THIRTY-TWO
Thursday, February 9, 1645.
Der Grote Markt, Antwerp, Belgium.
Over two months since Hercule’s body had been discovered at Chalons, and over 200 miles due north, Eli sat behind the semi-opaque windows of a small coffee house in Der Grote Markt, in full view of Antwerp’s Stadhuis, the city hall, and in the shadow of De Kathedraal, one of the largest gothic churches in the low countries. The smell of sugar was in the air and he enjoyed the somewhat grimy view of winter through the window and along the Silvermidstr toward the Scheldt Estuary. Since 1585 the city had been in decline economically, with much of the commerce heading north to Amsterdam to herald the dawn of the Dutch Golden Age, but it was not dead yet and the vibrant and diverse cultures drawn from being a one-time centre of world trade could still be seen milling in and out of the market place.
What the city had managed to do, despite its declining fortunes, was to remain the economic centre of the Spanish Netherlands and had as a result become even more of a famous art centre than it had been before. This was the time of Rubens, Van Dyck and Jordaens. Indeed, were it not for Antwerp being such a centre for the art world as a whole, Eli would not even have been here at all.
The coffee he drank was the same Arabian blend he had mixed for himself in Arques but tasted just a little sweeter - less bitter - and that helped. He could only assume that the blender had perhaps added some of the sugar for which Antwerp itself had become renowned. The snow had fallen thick overnight and the coffee warmed him, but not as much as the feeling that now coursed his veins. The feeling that, finally, he was making things happen. If there was a plan, and there had to be, then it was coming together. He did not have the one thing he needed - the one thing his heart craved - not yet, but it was close. He could taste it and it too tasted sweet.
Just a few more things to do.
Unlike his time in Arques serving Hercule, Eli now wore fine clothes. Not the finest, as funds needed to be saved wherever possible, and not the ones he had ‘traded’ with Hercule, but fine enough for him to place his demeanour of a manual worker far behind him. It was that which had allowed him passage with the King’s guard and receive respectful nods from villagers along the journey. In addition, a Turkish barber in the city had now trimmed his beard into a sharp-edged goatee, burnt hair from his ears and trimmed and smartened his nails at the same time. He looked every inch the gentleman.
Killing Hercule was not pleasant but it was, unfortunately, necessary. The man was not only a fool, but also a dangerously ambitious one, and that was never a good combination to reason with. Indeed, it was not beyond the realms of possibility that Hercule himself, having extracted the Tables, would have killed Eli anyway. He was, after all, a nothing; a hired help. Simply, Eli was a man who had drifted into the estate looking for work and who, just as easily, could have drifted out again without being missed. The Tables, however, would. They needed to remain in Serres and, for that to happen, so did Hercule’s ambitions to remove them.
Whilst folklore had implied that it had been a de Montfort - Pierre - who had first noticed the altar, it transpired it was not. It was Hercule all along, Pierre, a single man with no children, had died in the wars in 1641 without ever knowing the treasure which sat within his estate.
Without any sense of urgency, Eli had tried twice to persuade Hercule to place them back and attend to their removal instead on his return from the wars, but the man would not listen. Which, given that Eli was as confident as he could be that Hercule, like Pierre before him, would not even manage to return from the wars, at least… not alive, would mean that if he did get the chance to move them to a location known only to him, then they would indeed have been lost forever. Something which simply could not be allowed to happen. Something which didn't happen.
So, as Hercule had run his fingertips over them, marvelling at their beauty and no doubt dreaming of the life they would (in his mind) deliver him, Eli had removed the short spike he had kept secreted in his waistband, reached around and swiftly plunged it hard and fast into the man’s still beating heart; his other hand held firm over the mouth to dull the screams. It took a good few seconds for him to go. Though it surprised him, he managed to do it without feeling… anything. He then pulled Hercule toward him as he died, onto his back, to ensure that no blood would be spilled on the chapel floor. This further ensured that there would be no immediate cries of something afoot from the locals come morning. Eli had then taken some considerable time to replace the tables, and the slab, back into the altar before swapping clothes with his former employer and dragging his dead-weight to a dark recess at the back of the church and hiding it under some blankets.
As expected, as morning drew on and dawn began to break, the king’s guard had indeed arrived at the château and, from there, had been directed by Béatrice to the chapel. They arrived just a few minutes after Eli had finished his tidying up. Wearing the tunic Hercule had removed earlier and the clothes he had swapped, he stepped outside and informed them that he was indeed the Hercule de Montmorency they sought and that he needed time to pray, to collect his belongings and to say farewell to his wife and family. They, meanwhile, needed food and a good wash and so he advised them to take a few hour’s refuge at Le Couvent de la Notre-Dame-de-la-Merci in Couiza. They should tell the sisters there that Hercule had said they should be attended to. He would do what he needed to do and meet them on the bridge at Couiza at noon sharp with a cart so that they could begin the long trek north.
Then came the hardest part - facing the sweet, innocent and heavily pregnant Béatrice and keeping that face straight. He felt little if anything for Hercule - the man would almost certainly be sent to die on the fields of northern France anyway - but Béatrice had no part to play in this and he had no axe to grind with her. She was just a wide-eyed and eternally optimistic young woman madly in love with a man whose ambition would ultimately bring their family down once more, as Henri’s had done. She did not deserve to lose the father of her unborn child or be deceived in such a fashion, but his options had been limited. He could only hope that she was enduring well, as news of Hercule’s loss would no doubt have found its way to her by now, and that she, her young children and the newborn baby were safe and well.
With Hercule’s clothes dumped well out of sight of the road and the trunk empty, Eli - replete with Hercule’s very own horse and cart - had continued along to the chapel, placing his former master’s lifeless body inside the crude box. In this way, when he had met with his armed escort on the bridge and utilised their services as far as was needed, he could simply intoxicate the two men, steal them away in their sleep, dump the body and make it seem as though all three had been robbed and murdered in the latter part of their journey. As long as the guards did not choose to look in his trunk along the way. Out of respect for his ‘position’, they did not. Having spun his coin on a stump and walked away before it found rest. That had left him with only a short unescorted ride due north to the port of Antwerp, saddlebags laden with the funds necessary for the next phase of his plans. From here he could do what he needed to do before readying himself for phase three - his journey overseas.
He wasn’t particularly good at any of this but, so far, it had seemed to go mostly to plan.
Laid out beside the small faience porcelain cup were the numerous diagrams he had constructed over time; a mass of geometric shapes and interlocking patterns, along with detailed side-notes, specifications and some Latin prose. Everything was as beautifully drawn as he could manage and hopefully very easy, in the right hands, to interpret. He studied them in detail one last time and smiled before rolling them neatly inside a larger piece of parchment, sipping the tar-like dregs of the coffee and standing to leave. As payment, he placed a single 1640 ducaton upright on the table and, again, span it hard from the uneven edges, then picked up his hat and left the building before he knew whether or not it had chosen to fall with the head of the Spanish Filips IV facing the low beamed ceiling or the
sejant-rampant lions with their tails aloft. His nonchalance was deliberate: his aim to show chance not only that he was acutely aware of its existence, but also that he understood that it played no part in his life. Not any more. His destiny was back in his own hands now, and it was down to he and he alone to secure the outcome he dreamed of.
The sky had darkened slightly and the snow was coming down again, thick flakes illuminating orange and yellow in the lights from the huddled buildings which lined the narrow streets. Wearing his wide brimmed hat he wandered along the Zilversmidstraat through snow, slush and muck, dodging a seemingly endless crush of screaming merchants and bickering customers. At the junction he turned right along Kuipersstraat and continued along to the wide open Veemarkt before stopping, removing a sheet of yellowed paper from his pocket with gloved hand and taking a moment to check the address.
Tenier, 13 Steeg 4, Zwartzusterssraat, Antwerpen.
David Teniers was fast becoming an artist of some renown. By the age of only twenty-two, he had already painted some exceptionally well-received works including The Prodigal Son and The Five Senses and had been admitted as a master in the Guild of St Luke. His touch was regarded as possessing of the rarest delicacy, and his mastery of colour, composition and subtle geometric precision was almost unrivalled.
He had been a little over thirty when the Antwerp Guild of St. George had enabled him to paint the picture which placed him firmly within the upper echelons of society: The Meeting of the Civic Guards. Correct to the minutest detail, yet striking in effect, the scene displayed an astonishing amount of acquired knowledge and subtlety of subtext.
It was these skills that Eli sought to rely upon so heavily now.
Entering the milky shade of the fourth alleyway along he searched for No.13. The buildings were high and close and the alley thin, making it feel extremely claustrophobic. There were no markings to be found on many of the doors, but hand painted numbers on two which were marked led him to deduce that it was the least offensive of them all, the one with the freshest paint, that must be the one. Teniers’ paid commissions had clearly secured him a studio in the heart of a vibrant city, just not a very good one. They had, however, stretched him to a tin of paint.
Eli looked around, checking, and then rapped hard on the paintwork with his tight-fitting tan leather glove. He waited.
Nothing. He rapped again.
Listening closely he could faintly hear a door open somewhere upstairs and a slow, measured gait became louder as it ambled down a wooden staircase. It sounded distinctly like a man’s walk and was extremely slow and deliberate.
The door opened just a fraction and a much older man, perhaps in his fifties with a thin face, dour features and sunken eyes peered out. “Can I help you?” he asked, deliberately elongating the words as though to do so might somehow somehow make him sound more important.
A valet, Eli mused. More likely, an assistant. A helper. In reality, a low-paid dogsbody who had somehow managed to smear his entire face with unwarranted delusions of grandeur.
“I wish to speak with your Master,” he said calmly, his grasp of Dutch slightly awkward.
The man looked him up and down, disparagingly. Eli was almost certain that, careful as he had been with his clothing expenditure, his threads still cost far more than those of this man. Neither man was impressed with what they saw.
“The Master does not see visitors without an appointment,” the elder man said, his tone dismissive. Eli noted that, as if to emphasise his own importance, he had deliberately refrained from saying ‘my master’. The door began to close again.
“He will see me,” Eli said, lifting his head and staring directly.
The door opened again, still just a fraction, and the man blinked. Slowly. Deliberately. “May I ask who is calling..?”
Eli took a moment to smile gently and knowingly before removing a small leather bag from within his waistband. He held it aloft and jangled it loudly. “Tell him an important visitor is here to see him,” he said, offering no emotion. “One who carries a very hefty purse.”
THIRTY-THREE
Wednesday, February 8, 1645.
Manningtree, Essex, England.
Though it was still relatively early in the evening, the winter sun had long said farewell to Manningtree by the time Hopkins’ horse cantered proudly into the village square. Another horse carrying his own ‘Boy’ - wearing better fitting clothes than young Thomas would ever afford - followed close behind. Having received word, Porter and four goodwives and widows were waiting in the centre to greet them, the remainder of the village standing entranced a short distance behind. With Master William settled within the Manor, tended by the seemingly skilled hands of the elderly garrison physician - who described the young man’s condition as ‘difficult to judge’ - there was little more that Porter or anyone else could do. For now, quite simply, it was time press on with the business at hand.
There was someone among them whose condition was not difficult to judge and, with the laying low of William sitting like yet another ominous cloud over the Tendring Hundred, the entire village was demanding that just such a judgment be made on the Jonah that was... Rachael Garland.
And soon.
Following one of the harshest winters anyone could recall, snow still lay thick on the fields surrounding the village, with the square itself awash with slush and filth. Many gathered today were sure that, by expunging the witches from their midst, they would create better weather next year, the year after and all the years to follow. Few were aware that this year, 1645, heralded only the beginning. Much harsher winters to readying come, witches or not. 1645 marked the beginning of what later scientists and climatologists would call ‘The Maunder Minimum’: a ‘little ice age’ period starting this very year and continuing right through until 1715. During this time, sunspots would become exceedingly rare and this would subject Europe and North America to some of the most bitterly cold winters ever recorded. Later scientists would even hypothesise that the dense woods used in Stradivarius instruments, woods which served to offer them their unique and desirable tone, would be caused by slow tree growth during this cooler period, Antonio Stradivari having been born only the previous year.
The world was becoming much colder place and, whatever the reason might transpire to be, one look at the gathered crowd and Porter could feel it in his bones.
“Welcome back, Master Hopkins,” he offered, though his pleasantry sounded a little false. He looked to Hopkins’ boy and then to the track beyond. “Is Mr. Stearne delayed..?” He guessed he knew the answer already.
The horse had clearly been ridden hard along the route. It’s legs, high as the stifle, were caked with fresh wet mud and ice, as were Hopkins boots and pants. The poor beast’s whole body was now steaming into the cold night air; wide, flaring nostrils huffing at regular intervals as it shook its head against the sweats.
Hopkins dismounted with no shortage of finesse, the fine-stitched Geneva cape for which he had become renowned casting itself wide, then threw a sweeping glance around the villagers as though he were a great hero returning from the wars. “Mr. Stearne’s good lady has taken to her bed,” he said without looking to Porter, “so I shall be conducting proceedings here alone. Save for the assistance of these enchanting yo... ladies, of course...” He removed his high-crowned hat and bowed in one long, fluid motion whilst casting a bright smile toward the women gathered behind Porter. Some giggled into a hand, whilst others blushed. Not one among them had noticed that he had almost sought to include the word ‘young’ in his description but, on seeing them close, had somehow thought better of it.
“Then your fee will be somewhat reduced, will it not?” Porter asked with his own knowing smile. He pretty much figured he knew the answer to that one as well.
“’Tis not Stearne, nor indeed I, for which you pay funds,” Hopkins replied, barely missing a beat. “But for the cleansing we deliver.” He kept turning, addressing the crowd as he spoke as though delivering a s
ermon. “For a burden such as witchcraft to lifted from honest folk is worth far more than the meagre expenses requested, it it not...?” A nod of approval flowed through the gullible like a gentle wave reaching the sands. He removed a soft leather glove and indicated to one of the younger males that his horse should perhaps be taken for water and fodder.
Porter merely raised a brow. It had ‘if you say so’ written quite skeptically beneath it. “If there is indeed a burden to be lifted?” he offered nonchalantly.
“Indeed, indeed,” Hopkins continued, though his tone now adopted a noticeably rude air of disinterest. “Pray tell me,” he continued. “Where is the astute young Prudence to be found this fine evening..? Is she with the maid?”
“She is confined to home,” Porter replied, as though referencing a naughty child, “and will not be assisting you today. There was an...” he chose his words carefully...“incident... earlier in the day. Worry not, however, for I have selected four of our most God-fearing... ladies... to aid you with your tasks. You may choose a leader among them but I think you will find each is willing to do all that you ask.”
Hmm. Not all that he might ask, Hopkins mused, for it had been a long, cold and painful ride back to this sorry neck of the woods. Whilst the tracks north between Colchester and Ipswich had been well worn and smooth under the hoof, those which had veered east to the Manningtree and Mistley area, undoubtedly the arse-end of this wretched land, had been anything but. As such, he needed this trek to be well worth his while, financially speaking. And that would require a clear conviction of devilry afoot from all concerned. The women presented to him now had enough years built upon them collectively to see straight through some things which the young, malleable Prudence Hart might take to be as gospel as the Holy Book itself. In every town he needed the help of at least one gullible to steer the others. For the next few days, and nights, that blindly aspirational young girl was supposed to be it.
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