A Crowning Mercy

by Bernard Cornwell

  “It is.” Ebenezer, with money from the Covenant, had purchased a large riverside house in the village of Chelsea. Sir Grenville, who had made the young man his heir, did not like it, but had granted Ebenezer his independence.

  Sir Grenville pushed away papers that his secretary had put on the desk. “So what do we do now?”

  Ebenezer smiled. “There were at least four men in the rescue. One of them might be found.”

  “In Amsterdam?” Sir Grenville asked scornfully.

  “I was thinking of posting a reward. Two hundred pounds for any real information about her escape.”

  “And what good will that do?” Sir Grenville was in a terrible mood, foul-tempered because of the bubbling pain in his stomach.

  Ebenezer shrugged, “It might lead us to her. And then we kill her.” His dark eyes looked at Sir Grenville. “You should have let me do it before. We were too fanciful.”

  Sir Grenville grunted. “The next time I’ll kill her myself. I’ll pull her damned heart out.” He nodded. “Post your reward. You’ll be swamped by fools trying to lie their way into two hundred pounds.”

  Ebenezer smiled. “I can deal with fools.”

  “True.” Sir Grenville twisted about in his splayed, padded chair and looked at the two armed men who were in his garden. “We have four years, Ebenezer, before that bitch bastard is twenty-five. Four years!”

  “It’s enough.”

  “To find her and kill her.” Sir Grenville twisted back, his bulging eyes coming to Ebenezer. “Because no one will get these seals. No one!”

  Which was true, Ebenezer reflected. No one could get close to Sir Grenville without passing one or more of the twelve armed guards who were permanently inside the house. Not even Ebenezer could carry a weapon into Sir Grenville’s presence. The seals were safe, Ebenezer knew, for he had dreamed of stealing impressions from the Seal of St. Mark. He had waited for his moment, but it had never come.

  Yet Ebenezer still dreamed of owning the Covenant. His sister, his bastard sister, should not have it. She would be frivolous with the money, undeserving, while Sir Grenville, Ebenezer thought, was already being left behind by the tide of history.

  No, Ebenezer reflected as he walked down to Sir Grenville’s boat, only he himself deserved the Covenant. He would take the money and use it to gain the power with which he could change England. He could make it a land of disciplined Saints, ruled by sober men of vision, and Ebenezer would do it with the seals of the Covenant. He did not know how, but he knew he would. It was his destiny, his mission, and he would accomplish it.

  Three days later, sitting in the window of the Southwark house, Campion heard the door open. She assumed it was Lopez, coming early from his afternoon sleep, but it was Vavasour Devorax’s harsh voice that startled her.

  “Your good news has arrived.”

  She dropped the book, turned, and saw a sardonic look on his face. He appeared not to have shaved and she wondered if he was growing his beard again. “Sir?”

  “Mason’s back from Oxford.” Devorax lowered himself into a chair. He held a bottle of brandy-wine in his hand. “You want to celebrate with me?”

  She shook her head. “My good news?”

  “Sir Toby Lazender and his mother look forward to your arrival. They wish to see you.” He poured brandy-wine into a pewter mug. “It seems they’re eager to see you.” He watched the happiness on her face. She seemed to bubble with joy. Devorax sounded sour. “You’re so keen to leave us?”

  “No, sir. No.” She still felt uncomfortable in the soldier’s presence. She sensed that he despised her innocence, mocked it even. “You’ve been very kind, sir.”

  “You mean Mordecai’s been very kind.” Devorax drank, wiped his mouth. “He’ll miss you.” He gave a grim laugh. “I think he sees you as the daughter he lost.”

  “He lost?”

  “Burned to death. Her and her mother.” Devorax said it brutally. “That’s why he won’t live in a timber house anywhere.” He saw her expression and laughed. “Don’t feel sorry for Mordecai. It was a long time ago.”

  “He never remarried?”

  “No.”

  Devorax frowned into the empty mug, as if puzzled at where the drink had gone. “But don’t feel sorry for him. He doesn’t lack for anything.” He leaned over for the bottle.

  His casual cynicism annoyed her. “Can money replace a family?”

  He stared at her, gray eyes cold, and when he spoke his voice was pitying and condescending. “Count the bedrooms, girl.”

  “Count the bedrooms?”

  “God in his heaven!” He put down bottle and mug and ticked off the fingers of his left hand. “You have the big room at the side. I understand you sleep alone?”

  She blushed. “Yes.”

  “Then there’s the small room at the back where I sleep, when I sleep. Then there’s the other big room above here where Mordecai sleeps. Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “So where, girl, do you think Marta sleeps?” He picked up the bottle again. “Not with me, girl, I assure you. She hates me.” He grinned. “And you tell me it’s not with you, and I tell you that Marta Renselinck doesn’t sleep in the kitchen.” He laughed at her. “They’ve been together for twelve years now. She won’t become a Jew, and he won’t become a Lutheran, so they just happily adulterate each other. Are you shocked, girl?”

  She hated the way he called her “girl.” She shook her head. “No.”

  “Oh, but you are! The gallant old Jew who came to your rescue turns out to be human after all.” He seemed, suddenly, angry. He gestured at the panorama of wharves, bridge, Tower, cathedral and ships. “Look at it all! Full of Puritans, churchmen, lawyers, all of them fat, self-important bastards who tell the rest of us how to live, but I’ll tell you something.” His voice was gravelly, harsh on her ears. “They’ve all got their secret, girl, all of them! And do you know where to find it?”

  The ravaged face was hostile. She shook her head and he gave his humorless laugh. “In their bedrooms, girl, in their bedrooms. So don’t be shocked that Mordecai warms his bed without benefit of clergy. He’s a more decent man than any of them.” He drank his brandy-wine.

  She tried hard not to be rebuffed by his anger, his swearing or his seeming dislike of her. “Have you known him long?”

  “All my life it seems.” Devorax laughed.

  “Did you know my father?”

  The gray eyes turned to her. “Aretine? Yes.”

  “What was he like?”

  Devorax laughed. “Pretty boy, Aretine. He was a lucky bastard, especially with the women.” He shrugged. “I liked him. He was too clever for his own good, though. Doesn’t do to be clever, girl. Just gets you into trouble.”

  “When did you know him?”

  “In the wars. I fought for Sweden.” He touched the scar on his face. “I got that at Lützen. Some little bastard with a sword. Still,” he smiled grimly, “I killed him.” He poured more drink for himself. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow!” She was surprised. She knew that the search for her still continued in London; that travellers leaving the city were stopped and their coaches or wagons searched.

  Devorax nodded. “Tomorrow.” He gave her his grim smile. “I have a travelling companion for you, someone who’ll keep you safe.” He found this funny, but would not tell her more.

  That night Mordecai Lopez gave her a special dinner, a farewell dinner, and Campion tried to hide the pleasure she felt at the thought of returning to Lady Margaret and Toby. Lopez saw the pleasure anyway. “I think your Sir Toby is a lucky man.”

  “I think I’m lucky.”

  “You’ll write to me?”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  He raised a glass of wine to her. “I leave you in good hands, Campion.” He smiled. “Vavasour will collect your seals. It will take time, so don’t be impatient. In the meantime you are to have this.”

  He pushed something over the table. For a momen
t she thought it was the Seal of St. Luke, but then she saw it was a piece of paper. Lopez shrugged. “That will be honored in Oxford.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t!”

  “Why not?” he laughed. “Marrying is an expensive business, Campion. You have to have a dress, you have to feed all those people, and you have to live somewhere.” He laughed at her. “Take it. I insist! You will repay me when the seals are gathered.”

  He had given her one thousand pounds. She was embarrassed, for he had already paid for a wardrobe of new clothes, but he shrugged off her thanks. “You forget, Campion, that you are rich. The rich never find it difficult to borrow money, it’s only the poor who find that hard, and they need it most. Take it. There is one other thing.”

  She looked at him. She would miss him, she thought, his wry sense and gentle kindness. “One other thing?”

  “You must take it.” Like a conjurer he produced the seal.

  She looked at it. “Why don’t you keep it?”

  “Because it’s yours. You have to control part of your danger, Campion, you have to have that courage. You need it.” He smiled. “Give it to Toby to keep, if you like, but you must have something of your father’s.” He put it in the table’s center. “It’s yours. I give it to you.”

  She picked it up, knowing that in so doing she had put herself back into danger. Lopez smiled. “You’ll keep it?”

  “I’ll keep it.”

  He nodded approval and raised his glass once more. “Well done.”

  In the small hours, when the wind rippled the Thames and lifted the hair on the traitors’ heads pierced on pikes above the bridge gateway, Vavasour Devorax went to Campion’s room. He moved silently, like a great cat, and there was no sign that he had been drinking. He carried a lantern.

  The door opened silently, greased by Devorax himself earlier in the day.

  Campion slept, one hand curled, palm upward, on the pillow beside her face.

  A board creaked beneath his foot. He froze. The girl licked her lips, stirred, then was still again. The light from the lantern was low, but enough to show the Seal of St. Luke beside her bed.

  Vavasour Devorax picked it up.

  He took it to the room which overlooked the Thames, to a table that he had prepared, and on the table was a small square of thick glass. He had smeared it with a little oil and now, using the candle from inside the lantern, he dripped sealing wax on to the glass. He pressed the seal home.

  He did it again, then a third time.

  The candle was put back into the lantern, and he wrapped the glass with its precious burden in a piece of muslin, then in wool, and finally put the whole into a small wooden box. It took him a minute, creeping on stockinged feet, to put the seal back by Campion’s bed, and another few moments to hide all traces of his activity on the table.

  A few moments later he pulled the cork from a bottle of wine and lay back on his bed. He grinned and drank to himself. Tomorrow he would take the girl to Oxford and, after that, he would play his own clever game. Not Lopez’s game, not the girl’s, but his own. One seal was enough. He grinned, shut his eyes, and gave himself up to the oblivion of the bottle.

  Part IV

  The Gathering of the Seals

  Twenty-six

  Morning. The seagulls were screaming over the fish market at Billingsgate. Carts rumbled in the streets, the noises of a city trading and waking, a city patrolled by Parliament’s army that still searched for Campion.

  Marta Renselinck brought her the dress she was to travel in. “Don’t ask me why, Campion, I don’t know. The pig doesn’t tell me.” Devorax had sent up a cheap, coarse black dress. A bonnet matched the dress.

  Mordecai Lopez kissed her on both cheeks. “Maybe I come to your wedding, yes?”

  She smiled. “Perhaps Toby doesn’t want to marry me any more.”

  “You never told me he was a fool!”

  She laughed. “You come to our wedding.”

  “If I can. I don’t know. Take care, my dear. You have the seal?”

  She nodded. It was round her neck, feeling strangely familiar and strangely odd. “I may let Toby keep it.”

  “Good.” He took her elbow. “You have the money?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Marta has packed your clothes on the cart, and we’ve put in food for the journey. You’ll be safe! And Vavasour has a companion for you, not very pleasant, but he will protect you.”

  “A companion?”

  “He wants it to be a surprise. Come along!”

  In the yard where she had first alighted and come to the house was a small, shabby cart. It was surrounded by Devorax’s men, all of them mounted, all of them armed and decorated with Parliamentary sashes. Only Mason was not armed. He was dressed as shabbily as Campion and waited on the driver’s seat of the cart. Devorax saw her and grinned. “Come here, girl! Meet your brother.” He pointed at Mason.

  Mason laughed. “Hello, sister.”

  Devorax laughed. “And what are you doing, Mason?”

  “Burying father, sir!”

  The men guffawed. Devorax, surprisingly agile for a man close to fifty, jumped on to the cart and then reached down for Campion. “Give me your hand.”

  In the cart was a long box. Devorax lifted the lid, releasing a reeking stench. “Meet your father.”

  Campion grimaced. In the box was the corpse of an old man. The body was emaciated in its grubby winding sheet. The corpse’s hair was white and lank, the cheeks fallen about lips that were blue in death. Vavasour Devorax grinned at her. “We call him ‘Old Tom.’ You’re his daughter, and you’ve got papers saying that you’re taking him to High Wycombe for burial. If anyone asks what he died of, say it was the plague.” He looked down at Old Tom. “He cost me ten pounds. The price of everything’s going up in this damned city.” He dropped the lid, then looked at Mason. “You’re on your own till we’re out of London. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Open up!” Devorax waved at the gate. “Lead on!”

  They would cut through the city to avoid the great southern detour to the next bridge. The soldiers at London Bridge climbed on to the cart, but one view of the old man convinced them that they did not wish to search further in the filthy cart. It was the same at Ludgate and at the Knight’s Bridge where they were stopped for the third and last time. Campion was nervous the third time. Vavasour Devorax and his men had ridden well ahead, out of sight, and she feared what would happen if the soldiers suspected anything. Mason was not worried. He muttered the word “plague” and the soldiers hurried them onward.

  Vavasour Devorax waited five miles further on. Mason, with relief, changed into his soldier’s clothes, buckling a sword over his orange sash and leather coat. Old Tom was lifted out of the cart and carried deep into the undergrowth. He was tipped out as food for scavenging birds and animals. Vavasour Devorax was amused. “He served his King, Old Tom.”

  “His King?” Campion was puzzled.

  “He fooled the King’s enemies, didn’t he? You said you can ride?”

  “Side-saddle.”

  They abandoned the cart, using the horse as a pack-animal to take Campion’s clothes, and she was mounted on a spare saddle horse. Devorax’s men seemed pleased to be out in the countryside, released from London, and even more pleased when they stopped early at an inn. Devorax grinned at her. “No point in stopping late and losing the best rooms.” He shouted for stable boys. “Come on, girl. There’s drink inside.”

  She watched him that evening and saw a new Vavasour Devorax, a drunken man who blossomed in the company of the tavern and regaled them with hair-raising stories of battles old and recent. He sang songs, shouted jokes, and guarded her door that night with drunken snores where he lay on the floor outside.

  They left the main road the next day and threaded the way across a fertile countryside. At one point, indistinguishable from the other places where they had stopped while men scouted the path ahead, Devorax gave an order that
was greeted with a cheer. The men pulled off their orange sashes and brought out creased, white, royal favors. The sight reminded Campion of Toby. It cheered her up. Vavasour Devorax told her that they had pierced the ring of fortresses that surrounded Oxford. They were in Royalist territory.

  Campion’s spirits rose all day. She had not seen the country since she had been taken to London. The crops were nearing ripeness, the woods and hedgerows overflowing with greenness, and once, after Devorax had galloped the troop up a gentle hill, she stood her horse and stared at larks that tumbled their song in the free sky.

  Vavasour Devorax looked at the happiness on her face. His voice was mocking. “Try looking ahead of you.”

  She did, and saw the silver thread of the river cutting across the landscape. Clouds threw vast shadows that mottled the countryside, but by the glint of the Thames, clear in the light, was Oxford. A city of stone, lavish with spires and towers, and surrounded by a vast, sprawling earthwork. The ramparts defended the King’s new capital from his enemies in nearby London. Devorax looked at her. “Looks good from here, yes?”

  She nodded, “Yes.”

  “It stinks when you’re inside.” He laughed, showing his big yellow teeth. “Come on!”

  He produced a paper that took them easily past the guardposts where the road went through the huge earthen wall. Guns pointed outward from stone platforms dug into the walls’ tops. They came to a second guardpost at the edge of the city proper, and again Devorax’s paper drew respect from the sentries. An officer looked at Campion. “Who’s she?”

  “The damned Queen of Sheba. Mind your own business.”

  Once inside the city, Campion understood why Devorax said it stank. It did. It was horribly crowded, the streets seemingly busier than London. It was a university city still, though many of the colleges, Devorax said, had been taken over by the court or by the King’s army. The royal court was based here, with all its servants, courtiers and hangers-on; the placemen who followed kings as gulls followed a boat. The city garrison was huge, many of the men had brought their wives with them, and the streets seemed impossibly full. There were refugees, too, people like Lady Margaret and Toby. Devorax spoke of them, his tone managing to subtly denigrate them. “Your friends are lucky.”