Beneath Ceaseless Skies #50

by Brennan, Marie

  Gommuck started to say something, but Magrat gave him no chance; her anger broke loose, like a dam giving way without warning. “Why should I?” she demanded. “I’ve smelt the death around these men. Can you say honestly that you wouldn’t kill them, or tell the King’s men and let them do it instead? They’ve a right to make their grievances heard. It pleased James well enough to pretend he would be a friend to Catholics before he came to the throne, but now that he’s King in England it pleases him to forget he ever said anything. Patience hasn’t gotten them any toleration. I’ve watched Father Garnet pray for it for years, on his knees to the Almighty begging for their freedom, but that has gotten them nothing. Maybe this won’t, either, but at least they’re trying something!”

  Deven’s nostrils flared, and one foot slid forward into a fighting stance. For a moment Magrat believed he would snatch out his blade and stab her right there in the Hoxton street. Instead he said, through his teeth, “You’re a church grim. Tell me: how many of the dead would go to Heaven, and how many to Hell?”

  “Dead?” Magrat blinked, not understanding. Unless he had a church grim in his service, she didn’t know how he could be aware of that. “Catesby’s men? I won’t know until they’ve died—”

  “Not Catesby’s men,” Deven spat. “The King. The Queen. Prince Henry, and Prince Charles, all the Lords Temporal and Spiritual and the House of Commons besides, and everyone else unfortunate enough to be within half a mile of Westminster Palace on the fifth of November, when the gunpowder blows. How many souls to Heaven, and how many to Hell, for the freedom of your Catholics?”

  Magrat’s eyes burned dry, their lids fixed as if pinned open. Nothing would move, not even her lungs, as Deven recited that litany of horror. When at last she gained command of her tongue, only one word emerged. “Gunpowder?”

  Gommuck shifted his weight, looking up at the Queen’s consort, but Deven was staring at Magrat, his gaze suddenly unreadable. The knocker said, “Beneath the House of Lords. We found it, Scalliock and I did, when we went back to our tunnel; the storeroom we’d broken into is filled with barrels of powder. That man Fawkes is keeping watch on it.”

  It still didn’t make sense. Deven subsided, slowly, his sword-hand falling loose once more. After a moment, he said, “You didn’t know.”

  “I’ll do as you bid me, Robin. No matter how far it goes.”

  “We’ll be damned for it—”

  Knowledge that clawed at Francis Tresham in nightmares, and put Father Garnet in an agony of indecision, contemplating the breaking of his sacred obligation. A plan that had brought death to breathe down the necks of Catholic gentleman all over London. She’d looked for it near Fawkes, and Catesby, and the rest of their circle—but not the King, nor his lords and members of Parliament.

  She still could barely speak. “Lord Monteagle—”

  Deven’s brief exhalation was almost more a cough than a laugh. “Will preserve his own hide, no doubt. And not by staying away. He’ll show that letter to Salisbury before the night is out.”

  Salisbury. A hideously familiar name, to anyone in the world of English Catholicism: Secretary of State to the King—which was to say his spymaster—and a devoted general for the Protestant cause. “He can’t,” Magrat said; her voice was working at last. “If he does—Tresham, Catesby, all the rest, they’ll be killed. Salisbury detests Catholics; he’ll do anything to strike at them. If Monteagle hands him my letter, and he finds out about the plot—”

  “You think he doesn’t already know?”

  It stopped her short. Deven passed a weary hand over his brow. “He’d be a poor spymaster if this took him by surprise. But her Majesty and I have also been following the trail, and thanks to these goodly knockers we’ve been able to supply him—secretly—with the information he lacked.”

  Magrat felt suddenly like a mouse, permitted to run about because the cat knows it can’t escape. There was little comfort in discovering she had other mice for company. “Then why let it go on?” she asked, unable to keep her anguish hidden. “Why not arrest them and be done with it?”

  Deven looked past her and nodded; she heard the goblins back off a few steps. “To find the edges of the web,” he said. “We didn’t know about Tresham. Salisbury wants the whole conspiracy, down to the last man.” He paused, and his expression softened into a pity that choked Magrat. “You’re right that they will likely die. For the atrocity they planned, there can be no other answer. The one consolation I can offer is this: I will do what I can to make certain only the guilty are punished. Not all Catholics deserve Salisbury’s hate.”

  She wanted to lash out at him, bury her clawed hand in his throat; she didn’t want his pity, or his aid. But a memory burned within her heart, of the moment she had stepped into the tangle of this conspiracy, and the reason.

  “Father Garnet,” she said, addressing the hard-packed dirt of the street because it was easier than facing Deven. “He isn’t part of it. He knew—but from a confession, so he couldn’t tell anyone. Do you understand? He couldn’t.” No matter how terrible the secret. His duty was to God before the King.

  After a moment, Deven asked, “Did he conspire with the others?”

  “No.” His gentle soul could never have stooped to such horrors.

  “Then I will do my best.” Deven paused again, then said, “We are done here. I leave you with this command: warn them not. Any of them. For now you are free, but if you cross our work, I will not be so generous a second time.”

  Then his footsteps retreated down the street, followed by the two goblins. Magrat heard Gommuck mumble something that sounded like a thick Cornish apology, and then she was alone.

  * * *

  But I will delve one yard belowe their mines,

  And blowe them at the Moone.

  — William Shakespeare

  Hamlet III.iv.208-9

  * * *

  The Tower of London: May 2, 1606

  Moving like the puppet he’d briefly become, the gaoler unlocked the door to Father Garnet’s cell and let the visitor in.

  Anguish and hope warred in the priest’s brow when he looked up. The long months of his imprisonment had worn away at him, carving deep lines where only wrinkles had been before, but for a heartbeat something like happiness lightened his face. And Magrat, calling on every memory of every movement she’d ever seen Anne Vaux make, rushed forward to embrace him.

  “My dear sister,” Garnet whispered into her shoulder, the words breaking as he spoke them. “I heard you were imprisoned here, too—”

  And so Mistress Vaux was, taken by force when stratagems failed to catch her. She still languished in her own cell, elsewhere in the Tower; Magrat could do nothing for her. This visit was dangerous enough, no matter what glamour disguised her, what charm held the gaoler bound.

  She dug her fingers into Garnet’s back. Thirty years following the man, and this was the first time she’d touched him. But she couldn’t linger, however much she wanted to. “We haven’t much time,” she said, mimicking Anne’s manner of speaking. She’d spent days practicing it. “I’ve bribed the gaoler. Come with me, and we’ll spirit you out of the Tower.”

  Garnet stilled, then pulled away. Then the distance between them grew: he was retreating, first one step, then another. “What?”

  Magrat gritted her teeth before she could remember not to. “Freedom. In a few hours they’ll come to take you to your execution; you must escape before they can.”

  Thirteen men lay dead already, the men who had planned the deed and tried to carry it out: Sir Everard Digby, Robert Wintour, John Grant, and Catesby’s servant Thomas Bates; Tom Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes, and Guido Fawkes, all hung and drawn and quartered. Four others had escaped that fate by dying in a desperate stand at Holbeach: Jack Wright and his brother Kit, Thomas Percy, and Robin Catesby, who had brought them all to this end. Francis Tresham had screamed away the final days of his life months ago, dying of illness here in the Tower before Salisbury could
put him to trial. And tomorrow, Garnet would become the fourteenth.

  But this was Deven’s gift to her, apology for his failure to stop Salisbury. The King’s spymaster knew full well that Garnet had not planned the Gunpowder Treason, as they were calling it; but that did not matter. Garnet had known, and not warned anyone. And he was a Jesuit, which Salisbury hated above all else. So this man, who loved music and abhorred violence, had been painted as the architect of the plot, and would die as such.

  “Why do you hesitate?” Magrat demanded, seeing Garnet retreat another step.

  He stared at her, the unblinking gaze of a prey animal brought to bay. “Because you are not Anne Vaux.”

  It froze Magrat where she stood. Then she forced a laugh. “What? Father—”

  “Who are you?” he demanded. “Did Salisbury scour all England for a woman who looked enough of a Vaux to deceive me? But why do you try to lure me away, when I am already condemned—what is there to gain? I can only be executed once.”

  An unbroken stream of curses flowed through Magrat’s head. She shouldn’t have chosen Anne—but Salisbury and his men had practiced deceptions on Garnet before; the only person she could be sure of him trusting was his beloved sister in Christ. Yet that was also the one person he knew too well for her to counterfeit.

  They faced off at nearly the full length of his cell, now; Garnet’s back was against the wall. What could she do? Magrat thought briefly of changing her glamour—counterfeit an angel, claim she’d come to bring him salvation. The bread now protecting her meant she could speak of God as much as she wanted, without fear of destroying the illusion. But if she couldn’t imitate a mortal woman well enough to persuade him, she doubted she could make a convincing angel. And the attempt alone would be an insult.

  “I’m not Mistress Vaux,” she blurted, as if he did not know already. “I’m sorry I lied. But I am here to rescue you. Please, we must go, now.”

  Garnet’s jaw hardened. “Not until I know who you are.”

  Blood and Bone. If only she’d brought a will-o’-the-wisp to lure him. Desperate, Magrat reached for words, and found herself holding nothing but the truth.

  “I’m a friend,” she said quietly. “One who’s followed you for years, in secret. I warned Mistress Vaux when the searchers were coming; I scared them away from your hiding-places. Hyde Abbey was once my home, but ‘tis gone now, and so I’ve made my home with you: with the Catholics of England, and the priests who serve them. Because that’s what I’m supposed to do. You are my church—you and your people. So I haunt you, and I know whether your dead are going to Heaven or to Hell, but I don’t want to know that for you. I don’t want to see your death. Please, I beg you, come with me, and you’ll be safe.”

  There was still the tiniest flicker of hope. The slimmest chance, that his end might not be waiting for him with the morning’s light.

  His mouth had fallen open during her speech. Into the ensuing silence, Father Garnet whispered, “What are you?”

  Magrat’s mouth trembled, and she felt a hot pricking in her eyes. “I can’t show you. My face—you’ll think me evil. Just let me do this thing for you.”

  “Let you save me.” Garnet’s breath came out in a ragged, voiceless gust. “Some ancient ghost that haunts my steps, and you say you can take me from the Tower.”

  “Yes.”

  He closed his eyes, and she felt the faith gather within him, pressing against the protection that armoured her. Not an attack, a prayer to drive her back; just a fire within, giving him strength.

  “No.”

  The word made no sense.

  Garnet opened his eyes once more, and terrifying peace dwelt within them. “I could have saved myself many times before now. All I had to do was tell of Robin’s plan. Salisbury, I know, does not understand, and perhaps you do not either—but an understanding came to me, when I prayed for guidance after hearing Father Tesimond’s confession.

  “I have long said that I trust in divine Providence to vindicate our cause here in England. We men may do all that we can, but in the end, we rise or fall by the grace of God alone. I therefore looked to my duty, and it was clear, however agonizing it might be: I could not betray Robin’s sacred confidence, imparted under the seal of the confessional. I did what I could to stop him, short of breaking that seal. I thought I had succeeded. But ‘twas not enough.” He spread his hands, made pale and thin by his long confinement. “Thus I am here.”

  Magrat stared. “You’ll stay and let them execute you. Because you think that is God’s will.”

  “Yes.”

  Frustration strangled her first attempt to answer. The second was better: “‘Tis Salisbury’s will, Father. And he’s not God. You needn’t let him kill you!”

  “You can rescue a person from the Tower?”

  “Did you not hear me say it?”

  “Then rescue Anne Vaux,” Garnet said. “She is blameless, and held prisoner only to strike at me. If you are the friend you claim, then do me this favour, and I will bless you to the angels, whatever unhallowed spirit you may be.”

  Her breath came in short, desperate gasps, as if she were trying to hold in something that threatened to break free. He couldn’t stay—they were going to draw and quarter him—

  But he’d kept silent for months, when a few words might have saved him, and other men besides. Because that was what his faith required. He would hardly abandon it now, simply to preserve his own skin. That inner fire was the only strength he had anymore.

  Rescuing Anne Vaux tonight would be impossible; they’d charmed the wrong gaolers for that. But Magrat would see it done, if she had to sell herself into Deven’s service forever. And one more thing, before Garnet was gone.

  “I’ll bring her to you in the morning,” she promised, past the hardness in her throat. “In truth this time; not me in disguise. So you may see her one last time.”

  A broken smile found its way onto the condemned man’s face. “Thank you. May the Lord bless and keep you, my friend.”

  His benediction broke harmlessly against the protection of mortal bread, but the words still struck something deep within. The stone corridor outside wavered and swam in Magrat’s vision as she left the cell and heard the gaoler lock the door behind her. The pricking in her eyes grew to unbearable heat, and then scalding lines tracked down her face.

  No church grim should ever weep for the dead. But Magrat was a grim without a home, for the man who had given her one would be martyred tomorrow, for reasons she did not—could not—understand.

  It was not duty, but choice. Alone in the harsh confines of the Tower, Magrat wept for Father Garnet.

  Copyright © 2010 Marie Brennan

  Comment on this Story in the BCS Forums

  Marie Brennan is an anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly pillages her academic fields for material. Her short stories have sold to more than a dozen venues, including Talebones, On Spec, and Intergalactic Medicine Show. Three of her stories have appeared previously in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and one of those, "Driftwood," is also in the BCS anthology The Best of BCS, Year One. "And Blow Them at The Moon" is set in the same world as her series of historical fantasy novels centering on the faerie court of London: Midnight Never Come, In Ashes Lie, and A Star Shall Fall, due out in September.

  http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

  WINECASK BELLIES AND OWL WINGS

  by Liz Coleman

  The king of the city gave me a ruby one night. He left it on my pillow, in the hollow he’d made as his head arched back in ecstasy. A perfectly smooth ruby the size of a duck egg.

  What would I do with it? I rolled it in my palm, let it ride over the ridges of my fingers. It wanted to move, to travel. I peered into the bloodlight in its round belly. It wanted to see, to illuminate.

  So I made a horse. I made bones of iron and a mane of silk. Tendons of rubber from the king’s caravans. I gave it a belly made from a wine vat. Around this I wrapped a skin of black and brown velvet—bri
ndled bars such as no horse had, but that would make a cage to contain its life. And in the right-hand socket in its silken face, I placed the ruby.

  I would ride this horse to freedom, away from my prison to the wastes where I’d fly with my sisters on owl wings.

  The horse sprang to life. It shook its head and tossed its mane. It snuffled as I gave it grapes to eat. My horse would eat the flesh of ancient gods, not the chaff of the field.

  But then my horse whinnied in fear. She turned in circles, unable to see her left side. So frantic did she become that I had to still her with a gesture, and take the life of her ruby eye from her.

  When the king came to me again, eager for the joys in my silken lair, I thanked him for his gift and demanded another exactly like it. I refused to touch him until he swore, on his own blood spilled on my limestone tiles, that he would find me a ruby as clear and as large and as smooth as the first.

  Three seasons passed, and I did not see the king. But when the first snows fell and were rapidly melted away, he came to me with head bowed and hands bare.

  “I have found such a ruby as you desire,” he said. “But it lies in the castle of my neighbor. I haven’t the coin to buy it, and my people, my lands, couldn’t handle a war. By your magic, my love, can you steal it away?”

  I took him to my bed that night, in gratitude for his heartfelt attempt, but also because the magic that bound me required it.

  Midnight came, and wind tore through the cave as I washed my silken face and hung it to dry. Storms whipped the land as I cleaned the stiffness of pleasuring a king from the long pale gloves of my hands. He slept in my bed, sweet and ignorant.

  Dawn stretched its fingers into my cave and brushed the throat of the sleeping king. Light touched black runes on his skin, runes he couldn’t read but wore because his father had, and his father before that. Runes that burned me and bound me.