Unicorn's Blood

by Patricia Finney

  “Sad, eh?” he whispered with an ugly grin, the strength that was fuelling his words ebbing. “No wonder she has made such a point . . . of her virgin state. Well, no doubt you will burn the book.”

  “No doubt,” echoed Davison, staring into space.

  “The truth is a hard thing, eh?”

  Davison did not answer and the priest shifted again, vainly trying to find some less uncomfortable way to lie. He let out a soft cough, his face crumpled with pain. Davison switched his attention away from the book between his hands.

  “Would you like a doctor to attend you?” he asked.

  They were not coughs, but truncated gusts of laughter.

  “Should you not be trying to turn me to your . . . heresy, Mr Davison?” said the priest. “This is your last chance to save . . . my soul, eh? Where’s your zeal, eh?”

  Davison shook his head. “I am sorry for you, Mr Hart,” he said, “but I am afraid there is no question but that you are damned for all eternity because you cleaved to superstition and idolatry when you could have followed the True and Pure Religion.”

  Hart rolled his eyes. “Is it not . . . also idolatry to worship a fleshly Queen?”

  “Perhaps it is. I do not do so, myself.”

  “Poor Mr Davison,” said the priest. “He knows nothing of worship. I cannot make my confession . . . No last rites . . . But Christ Jesus will have mercy on my and perhaps even on you. I forgive you, Mr Davison, for killing me . . .”

  “I do not require your forgiveness.”

  “Thank God you were not . . . in the crowd with our Saviour, Mr Davison, or . . . the woman caught in adultery would assuredly have died. I forgive you and pray that . . . Christ will forgive you your many offences, particularly the deadly sin of spiritual pride, as I have no doubt He will forgive mine . . .”

  With enormous effort the priest lifted his hand and made the sign of blessing, but it was to an empty room. Davison had left while he was talking, leaving him alone and unattended.

  If he had indeed been solitary in the small panelled room, no doubt Tom Hart would have been distressed by it. Fortunately he knew he was not alone, for he could see me step from the moon to lay my hand on his brow and my mantle over his body. He smiled to see me and called me Mother, which pleased me, and stopped trying to fight the pain, which eased it a little. I am also the Comforter of the Afflicted, the Gate of Heaven, but his work was not yet done.

  LXVIII

  AMES STUMBLED THROUGH YET more muddy icy water of a drainage ditch and heaved himself up onto Gravel Lane, ran north along it and then dodged right, piled through a hedge and rolled among the trees and dead undergrowth again. His shoulder was burning at him and the cold told him that the soft scabs which had formed had burst apart, so his blood left a clear trail behind him. He lay gasping for breath on his back, looking up at the stars and squinted to form the blurs and find the Great Bear, providentially in a part of the sky not quite covered by cloud. There it was, Polaris. If he stood and faced Polaris, he should turn right and go straight; Becket had said he would come to a series of gardens bounded with hedges which he should be able to slip through, considering how small and skinny he was.

  Weaving between the trees he found the first hedge, flapped at it with his hands and then shoved at a place between trees where the hedgers had not woven the branches securely enough. If he had tried it in summer, he could not have got through, but in winter and not caring what he did to his clothes or his skin, he could manage.

  Why am I doing this? He wondered briefly to himself and then decided that it was no longer important why.

  Beyond the hedge was a neat vegetable garden laid out in rows, already dug and dunged for the spring planting, through which he ran careless of the gardeners’ work. There was another hedge and the hounds were yelping among the trees. As he pushed through beside a tall beech tree, one found the scent again and gave tongue. His breath came raw, his head hammered and he was so sick with fear he could not feel the tearing of thorns. This is what it must feel like to be a hunted hare, he thought, and it had never occurred to him before, when he had gone hunting with his brothers, that the hare might suffer so.

  The next garden had been planted with something, and through it he left a broad trail of footprints, hopping and stepping several times to leave more of them, feeling quite proud of himself that he was able to think so coolly with the maddening crying of dogs behind him.

  Another hedge, this one too firmly plashed and interwoven to be broken. He followed it down to the lower end to a gate from the garden onto the broad common where cows lowed nervously at the sound of dogs. An amusing idea struck him. He ran to where the cows had been lying, as they clumsily got up, mooing and turning their horned heads. Generally speaking he was afraid of cows, but now he was more afraid of the dogs and so he ran among them and stood for a moment catching his breath, then shoved aside a few bony rumps and headed for a pollarded tree beside the gate to the Pike Garden.

  The gate was iron and had spikes on the top, but the hedges beside it looked as if it could be climbed. He began to climb, hands wet with something other than sweat, cold air clammying his ripped shirt and doublet, the hair on his head stark upright as the hounds ran to the cows and began yelping and barking at them and trying to round them up.

  Men’s voices joined the noise, cursing and whipping the hounds away from the cows, who added to the bedlam with their distressed lowing. Ahead of him he could hear deeper, more threatening baying as the dogs in the kennels behind the bull-baiting ring awoke and gave tongue. Shutters were being flung open, women were screeching and babies crying.

  He climbed over the top, very careful of the nearest spike since he was shaking with weariness, and dropped into the relative peace of the Pike Garden. In front of him were four large square tanks of water, assiduously kept free of ice by the fish farmers, like pools of ink here and there giving back distorted stars to the sky.

  He could run no more. He spat an ugly accumulation of phlegm and walked, still wheezing, unsteadily past the fish tanks, which fed Londoners on Fridays, and looked at the last hedge. Becket had given him very strict instructions here, being well-acquainted with bull-and-bear-baiting lore.

  “They leave a couple of the older mastiffs off their chains at night to be sure no one creeps in and tries to harm the dogs or drug them. Climb the hedge, but for God’s sake, do not go on the ground.”

  He climbed, branches thrusting themselves in his face, where he could see the wooden backs of the dog kennels. As he lifted himself over the top he heard a couple of soul-satisfying splashes as the leading hounds hunting him fell into the pike tanks, followed by anguished yelping.

  The roofs of the kennels sloped downwards and were slick with ice. There was no chance that he could do more than perch unsteadily on the roof-ridge, holding on to the hedge to keep himself from falling.

  He squatted there, at last catching his breath, while the mastiffs who were roaming the yard discovered his rank smell and came running over. They barked and bayed and growled at him and tried to leap up to tear his throat out, falling back ungainly in a clatter of nails as their paws slipped on the icy kennel roofs. Every dog in the place was awake, straining on its chain, baying and yelping and growling. Behind, in the field beyond the hedge, the hunting hounds milled about, also giving tongue, hackles up, growling back at the mastiffs they could smell and hear beyond the hedge and wisely refusing to go any farther.

  The noise was miraculous, and more was being added as the men behind the hounds came to the hedge and realised where they were, as the men who looked after the bulldogs found candles and torches and hose and came out of their houses to find what was causing the riot, as the cows in the field continued their offended lowing and as every soul on the South Bank put his head out of the window and bellowed to know what the hell was going on.

  Ames squatted where he was and looked up at the Milky Way. His shoulder hurt him badly but his head was clear and he could breathe properly aga
in, and above him as always was the crystal objectivity of the stars. Their riddle was the same as ever, but he had a new, less philosophical one, to contend with.

  Why in the name of the Almighty am I smiling? He wondered.

  It was stalemate, as Becket had predicted. The hounds would go no farther, and anyone climbing up the way Ames had done could be easily kicked off by him. And so Ramme and Munday must tramp round to the road, passing through an aggrieved householder’s kitchen and hall, fending off demands for compensation for destroyed seedlings and the threat of a lawsuit that would make them sorry they were born, since the householder’s cousin’s wife’s brother-in-law was a notable barrister . . . Once on Molestrand Dock, they must further march to the Bank and hammer on the gate of the bull-baiting ring and then persuade the owner to let them through, explain their business, show their Privy Council warrants, explain again to his brothers and a third time to his indignant wife.

  And then the bull-baiting owner must call out the dog wardens. They must go into the broad yard behind the bull-baiting ring, call and chain up the two bulldogs, named Bessy and True, feed them to calm them down, tell them they were good dogs and had guarded well, tell every single hysterical dog in the place individually that it too was a good dog, and for God’s sake, be quiet. Finally they could conduct their honours, the Queen’s pursuivants, through the bull-baiting ring, past the dogs who were barking again and past more tanks full of fish to where Simon Ames sat now shivering and shaking on his kennel roof like an escaped monkey at a fair.

  Both Ramme and Munday were dishevelled from their wild hunt, and Munday was walking with a limp. Both were grim and furious and then, when they saw Simon Ames, evidently and triumphantly alone, horrified.

  “Where is Becket?” demanded James Ramme.

  Ames grinned at them. “I have no idea, Mr Ramme,” he said. “Have you seen him?”

  Ramme’s fists bunched uncontrollably and he stepped towards the kennel. “Come down from there!” he roared. The brown bulldog growled back and launched itself at him, to be jerked to a stop by its chain.

  “Certainly not,” said Ames fussily. “The dog might bite me.”

  It stood there pulling its chain almost off the staple, baying and howling while the dog warden came hurrying up to pull it back and be snapped at for his pains.

  They managed to calm the dog with some meat and curses and dragged him away, still baying.

  “Now come down, Mr Ames, or I will knock you down,” hissed Ramme. Munday’s head jerked as he turned to look.

  “I congratulate you on your returned memory,” said Ames complacently. “I would like to come down, but I fear I cannot. I might slip and hurt myself. Also my shoulder is wounded. Can you not find a ladder?”

  “You know him?” Munday asked Ramme anxiously.

  Ramme shrugged and beckoned a dog warden over to order him to fetch a ladder.

  “You said you did not know him.” Munday’s voice was full of accusation.

  The dog warden hesitated, eavesdropping in fascination until Ramme gestured angrily for him to be off after the ladder. Munday was dry-washing his hands.

  “But if you know him, if he is in truth Mr Ames, then his warrant might have been real, it might have been from the Queen herself.”

  “Depend on it, Mr Munday, he forged it.”

  “Never heard of anyone could forge the Privy seal. And the Queen’s signature is –“

  “The best judge of that will be the Queen’s Majesty herself,” interrupted Ames. “I desire you to take me to her immediately.”

  The dog warden came back with the ladder, beginning to forget his lost sleep and enjoy himself.

  They placed the ladder on the angle of the roof so there was a smooth path to the ground.

  “Now come down, or I come up and get you,” said Ramme.

  “Certainly, gentlemen.”

  All the temporary physical boldness born of fear had gone. Ames inched his way painfully down the slippery ladder and faced the two pursuivants, who were looking almost as battered and dirty as he must have been. Ramme had twigs caught in his hair; he had lost his hat and there was a wide rip in some expensive-looking damask. Munday’s sober grey wool looked to have survived better, though it was darkened with splashed water.

  Ramme grabbed Ames and tied his hands behind him, making him cry out with the pain to his shoulder. Munday looked and tutted.

  “Best find a surgeon for him before he sees the Queen,” he said, but Ramme only showed his teeth.

  Ames had assured Becket repeatedly that if only he could avoid being ripped apart by the dogs, the pursuivants would surely treat him well and take him to the Queen, if for no other reason than to protect themselves in case he should turn out to be genuinely her servant. Now seeing the feral look on Ramme’s face, he was not so sure. The cold winds of fear started blowing through his heart again and he was dizzy.

  It was not exactly that he wanted to pass out, it was only that he saw no reason to resist as the world turned black and he fainted. His last conscious thought was the hope that Becket had turned his desperate performance as a decoy hare to good account, or he would want to know the reason why.

  LXIX

  THE PRIVY COUNCIL MEETING was as sterile as ever; matters to do with the Scottish envoys and the funeral of Sir Philip Sidney, set for the sixteenth of February, were dealt with quickly. The rest of the time was wasted in veiled beseeching that she sign the warrant for the execution of the Queen of Scots. Walsingham was absent, being sick of the stone; Davison had sent his excuses, being busy in a matter of a Papist priest. Only Burghley, Leicester and Hatton remained to plague her.

  The Queen had a splitting headache. She had heard nothing from Thomasina, nothing from Mr Ames, and the uncertainty was wearing at her nerves like sandpaper. She dismissed her loyal councillors impatiently, wanting time to sit alone and think in the Privy Chamber, as she often did. As she sat, Mr Davison came in and bowed low to her, then knelt.

  “What do you want, Mr Davison?” she demanded.

  “This is a confidential matter,” he said smoothly, glancing at her two gentlemen behind her chair.

  She clicked her fingers and gestured that they should wait outside. They went resignedly, Drury leaving a goblet of spiced wine at her elbow in case she should need it.

  “I have come to report complete success in the matter of the Book of the Unicorn,” said Mr Davison in a soft harsh voice.

  The pit of her stomach fell away into her red leather boots. But worse things had been said to her in her life and the red paint would hide the green pallor of her cheeks. She steadied herself, not noticing that the grip of her left hand on the table edge was driving all the blood from it.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” said Mr Davison. “We arrested a Father Tom Hart last night in Southwark, and expect momently to arrest his confederates. He had on him the Book of the Unicorn, which is now in my possession.”

  “How did you know what it is?”

  “It has the remains of a unicorn embroidered on the cover, very finely worked. And inside it is Your Majesty’s own last will and testament.”

  She could not help it. Her breath wheezed out of her rib-cage as if she had been punched in the pit of her stomach. So this was how her reign ended.

  “A forgery?” she said, trying a last throw.

  “I think not.”

  Davison knelt before her, bodily humble but spiritually triumphant, as proud as Lucifer, condemnation of her childish looseness in every inch of his black-clad form. What did he know? What did any of them know? Just so had those who hungered for purity in all things driven her cousin Mary from the throne of Scotland. Just so would they treat her. Perhaps they would not drive her from the throne; perhaps, if she proved co-operative. But they would rule her and she would have to let them, for expediency. She would no longer be a regnant Queen, it would be worse than if she had risked taking a husband; she would be ruled by these men who could only think in
black and white, and ruin would be at the end of it.

  For a moment she almost lost control and would have screamed and wept and struck at Davison who had defeated her. She sat, turned to salt like Lot’s wife, but this time for not looking back. “Be sure your sins will find you out,” came the voice in her mind, echoing and whirling in the devastation within.

  Damn him; Davison knew what he had. Beneath his respectful veneer his face was flushed and his eyes sparkled. She could almost see his thoughts spinning and clicking there, live an over-complex astrological clock; how he would have power, how he would be her Lord Treasurer instead of the old goat Burghley, how he would direct the kingdom from her shadow, how he would jerk her puppet strings and she would dance for him.

  Or he would publish it and shame her before all the world. That was the unspoken threat, wrapped in self-righteousness. Lord God, how the Papists would sneer and enjoy it. How her people would be angered at the way she had fooled them with her virginity. They had respected and loved her for it, cheered when she had proclaimed that, nun-like, she was wedded to her kingdom, and now it turned out she was no better than a trull from the South Bank bawdy-houses by the fish-stews.

  Whichever way it went, she was done for. She doubted many things and knew well how to hide her doubts behind a smoke-screen of verbiage and subtlety, but of this she had no doubt. Under the rule of these simple-minded God-besotted puritans, her treasure would be poured out uselessly to aid the Netherlands, and when King Philip sent his fleet, they would have neither money nor men to meet it.