A Crowning Mercy

by Bernard Cornwell

  The stroke oar looked at the coin, then at Toby. “One each?”

  “This is all I have.”

  “Might be done. We can have a try.” He grinned. “Very good, sir, we’ll see how much light you can throw on our path.” He nodded, a signal to his companion, and at last the boat left the treacherous flame-light of the stairs.

  The oars moved in to dark water and turned the boat, the current helping them downstream. Yet Toby knew he was late. The oars’ rhythmic beat seemed to sound the endless message. Too late, too late, too late.

  Eleven

  Thomas Grimmett waited for Scammell in the hall. He was grinning. “Priest’s out the back, sir. He’ll be here in a minute.” He jerked his head toward the kitchen whence came the sound of someone being violently sick. Grimmett looked hopefully toward the shut study door. “You want me to help look after her, sir?”

  “No, no. She’ll be out soon.” Scammell was shaking, his foot hurting. He wanted to marry Dorcas, yet he had never thought it would be like this. He did not like it, yet he was much too frightened of Cony’s big henchman to protest. He waved toward his dining room. “I’ll wait in there.”

  “Yes, sir. You do.” Grimmett might call Scammell “sir,” but he made no attempt to hide his scorn for the plump, frightened man.

  Scammell found that someone, Goodwife presumably, had prepared the dining room for the wedding ceremony. The large table had been pushed aside, leaving the dusty floor clear, while a small table had been put under the window that looked toward the river. It had been covered with a white linen cloth and the whole room made bright with candles.

  Scammell was unhappy. He was ashamed of himself, not just for being beaten by the girl, but because she had spoken the truth to him. He had gone to Werlatton first because of the money the marriage would bring him, expecting his bride to be as lumpish and unattractive as Matthew Slythe himself, and then he had seen Dorcas. To his greed was added lust. He knew she did not want the marriage, and he suspected that his wedded life would not be one of unalloyed bliss, yet he could in no way shake off his lust for her. He dreamed at night of the gratification that coupling with her would bring, and he was ashamed of his thoughts.

  He had prayed about it. He had asked God to let him see his coming marriage as a partnership of Christian souls, procreating children who would be the next generation of Saints, yet that holy ideal was continually smirched in his head by his desire for her body in his hands.

  He took his Bible from his coat pocket and turned to the seventh chapter of I Corinthians. “It is good for a man not to touch a woman,” he read, and he had read the chapter so often in the days since he had met Campion that his eyes scarcely needed to pass over the words. “But if they cannot contain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn.” He could not contain himself, he could not! He moaned slightly, the sudden lust taking away the pain in his foot, and he knew St. Paul was right. He should marry so he did not burn in the flames of hell, for his lust was already burning through him and he was ashamed of it.

  It was better, he knew, that he should marry a woman who was as strong in the Lord as himself, yet the chapter in Corinthians offered him comfort for that predicament. “…the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband.” That was it, of course! That was the verse that justified this marriage, whatever Campion might think. By marrying her he was sanctifying her, he was saving her soul which he knew needed to be saved, and what greater love could he show her than that? This marriage, though she did not know it, was an act of grace, a work of the spirit, and whatever his reservations about their future or about her attitude to the wedding, he could console himself by knowing that he was saving her soul. One day, he thought, she will be grateful.

  The door opened and Grimmett unceremoniously pushed a small, untidy man into the room. “The Reverend Sobriety Bollsbie, sir. That’s Mr. Scammell, Sobriety.”

  Scammell put his Bible away and smiled at the priest who was mopping his mouth with the hem of his cassock. “Sir?”

  Sobriety stared round the room, blinking in the sudden light. He let his cassock fall, hiccupped, then smiled brightly at Scammell. “I preached to the Commons once, sir. Yes! To the Lords and Commons! For three hours, sir, and a great work was wrought there. Did you know that, sir?” He bobbed happily in front of Scammell.

  “No.” Scammell was taken aback.

  “Yes, sir! To the Lords and Commons. I took as my text the twenty-third verse of the twenty-sixth chapter of Proverbs. Do you know it, sir?”

  “No.”

  Sobriety raised an admonitory, shaking finger. “‘Burning lips and a wicked heart are like a potsherd covered with silver dross.’ Yes, sir. Two years ago it was, or maybe three, I don’t exactly recall. It was well received.” He looked at Grimmett who had stayed in the doorway. “It was well received, was it not?”

  “They never forgot it, Sobriety.” Grimmett looked at Scammell and grinned. “They only called the old bastard at the last minute and he was drunk as a judge. He vomited all over the pulpit. Now come on, Sobriety, get your damned book out!”

  Sobriety sat down heavily, fishing under his cassock. “I’m feeling poorly, Thomas, distinctly poorly. Do you have some of my physic?”

  “When it’s done, sir, when it’s done.” Grimmett crossed to Scammell, his sword banging against the pushed back table. “Here, sir. Sir Grenville thought you might not be prepared.” He handed Scammell a cheap ring. “Don’t worry, sir. He’ll charge you, legal like.”

  Sobriety Bollsbie, with the cunning of a drunkard, had produced a small tin flask from the recesses of his clothing. He sucked at it, emptied it, then smiled happily at the room. “‘Wine is a mockery,’ sir! ‘Strong drink is raging’!”

  “Amen,” Scammell said, who knew when the Bible was quoted at him.

  “For three hours, sir, to the Lords and Commons assembled! I spoke of the mockery of wine, sir.” He spoilt this declamation by hiccupping. “Burning lips, sir, burning with the spirit, but not the spirit of God. Yes, sir.” He tried to stand up, suddenly filled with the power of his last, greatest, and unfinished sermon. Grimmett pushed him down.

  “Wait there, Sobriety. Have your book ready.”

  “I’m feeling poorly, Thomas. I want my physic.”

  “When it’s done, Sobriety. When they’re married.”

  “A wedding, is it?”

  “A wedding.”

  “Ah! A wedding.” Sobriety frowned as he fumbled with the pages of his prayer book. “‘Whoso findeth a wife,’ sir, ‘findeth a good thing, And obtaineth favor of the Lord.’”

  “Amen,” said Scammell.

  Sobriety grinned at him. “‘It is better to dwell in a corner of the house-top, than with a brawling woman in a wide house.’” The priest seemed to be laughing at Scammell, who heard the text as a prisoner would hear a sentence.

  Grimmett was bored. “Get on with it, Sobriety. You need the names.” He watched the priest search for the page, then turned familiarly to Scammell. “He’s very good, sir.”

  “Good?”

  “When we need a wedding, sir. You’d be surprised how often we need a wedding in Chancery, mostly on deathbeds, of course, but Sobriety’s your man. It’s the responses, you see.”

  “The responses?” Scammell was appalled by what was happening to his well-ordered life, but powerless to prevent it.

  Grimmett smiled. “The lady or gentleman, sir, does have to say ‘I will,’ and if they’re reluctant then it helps to have Sobriety. He just keeps going, sir. Don’t worry, it’s quite legal.”

  He fished in a pouch and took out a piece of paper. It was a marriage certificate, already filled in with a shaky signature at the bottom which read “James Bollsbie, Clerk in Holy Orders.” Grimmett tucked the paper back into his pouch. “Sir Grenville said he’d look after this for you, sir.” He looked at the priest, then back to Scammell. “Shall I fetch the bride, sir?”

  “Are we ready?”

  “As we’ll e
ver be.” Grimmett left the room.

  Sobriety Bollsbie stood up successfully, showed surprise, then beamed seraphically at Scammell. “Have we met, sir?”

  “A minute ago, sir.”

  “I preached to the Commons once, sir, did you know?”

  Scammell was saved a repetition of the story by a scream from the hall, a slap that echoed through the empty house, the sound of heels dragging, a grunt from Grimmett followed by another scream. Sobriety was quite unmoved by the noise. “For three hours, sir, three hours! But that, of course, was before my affliction.”

  “Your affliction?” Scammell waited, horror-struck.

  “I think it must be the falling sickness. Yes. God tries his servants, he does, he does.”

  “Indeed and indeed.” Scammell’s hands wound in apprehension, and then the door was filled with the struggling group. Grimmett dragged Campion by her arms, Goodwife slapped her, and Campion screamed and tried to kick at her tormentors. Sobriety was quite oblivious. He raised his voice. “Your name, sir?”

  “What?” Scammell was watching the bride’s entrance.

  “Your name, sir?” Sobriety asked with some asperity.

  “Oh! Scammell. Samuel.”

  “Good, good!” The priest had found a pen, some ink, and now he carefully wrote the name on the page of his prayer book. Scammell could see that the page was already thickly covered with other names. Sobriety looked at Campion, her bonnet hanging loose, her face red where it had been slapped and wet with tears.

  “The bride’s name, sir?”

  “Dorcas Slythe.”

  “A pretty name, yes, very pretty.” The pen scratched.

  Campion screamed at them. Grimmett wrenched her arms back so that it hurt. “Keep still, you bitch!” He dug his fingers harder into her upper arms. “I’ll tear your cursed arms out if you struggle!”

  Sobriety draped his scapular about his shoulders, smiled at them both, then launched himself at breakneck speed into the wedding service. “‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation to join together this Man and this Woman in Holy Matrimony.’”

  Campion shook her head, as if to clear it of a nightmare. Her arms hurt, the words clamored at her, and she struggled against the brute strength of the man who held her. The priest stank of drink. She spat at him trying to stop the flow of words, and Grimmett yanked her backward, pulling her back against his chest and then rammed his knee up into her skirts, forcing her feet apart with his boot. His breath rasped in her ear.

  “Marriage,” Sobriety was gabbling, “should not be taken lightly in hand or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God.’”

  “No!” She screamed it, wrenching one arm free and clawing back at Grimmett who grabbed her wrist and twisted it, but had to lower his knee to regain his balance.

  “‘It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication, that such persons as have not the gift of continency, might marry…’”

  The candles burned high, throwing grotesque shadows on the dark panelled walls. Grimmett forced his knee between Campion’s thighs again, pushing it higher.

  Sobriety Bollsbie inquired if any present knew of any impediment why these two should not be lawfully joined in matrimony. Goodwife shook her head, Campion screamed, but it was all the same to Sobriety Bollsbie.

  “Scammell Samuel, wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife?”

  Scammell nodded. “I will.”

  Sobriety looked at the girl who seemed to be leaning backward with one leg cocked in the air. Her face was screwed up in hate, while Grimmett’s face grinned over her shoulder. Sobriety knew better than to show surprise. “‘Dorcas Slythe. Wilt thou have this Man to be thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance, in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health; and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?’” He did not wait for an answer, but simply read on faster and faster, wanting only to finish and collect his fee.

  Grimmett was forced to bring his knee down when the moment came for the ring to be put on Campion’s finger. He thrust her left arm toward Scammell and Goodwife came to help, unbending the fingers and holding them toward her master. Sobriety watched with relief as the ring was pushed on to her finger. “Forasmuch as you and you,” he could not be bothered with names now, “have consented together in Holy Wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company…” he saw a flicker of light through the window to his left, but he was close to the end now, “and thereto have given and pledged their troth either to other, and have declared the same…”

  “Fire!” Scammell shouted.

  Sobriety shouted louder. “‘I pronounce that they be Man and Wife together, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen!’”

  He dived for Grimmett’s bag, ignoring the pandemonium, and grabbed the first bottle by the neck.

  They were married.

  Far ahead Toby could see the great shape of London Bridge, a dark mass dotted with yellow candlelight from hundreds of windows above the white tumbling where the river piled against the bridge’s piers. He had just begun to hear the rush of water compressing itself through the narrow arches when his boat turned toward the city bank.

  The watermen slowed their progress. There were old pilings in this stretch, left from decayed wharves, and they nosed the boat gingerly toward Scammell’s landing stage. Water slapped on the boat. There was a brightly lit window just visible through the jumble of shadows and then the bow man reached out for the pier. Toby gave them the promised coin, climbed on to the jetty, then watched as the boatmen backpaddled silently into deeper and safer water.

  He looked for the large, white-painted barge that had carried Campion away, but could see no sign of it. In the angle of the wharf and its pier, dimly lit by the light from the house window, he could see a small boat, its oars neatly stowed on its two thwarts, resting on the Thames mud. Dark water lapped a few yards beyond the boat’s bows, while from beneath the pier, the wharf, and all around, he could hear the rustle and scratch of rats.

  A voice startled him, making him crouch and turn, but it was only the watch in Thames Street. “Eleven of the clock, and all’s well!”

  He moved slowly, holding his scabbard in his left hand so it should not knock against the stacks of timber which lay between wharf and yard. The shadows were deep here, disguising the yard’s contents, but as he waited, looking and listening for any guard who might be left there at night, his eyes adjusted to the gloom. To his right was the house, brick built, with just one small lit window facing the yard. The large window, seen from the river, was invisible from where he waited. To his left were two tall sheds, one apparently stacked with uncut timber, the other filled with the mysterious shapes of half-built boats, racks of strakes and ribs, the everyday impedimenta of Scammell’s business. Against the far wall, next to the wide gates that led into Thames Street, there was a strange, small hutch. It had an opening, facing Toby, and in the opening he could see the deep glow of fire. For a moment he had thought that the fire belonged to a night watchman, yet there was no movement, and then a smell registered. Pitch. Of course!

  He smiled, the vestige of a plan coming to his mind. The boat-yard must consume quantities of pitch, the thick, evil-smelling substance being used to caulk the finished boats, and Scammell would not let the fire die overnight. The vat of pitch would take too long to heat each morning, and so, overnight, it was placed on a great fire of sea coal, the source of the light on the far wall.

  He moved again, this time toward the lit window, and for a few seconds he almost let his anger take over. He could see Campion, grotesquely held in the grip of a huge, leather-jerkined man. There was a second man, dressed in Puritan black, to Campion’s ri
ght, and a woman to her left. A third man, elderly and clothed shabbily in old vestments, faced Campion and the black-dressed man. A wedding.

  Toby could see the book, he could see the priest’s mouth moving, and for a second or two the urge was on him to smash the window, climb through, draw the sword at his side and hack blindly at Campion’s captors.

  Church bells struck in the city, the bells of Southwark answering with their hourly chimes, and the sudden cacophony distracted Toby and calmed his anger. He would gain nothing by blind fury. He would be cut down before he was half-way through the window, and he remembered the idea suggested to him by the pitch fire.

  Two things, even more than war, gave fear to London. Fire and the plague. Plague was the worse of the two killers, but fire the more frequent. Much of London was still built of timber, the houses crowded together with thatched outhouses crammed into small yards. Fire often threatened the destruction of London, the sudden flames and smoke billowing above the rooftops. The citizens were practiced in their response. Nearly every street corner was decorated with long hooks to haul down burning thatch or timbers and with axes to break into houses so that gunpowder charges could be laid. The powder would flatten a ring of houses about the fire, making a cordon over which the flames could not pass. Despite the new hand-driven pump that had just been invented, which could force water a full thirty feet into the air from its canvas hose, a fire was usually well alight before the parish could deploy it. London’s gravest enemy was fire, yet tonight it would be Toby’s ally.

  Fire would bring the watch running. It would bring men with axes against the gates of Scammell’s yard. It would fill the yard, the street outside, even the river, with people and confusion, and in that confusion Toby reckoned lay his best chance of rescuing Campion.

  It was a terrible thing he planned, and he knew it, but he worked with a blind disregard of the damage he might do to the city. He was in love, and the distorting glass of love saw only one thing; that his loved one was in danger and he must split his enemy’s forces and take her from them.