Dibly cried out, tried to lunge with his weapon, but it dropped to the floor. He rolled off Harrison’s desk and fell in a heap, twitching and cursing.
Timon’s boot found Dibly’s briar and kicked it away. Dibly’s curses became more violent, but the dagger in his neck prohibited clear words. Blood poured from that wound and seeped from the one in his stomach.
“Damn you,” Timon whispered, rushing to Dibly’s side. “I meant to hit your shoulder.”
Marbury was still blinking twenty feet away. “How did you know that the innocent-looking stick was poisoned?”
“It was a favorite weapon of Pietro Delasander’s,” Timon answered. “His often bore a rose at the end. Its poison is always fatal, greatly painful, and takes hours to kill. It is a devil’s tool.”
“Is he mortally wounded?” Marbury began.
Timon stooped to Dibly’s side. “Are you dying? There is more I need to know from you.”
“More?” Dibly managed to gurgle. “No more.”
Timon raised his head. “What has prompted King James to revise his request, to send you here to gather up the manuscripts he first gave to these scholars to aid their work?”
Dibly smiled and shuddered. With one final spasm, he closed his eyes, exhaling his final breath. Timon felt for a pulse, but Dibly lay dead beneath Harrison’s desk.
“I say again,” Timon sighed, “damn you.”
It was almost a funeral prayer
“Another body in this room.” Marbury looked about the Great Hall, a great weariness in his eyes. “I cannot bear the number of dead we have accumulated here.”
Timon nodded. “Then let us remove this King’s henchman from here and bury him beside Pietro Delasander, so that their twin mysteries might keep each other company until the dew of heaven arouses them. This one’s part is played.”
“He did it well,” Marbury said softly, “so well, in fact, that there may be no one alive who knew who he was.”
“Assassins and faithful servants are God’s best actors,” Timon agreed. “Who and what they truly are, only heaven knows.”
52
Little more than half an hour later, Timon and Marbury hurried into the dining hall of the Deaconage. The room was well lit by morning sunlight; no candles burned. A third the size of the Great Hall, it could seat twenty at most. The wood-paneled walls looked new, but the rest of the room had seen at least two hundred years. The long table, carelessly set with plates and mugs, was also strewn with crumbs and spotted with ale. Here and there an errant sausage lay scattered from its plate.
Everyone was grumbling. Clearly, the men had been arguing.
“Gentlemen,” Marbury announced, “we must act quickly. All of your work is in jeopardy, and a murderer still haunts these grounds.”
Chaderton stood. “We have been debating the idea that this person, this alleged emissary from the King, may be an impostor.”
“But he is not!” Spaulding snarled. “He had the King’s seal. We must obey the royal command. Bring him here. Let him be questioned.”
“Alas,” Marbury said, handling his words as if they might be glass, “he is dead.”
“Oh,” Richardson said, wiping his mouth, “I do beg your pardon. I did not mean to kill him.”
“Dead, then,” Spaulding snapped without the slightest sympathy for the departed. “But the seal on his documents—”
“I should tell you, Deacon Marbury,” Richardson plowed ahead, smiling, “that I have revised my suspicions. I no longer believe that you are a murderer. I can see from this man Dibly’s visit that chicanery of the most devilish order is afoot. My new theory—”
“I have decided,” Spaulding insisted, his thin voice slipping through Richardson’s rounder tones, “that we must obey the King’s orders! The royal seal is inarguable, and we must return—”
“No!” Timon shouted. “If you obey this so-called royal command, the true words of God’s Bible will never see the light of day. The entire history of our religion depends on what you men do now!”
Everyone was surprised to hear such passion.
“You stand on the precipice,” Timon continued, struggling for words, “here you are at the beginning of a new universe. You must leap and have faith that God will give you wings. The hour has come to worship the Father in spirit and in truth. God is a spirit, but his atoms are particles of Great Truth, and you must serve that power—not with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Rejoice in the truth, and the secrets of God’s heart will be made manifest. You must not handle the Word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending yourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness.”
Silence pervaded the room for too short a moment.
“With this theatrical speech, you presume,” Spaulding began.
“Brother Timon speaks to us from Corinthians, Dr. Spaulding,” Chaderton admonished softly. “He makes no presumption.”
“He could be speaking to us from the grave for all I care!” Spaulding answered. “There have been murders in this place, and I continue to maintain that he is the culprit!”
“There are devils here,” Timon hissed. “And the murderer in this place does his killing because he cannot abide the truth; because there is no truth in him.”
“Why is he going on about the truth?” Spaulding demanded of Richardson, who sat on his right.
Richardson responded around a mouthful of breakfast. He alone had continued to dine. “He wants us to ignore the message that the rude envoy delivered. How could he be any clearer?” Richardson reached for another slice of bread. “I believe you are currently working on a particularly relevant passage, Spaulding. ‘The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.’”
“Heed those words from Psalms, Dr. Spaulding,” Anne said, staring the man down. “How can you continue your work if you do not purify everything you do?”
“Mistress, you have no comprehension—,” Spaulding began, barely hiding his contempt.
“Please, everyone, we seem to be ignoring the more immediate point.” Marbury raised both hands. “Brother Timon and I have, moments ago, devised a plan, one which involves you all. We must move with lightning speed if we are to have any hope. The forces of—many great powers are at work to break the back of our task here in Cambridge. We must not allow that.”
“In short,” Timon continued, most of his patience gone, “you must translate the Bible to perfection, leaving nothing out, correcting all errors, adding every conceivable true text in order that the Word of God may be restored to all humankind. That is your task now, your only world. My part in this particular scene is to catch a killer. That I shall do. And it will happen, with God’s help, tonight.”
One by one, Timon read a degree of understanding on every face. Spaulding, to be sure, was clearly reticent. He did, at least, keep still.
Timon looked every scholar in the eye, then continued, “Your task will require all the knowledge you possess. You must also pray for the grace of God’s wit. My part will ask nothing more of me than a foolhardy nature and a degree of stubbornness granted to men my age.”
“The killer has entered the Great Hall by means of a secret passage,” Marbury blurted out.
Timon sighed with a sidelong glance at Marbury. “I will wait close to that entrance—”
Richardson burst out laughing. “A secret passage? Honestly? Are we in some sort of devious play? Where is this—”
“It is hidden behind the root bins in the cellar of the hall,” Timon said simply.
“But, do you mean the underground corridor from the Deaconage to the hall?” Richardson tilted his head.
Timon stared. “You have used that passageway?”
Richardson swallowed a gulp of ale. “We all have.”
The others nodded silently.
“But whe
n I attempted to travel it,” Timon said slowly, “I was unable to gain exit. There is a stone wall at the end.”
“The Deacon didn’t show you the latch?” Richardson asked.
“I was not even aware that the tunnel existed,” Marbury began. “The departed Harrison showed me, may he rest in peace,” Richardson said.
“He showed us all,” Spaulding snapped. “It was common knowledge.”
Marbury’s eyes shot to Chaderton.
“He did not show it to me,” Chaderton said quickly.
Marbury’s head sank to his chest. “How is it that I had no knowledge of this?”
“I wonder that myself,” Timon said, failing to hide the suspicion in his voice. “How could you have lived for so long in the Deaconage—”
“I have only lived in that building for several months,” Marbury said quickly.
“But, you are the deacon—”
“I am deacon of Christ Church,” Marbury told Timon, “not these grounds. I was only moved here when His Majesty appointed me to be—what is the word? Guardian of the translators? If that is the word, I must face a rather abject failure—”
“You have only lived in your current residence for several months?” Timon shook his head. “How is it that I did not know that?”
“We have both been guilty of distraction.”
“Yes.”
“But about the tunnel,” Anne insisted.
“The killer has used it to escape from me,” Timon explained at once. “I need to know about it.”
“Of course,” Richardson answered immediately. He swallowed his last bite of food, stood, and strode toward the door to the kitchen.
Suddenly Timon remembered the shambles in which he and Marbury had left that room. Loose pages of secret text were scattered everywhere. He hastened after Richardson, preparing to explain. Richardson plunged ahead, through the doorway, and into the kitchen. Timon caught up with him only to find, to his surprise, the kitchen restored to order. A bundle of papers wrapped in a white cloth lay calmly on the kitchen table, no indication whatsoever that they might be the sacred texts.
Anne sailed into the room just behind Timon, offering him the merest smile that explained everything.
Timon nodded his thanks.
Richardson moved to the far wall.
“Observe,” Richardson said grandly, loving the role he was playing, “the beauty of this secret. Where do I wish to go? To the root bins in the cellar of the Great Hall. What relief is carved here on this panel in the wall? A bunch of carrots.”
He tapped the carrots once, then twisted them clockwise, and the panel of the wall snapped inward, opening a narrow, black hallway.
Timon peered into the darkness to make certain no one was lurking there.
Richardson laughed delightedly. “Fewer than one hundred steps to the hall. Harrison, rest in peace, told me that the Great Hall had once been the chapel for a monastery on these grounds. This Deaconage was the dormitory for the monks. In the worst weather, monks could arrive into their chapel without tracking in mud or snow.
“And from the other side, where you say you encountered a dead end, do you see that raised stone?” Richardson pointed.
Timon peered into the little cave. One stone was raised higher than the others.
“If you feel beneath it,” Richardson went on, “there is a latch. Click it once, and you enter this kitchen. It is, indeed, a passageway, but hardly, as you see, a secret.”
“Thank you, Dr. Richardson,” Marbury said, primarily to prevent Richardson from going on.
“Now, gentlemen,” Timon whispered, “please draw near.”
The men moved slowly toward Timon. Spaulding took only a few steps.
“As to my part in our immediate scheme,” Timon continued softly, “I will set a trap to catch a rat. I will disguise myself tonight as one of you and wait alone in the Great Hall. When the murderer comes, I will subdue and capture him. Now that I know more about this passage, he will not outwit me if he tries to escape this way again.”
“I have insisted on being present in the Hall as well,” Marbury said quickly. “Anne’s recent experience with the killer has convinced me that it is possible to hide quite completely in the shadowy corners of that place.”
“Together we will bring the man to justice before the next dawn.” Timon’s words were bursting with such confidence that several of the men nodded immediately.
“To that end, Dr. Spaulding,” Marbury said, a bit of a lilt to his words, “would you select what robe and cloak you deem appropriate for such a masquerade?”
“I?” Spaulding gasped.
“You have informed every man, woman, hound, and worm in the town of Cambridge that you are now in charge of the translation,” Dr. Dillingham sighed. “You are, therefore, certain to be the killer’s next target.”
Spaulding looked around the room as if he had never seen it before, staring into the eyes of the other men, frantically seeking refuge.
“I?” he repeated, like the solitary chirp of a tiny sparrow.
“You wore an unadorned umber coat the other day,” Timon suggested, “with a plain skullcap of dark gold, devoid of design or insignia. Do you know the items?”
“I—I do,” Spaulding stammered.
“They should do nicely,” Timon replied, “if I keep my face away from the candles. And—your desk faces the cellar door, does it not?”
Anne rapped upon the table as if it were a locked door. “Stop! This is your plan? To sit in the darkened hall and wait for a man to come there and kill you? And pray that he does not succeed? The combined brainpower of my tutor and my father has produced this limping plan?”
“If you would lower your voice,” Marbury said, hushed, “the killer may not hear you and we can yet have the element of surprise on our side.”
“You could have all the elements of nature on your side,” Anne stormed, “and this would still be an ill-fated plan! Timon means to make himself a sacrificial lamb. Can you not see that? He blames himself for falling asleep last night. He thinks he could have saved Andrews. This is his penance.”
The kitchen was silent for a moment. The men stared at Anne, her face red, her eyes hot. Timon alone was watching the motes of dust as they turned and swirled in sunlight that poured through the single window in the room.
“I have stayed alive for more than fifty years,” Timon sighed softly. “In that time, a great many men have tried, in one way or another, to take my life. None have succeeded. There is a divinity that shapes our ends, Anne, rough-hew them how we will. Would you agree? No one can kill me before it is my time. Nothing in the universe has the power to take my life if God does not will it. And, of course, nothing in creation can save me if His plan for me is to die tonight.”
53
A few moments later, leaving most of the scholars still arguing in the kitchen, Timon retreated toward his room. He carried the bundle of forbidden writings under his left arm. The desire to read them more carefully was nearly overwhelming. The sound of his boots on the stone floor, the flight of morning light through the high windows in the hallway, even the slow percussion of his breathing, seemed to remove him from the reality of the moment. Though he could not have said why, he felt he might be melting into thin air. Everything was dissolving: the cloud-capped towers of the sky, the solemn temple of his brain, the great globe itself, all an insubstantial pageant, fading.
He opened the door to his room in complete ecstasy.
He was sent plummeting back to the real world by a single piece of paper on his bed. Even from the doorway, he recognized the handwriting. Leaving the door wide-open, he strode to it.
We await the turning of the wheel by the tilling of the wheat, seated, facing east, this afternoon.
A meeting called for the hour of three, when the hands of the clock appeared most like a man seated, facing east. The Unholy Trinity proposed to discuss the progress and timetable of his assignment. But it was too soon for another meeting. The Po
pe’s men had something else in mind.
As he lowered the page, Timon wondered at a certain odd conjunction. The Pope ordered Timon’s memory work done by All Saints’ Day. King James commanded the Bible to be finished on the same day. What demon had orchestrated that coincidence? What vile contagion moved these events toward the same end? All Saints’ Day—was it possible that Pope Clement and King James were in league with one another?
Timon began to pace. If the Pope and the King had combined against him, what chance did he have? Suddenly the plan he and Marbury had concocted seemed, as Anne had intimated, insane. Or desperate. Was he sacrificing himself on purpose?
In his growing panic, Timon was assaulted by a tumbling parade of visions from his past: five dead bodies in Tuscan moonlight; calm Inquisitors with burning clamps; a thousand spiders in a prison cell.
The meaning of these evil portents was clear: he would be dead by morning.
He knew he must calm himself before his meeting with the Pope’s men, or he would be dead sooner. He glanced twice at the place under his bed where his box rested, silently beckoning. But instead of taking out his pipe, Timon began to recite aloud from the twenty-second psalm, a personal prayer. “Be not far from me; for trouble is near; there is none to help. I am poured out like water, all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax. Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.”
He stared down at the note in his hand and spoke to it. “You muddle my brain, but not for long. I know what I need. I know where I will find the peace I need to confront your authors.”
Without a further thought or word, Timon moved to his desk. He hid the secret papers beneath the loose stone there and moved quickly to his door. He was in the hallway in an instant, headed for the stables.
OUTSIDE, DAY HAD BEGUN—the sun spreading white wings over the bowl of the sky. Timon’s boots clapped against the stones in the courtyard as he hurried toward the stable.
The activity he had chosen to clear his mind seemed to him a perfect metaphor. As he walked, he kept an eye out for a dung fork.
The King James Conspiracy Page 26
