She told him her suspicions, but as she did, her mind—as if of its own accord—was busy devising a plan.
As she spoke, Oldmanson knelt beside her and began running his fingers over the shining cache. “Oh, aye. I know the stories well enough. Spent many an afternoon, me mates an’ me, a-lookin’ fer the old King’s treasure.
“But t’were just a game.” Golden light was reflected in the eyes of wonder he raised to her. “Never actu’ly thought it existed!”
“It was right here, all the time,” said Margaret, buying time. There was no way Oldmanson, a notorious and boisterous drinker, would ever be able to keep so immense a secret to himself.
A spider of avarice and fear had entered her brain, and was spinning a web, laying a snare.
Oldmanson crawled to the opening. “Look at this.” He squinted at something only he could see. “Chainwork is that.” He tapped at something. “This whole stone comes down, and the weight of it turns these cogs down here to move the stair.” He got to his haunches. “Verge and foliot clockworks. That’s from the continent, is that.” He looked overhead. “Meanin’ there’s got to be a great weight somewhere goes up and down. My guess is the tower.” His eyes brightened with the light of revelation. “The bells! Must be. How’d you ever find it?”
“The FOSS stone,” said Margaret truthfully. “I tried to pull it from the wall and. . .”
Oldmanson laughed. “Ha, ha! That were the trip! That little stone, all this time!”
“The trip?”
“The switch what set the machine in motion. Let’s ‘ave a look.”
Margaret accompanied him to the stone which, with a chuckle and a twist or two he extracted from the wall, revealing, on it’s nether side, a long iron stem with intricate workmanship of a kind she had seen many times before, though on a much smaller scale. “It’s a key!”
Oldmanson handed her the stone. “Don’t that just beggar all! I should’ve been here when it happen’t! You must’ve been fit to seize! Ha, ha!”
They went back to the opening where he studied the mechanism with admiration. “Like as not, you push that key back in, turn it just so, an’ everythin’ goes back as t’was. Oy, what’s this. . .there’s a body in here, m’um! Wait ‘til folk hear of this!”
And with those words, Oldmanson sealed his fate.
A small swatch of hair and blood became embedded in the Foss stone.
Chapter Twenty Two
Bolton Castle, East Riding, Yorkshire - Summer, 1524
“I don’t understand,” said Catherine, whose mother-in-law, Mabel, Lady Scrope, was beginning to wonder if she’d timed the revelation as carefully as she might have. Her son’s young wife was a bright girl, but chafed at serious discussion not having to do, at least in part, with the upcoming harvest fair. Understandable, since there was little else to entertain a young woman of high spirits in a so isolated a backwater as Bolton Castle. “What Lady’s Chain?”
Mabel sighed. She remembered when the Chain had been passed to her. Her mother-in-law had been hinting for days at an ominous event; a dark and dreadful secret that she must not, on pain of damnation, ever reveal to anyone but the wife of her eldest son. The secret had proved both terrible and burdensome. And what if she hadn’t had a son? Perish the thought. She’d turned out six children and fulfilled her requirement, thankfully, with Henry. He, too, was off to an enthusiastic start. Married less than four months to the fifteen year-old Catherine who was already in her third month.
“These are perilous times, child. Would you please stop looking out the window and listen to me. Henry will be here when he gets here, watching and wringing your hands won’t bring him to us any faster.”
Catherine turned, beat the air out of her skirts, and ran out her lower lip. “Well? These are perilous times. What has that to do with me?” In her tone Mabel read the unspoken addendum ‘or the harvest faire’.
“Dangerous times, child.”
“I don’t want to talk about war,” Catherine huffed. “Henry’s been in Picardy for months! Why? What need has the King of him there? What business is that of ours?”
Mabel understood her daughter-in-law’s anxiety over Henry’s delay. As his mother, she was worried as well. His regiment had been scheduled to return the previous day.
It had been a restless night.
“As to that, we must trust to God. . .” Mabel began.
“And the King,” Catherine added hastily.
Mabel said nothing for a moment.
“What?” Catherine prompted impatiently. “The King is well, is he not?”
“Yes. Yes, very well as far as I know.”
“Then why are you downcast? You know I can’t bear sorrowful news. You haven’t sorrowful news, have you? Please don’t.”
“Not sorrowful,” Mabel said. She considered postponing the discussion. “Perhaps. . .”
“Oh, what is it? All this anticipation is hurting my head. Just say whatever you have to say and let’s get it over with or I will positivelydissolve with suspense.”
Mabel smiled softly and, threading her story through Catherine’s frequent outbursts, interjections, ejaculations, and questions, acquainted her with the Lady’s Chain, those invisible links particular to the wives of the eldest Scope sons, binding them to one another, generation upon generation.
Catherine had, some minutes hence, stopped sneaking furtive glances out the window. “And the Crown Jewels, you’ve seen them yourself?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know they’re there?”
“I don’t. I take it on faith.”
“Why don’t we go see?”
“It’s not that easy,” said Mabel. “They’re protected by certain devices constructed for its concealment and, I understand, the entrapment of anyone who should seek so to do.”
Catherine’s impatience was renewed. “Then we’ll just get some of the tenants to break it out!”
“Then everyone would know.”
“So?”
“The King would know.”
“So? That would be good, wouldn’t it? Aren’t the Crown Jewels his, after all?”
Mabel felt like a swimmer who had over-estimated the distance it was safe to venture from shore. But she had committed. “They are the family’s power, Kate.”
“What power? Power over what? How can we use them if we can’t get our hands on them?”
If the woman’s womb was a fecund as her interrogatory apparatus, Mabel thought, Scropes would soon outnumber rabbits in Bolton’s environs.
“The King is at odds with the Pope.”
“I hate politics,” Catherine pouted. “Besides, I thought His Holiness was pleased that the King wrote his denouncement of that dreadful German fellow, that Protestant.”
“Friar Luther, yes, that’s so, but now his majesty is at war with Italy, which puts His Holiness in an awkward position.
“The Holy Father does not enjoy being put in awkward positions.
“Closer to home, France daily threatens invasion, closer still, the Scots are positively rabid with heretical fervor. They call to question the authority of the Pope himself!
“The point is,” she said, before Catherine could inhale to object. “War threatens without and within, upon borders not two days distant from our doorstep in every direction! Our family’s possession of King John’s crown and scepter, which is that of the Conqueror and, before him, of Aethelred and Alfred the Great himself, could, if known, upset the balance of power at the highest levels.”
“That would be terrible!”
It was Mabel’s turn to look out the window. “That depends.”
Catherine was too impatient to try to divine what her mother-in-law meant by that. “Why are you telling me all this? I feel absolutely horrible.” She massaged the barely discernible bulge in her belly. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
“I’m sorry to have picked a bad time, but it’s my duty, just as it will be yours one day, to pass this knowledge a
long to the wife of your eldest son.”
“Why? Why not just let the men handle it.”
“They don’t know about it.”
Shock registered instantly on Catherine’s face. “Don’t know! The men don’t know!?”
Mabel shook her head. “Never have. Never will.”
“Why? What on earth. . .”
“My mother-in-law and I talked about that at length. It was her feeling that the founder of this . . . commission, if you will, whoever she was, held the opinion that men, being often reckless and thoughtless, as can be their nature; quick to gamble, to sacrifice all in service of their pride—not barring family, would likely dissipate even so vast a fortune within a generation or two.”
Catherine could not argue the sense in this, though she felt disloyal simply allowing the existence of such thoughts.
“Somehow the wealth that has sustained our family through all these generations, was founded upon a portion of that treasure.”
“You can’t mean it! It was stolen?”
“Where did you think it came from? Sheep, apples, and stones, the only crops this land produces in abundance?”
Catherine studied the walls. “I’ve married into a family of thieves and pirates!”
“Welcome to the aristocracy,” said Mabel with a grin.
It took a while for the younger woman to absorb and accommodate this unexpected barrage of information. Her rejoinder revealed both a pragmatism and humor Mabel found reassuring. “So, if one of us were to want a bolt of Persian silk for a new dress . . .?”
“As I said, I’ve never caught so much as a glimpse of the jewels. Nor will you.”
“But what good are they to anyone, just sitting there gathering dust?”
“Sometimes theknowledgeof a thing is more valuable than the thing itself. If we don’t possess the actual treasury, it can’t befoundin our possession; hence, taken from us. Nor can we be found guilty of treason. But theknowledge of it, if not access to it, may one day prove more valuable by far than the jewels themselves.
“A small portion of those riches bought the estates that now provide us privilege and plenty. What need have we for more?”
Catherine considered this. “Still,” she said. “It’s nice to know it’s there.” She looked sidelong at her mother-in-law and raised her eyebrows. “It gives me rather a thrill to think I know what Henry doesn’t.”
“Keep the thrill to yourself,” said Mabel, suddenly serious. “Never, by so much as hint or riddle, must you ever lead him to suspect the existence of the treasure or its hiding place. This you must swear now, by the Virgin and the Cross.”
“And if I don’t?” said Catherine playfully.
Mabel produced a heavily jeweled knife from the folds of her garments. “Then I am sworn to soil that lovely dress with your blood.”
Catherine laughed on impulse then, seeing nothing but deadly earnest in her mother-in-law’s eyes, drew a sharp breath. “You wouldn’t!”
“I am sworn to.”
“But, your grandchild . . .” Catherine cupped her stomach with her hands.
“Should have every chance at a long and fruitful life, don’t you agree?”
Catherine swallowed the great lump that had formed in her throat. “I swear, mother.”
“By the Blood.”
Catherine nodded.
“Say it.”
“By the Blood.” She made the sign of the Cross.
“And you will reveal this secret, exactly as it was revealed to you, to the wife of your eldest son. Swear by the Blood, the Book, and the Cross.”
“What if I don’t have a son!”
“See that you do.”
Catherine folded her hands in her lap and bowed her head, fully comprehending the enormity of the vow she was taking. “By the Blood, the Book, and the Cross,” she whispered.
“And should the woman with whom you share this secret prove unworthy or unwilling, you will kill her, by this dagger, be she ever so dear to your heart, on the spot, without hesitation. Swear this by the Holy Church and the Throne.”
Catherine raised her eyes. “I . . . mother, I could never!”
“Can and will, should the need arise. Swear by all.”
Tears streamed from Catherine’s eyes, blurring her vision as she took upon herself the terrible oath and, should she betray it, its attendant eternal damnation. “By the Blood, the Book, the Cross, the Virgin, the Holy Church. . . and the Throne!” she sobbed.
Mabel covered her daughter-in-law’s hands with her own. “As long as you are wise, Catherine, you’ll have lost nothing by this vow. It is to protect the family.” She put a hand on Catherine’s stomach. “This child, and all the others that will be born to you and Henry.”
She placed the dagger in its plain sheathe of thick oiled leather and laid it in her daughter-in-laws lap. “This weapon is said to have come from the treasure, and is companion to the vow.
“We’ll never talk of this again,” she said, standing. “Agreed?”
Catherine concealed the bundle among her garments. “No, mother. Never again.”
Residence of the Bishop, Lincoln Cathedral, October 22nd, 1285
Foss was pleased that Mirth had proven herself not above, in fact somewhat naturally adept at, a bit of larceny. To have had the presence of mind, under extreme duress, to extract a fistful of jewels from John’s sack before consigning it to the abyss exhibited her’s as a character with an eye to the main chance.
And now, as his makeshift bride, exclusively under his tutelage, their tandem skills held no end of promise.
To someone of his proportions, she had, throughout their honeymoon of the preceding two nights, presented a virtual landscape of earthly delights, and a more than willing one at that, though given to giggling at awkward moments. Still, taken all-in-all, an unexpected and pleasing turn of events for someone of his relative antiquity and configuration. That was gravy. The dumpling was that she was completely and willingly his thrall, at the same time possessed of an entrepreneurial spirit that might, in the long run, expand their coffers.
Her native skills were indicated their first night as man and wife when, upon their return to her mother’s croft and presenting her with the jewel she had set aside for the purpose, she made a condition of its acceptance by her mother—her own mother!—the proviso that Foss would receive fifteen percent, in perpetuity, of whatever increase might result from its investment.
This caveat her mother assented to readily, having in mind, even before the stone had warmed in her hand, the possibility of an arrangement of understanding with the recently widowed, financially embarrassed earl whose tenant she was. That he had an eye for her, she well knew for, despite the protestations to the contrary she had sworn to her husband, her son was the earl’s. Certainly the attraction to which this fact pointed would be magnified and multiplied in every facet of so magnificent a bauble in which the earl could not fail to recognize the restoration of his fortunes.
“The King’s business,” said Foss, standing back from the door and looking up at the slit through which a pair of sleepy eyes could be seen blindly searching the night. “Down here!”
The friar’s eyes descended slowly, coming to rest at last on a tableau, vague in the moonlight, of a dwarf, a girl, a donkey, and a crow.
“Foss?”
“You see many such menageries roaming the countryside, friar Dick?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I need to see his nibs.”
A little chorus of clangs and bangs emanating from the other side of the door, announced that it was being unlocked. It swung slowly open, its hinges complaining shrilly of having been disturbed so late at night.
“Don’t call him that,” said the friar with a hooded humor. “And who have we here?”
“We have here my wife.”
The friar had been pushing the door shut behind them. He stopped pushing. “Wife!?”
“Aye, me mrs. I know what you’re thinkin
’, Richard. You’re thinkin’ ‘Lucky girl’.” He reached up and patted Mirth’s bottom. “And she’d be first to agree.”
“You harvest my very mind,” said the friar, chortling. “Remarkable. I’ll have a novice prepare your room.” He shot the bolts on the door in quick sequence, the noise of which obscured Foss’s reply. “What’s that?”
“I said we won’t be stayin’ the night.”
“But, you can’t see Bishop Sutton tonight! He’s asleep in bed.” The friar led them across the courtyard. “It would be more than my life’s worth to wake him for anything but a fire.”
“Tell him it’s the King’s business,” said Foss. “If that don’t shift him, a fire can be arranged.”
The friar, ignoring the addendum, turned slightly in his progress. “Which king would that be?”
“The last and the next.”
Friar Richard laughed. “You assume a great deal.”
“Tell him I need the item John gave him for safe-keeping. Then he can go back to sleep.”
They entered the residence. “It’s very important?”
“Aye, Dick, else I wouldn’t put even so insignificant a life as yours in peril.”
The friar covered his head with the cowl of his robe. “A word of advice,” he said, folding his arms in his robe. “His worship knows John is dead. Everyone does.”
“So?”
“So, he might not be as willing to excuse your attempts at wit as was the case when you were under John’s protection.”
“Attempts! Ha!”
“I’m just saying . . . if you wish your errand to meet with success, a policy of appeasement might be more fruitful than sarcasm.”
Foss knew the advice was both good and well-meant, but doubted his ability to dull the barbs that leapt automatically to his quiver after such long practice. “I’ll do my best.”
“I can ask no more,” said Friar Richard with the suggestion of a bow. He had led them to an imposing oaken door, polished to a high sheen with beeswax and lanolin. A ribbon of soft light flickered across the threshold, suggesting that the Bishop wasn’t asleep, as Friar Richard had feared. He looked at Mirth. “You must stay here.” He looked down at Foss. “She must stay here.”
Coda: The Third Albert Mystery (The Albert Mysteries Book 3) Page 29
