LXXX
THEY THOUGHT OF PENTECOST, of course. The great Secretary of the Council, Mr William Davison himself, had her brought to an office at Court. On his orders, Mrs Twiste had taken her little ragged kirtle and smock away and delivered them to the pursuivants, to be carefully searched. They found the ivory figurine of myself as the Queen of Heaven in the pocket of her petticoat, her most valuable possession. The child herself was examined naked by Mr Davison’s wife, for any papers or writing she might be concealing, and then, as Davison had given the good woman no further orders about it, my darling Pentecost was washed and given another smock, bodice, petticoat and kirtle and a shawl, all of which were much better and cleaner than her old ones and kept her warm, and furthermore an embroidered biggin from Mrs Davison’s own sewing basket. Then Mrs Davison sat her down to the best meal she had ever eaten in her life, of game pasties and manchet bread and chicken breast in a garlic sauce and a pile of honey-cakes, all of which she munched through as steadily as a caterpillar on a leaf. On the whole, although the proceedings were strange beyond her imagination, like all children she was accustomed to the insanity of adults and only opened her mouth to say “Please, ma’am” and “Thank you, ma’am.” For her the world had gone alien and far away, an empty place without her grandam in it. God knows, we none of us deserve the love of our children.
So when she trotted in to stand on the other side of Davison’s desk, peering over it, she was not as frightened as she might have been, and because she knew only that he was a very important and worshipful gentleman and not the true extent of his power, she curtseyed and waited to see what he wanted without any of the dark imaginings that an adult would have suffered.
Mr Davison attempted to smile at her. It would have looked better if his eyes had partaken of it, but they had long forsworn humour. Pentecost felt sorry for him because she thought he was suffering from wind.
“Ah . . . Pentecost,” he said.
She curtseyed again, watching him.
Davison cleared his throat. “Pentecost,” he said again, “do you know anything of God?”
She curtseyed to him once more. “Yes, sir,” she said. “God the Father made me and all the world.”
“Have you learnt your catechism?”
“Yes sir; well, some of it.”
“Recite what you know.”
“Yes, sir. But you have to do your bit. You have to ask me my name.”
Davison smiled thinly. “What is your name?”
“Pentecost, sir.”
“Who gave you this name?”
“Mygodfathersandgodmothers in my baptism, whereinIwasmadeamemberofChrist, the child of God and aninheritorofthekingdomofHeaven . . .” chanted Pentecost, delighted to find a use for the nonsense her grandam had insisted she learn.
Davison held up his hand. “I see that you know it. But do you know what it means?”
“Means, sir?”
He sighed. “Do you go to church?”
She shook her head.
“Why not?”
“Because Mr Christ is there.”
Davison coughed. “Oh?”
“Yes. He was my grandam’s husband once, you see, but he left her and so she hates him.” Pentecost paused and shut her eyes. “Hated him,” she corrected herself carefully.
Davison was hard to surprise, but this made him stretch his eyes a little.
“Oh? Er . . . how can that be?”
“My grandam was a nun once,” explained Pentecost kindly. “That means she was wed to Mr Christ.” Pentecost frowned. “Or is he really a lord?”
“He is, of course, Our Lord.”
“Oh. I am sorry. So my grandam must have been a lady when she was wed to him. I believe she was once.”
“Ah?”
“So my lord Jesus was her husband, but then instead of keeping her and looking after her like a good man should, and giving her his babies, like Mrs Twiste’s husband gave her before he died, my lord Jesus threw my grandam out and abandoned her to starve. Which I think was very bad of him. Do you not think so, Mr Davison?”
If Davison had use of his larynx he would have berated Pentecost for blasphemy.
“And so we do not go to visit my lord Jesus’s houses because although he is so rich and has God for his father, he never ever gave my grandam a penny to help her, and so she was on the road all her life and very sad.”
“She was a witch,” Davison managed to say harshly.
Pentecost nodded. “Yes,” she said, “she helps the girls at the bawdy-house and women in childbed too. She tries . . . she tried very hard to be a good witch.”
“Such a thing is impossible,” said Davison positively. “Pentecost, your grandam has brought you up in dreadful sin and wickedness, but at least you know the God is Our Father and knows all we do.”
Pentecost frowned. “Well, he is my lord Jesus’s father, but not mine. I have never met my father, but I am sure he was a rich courtier, a tall fine man with a black beard that had rings on his fingers and a velvet doublet and . . .” This was a story she had made up for herself, having chosen the man she wanted carefully from visitors to the Falcon. However, Davison was not able to hear it.
“Enough!” he shouted. “Be quiet, you bad child. God is our Father in Heaven, He knows all you do, and if you are wicked and evil like your witch of a grandam, then you will end up in Hell like her!”
Pentecost fell silent. Davison had missed his mark here. I was watching her, making a corner of the room shine with my presence, for those who had eyes to see, which was none of those in the room, and I could see the reassurance in her heart. For had not the worshipful gentleman just told her a way she could be with her grandam again?
“Now, Pentecost,” said Davison, getting a better grip on himself, “I am going to ask you some questions which you must answer very truthfully. God is watching and He knows if you lie. If you lie you will go to Hell.”
And be with my grandam, through Pentecost, greatly pleased.
“Yes, sir,” she said humbly, aloud.
“Did your grandam give you papers to hide for her?”
“No, sir,” she said promptly.
“Did she hide any papers herself?”
“No, sir.”
“She certainly had some papers, did she not? Don’t lie, for I know she did.”
Pentecost nodded cautiously.
“But she said they belonged to the Queen.”
Davison sniffed. “I am the Queen’s servant,” he said, “so I am looking for her papers in her behalf.” This black lie might have fooled an adult, but not Pentecost. It reassured her to know that both of them were lying, even though it meant that the frightening Court gentleman might follow her down to Hell.
“Yes, sir,” she said uncertainly, wishing someone would tell her what the papers were about. Perhaps they were a map to find treasure.
“Where are the papers?”
Pentecost’s brow furrowed. “I do not know, sir. My grandam had them.”
“Your grandam had them?”
“Yes, sir,” lied Pentecost happily, thinking of the book in the Queen’s own Library. I smiled to see her, for no mother would ever have been fooled by her glibness. Mr Davison was, however.
“On her, where? In her petticoat pocket?”
“Yes, sir,” said Pentecost with a smile, pleased that she could please the worshipful gentleman and wondering if God would come and take her to Hell to find her grandam soon. “In her pocket.”
Davison slapped his hand on the table-top with a sharp sound of finality.
“You are sure of this? That your grandam had her papers with her, in the pocket of her petticoat?”
“Oh yes, sir,” said Pentecost cheerfully. “She said they were important, sir.”
Davison sighed through his nose. “I see.”
“Is God your father, sir?” asked Pentecost, wanting to get everything quite straight.
“Yes,” said Davison, no longer paying proper attention to her.
“Then you must be my lord Jesus Christ’s brother. Why was he so bad to my grandam?”
Davison gaped at her. “You are a complete little heathen,” he said. “We shall find you a place at a charity school to be properly taught the True Religion.”
“I know it, sir,” said Pentecost with a curtsey, determined to make use of her tedious lessons. “Listen. You say; Whatdidyourgodfathersandgodmothers then for you? Then I say: They didpromiseandvow three things inmyname. First that I should renouncetheDevilandall’is works, the pompandvanity of this wicked world and – ”
“Then how can you stand there and speak such blasphemous nonsense?” demanded Davison. “I never heard anything so wicked. Mr Christ, indeed. If you were my child I would have you beaten and your mouth washed with soap for speaking so.”
Pentecost stared at him in confusion, for she had had no idea that she had annoyed the worshipful gentleman.
He brought out the little carved ivory Madonna she and her grandam had carried so faithfully for so long and tapped it down on the desk in front of him distastefully. “This . . . this thing. This was your idol, was it not?”
Pentecost’s mouth fell open because she did not know the word. “It’s my BlessedVirginMary,” she told him. “She is very beautiful and she has – ”
“Silence!” rapped Davison. “You were taught to kneel and bow down in reverence for this graven image?”
“Well, yes, sir,” Pentecost said, full of foreboding for her toy. “But you know, she is not really the Blessed Virgin, but only an image of her. My grandam said she is to remind us of the – ”
Davison was not interested in this hair-splitting. “It was your heathen idol, your image of perdition, and your grandam taught you to worship it.”
Sheer confusion silenced Pentecost. She began to wonder if the gentleman was mad.
“She has the baby Jesus inside,” she said timidly. “You can open the door and look.”
In case the Queen’s papers were hidden in it, Davison opened the little door in my belly and checked. The painting of Christ’s passion was there, beautiful in egg tempera, the sky and the mourning of Virgin’s gown made of crushed lapis lazuli, the blood of Christ and the cloaks of the soldiers made from crimson lake. Only the baby had gone missing, dropped out into Mrs Davison’s sewing bag when she searched the image herself.
Davison’s face twisted at such an ugly truth as was implied in Pentecost’s Madonna: that a mere woman should have carried Christ in her body and therefore also His Passion. It made him ill to think on.
“This heathen image,” he said sternly, “can do nothing for you, Pentecost, it is but a mammet, a toy. It is powerless save for evil.”
Pentecost knew then that somehow her Madonna was doomed. She put her hands over her mouth to stop herself from crying out.
In a stately manner, Davison took the Madonna, rose from behind the desk and went to the fire burning in the grate.
“Now I will show you that this thing is not to be worshipped and is but a piece of ivory, cunningly carved, nothing more.”
He held Pentecost’s Madonna near the fire, watching her face. If he had thought of it, he might have bartered the Madonna for the Queen’s papers, but he never did think of it, since he had not the wit.
“Please, sir,” said Pentecost, with tears running down her face, “oh please, do not burn her, sir, she is so pretty . . .”
Davison tossed the Madonna into the flames and dusted his fingers in satisfaction.
Ivory burns with black smoke and a vile smell. For a moment I shone in the flames almost as brightly as I do in the sky, but then the delicate worn planes of my face and carved folds of my gown and the minute filigree of my crown and collar crumbled to black, the door in my belly warped and cracked and blackened, the painting of Christ-crucified burned and disappeared and all that was left was a glowing cinder.
Pentecost let out her breath which she had held, hoping that the Queen of Heaven would act to save her toy. Then her face puckered and she began to cry helplessly into her hands.
“Only . . . only . . .” snuffled Pentecost, “only I was going to ask if I could . . . if you would . . .”
“What?” he demanded impatiently, wishing she would stop.
“ . . . t . . . take me to see the Queen of Heaven . . . b . . . because Grandam always said she was the one who . . . was . . . was k . . . kindly . . .”
Davison rolled his eyes.
“If you are referring, as I think you are, to the Virgin Mary, then it seems you have even more to learn to save you from ignorance and heathen superstition. Your idol is burnt but you are a wicked child, Pentecost, and I am sorry for you because your innocence has been so abused.”
Most of these words Pentecost did not understand, but misery at the loss of her toy was rising in her, misery in such a tide she did not know what to do with it, only it filled her belly and her chest and her head and lapped out to flood the whole room, misery that sprang more from the loss of her grandam than her plaything.
Davison knew that he was beginning to sweat as she continued to cry with all her strength and a great deal of snot. His own children were too frozen with dread of him to weep so immoderately, he had never heard such a noise even when they had been beaten. True, he had heard grown men howl and weep similarly, but that had always been in the service of True Religion. This ungrateful wailing scoured his nerves and when he stood and ordered her to stop at once and came round the table to try and calm her, she shrieked at his expression, backed into a corner and fell over. She curled up in a ball against the pale oak panels and howled extravagantly, so that he rang for his clerk, and the clerk came in and had no idea what to do either.
At last the man-at-arms standing stolidly at the door could bear the noise no longer. He came in, complete with his halberd, and saw the scene: the Privy Councillor clasping and unclasping his fists, and the clerk flapping his hands from the elbow and shouting, “Hush, hush, or you’ll be beaten,” while a small creature cowered screaming hysterically in a corner. He was himself a father of six and he lost his temper. He threw aside all hopes of reward and a pension, leaned his halberd against the wall, took off his helmet and put it on the desk. Then he shoved Mr Davison bodily aside with his shoulder, squatted down to Pentecost and gathered her into his large arms, cradled her against his buff-coated shoulder and went to the door.
“I resign from your service, sir,” he growled to Mr Davison. “I had never thought to see the like from a God-fearing man. Good day.”
With that he stamped off down the passage until he found an antechamber where he could sit and hold Pentecost until she could gulp herself into softer crying, and then held her further until her hiccups had eased and she could blow her nose on the hem of her new white apron.
At last even the hiccups had subsided and Pentecost asked to be taken back to Mrs Twiste. Whereat the man-at-arms carried her to the laundry and handed her directly into Mrs Twiste’s own arms.
“I am sorry I have seen the day, mistress, that a councillor of the Queen would lower himself so far as to bully a little maid,” he told Mrs Twiste stiffly. “But I think she has not been hurt, only badly upset.”
Mrs Twiste nodded and thanked him and sat my sweetheart on her own seat and gave her spiced wine so thick with sugar it was nearer a sweetmeat than a drink, until Pentecost’s swollen red eyes drooped and she fell asleep where she was.
LXXXI
DAVISON SENT HIS MEN out, every one of them, to scour the river banks and bridge piers for the corpse of the witch. At last two of them returned with a litter bearing the withered, almost frozen body of an old woman that had been found curled up on the steps at the Vintry. Davison searched her personally: she was in the bloody tatters of her smock and stays, her kirtle and petticoat lost to the river. There were no papers on her at all, nor the shreds of any. Although she was blue and unmoving, a pulse still struggled to beat in her neck and Davison conceived the idea that perhaps he might glean something
of use from the Jesuit who still clung to life in a locked room at Walsingham’s house in Seething Lane.
By Walsingham’s orders a surgeon had been called to take out the halberd blade and sew up the wound. The surgeon himself had protested, saying he had never heard of anyone surviving such a wound and he saw no necessity for causing more pain. In the end, though, he had obeyed, needing the gold and not so very interested in preserving a Papist from pain.
As they brought Mary into the little bedchamber and laid her under blankets on a truckle-bed, Tom Hart lay on his side with his legs drawn up to his swollen belly and his face grown as old and sunken as hers, barely breathing and utterly still. Under half-closed lids he watched them wrap her to warm her and bring in a brazier as well, so that the room grew close and stifling as it heated up.
I had been sitting with him, to keep him company, sometimes visible to him and sometimes not, as his fever waxed and waned. Now I smiled, and in his sight I opened my arms to show him this was by my power. He understood me. In all his doings, Hart was a valiant soldier in my Son’s company, and now he spent the last farthing of his courage against the agony and sickness of his belly to say absolution for Mary, to finish what he had left open on the night they met in the mirrored chamber at the Falcon.
He did not know if she heard him or not, but I heard him and said the words of faith first spoken by the centurion to my Son, and perhaps Mary echoed me so softly Hart could not hear her. Perhaps she forgave my Son. Only she knew she had been shriven at last and believed now she would not end in Hell. Purgatory she could face, as being only just.
The servant who brought the brazier had forgotten to open a window to let the fumes escape. With the door shut, there was soon a gentle blue haze in the air, my mantle made manifest. Slowly Tom Hart’s eyes shut and his lips relaxed from their rigid line, even his colour seemed to become better as he slept. No one came. They breathed more and more slowly as their lips reddened to a strange semblance of health. At last they were both utterly still.
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