A Crowning Mercy

by Bernard Cornwell

  At nightfall, when Campion came beneath the outer gates for the first time, the Tower’s Parliamentary governor had been puzzled, even irate. “Who is she?”

  “Dorcas Slythe.”

  “So?” He reluctantly took the warrant given him by a trooper. He grunted when he saw the seal of the Committee of Safety. “Charge?”

  “Witchcraft and murder.”

  The governor sneered. “Put her in the clink.”

  The Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey was not overawed by the Tower’s governor. “She may be a Papist spy.”

  “Ah.” The governor frowned at the warrant. “It says nothing about that here.”

  “You may argue with the Committee of Safety. If you prefer, I can ask Sir Grenville Cony to explain.”

  The governor glanced up. “Sir Grenville? That’s different.” He climbed on to the step of the coach and looked inside. “Is she to have privileges?”

  “None.”

  The Governor, who was annoyed at being summoned from his quarters by the captain of the guard to deal with the unexpected prisoner, bawled at the captain to do the paperwork. Campion was taken from the coach, the hooves of the horses were loud as they turned the cumbersome vehicle about and then the gates clashed shut. She was a prisoner.

  There was no window in Campion’s cell. The only light, feeble at best, came from the tallow candles that lit the tunnel beyond the door’s grille.

  The cell floor was stone. In one corner was a heap of old, stale straw. There was no furniture. She was given one blanket, ridden with lice, but it was hopeless against the cold. As there was no day or night in this place, so there was no season but winter.

  She shivered. She moaned to herself, and sometimes she sang in a small voice that was thin in the dank gloom. She rocked herself in the straw corner, huddled with the blanket, and the cell reeked with the stench of sewage. Rats scuttled about, their claws loud on the stone.

  She lost count of time, lost count of the number of pots of thin gruel that were pushed through the door. The bread was rock hard. She stank. Her hair was matted, her body bitten by lice, and her sleep was broken by the clanging of doors and the scraping of bolts that told her other prisoners were somewhere in these cells.

  Sometimes the grille of her door would darken and she would look up to see a face pressed against the small opening. Eyes looked white at her. Sometimes there would be laughter; sometimes the hiss of hatred: “Witch! Papist! Whore!”

  She did not descend into the abyss of madness. Two things saved her. She did not know if Toby was alive or dead, yet she imagined him alive. She forced herself to imagine him alive, and she would rock in her corner, arms clutching her knees, and imagine the life they would one day have. She saw Toby avenging her on her enemies, she saw him strike down Sir Grenville, the sword blade opening up that world of which they had dared dream. She imagined the Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey whining for mercy. She saw her brother on his knees, and she imagined the sweetness of offering him a sister’s forgiveness, more terrible than the sword’s swift revenge.

  When she was not in her dream world, living among the fields of eternal summer beside cool streams, she forced herself to recite aloud. She tried to remember the whole of the Song of Solomon, and she would weep sometimes as the words sounded in her head: “His banner over me was love.” She recited psalms, remembered from the long hours of childhood, but most of all she spoke aloud the words of a poem she had read so often in Lazen Castle. She could only remember the first verse, and of that she was not certain that her memory was correct, but she loved the words. Lady Margaret had said that the poem mocked love’s intensity, but Donne’s words were like music in her stinking, cold, rat-running cell:

  Go, and catch a falling star,

  Get with child a mandrake root,

  Tell me, where all past years are,

  Or who cleft the Devil’s foot,

  Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

  Or to keep off envy’s stinging,

  And find

  What wind

  Serves to advance an honest mind.

  She had never seen the sea, the closest she had been was when she had met Mrs. Swan in the inn yard at Southampton, but she imagined it as full of mermaids’ singing, and she saw herself and Toby listening to the songs and knowing peace.

  At other times she came close to despair. She remembered the week of travel from Lazen Castle, a week in which Goodwife had spat out a vituperative stream at her, dredging from the past every small sin, every disobedience, and flaying Campion with her envy and malice. In her cell, day after indistinguishable day, Campion was determined to live, yet there were moments when it seemed so futile. When the water ran on her cell walls, when her mouth and throat were sour with the stink of urine, when the rats woke her in the darkness, when she shivered uncontrollably and could not even be bothered to pick off the lice that she could see on her skin, then, at those moments, she sometimes wished she was no more. At those moments she was sure Toby was dead and she wished only to be with him. Perhaps, she thought, the mermaids only sang to the dead.

  “Magnificent! Magnificent! Your men will clear the gardens?” It was posed as a question, but Colonel Fuller knew better than to treat it as anything but an order.

  “Of course, Sir Grenville.”

  “With haste, Colonel, with haste. Ah! A loggia! A pity the guns damaged it. See if you have masons.”

  “Yes, Sir Grenville.”

  Sir Grenville climbed the single step into the loggia’s arcaded shadow. He looked at the vine, trailing where round shot had smashed its supports. “You say, Colonel, that the plate wasn’t found?”

  “No, Sir Grenville. I believe it was sold for the enemy’s cause.”

  “No doubt, no doubt. Or melted down. A pity, a pity.” He did not sound disappointed, nor, he reflected, should he be. Sir Grenville’s cup flowed over with success. True, the castle had fallen earlier than he had expected, but Ebenezer Slythe had not done anything so foolish as to run away with the seal. It had been delivered to Sir Grenville in Winchester when he had met Ebenezer returning with his sister to London. Sir Grenville now had two seals. No one, but no one, could now assemble three of the four except for him. The Covenant was safe.

  Dorcas Slythe, of course, would die. At Winchester, in the tavern in Jewry Street where Sir Grenville had spoken with Ebenezer, he had given the younger man the warrant charging her with witchcraft and murder. Ebenezer, quietly pleased with himself, had read the words. “We could add heresy.”

  “Heresy, dear boy? Do you not think the pie has enough plums already?”

  Ebenezer gave his secret, slow smile. “The seal has a crucifix inside.”

  “Indeed?”

  Ebenezer showed the small, silver figure to Sir Grenville. “I don’t think Parliament will like that.”

  “I’m sure they will not.” Sir Grenville smiled and poured himself wine. “But I would like it even less, Ebenezer, if we were to draw attention to the seals. No, dear boy. But by all means spread the rumor that she’s Romish. It will only whip up London against her.” He put the Seal of St. Matthew into his pocket. “You know what to do?”

  Ebenezer nodded. “The Presentment first, then the Grand Jury.”

  “Exactly.” Sir Grenville pushed a piece of paper over the table. “See this man, Caleb Higbed. He’s a good lawyer, he’ll do it all. Good! Good!”

  The affable mood had lasted. Victory was Sir Grenville’s, and now Lazen Castle was his too. He had acquired much land in the last year, yet nothing to compare with this estate. The guns had knocked it about more than he cared, but the New House was splendidly undamaged. Soon, he thought, he might retire, and he could think of few places more fitting for him than this.

  Retirement was a possibility, but only after his cause was victorious. That victory had come suddenly, splendidly nearer. News had arrived from the north of England, and the news was of a great victory by Parliament and the Scots over the Royalist forces. If th
e wind was turning against the King, then nowhere did it blow more cruel and cold than over bleak Marston Moor. A great victory which had loosed the north from the King, would lead soon, Sir Grenville knew, to the fall of York, and meant that the kingdom of Charles was shrinking fast.

  Victory, rest, and then the Covenant to support him in his old age. Sir Grenville smiled as he walked into the house, looking with satisfaction at the great marble staircase. He was a rich man now, as he had been since the Covenant’s founding, yet he still needed the Covenant’s money. The income was so huge, so unimaginably large, that no amount of English land could replace it with rents. Two seals had given him the safety of the Covenant, and though he must share the monies with Ebenezer, he would, as he ever had, make sure that Ebenezer never knew the full income. He looked at Colonel Fuller. “Is the family gone?”

  “No, Sir Grenville. I don’t think they expected you this soon.”

  Sir Grenville chuckled. He hauled on the marble banisters, pulling his grotesque body up the stairs. His cherubically curled white hair was tipped backward so he could look at the plasterwork. “Italian, Colonel!”

  “Sir Grenville?”

  “Italian work, the plaster. Very fine, very fine!”

  “Yes, sir.” Colonel Fuller would happily have let his men destroy the plasterwork with their firearms, but Sir Grenville had given him careful orders.

  Sir Grenville Cony paused on the landing halfway up the stairs. He was in an excellent mood. He glanced down to where his secretary and his personal guard followed. “I should marry, John! Lazen Castle needs a mistress, yes?” He laughed.

  John Morse, who knew his master’s views on women better than most, stopped in surprise. “Marry?”

  “That worries you, eh?” Sir Grenville laughed. “There’s an unmarried daughter to the house, isn’t there, Colonel?”

  “Yes, sir. Caroline.”

  “Do you think she’d have me?” Sir Grenville barked with laughter. His men had never seen him in such high spirits. “Never mind! Never mind! Who needs a penniless wife?”

  The men on the staircase laughed.

  Sir Grenville waved upward, “On, on! Veni, vidi, vici!”

  Colonel Fuller who, more than Sir Grenville, had come, seen, and conquered Lazen Castle, went ahead of his patron and opened the long gallery door.

  “Sir Grenville?”

  “Ah! The gallery. I have heard so much of it.” He walked in. “Who are you?”

  Lady Margaret, sewing in a window seat, frowned at the interruption. “Cony?”

  Sir Grenville chuckled. “You recognize me. The price of fame. I suppose you are Lady Margaret Lazender? Is it not customary to rise when the master of the house enters a room?”

  Lady Margaret, who had seen the frog-like face of Sir Grenville in the garden, and who had made herself sit calmly in the window with her work, did not reply. She put a careful stitch into the laurel wreath she was embroidering about the crown that decorated the curtain square.

  “Sir Grenville?” The Earl of Fleet, waiting further down the room, came forward.

  “My Lord! I am surprised to find you here.”

  “This is my wife’s childhood home, Sir Grenville.”

  “Of course! Of course!” Sir Grenville peered up at the plasterwork. “Oh, very good! Most excellent.” He turned suddenly back to Fleet. “My Lord! You must be overjoyed with the news from the north? A most excellent providence of God?”

  Lady Margaret sniffed. The Earl of Fleet nodded. “Indeed, sir.”

  Sir Grenville laughed. He strutted into the room, looking at the decorations. “God is indeed blessing our cause, my Lord. Blessing it richly!” He stopped in front of the fireplace, turning to face the room. “I was delayed in my arrival. I thought it expedient to visit Essex. He misses you, my Lord.”

  The Earl of Fleet had been forced to turn round as Cony passed him. “I will return to my duties soon, Sir Grenville.”

  “I never doubted it, my Lord, I never doubted it. May I ask what happy accident finds you in my house?”

  The Earl of Fleet frowned. He hardly knew Sir Grenville Cony, though the name was familiar to him. He knew Sir Grenville was now on the Committee of Both Kingdoms, the committee of English and Scots that effectively ruled wherever the King did not. The Earl was in some awe of this small, gross man. Sir Grenville represented power, and a power that was conquering the land. “I came, sir, for my mother-in-law.”

  “You came for her? Why is she still here?” Lady Margaret had her back to Cony. She did not turn round.

  The Earl frowned again. “Her son is ill, Sir Grenville.”

  “Ill?”

  “Wounded.”

  “Ah! You mean the whelp was fighting against us, my Lord!” Sir Grenville shook his head. “He is a prisoner, I suppose?”

  Colonel Fuller spoke from the door. “He’s too ill, sir, to be a prisoner.”

  Sir Grenville Cony smiled. He had looked forward to this moment. He had delayed it some days, going first to see the Earl of Essex who led an army that was trying to clear the west of Royalist troops. Now, that chore done, Sir Grenville was prepared to enjoy himself. A week at Lazen was a pleasant prospect, time to raise the rents and tally up the wealth of this new property. His frog-like eyes were wide on the Earl of Fleet. “Is this a hospice, my Lord? Am I to tender charity to my enemies?”

  The Earl looked astonished. “This was his house, Sir Grenville. He cannot be moved.”

  “Cannot? Cannot? There were those who said the King’s tyranny could not be moved, but they were wrong.” He waved a careless hand. “Move him! This afternoon. Now! I want the whole family out, you understand? Out!”

  Lady Margaret, at last, moved. She put her sewing down, stood, and walked calmly toward Sir Grenville. She stopped opposite him, forcing him to look up at her. “My son, Sir Grenville, will die if he is moved. That is the physician’s opinion.”

  He smiled. “I have never found physicians reliable in these matters.”

  “My son will die.”

  “That will teach him not to fight Parliament.” He smiled again. “He was wanted, I believe, for treachery in London. His death, Lady Margaret, will only save the hangman effort.”

  “You cannot force us to leave. My son will die.”

  “I cannot! I cannot!” Sir Grenville laughed. “Lady Margaret, this is my house now, not yours. You may stay as a scullery maid or as a seamstress, but your son will go. He will go now.”

  “He will die.”

  “Then let him die!”

  She slapped him. A swift, open-palmed crack that echoed about the long gallery like a pistol shot. Sir Grenville raised his own arm, fury contorting his face, but the Earl of Fleet stepped forward, his sword already inches out of its scabbard. “Sir Grenville!”

  Cony’s bodyguard, taken by surprise, looked on appalled. Sir Grenville, slowly, lowered his arm. “You will get out of this house, Lady Margaret, you and your family, and you will take nothing, you hear? Nothing but your clothes. Nothing!” He turned to Fuller. “They have one hour!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sir Grenville wheeled back. His eyes, angry now, looked at the Earl of Fleet. “And you, my Lord, in this house of the enemy. I hear you wished to know the fate of Dorcas Slythe?”

  The Earl of Fleet, surprised that his message should be so widely known, nodded.

  Sir Grenville laughed. “She’ll be dead soon, if not yet. Either hung as a witch, or burned as a husband murderer.” He smiled. “She was my enemy, my Lord, which I think you are now, too. Get out.”

  Lady Margaret did not look back. She, Caroline and Anne shared the Earl of Fleet’s travelling coach with Toby. He lay on one bench, groaning. Colonel Washington, his eyes still bandaged, rode on the groom’s seat outside. The servants whom Lady Margaret had asked to come walked behind. They skirted the ruins of the gatehouse and climbed into the humped northern hills which were grazed by Sir Grenville’s sheep.

  Lady Margaret held her son’s ha
nd and she knew, with a terrible sickness inside, that her enemies were winning. She had lost everything. Husband and house. Her son’s life was flickering, her daughters were silent beside her. The Reverend Perilly caught up with the coach, riding his old nag. She smiled out of the window at him, knowing that he, like she, had nowhere to go.

  Caroline sniffed. Lady Margaret frowned at her. “Quiet, child! There’s no need for tears.”

  “But, mother…”

  “Don’t ‘but mother’ me.” Lady Margaret heard James Wright’s voice chivvying the horses up one of the slopes that led from the alder-bordered streams. “We shall be back, Caroline. You can be sure of that. We shall be back.” She gripped her son’s hand as if she would pour into Toby all her own formidable strength. “We shall dance on that man’s grave. We shall be back.”

  Twenty

  Sunlight almost blinded Campion. She cried out, dazzled by the glare, tripped, and one of the two soldiers who had fetched her kicked her. “Get up! Come on!”

  They took her to a small, stone chamber. The July sun warmed these rooms, but she was still cold. Her hair was matted and filthy, some of Scammell’s blood still clotted in it. She was cruelly thin. Her skin was scabrous and filthy, her body a thing of fleas and lice.

  The soldiers had come for her, but had not told her why. She leaned on the stone wall and saw the ring of filth about her wrists. She rubbed at the dirt, spitting on it, but somehow the hopelessness of the effort made her cry. A soldier growled.

  “Quiet, woman.”

  She could hear voices, the murmuring of many voices. like a church before the service began. The soldiers talked quietly to each other. One of them held a looped rope in his hands.

  A door opened, the soldiers stiffened and a voice called out. Campion’s elbow was taken, she was pushed forward, and she had an impression of a room crammed with people. There was a gasp as she appeared.

  They took her to a single chair in the room’s center, forced her down, and then one soldier wrenched her arms behind the chair. She resisted, but was powerless as he tied her hands to the woodwork. Her breath was gulping now, the aftermath of crying.