent or too delicate for a courier’s pouch. It had always seemed a foolish extravagance—until that night.
The boy appeared. His smudged face could have belonged to a cherub or a demon, there was no way of telling in the dark. Marbury had expected someone older, with a bit more experience, a king’s man, not a stable boy.
“London,” Marbury mumbled. “Hampton Court.”
The boy only nodded.
Twenty minutes later the coach pulled out of the stable. Marbury was its only passenger, his few travel items tucked under the single seat. The horses picked up speed, kicking back gravel and mud as they flew through the pale moonlight. Marbury fell into a tumbled sleep.
HOURS LATER HE AWOKE with a start. It took a moment for him to remember that he was inside a clattering coach bound for London. He glanced out the window. Low clouds, gray as a widow’s tears, hid any hint of the sunrise.
Those are snow clouds, Marbury thought to himself. And here I am on a frantic trip to visit the King instead of in my nice warm bed. Why does God hate me?
Snow in April would be unusual, but the Thames had nearly frozen at Christmas. Winters were getting colder and lasting longer. Perhaps it was a sign of the last days.
Shivering, Marbury pulled a heavy burgundy cloak around himself. He wondered how far the coach had traveled; how long he’d been asleep.
He stared out the window again, trying to wake up. The colorless gray of the sky pervaded every scrubby bush and tree, the very ground underneath the battered carriage wheels.
The interior of the coach was no better. The plain wooden box was constructed for speed of conveyance rather than comfort of passenger.
Few more than forty miles lie between Cambridge and London, Marbury calculated to himself, and this coach has been known to travel five or even six miles in an hour. At this speed we would have to have changed all four horses somewhere—while I slept, I suppose. We can’t be far from London now. Better start thinking about how to behave in front of a king.
James had only been on the throne for six months when Marbury had first visited the Great Hall of Hampton Court Palace. The King had presented Christmas and New Year festivities—endless feasting and dancing. The actor William Shakespeare had written a fine piece, A Play of Robin Goodfellow, for New Year’s Day. Beyond that, Marbury’s memory of the event was overshadowed by his meeting with the King. He had done his best to keep Sir John Harington’s advice, though it was nearly forty years old, foremost in his mind.
Harington had always said, as to dress for a meeting with a king, “be well trimmed, get a new jerkin, well bordered, and not too short—diversely colored.” As to deportment, “you must not dwell too long on any one subject, and touch but lightly on religion.”
It is good to remind myself of such advice, Marbury thought. Those words aided me the last time I saw the King, January a year ago. It was the conference that resulted in James’s decision to commission this new Bible.
The carriage raced around a tight bend in the road, threatening to overturn. Marbury fell sideways across his seat. He heard the driver shout and felt the carriage drawing to an abrupt halt.
Marbury drew his blade instantly. There would be only one reason for these horses to stop on the road. He slumped onto the coach floor. Hand on the door handle, he strained his ears.
The driver was silent. Or dead.
The howl of the morning wind made it impossible to hear footfalls or whispering.
Marbury held his breath. His head shot upward for an instant. He saw no one on the road beside him. He opened the door as silently as he could; eased out onto the ground.
Through the legs of panting horses he could make out a single figure in the middle of the road.
Marbury was startled by the driver’s growl.
“Get out of the way, you pile of snot.”
“Stand and deliver,” the highwayman stammered.
That voice had barely reached twelve years, Marbury realized.
“What do you think you can do with that little staff you’re holding?” the driver taunted. “Throw it at me?”
“I could blind your two front horses,” the boy said, his voice steadying, “and be off into them woods. Then, while you stood here in the road trying to figure what to do, I’d be back with a hundred other boys and we’d be on you like hornets on a dead mole.”
“What the hell do you want?” the driver sighed. “I don’t have any money, and there’s no one in the coach.”
“I could take the coach,” the stranger suggested.
“Christ, I’ll give you the coach if you leave them horses alone,” the driver snarled. “I can walk to London from here. Come on up; take the reins.”
Silence.
Marbury could see that the boy did not move from in front of the horses.
“The thing is,” the driver explained, “this coach is registered to King James himself. Only two others like it in England. It’s built to fly on royal business. If I let it be known that a pile of snot’s got the King’s harnesses, you’ll be hanged by the neck until dead before sunset.”
Marbury could just make out the robber’s profile. The boy was dressed in a single piece of cloth, wrapped around him and tied in several places. His head was bare, his skin was smeared, his hands were raw from the cold. He held a quarterstaff in front of himself as if it were a shield. Curiously, his boots were perfect, well made, and the heels were high as was the fashion.
In a flash Marbury leapt forward, vaulted onto the driver’s step, and flew up to the carriage seat beside the driver.
The sudden explosion of activity startled the driver almost as much as it did the boy.
The driver fell backward, gasping.
The boy dropped his staff and hollered, “Blood!”
Marbury’s dagger was cocked in his right hand, clearly ready to throw directly at the boy.
“Get out of my way, now!” Marbury commanded. “Or this knife goes right through your forehead.”
The driver sat up suddenly, eyes imploring Marbury not to throw the knife. Marbury winked at him and the driver exhaled.
The boy stood frozen where he was, staring, eyes wide, at Marbury’s blade. “Give you my new boots if you don’t kill me, mister.”
Marbury gazed down at the terrified face. “Yes, where did you get those boots?”
“They was a gift of the plague,” the boy whispered desperately. “On my life I didn’t steal them. The man was dead, swole up like a plum and runny. I got the boots. Somebody else got the hat.”
“I see.” Marbury put his knife away. “And
are there really a hundred other boys like you in those woods?”
The boy sniffed. “Not quite twenty, truth be told.” He scratched his backside.
“And you were elected to rob this coach?”
“I don’t know what elected is, but I’m the oldest.” The boy coughed once. “It’s up to me.”
“Then here is my offer.” Marbury reached into his cloak and produced a golden coin. “I shall give you this angel if you do exactly as I say.”
“That’s what an angel looks like?” The boy’s eyes nearly rolled to the back of his head at the sight of the coin. “That’s—”
“Ten shillings!” the driver groused. “Don’t give him that much.”
“That’s more than I could steal in a month,” the boy managed to sputter. “Or six!”
“It’s too much for the likes of him,” the driver whispered.
“I’ll give you this gold,” Marbury repeated to the boy in the road, “if you promise to do as I say.”
“Give me that coin,” the boy vowed, “and I will murder the Pope.”
“I had something less complicated in mind.”
“Anything!” the boy swore.
“All right.” Marbury tossed the coin.
The boy caught it with both hands, bit into it; shook his head in wonder. “It’s real.”
“It is.” Marbury suddenly leapt to the ground, landing directly in front of the boy.
The child’s skin was raw, the lips were chapped, the cheeks were smeared with dirt, but the eyes were clear—possibly a worthwhile human being was behind the mask of that face.
“If you disappoint me,” Marbury insisted, “I will find you. I will hunt you down. I will either take back my shillings or have your life. Do you believe me?”
The boy nodded once.
“Are we agreed, then?”
“What do you want me to do?” the boy rasped.
Marbury leaned close to a filthy ear and whispered his instructions, then looked the boy squarely in the eye. “Say back to me what I have just told you.”
The boy took a breath and mumbled low, repeating almost word for word what Marbury had said.
The King James Conspiracy Page 7
