The Lost Prophecies

by The Medieval Murderers

  After grace, we sat down to a plain but ample meal of fish and pigeon pie, with salads and sweetmeats. It was a subdued affair – not surprisingly, given that a kinsman had lost his life a few dozen yards from where we were sitting in the hall – and I had the chance to study our hosts.

  William Shaw was a tall bearded man with prominent eyes, a feature inherited by his son Robert. The father had a quiet manner, apart from what was produced by the circumstances, I think. I noticed that he frequently glanced at the children’s tutor, Henry Gifford, who had joined us at table. The widowed sister to Elizabeth was called Muriel, but I did not catch her last name. She was not from the same mould as the rest of the family, being rather short and red-faced. More cheerful too. She seemed to be the only one familiar with the stage-play world and had once seen a performance of Master Shakespeare’s at the Globe. It was before my and Abel’s time in the company, however, and she could not have been very struck by the piece, for she remembered little about it apart from the violent killing of ‘that Roman’.

  ‘It is called Julius Caesar,’ said Abel.

  ‘That is the very one,’ said Muriel. ‘He was struck down as he was speaking before their parleyment. There was much blood spilled, and the assassins washed their hands in it afterwards.’

  The word ‘parleyment’ reminded me of the obscure verse in the book hidden beneath our mattress.

  ‘The killing of a tyrant is permissible,’ mused Robert Shaw. ‘I refer to Julius Caesar, of course. Do you think—?’

  ‘Does play-acting please you, Master Revill?’ said Henry Gifford the tutor, interrupting the young man. These were the first words he’d uttered.

  ‘Why, yes, it does.’

  ‘It has not always been seen as a respectable way of making a living,’ said Elizabeth Shaw.

  ‘What is respectable these days?’ I said. ‘Some of the noblest people in the land have been our patrons, and even the late queen was fond of attending our performances.’

  ‘And now we are become the King’s Men,’ added Abel.

  ‘It makes no difference how many kings and queens attend your performances when a greater King than all of them looks down on us,’ said Gifford firmly. ‘Properly considered, playing is a form of lying. A player pretends to be what he is not.’

  ‘But it’s a pretence which is shared amongst the audience,’ I said, ignoring his opinion of what God thought of it all. ‘An agreed pretence which does no harm.’

  These were familiar arguments, both for and against plays and players. Maybe I spoke more strenuously than I should have done, because I felt both aggrieved and on the defensive. Maybe that accounted for what I said next.

  ‘You should know that your late kinsman Thomas frequented the playhouse.’

  Raised eyebrows and expressions of disbelief around the table showed that my point had not been well received. Doubtless the Shaws considered that attending playhouses was exactly the kind of loose behaviour that infected young men when they were unwise enough to visit London.

  ‘We must not be too harsh,’ said Elizabeth Shaw in a conciliatory way. ‘The players are not beyond the pale. They even have their own saint.’

  ‘His feast day is next week,’ added Robert Shaw.

  ‘I should thank you two gentlemen for accompanying Thomas to Combe despite the sad outcome of your journey,’ said William.

  Conversation was desultory after that. It was arranged that we should leave Combe House the next morning. Mr Shaw offered us an escort for a few miles, although, he said, in his view the fellows who attacked us were long gone.

  Abel and I returned to our chamber while the rest of the family went about their business. Abel examined his possessions yet again. He did not think they had been disturbed for a second time.

  ‘The room hasn’t been searched because the Shaws no longer think we’ve got what they are looking for, Abel. They believe our attackers already have it, which is the reason Mr Shaw does not expect us to be attacked again.’

  ‘But we know they haven’t got the book, which is the reason we may be attacked again. So let’s give it up to the Shaw family before we depart, Nick. Let them deal with the problem. Or we can simply leave it where it is.’

  We checked to see that the book was still tucked amongst the mattresses. It was. I drew it out once more and looked at its ancient pages with their obscure verses. Were they predictions? Forecasts of events that had already occurred or were still to happen? I took out from my pocket the paper on which I’d scrawled my makeshift translation.

  Some words leaped out at me – ‘Ruler of two kingdoms’, ‘parleyment’, ‘great Rome’. If they applied to the present time, it was not difficult to understand the references. Our new ruler, James, had also been King of Scotland before he journeyed southwards to take the throne left vacant by Elizabeth. ‘Rome’ could only refer to the papal seat. The Popes sometimes found it expedient to regard the English kings as usurpers and tyrants.

  But if individual words and phrases were clear, the general sense of the verse was cloudy. Or perhaps it was that I was reluctant to look too closely into its meaning for fear of what I might find.

  ‘Who is the patron saint of players?’ said Abel, breaking into these alarming thoughts.

  ‘St Genesius. He was a Roman, like Julius Caesar the tyrant. Except he was an actor, I think.’

  ‘Did you know that the feast day of Genesius was next week?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Yet the son of this household did. Odd, eh? Do you know what I think, Nick? That we have stumbled into a nest of recusants.’

  The same thought had been on the edge of my own mind, but I’d been reluctant to admit it. This region of the country, spreading out from Warwickshire into the neighbouring counties, was known to be fertile soil for adherents of the old religion. There was a guarded quality to all the Shaws that fitted a family that must always be looking out for trouble from the authorities. Then there was an unexpected familiarity with the feast days of obscure saints, and some out-of-the-way reference to the permissible killing of tyrants. Above all, there was the figure of Henry Gifford, the supposed tutor to Muriel’s children. Tutor he might be in his spare moments, but I would have wagered a month’s worth of my meagre wages against a bead rosary that he was the priest who ministered to the souls in Combe.

  Households like Combe might be tolerated by the authorities, but they could expect visits from pursuivants or priest-catchers, who would interrogate the occupants. If they didn’t receive satisfactory answers, they would take measurements of room dimensions, then tap on walls and ceilings in their search for hidden compartments. If necessary, they would simply wait for the hidden priests to exhaust their supplies of food and water. I thought of the men who’d lain in ambush for us. Pursuivants? No, there would be no need for them to hide in the woods or launch a murderous attack. They acted with the full power and approval of the state. The four men weren’t pursuivants but something different – and worse.

  ‘Yes, I think we are in a Catholic house,’ I said to Abel.

  ‘Thomas Cloke must have been a follower of the old religion too,’ he said. ‘Remember that he did not like my portrayal of a cardinal on stage.’

  I did recall that odd moment in the Knight of the Carpet when Cloke had seemed displeased with Abel.

  ‘Whether that’s so or not,’ I said, ‘the Shaws are surely followers of the old religion, and Henry Gifford is the guardian of their immortal souls.’

  I returned the book to its hiding-place beneath the mattress. I screwed up the piece of paper on which I’d written in smudgy charcoal the English version of the Latin and went over to the window. I opened it, leaned out and dropped the paper into the moat, where it floated, its whiteness clearly visible in the fading light, before it became clogged with water and sank into the depths. The moon, nearly full, had risen above the edge of the valley and cast a ghostly glow across the fields and woodlands beyond Combe. I shut the window against all that.


  There was no key or bolt on the door, but Abel fastened a piece of cord around the latch. It wouldn’t prevent anyone getting in for long, but at least it would give us warning of the attempt. Then we retired to the single but spacious bed. It was more comfortable than any we’d been accommodated in at the various hostelries where we’d stayed, but I don’t think either of us slept soundly. I certainly didn’t. And that was before we were disturbed in the middle of the night and had no more sleep at all.

  I was awoken by a thump from the far side of the room and the sound of scuffling and panting. Abel was out of the bed and at first I thought he had been taken sick, but within moments I saw two shapes writhing on the carpet in a patch of moonlight. Even as I scrambled from the bed, one of the figures leaped away from the other, who remained moaning on the floor by the door.

  ‘Help me, Nick.’

  It was Abel, standing at a crouch between the bed and the crumpled shape. He was holding something. I recognized the book which had been stowed beneath our mattress.

  ‘He was trying to steal it,’ said Abel, his breath coming short.

  I didn’t have to ask who he was, for the moon shone full on the other man – Henry Gifford, the ‘tutor’ to widow Muriel’s children. The light gave the man’s jowls a bluer tinge. He was not so much injured as winded. I wasn’t surprised he’d come off worse in a tussle with Abel Glaze, who was tough and wiry for all his slightness.

  Now Gifford sat up. He said: ‘It is you who are the true thieves. Give me that.’

  He spoke with the same kind of certainty as when he condemned us players during the meal.

  Abel shook his head and moved until he was next to me. We perched on the edge of the bed, gazing down at the man on the floor. Incongruously, the tutor-priest propped his back against the wall and stretched his legs out, a man at ease.

  ‘If you do not surrender the book I will summon the household,’ he said.

  ‘And if you do,’ said Abel, ‘I will open the window and fling this . . . this item into the moat below before anyone can get here. I wonder how long your precious book would last in the water.’

  ‘It has survived worse than that,’ said Gifford. He sounded both defiant and doubtful. For my part, I was struck by Abel’s firmness. But, of course, he was angrier than I was.

  He said to me: ‘So much for hospitality towards guests, eh, Nick? I felt a draught of air and saw this fellow crawling towards our bed on all fours like a beast, then I felt him fumbling beneath the side where I was lying. Aha, I thought, I know what you’re after. So I fell out of bed on top of him.’

  Felt a draught of air? I’d been too preoccupied before to notice a chill together with a damp, musty odour which had crept into our chamber. Nor had I seen what Abel now directed my attention towards: a darker square at floor level in the linenfold panelling of the wall beside the bed. A space just large enough for a man to wriggle in and out of. Next to it, leaning against the wall, was the square of wood that usually concealed the opening. In a rush I realized that here was an authentic priest-hole, the kind of hiding-place that the pursuivants would search for with their measures and probes. At that moment I would have welcomed a band of pursuivants bursting into the room and taking up Master Gifford. The trouble was that we’d probably have been taken up with him.

  ‘He must have been spying on us,’ said Abel, the anger still in his voice. ‘He saw where we’d put this book. Admit it, Master Gifford, you were watching through some spyhole behind the wall.’

  From where he’d also heard our speculations about the Catholic household, I thought.

  ‘Yes, I have been observing you,’ said the other calmly. ‘I know that you know who – or rather what – I am.’

  ‘We have no quarrel with any priest or with the Shaw family,’ I said. ‘In fact, we want nothing more to do with anyone at Combe House. We came here by chance, not choice, and we leave here of our own free will tomorrow morning. Neither my friend Abel nor I have any desire to cause you or the Shaws . . . difficulty.’

  This was my way of hinting that we would not report them to the authorities. If I’d expected Gifford to be grateful I was to be disappointed. He gave a kind of snort and said: ‘Very well. But in return for a safe passage from Combe you should return the book which was brought here by Thomas Cloke.’

  I looked at Abel, still sitting beside me on the bed. The moonlight streamed over our shoulders and fell on the priest’s extended limbs. Abel nodded almost imperceptibly.

  ‘We’ll give you back the book,’ he said, ‘but on one condition. Tell us what is so important about it.’

  Henry Gifford was silent for a moment. I wondered whether he was going to claim that the book was unimportant, which would have been absurd. Instead, he decided to tell the truth or part of it.

  ‘Master Glaze, you are holding in your hands a very old volume, a piece of antiquity. It was composed by a monk in Ireland many hundreds of years ago. Some say he was divinely inspired, others that he was mad and wrote in a delirium. There are at least two names for the book: the Armageddon Text and the Black Book of Brân. It contains verses that some think predict the future. There has long been talk of such a volume, but it has not been seen for centuries.’

  ‘Armageddon is the final battle between the nations,’ said Abel. ‘The end of things.’

  I felt a chill that was unrelated to the cold in our chamber.

  ‘I have translated one of the verses,’ I said.

  Gifford snorted again, this time with amusement. No doubt he was surprised that a lowly player could understand Latin.

  ‘The lines referred to a ruler of two kingdoms and to Rome and a house crumbling to ruin.’

  It was gratifying to see the effect this had on the priest. No more snorting with amusement. He sat straight up and thought for a moment.

  ‘Yes, that is a description of the end of things, as your friend says. The ruler of two kingdoms is the devil himself, who lives in hell and has a mere leasehold upon the earth. But the day will come when he shall be vanquished and the house of earthly vanity shall crumble. Rome will play its part in this as the source of true religion. You see, gentlemen, how honest I am being. I do not conceal my faith or my allegiance. I am at your mercy.’

  I didn’t altogether believe him and his explanation. But what business was it of mine or of Abel’s? I could understand how a household such as the Shaws’ would value an ancient book of prophecies which apparently predicted the part played by the Catholic Church in the end of things.

  Abel said: ‘How did Tom Cloke come by this book?’

  ‘I don’t know precisely,’ said the priest. ‘I believe it was acquired by chance in the area around Westminster. Recognizing that it would be . . . of interest . . . to his Shaw kinsmen, Thomas decided he would bring it with him on his visit to Combe.’

  ‘Then it is unfortunate that Thomas was murdered for his pains.’

  ‘That was coincidence, Master Glaze. The three of you had the bad fortune to encounter a band of robbers on the road. But you and Master Revill had the good fortune to be close to Combe and to find refuge here.’

  I reckoned that Gifford had started accurately enough when he was describing the origins of the Black Book of Brân but that he was now leaving the truth further and further behind. If the book was no more than an odd piece of antiquity, why had Tom Cloke secretly slipped it into Abel’s luggage, why had we been attacked on the road (which was no coincidence whatever Gifford said), and why was the priest prepared to sneak into our chamber in the middle of the night to snaffle the item?

  ‘Have I satisfied your curiosity?’ said Gifford, standing up for the first time.

  ‘No,’ said Abel. ‘But, speaking for myself, I do not wish to pry into these matters any further. Here’s your Black Book and be done with it.’

  Gifford’s hands closed around the volume. He thanked Abel and inclined his head slightly. He replaced the wooden panel that he had removed to sneak into our chamber and left the room in more
conventional fashion, although he was hampered for an instant by the cord that Abel had wound about the door latch. The end of this scene, like the rest of the encounter, was played out by moonlight. Its eerie glow gave an edge to our discussion of the end of things.

  I tried to sleep but was too shaken by the encounter to succeed. There were distant noises elsewhere in the house, the sound of whispers, feet shuffling. I wondered what Gifford was up to. Was there a whole clutch of priests at Combe, creeping about in the woodwork? For all that, I did fall asleep eventually as the sky was beginning to lighten.

  V

  If we thought or hoped we’d seen the last of the tutor-priest, we were wrong. Abel and I rose early the next morning and went downstairs, carrying our baggage, bleary-eyed and yawning all the way.

  I’d assumed it was too early for the majority of the household, or at least for the family, to be up, so was surprised by the buzz of noise coming from the area of the kitchen. Instead of the to and fro of servants on their way to the dining hall, however, most of them were crowding towards the kitchen as if there were some attraction inside.

  ‘What is it?’ said Abel to a knot of servants standing in close conference by the door.

  ‘Body,’ said one.

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said the same person. He’d obviously got our measure the previous day (we weren’t important).

  We might have got no nearer than that except for the appearance of Mr and Mrs Shaw. They were still in their night attire. The crowd around the door parted to admit the householders, so Abel and I squeezed through after them.

  The kitchen was large, with brick arches containing the hearths and a separate oven for baking. The place was heavy with the smell of last night’s cooking and the press of people. There were a couple of sinks set into the outer wall, and it was in this area that everyone’s attention was concentrated. One of the flagstones in the floor had been lifted and placed to one side.

  Rather than earth or rubble, what lay beneath must have been a conduit of some kind, usual enough in a large kitchen like this. Gully the steward, the most important man there apart from the family, was standing by the hole. He alone out of the household looked spruce and trim. He caught his master’s eye and gestured downwards. He did not speak. I saw Shaw peer over the edge and flinch away. His wife stepped forward and also looked down before drawing back sharply. She clutched at his arm.