Edward’s confession and now she longed for resolution of the case and the chance to talk it all out with Matthew.
At long last, the Queen pronounced her judgment.
“The murder of a master by his servant, for whatever cause, cannot be countenanced by us. On this point, both mans law and God’s concur. Yet neither can the murder of an innocent child be suffered, be it perpetrated by commoner or peer. Sir Johns depravities have been proved. He was fratricide and lecher. It is most likely he would have executed his threat to kill his bastard— and perhaps even bury it with the body of his brother. Therefore”— the Queen took a deep breath, suggesting she herself was weary from the long morning’s proceedings—“therefore, because we revere mercy as well as justice, and honor courage even as we punish treason, we pardon you, Edward Bastian, for your crime, and commend you to your new master and mistress for such advancement as seems suitable to them. You may go, we wish you well—and God keep you.”
Even as the Queen granted her pardon to Edward Bastian. Cecil was thinking about the man the hostler had killed—a prideful, degenerate knight who had murdered his own brother for his title and land and perhaps, too, for the unblemished countenance by which, in contrast, John Challoner seemed all the more deformed. Physically deformed himself, Cecil was not totally without understanding of Challoner s envy, yet Cecil had done no murders, held his lusts in check, and maintained his knightly honor and respect for the law. Which things Challoner had not, for what a parade of deadly sins marched across the pages of the baronets history, now full blown. Challoner had not been the first lord to make his social power an opportunity for lechery and rape and cover it all with the veneer of respectability. Surely he would not be the last.
Cecil thought, too, of the innocent child. It had been Challoner s own, although by nature rather than law. An unnatural attempted murder of natural progeny, awful to contemplate. Cecil remembered the island crypt. Had Challoner really planned to entomb Brigids baby there, disposing of it along with his own brother’s bones, as the Queen had in her pardon of Edward Bastian speculated?
Arthur Challoner’s remains had already been removed from
the island. They had been taken for decent burial beneath the floor of St. Anns in Buxton, where the baronial dignities stolen from him in life had now been restored in mortuary splendor.Requiescat in pace.
And finally Cecil thought about love and its awesome power. The love of Edward for Brigid O’Donnal; the love of Hugh Bastian for his son. A great thing and dangerous, love was. As all the old poets had said.
But now the Queen was dismissing the company, blessing them all, wishing them well. Fatigued as they were, she had decided the audience had gone on too long. Now Cecil wondered if and when his royal mistress would take up the question of Matthew Stocks reward, long overdue to Cecil’s mind, and settle the wager.
fler Majesty was suffering from rheumatism and in a miserable mood. She seemed more interested in whether Cecil had partaken of the baths at Buxton and with what good result than in continuing the discussion of the Challoner murders, about which she roundly declared more than enough had been spoken that morning, what with Edward Bastian’s long confession (splendid though it was!) and the philosophical debate that followed (relevant, but somewhat tedious after all!). It required, therefore, some effort on Cecil’s part to bring the royal attention back to what was uppermost in his mind. Was a knighthood not appropriate for Matthew Stock, Cecil asked, given service rendered at Bartholomew Fair and now in Derbyshire?
The Queen gnawed upon her thumb and stared off vacantly into space. It was a while before she answered.
“A sum of money is sufficient, I think. There are too many knights in England already. Most are popinjays of no more desert than a dog and I regret dubbing them every day of my life. No, I am not prepared for Sir Matthew and Lady Joan, by your leave. As for Joan Stock, I like her as she is—a plain, simple woman equipped with a brain. The best of our English breed! Would all our peers were endowed with her judgment! As for the little ferret, Matthew Stock, I mean, 1 cannot see him with a knight’s sword, fie would be mocked by lesser men who resented his advancement—and that would please neither him nor me. He would be perfectly out of his element and no better a man for being so.”
“And yet he did prove that Sir John was murdered, identified the murderer, discovered—”
“Tush, tush, Robin. You mean his wife did. You can’t fool me. I can tell who unraveled that skein. Let us give credit where credit is due. Stocks sharp, but the wife is sharper.”
Since Cecil could not dispute that point and seeing that the Queen s mind was set and no further remonstrations would serve, he politicly changed the subject. It was plain that it pleased Her Majesty to forget the twenty crowns she owed him, aside from what she may or may not have owed Matthew Stock.
Well, Cecil knew he could kiss the twenty crowns farewell. Thank God he was a rich man and could afford such trivial losses. Besides, who dared remind the Queen that she had forgotten?
Matthew and Joan were too eager to return to Chelmsford and take up their ordinary lives again to bewail the loss of a knighthood, for, as Joan pointed out, drawing from her seemingly inexhaustible store of proverbial wisdom, only a fool mourns the loss of what he never had.
Cecil had presented them with another purse on the Queen s behalf, guaranteed to cover any losses they had sustained by their absence from trade, and Thomas Cooke had given Matthew a fine sword of Spanish steel and an emerald ring, and of course Joan had still from Mistress Frances the gold locket that had proved the key to the entire Challoner mystery and was worth, she judged, a good fifty pounds sterling if it was worth a shilling.
Joan planned to remove the portrait of Sir John Challoner and burn it, for she declared she wanted no memento of the dishonorable baronet. She decided that in its place she would put a likeness of Elizabeth, their daughter, and wear it always next to her heart.
They made plans to leave London for Chelmsford at first light the next day and already had procured horses for that purpose when Thomas Cooke summoned Matthew for a private talk.
Joan waited nervously in their chamber for her husband’s return, fearing a further delay threatened. It was nearly suppertime when Matthew appeared, the hesitant expression on his plain, square countenace of one who bears ill tidings.
“I pray you, husband." Joan said, not loath to speak her mind. “What was this urgent conversation you twain had?"
He returned her question with another. “How would it please you to spend Christmas in London?"
“I would rather spend Christmas in Chelmsford," she said without hesitation.
“Master Cooke has made me acquainted with certain difficulties at the Middle Temple," Matthew went on, as though she had already expressed her approval of the plan. “You see, he was impressed with our services at Thorncombe and had heard from Sir Robert and others at court about Bartholomew Fair."
“What difficulties? Are the young lawyers' revels become such riots that a country constable is needed to quell them?"
“Not exactly,” Matthew said. “There have been several mysterious deaths—suicides, during the last month. Master Cooke fears there may be more. He desires that discreet inquiries be made, by a disinterested party."
“Disinterested party?” she exclaimed. “A fine lawyerly phrase that. I pray your brief association with Master Cooke has not corrupted your honest English beyond redemption. If these be suicides, as is supposed, then let inquiries be made to the victims themselves, for they would know best why they practice selfslaughter. I really don’t understand you, Matthew. Pray God you gave no promise to our host! There are limits to a guest's gratitude, and have we not gone beyond ours? Let’s home—to Chelmsford— as we planned.”
“Well, it isn’t as though you must stay, Joan."
But that concession, such as Joan regarded it, hardly pleased her either. “Great gods and little fishes, Matthew! You stay in London whilst I hie home to pass Chri
stmas by myself and worry unto death about whatever mischief you’ve got yourself into?"
“There may be no danger at all. Master Cooke’s suppositions may be groundless.”
“Aye, as Mistress Frances’ were, when she suspected her uncle had been murdered, the coroner’s wise verdict to the contrary!"
“Joan—’’
“Matthew! Pray credit me with what little brain God gave me. If Master Cooke wants you to inquire into suicides at the Middle
Temple, I’ll wager he thinks they’re murders for good cause. Where there are murders done, there are murderers—a wretched breed notorious for keeping their works of evil to themselves and passing eager to send the nosy to an early grave for their pains. Master Cooke will just have to find someone else to solve these new enormities, if so they prove. Over a month we’re now gone from our dear Chelmsford. The house will be a ruin, and heaven only knows how your business stands.”
“Now, Joan—”
“Don’t now-Joan me!”
“Joan!”
“Matthew, I shall be blunt, as is my fashion. You may stay here if you must, but I shall go home, if I have to walk the way. A pox upon all lawyers! Do they not stir up enough trouble in the courts with their quiddities and quibbles, suits and quittances, that they must murder one another and draw simple honest souls like ourselves into the stew!”
Matthew let Joan have her say and at length, when she had exhausted her store of objections, he said,
“Well, vvhat do you think now?”
“I suppose Master Cooke provided you with all facts pertinent?”
“He did. ’
“And eood and sufficient reasons why he thinks these suicides something worse7”
“Good and sufficient.”
“But there has been no investigation by the authorities, I presume, else the London constabulary would have this charge?” “The facts are dubious, as he reports them to me. The alleged murders seem to have no cause.”
In sum,” she concluded, “it’s another mystery—like Sir John s drowning. Murky incidents of such dubiousness as to appear self-slaughter.”
“Exactly, although the manner of the deaths is different ” She said, “Small compensation tor this new broil.” i)ht thought about it some more, these suicides at the Middle Temple, -she looked at Matthew. His face wore that silly, knowing
grin of his and it maddened her. She knew he would have his way despite her objections, for he knew her curiosity was as strong, indeed stronger, than his.
“Oh, very well, Matthew,” she said at length. “You may accept the Cookes' invitation on our behalf.”
And before he could budge from the spot, she added, “I have often heard of these Inns, as they are called, where our young students of the hoary law learn their litigious art, and I fain would see them for myself, even under these strange and dangerous circumstances.”
His grin now full, Matthew went to do Joan’s bidding, humming as he went a tune he had learned that day from an itinerant singer on Fleet Street and confident that no tale wanted its modicum of happiness wherein a merry tune was at its close.
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