EQMM, August 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Rufus runs over and looks down. A narrow chute set at a diagonal angle has delivered Simon to a space which must be over the kitchen. Simon's face appears a few feet away. He shakes his head. Moments later, with a helping hand from Rufus, he is back in the room. Rufus expects him to be angry at finding the hide empty, but on the contrary, he appears stimulated by this turn of events. Elinor, on the other hand, looks so ill that Rufus fears for her unborn child. Perhaps she does too, for she presses a hand to her side. Rufus helps her to a seat.

  Simon is examining the interior of the window seat. “The workmanship—wonderful, is it not? To me, it bears the mark of one man and one man only. Master Nicholas Owen."

  He beckons Rufus over. Together they gaze down at the stone floor of the window seat.

  Simon pauses, leans right in, and crooks his fingers round the edge of the stone where it meets the shaft to the hide. He sets his face and exerts his strength. There is a grinding of stone against stone. Simon lets the stone fall back into place

  "It is a peculiarity of his work that so often one hiding place conceals another,” he remarks. “This stone is too heavy for one man to shift, so I will ask you, Rufus, to fetch the men."

  The stench when they remove the stone slab is unbelievable.

  "This was a garderobe,” Simon explains. “The shaft goes down to a sewer that discharges into the moat."

  He does not go down himself. Two of his men lower a third—a surly-looking rogue—on a rope, candle in hand. He makes no objection—he will be well rewarded.

  Elinor remains in her chair in the corner of the room, looking on. Rufus wants to tell her that she should not be here—it is no place for a pregnant woman—but he senses that he would be ill-advised to betray his sympathy for her. The heat of the day, the smell, the tension that fills the room: Rufus wishes with all his heart that he had not agreed to come with Simon. He finds he has no appetite for hunting a man down like a rat in a sewer. And terrifying this young woman perhaps to the point of miscarriage, how can this be right? She is no doubt obeying her husband's orders and that is but her bounden duty.

  Simon is pacing up and down. He returns to the window seat and shouts down the shaft. “What can you see?"

  "Nothing yet, master,” comes faintly echoing from somewhere down below.

  Simon stands waiting, a hand on either side of the window seat, seemingly impervious to the smell.

  A minute or two later, there is a cry and Simon leans eagerly forward. “What is it?"

  "A dead cat. I put my foot on it."

  Simon shakes his head, He begins to unbutton his doublet. “I'm going down myself."

  Moments later, he too disappears down the shaft.

  Rufus persuades Elinor to leave the room. She will not lie down, but allows him to settle her by an open window in the parlour. Rufus stays with her. He cannot help putting himself in the place of the hunted man for whom these are the last moments of freedom. And he cannot help remembering what Simon told him last night: The last priest he captured was taken from the gallows too soon and dragged conscious to the quartering block. He feels queasy.

  It is some time before Simon comes to find them. He is wearing a fresh suit of clothes. Nevertheless he brings with him a faint whiff of ordure.

  "I found the hide,” he said.

  Rufus's heart is in his mouth. What must Elinor be feeling?

  "It was empty,” says Simon. “Except for this."

  He dangles a necklace in front of Elinor's face and allows the beads to run through his fingers.

  "Well, madam?” he says.

  And now Rufus catches sight of a little cross. It is not a necklace, but a rosary.

  "Paris is worth a Mass, so they say. Are all your husband's estates and riches worth this bit of Catholic trumpery?"

  He drops it on the table beside her.

  Elinor's eyes are fixed on it. She seems scarcely able to breathe, let alone speak. Simon towers over her. Rufus remembers the hare, quivering with fear, that was nearly trampled beneath their hooves that morning.

  "In God's name, Simon, she's little more than a child!” he bursts out.

  Simon seems at first not to hear him. He is staring at the table, not at the rosary. Then he turns to Rufus. “What did you say?"

  "She's very young,” Rufus says half-apologetically.

  Simon turns to Elinor and searches her face. “How young, would you say? Eighteen, nineteen? And her child is two years old, and a son at that.” No reply is necessary and she makes none. “And yet here on this table is a half-finished sampler.” He strikes the side of his head with his open palm. “Dolt that I am. She is the second wife. And there is a child of the first marriage."

  He turns to Rufus. “Don't you see? Fearful that she will betray them, they have sent this older child away, along with her clothes and toys—leaving only that sampler behind."

  He says to Elinor, “She must be brought back at once."

  * * * *

  They wait in the parlour in silence, while the child returns from a neighbouring farm, where she has been lodged.

  By the time the little girl arrives, the air is tinged with the blue of a late summer dusk. She stands in the doorway with her nurse behind her. Rarely has Rufus seen a child as beautiful as this, a veritable angel. No more than seven, she is as fair as her stepmother is dark.

  Elinor puts out a hand. The child goes directly to her. Elinor leans forward to smooth back a lock of flaxen hair that has escaped from a plait.

  "Come here, my little wench,” Simon says, beckoning to her. His voice is unexpectedly gentle.

  The child looks up into Elinor's face for permission. Elinor nods and the child steps forward.

  Simon squats down so that he can look into her face. “What is your name?” he asks her.

  "Hannah."

  "Hannah. It means ‘favoured by God’ and judging by your pretty face, it seems that He has indeed favoured you."

  The child smiles.

  "That's right,” says Simon. “We are friends, are we not? Now, tell me, has there been a strange man here?"

  The child looks at her stepmother. Elinor seems to have recovered from her earlier apprehension. Her face is as calm and relaxed as if the question were of no moment.

  The child looks back at Simon. “Yes,” she says.

  Elinor turns her face away.

  "Ah. And where is he now?” says Simon.

  Rufus holds his breath,

  "Oh, he went away. Mama told him to go away, and he did."

  "When was this?” Simon asks.

  "Yesterday,” the child says. “And then I went away myself,” she adds with a simplicity that nearly breaks Rufus's heart.

  "Did you see him leave?"

  She nods.

  "Which way did he go?"

  Simon lifts the child up to the window and she points to the south. When he puts her down, she goes to Elinor and buries her face in the stuff of her gown. Elinor presses her close.

  "Why didn't you tell me this?” Simon speaks sternly to Elinor. “It was your duty."

  "I was afraid."

  "Did he tell you where he was going?"

  "He did not.” She looks piteously into Simon's face. “He said it was better that I should not know."

  * * * *

  "You were right to exact no punishment,” says Rufus, as they ride away from the house.

  The evening sky has deepened to a rich, soft blue dusk. A single star has appeared.

  Simon shrugs. “These Jesuits are sophistical, deceitful. Her husband was away and she had no one to guide her. Women are easily swayed."

  "The weaker vessel."

  "Indeed.” Nevertheless he speaks as someone who has himself been detected in a weakness.

  He slips the diamond ring off his finger. “Here.” He tosses it to Rufus, who puts out a hand and catches it in midair. “I did not find my quarry, so I have lost the wager."

  As they ride on, Rufus takes a sideways look at Simon. He is not as cle
ver or as observant as he thinks—or as Rufus thought him. A fig for the modus operandi! Simon looked everywhere and he saw nothing, except what he was meant to see. It was intended that he should discover the first hiding place and then the second. What foresight! What cunning! It was as good as a play.

  The return of the child—was that intended? He thinks not. That was their one mistake as they rushed to hide the priest and set the scene. Elinor's heart must have been in her mouth. But the daughter was worthy of the mother. When she said that the priest had gone, Rufus saw Elinor's face reflected for a moment in the mirrored interior of the cabinet. She had managed to hide her fear, but she could not hide her relief. Simon missed that, as he missed so much else.

  In his mind's eye Rufus sees the fireplace in the parlour. Did it not occur to Simon to wonder why logs should be piled high on the hearth at the height of summer?

  Rufus smiles to himself and pockets the ring.

  A huge moon is rising through the trees. It will light their long ride home.

  * * * *

  "Is it safe yet?” Hannah asks.

  The priest hears this, just as he has heard every conversation in the parlour during this interminable day.

  "What do you think, Father?” It is Elinor's voice, close at hand. She must be kneeling in the hearth. “I sent James to follow them and he has just returned. The poursuivants are miles away."

  "It is time,” he says, his voice sounding strange in his ears after such a long silence. He hears them removing the logs one by one. The flags are lifted up and there is the glint of candlelight. He struggles towards it, pulling himself up with one hand, while with the other he clutches to his breast a bundle wrapped in sacking. Brawny arms reach down and haul him out.

  He lays the bundle reverently on the table next to Elinor's embroidery frame. A servant is waiting with a bowl of water so that he can wash. Elinor has brought bread and meat and wine with her own hands.

  The priest looks at her bright eyes and laughing face, and he too begins to laugh.

  "That Nicholas Owen is a craftsman sans pareil. With food and water and my piss-pot I could have held out for days. I am a little stiff, it is true, and a trifle more air would have been welcome—But what is wrong, my little one?” he asks Hannah.

  There are tears in her eyes.

  "She was afraid for you,” says Elinor. “And she is sorry that she had to tell a lie. But I tell her that she is a good girl and it would have been a worse sin to betray you. You can absolve her, Father, can you not?"

  "I can."

  "And, Father, you will not think of leaving tonight? You must rest."

  He shakes his head. “I have rested enough—and you have risked enough, my gallant girl. I will head north tonight."

  "But before you go?"

  "Yes, we must give thanks."

  While he washes his hands and consecrates the wine, she removes the silver-gilt inkpot from the mirrored recess of the cabinet of curiosities. She presses one of the black-and-white squares near the back and a panel slides open. She takes out two little paintings of Saint Jude and Saint Luke and a third of the Virgin Mary, all in gilded frames. She fits them into place over the mirrors and stands back.

  The priest folds back the sacking from the bundle to reveal the jeweled casket that contains the Host, an altar stone like a tile, and a narrow red silk stole. He arranges the stole around his neck. He steps forward with the altar stone and the jeweled casket and places them in the recess in the cabinet.

  Behind him he is aware of his little congregation: the servants, the mistress of the house, and her resourceful little stepdaughter. It all seems to drop away—the loyal friends, the warmth, and the scent of the summer night. A cold wind blows. He sees a ruined house, its occupants in exile. He sees himself with a noose around his neck. In that moment it comes to him that his escape today has been merely a reprieve. Somewhere ahead of him lies that terrible fate. But for the time that remains, whether it be long or short, he thanks God. There is work to be done.

  He makes the Sign of the Cross. He speaks the familiar words, so full of comfort.

  "In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti..."

  The Mass begins.

  Copyright © 2009 by Christine Poulson

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  Fiction: A VOICE FROM THE PAST by Art Taylor

  Art Taylor is a fiction writer, book critic, and assistant professor of English at George Mason University. His short stories have appeared not only in EQMM but in other national magazines, such as North AmericanReview, and in various regional newspapers, such as the Raleigh, North Carolina, News and Observer's “Sunday Reader.” He's a contributing editor to Metro Magazine and a semi-regular reviewer for the Washington Post Book World, with a focus on mysteries and thrillers.

  Mere seconds after Evan told his secretary to send the call to voicemail, the extension buzzed again.

  "I'm sorry, sir.” His secretary's tone was plaintive. A new secretary, but she'd already learned that he didn't like to be disturbed be-fore meeting with a client. “The man says it may be urgent."

  Evan continued to thumb through the materials he'd gathered for his ten-o'clock: the American Funds 2004 edition, last quarter's statistical update, BB&T's standard application and client disclosure, a few more items—top to bottom in the order he would present them, lined crisply along the left and bottom margins. He squared the material on his desk calendar. Organization shows respect, his father had told him, a banker himself. Preparation is control. Respect, power, control. First steps to success.

  "What was the name again?"

  "A Mr. Dexter Hollinger. He said he knew you in school."

  On the far wall hung two diplomas from the University of Virginia—undergrad and M.B.A., the Darden School. Just above, the clock stood at 9:54 a.m., the second hand gliding past the six.

  "A friend from college?"

  "High school, I believe, sir.” And then, tentatively: “Boarding school is what he said, actually."

  Hollinger? Dexter Hollinger? Still not a name he recalled, but something nagged at the edges of his memory. Football? he wondered. He hadn't kept in touch with everyone on the team, but at least he would have remembered the name. Was it already time for annual fund-raising? Passing the cup for Roll Call?

  "I'll handle it.” He picked up the handset just as his secretary clicked off. There was a dry emptiness as the transferred call patched through. “Good morning, Mr. Hollinger. How may I help you?"

  "Mister Hollinger,” said the man on the other end, the voice high-toned and spry, just the trace of a Southern accent. “Now that's a switch.” He gave a small snort. A fuzziness in the connection, slightly tinny—a cell phone, probably. “Twenty years ago, I'd be trembling just to have the Head Monitor pass me in the hallway—or any of the Old Boys, really. And now.... Mister! I mean, I'm not the Dex I was, but still..."

  Head Monitor. Old Boys. New Boys. Evan hardly thought about those phrases anymore. The “Rat” System. Upperclassmen initiating the incoming students. Hold the door. Stack the plates. Hierarchies established, humility encouraged—spoiled teenage boys coming in with smirks on their faces and swagger in their steps and slowly molded into Southern gentlemen. So Hollinger had been three or four years beneath him? A Rat? No wonder Evan couldn't place the name.

  "Been a long time,” Evan said. “Dexter, of course. Dex. Sorry about the mister. Just habit"—though it wasn't his habit at all. First names—that was how you established a firm relationship. “Guess I was just surprised to hear from you."

  "Well, wasn't like we were close, was it? Would have seemed odd for us even to talk then, much less be calling one another now...."

  "You speak the truth,” said Evan, unintentionally echoing a catch phrase that had been bandied about the school back in the day.

  Yes, the call was “out of the blue,” Dex admitted, and “a lot of water under the bridge since then, thank God,” as he chatted briefly about where the last two decades had t
aken him, a jittery patter of information and interjections and platitudes: back to Alabama first—"Roll on, Crimson Tide"—and then out West for a while, Seattle actually, with a new wife, a new business, success better some years than others. “The road is full of..."

  Some of Dexter's words were lost as the cell phone's signal drifted, and Evan only half listened to the ones that made it through. In his files he'd found some graphs comparing five-year and ten-year performance in various growth and income investment funds, and he arranged these on small easels on the corner of his desk. The second hand continued to sweep through the minutes on the clock opposite his desk. Finally, he couldn't take it any longer.

  "My secretary said that there was something urgent you—"

  "Well ... urgent is...” said the voice, fading in and out, “...about you and your family, of all...” and then crisper once more: “Just a dream, I know, but, I thought, why would I be dreaming about Evan Spruill after all this time? And so I said to myself, well, why not give him a call just to be sure, you know?"

  "A dream, you say? I lost you for a moment. You had a dream of some kind?” The clock's hands now stood at ten precisely. Promptness is a sign of respect, too. Outside the window, a row of dogwoods lined the bank's parking lot, and over to the right a young man in shorts strutted down the sidewalk, rushing the season, the city still a little cool this late April day. Evan took a deep breath. “Well, yeah, I guess that's odd. But hey, Dex, I gotta say, it's still good to hear from you, and I wish I didn't have this meeting to—"

  "...only because it was so unsettling,” Dexter went on, and Evan understood that the connection was no clearer in the other direction, that Dexter hadn't heard him at all. “Like when you wake up with a start and you've had some kind of nightmare about your mom or your brother or something. First thing you want to do—three in the morning, whatever time—you want to pick up...” the sound of traffic, the roar of a truck “...in premonitions or whatever, but something about the, I don't know, the tone of it if nothing else, struck me as disturbing, and ... well, just in case, that's what I did. Called the alumni office and got your number."