by Kage Baker
“What, that we’re evil? Really, señor, would you believe something like that about yourself simply because some old pagan said it? And a Greek too.”
“Our Lord had several female friends,” observed Nicholas. “And women lived among His disciples. Without sin, we must assume.” My turn to give him a look.
“I suppose so,” I said. “The issue is whether carnal intercourse is sinful. Do you imagine Jesus Himself was a virgin at the age of thirty-three?”
He gaped.
“Did you often say things like that in Spain?” he asked finally.
“No, of course not. It wasn’t safe.”
“Nor is it any safer here, especially with your prince in our land. Please, think before you speak.”
“I do. Am I not safe from betrayal with you?”
He leaned closer and switched from Latin to Greek. “And if you are, it is because we are alone in this place, and I see no danger in striving with you in the little intellectual contests you propose. But I would not speak so recklessly in front of anyone else, and neither must you.”
“Why? Would Master Ffrawney run off to tell the nearest bishop?”
He snorted. “Without doubt. And then your father would have much to explain! The last thing anyone expected to see in England was a Spanish heretic.”
“Oh, well.” I got up from the grass and brushed off my skirt. “And I was so hoping we might have a discussion of the nature of agape. When the term is defined as a ‘love-feast,’ do you suppose they mean—”
“Hush! Hush! Hush!” He scrambled to his feet and put his hand over my mouth. I looked at him over the edge of his hand. He looked away. “I think I would like to have your father beaten,” he said finally. I pulled away.
“You’d have to catch him first,” I said.
“Yes, and I have a feeling that that would be difficult. He seems to be an able little twister in the nets of the law. By your leave. But he had no business bringing up a daughter so.”
“What do you mean? Should he have denied me an education?” I was actually insulted.
“By no means. But he ought to have taught you discretion as well as Greek and Aramaic, Lady, lest you come to harm.”
“Am I not discreet? Only with you would I say such rash things, because I know you would never do me harm,” I said, flirt, flirt, wishing I had a fan to flutter.
“And you are correct! I hope I know better than to meddle with the daughter of a man who administers purges.” He folded his arms and smiled.
“He’s an able swordsman, I’ll have you know,” I told him when I had stopped laughing.
“No doubt.”
“Renowned throughout Madrid, Valladolid, and the Alhambra.”
“In truth.”
“Deadly with a blade of Toledo steel.”
“Deadlier with a good dose of laxative. No, if ever I wronged you, I’d keep close to my chamberpot, lest calamity befall. You need not fear me. But in God’s name, Lady, have a care what you say.”
I was in high spirits at my credenza that night, let me tell you; my fingers just flew over the keys. I synthesized four vials of anti-hypertensive in the time it took Nefer to repair her mantilla, which had met with an unfortunate accident in the trailing canopy of the bed. She was going crazy with boredom in England but not me, boy. I liked it here.
It happened that a remedy for Nefer’s ennui arrived only the next morning, much to her surprise.
The day dawned dark, pouring black rain, so we were all gathered in the great hall watching Sir Walter eat his healthful, low-cholesterol breakfast. Joseph was watching him, anyway, and maybe Nefer; I was too busy making eye contact with Master Harpole to pay attention. But here came Francis Ffrawney, bowing and scraping, to announce:
“Sir Walter, there is a common sort of man at the gate saying he hath property of Doctor Ruy’s and would speak to him thereof.” All eyes turned to Joseph.
“What sort of man?” Joseph inquired.
“A poor sort, sir, a very rascal in a leather hood, that swears great oaths and will not move from the gate without he be granted your ear. I must warn your worship, he may well be some heretic malcontent.”
“Why, that honest fellow!” Joseph leaped to his feet in feigned surprise. “This should be that same innkeeper that brought my baggage ashore. He must have found the chest I so unwittingly left behind.”
This was news to me, but I piped up: “Truly, Father, the men of England are as honest as they are tall.” More flirting and wished-for fan in Master Harpole’s direction.
So Xenophon was admitted, all muddy and horsey, with a lot of stamping and swearing. He clumped up to Joseph and went down on one knee, holding out a plain wooden chest. It was not one we had brought from Spain.
“My good signior!” he said. “You had scarce been gone an hour when our lad Wat, him that carries away the chamber-lye in the jordans, he comes a-running down the stairs. Quoth he, ‘That there Spanish grandee hath left a thing like a box in his room!’ ‘That’s a wonder to be sure,’ quoth I, and I went and looked, and to be sure you had left this. And since meseemeth this must be a very important casket, doubtless filled with what ye shall sore need in England”—wide take to be sure we got the point—“I thought it were best to bring it straight here myself.”
“May God and the good Saint James bless thee for thy care,” effused Joseph. “Let me give thee something for thy troubles.” He groped in his purse and handed out what looked like a doubloon but was actually a mint Theobromos patty in silver paper.
“Such munificence!” exclaimed Xenophon. “I’m a-going to go out and buy me a cow with this, see if I don’t.” He prostrated himself at Joseph’s feet. “I could kiss thy shoe of Cordovan leather, sir, that I could.”
“Away, worthy peasant.” Joseph waved at him. I was wondering how long they were going to carry on like this when Master Ffrawney sniffed:
“Will you not open the box, sir, and satisfy yourself that all your goods are safe within?”
There was an awkward pause. Joseph and Xenophon exchanged glances. Xenophon shrugged imperceptibly. “An excellent thought,” conceded Joseph. Coding the unseen lock, he lifted the lid.
The chest contained things that appeared to be books but weren’t, a couple of things that appeared to be surgeon’s tools but weren’t, and what appeared to be three jars of medicinal herbs. All these must have been the electronic tools and chemicals Joseph would need for his work on Sir Walter. Packed carefully apart from the rest was a little ornamented box with a couple of gold birds, or something, on the lid. Joseph held it up to the firelight, and his smiling face did not betray that he had no idea what the hell it was for.
But Nicholas leaned forward, frowning in astonishment. “That is a model of the Ark of the Covenant of the Israelites!” he stated.
“Yes, of course,” Joseph agreed. “It’s a, uh, reliquary. Enshrined within is a fragment of the pelvis of Saint Mary Magdalene. I never travel without it.”
Nicholas sat back, his face a mask of disgust. Xenophon stepped forward and said: “Pardon me, sir, but an angel appeareth to be loose.” He reached out and gave one of the lid ornaments a little twist.
Click.
—KZUS, continuing your round-the-clock coverage of the royal wedding. And it looks like the rain’s letting up here, so we may be able to go down into the street in a minute or two and see if we can interview somebody. I’ve certainly got an impressive view of Winchester Cathedral from where I’m stationed. I can see the floral decorations that the town council put up and believe me, folks, they certainly had a lot of work last night in the rain. And, say, those flowers are just beautiful. What kind are they, Justinian?
Well, Decius, it says here those are pansies and heliotropes and of course the famous red-and-white Tudor roses. Folks, it’s nine-hundred hours and counting on this day of the royal wedding. We’ll be back to you on KZUS with the latest developments after this musical interlude. The strains of a basse-dance filled the room.
And Sir Walter went right on spooning down his oat porridge, and Nicholas still sat with his arms folded, staring sullenly into the fire. Master Ffrawney was still gazing on the reliquary with a suitable expression of reverent awe. They couldn’t hear a thing, of course. It was being broadcast in a frequency out of mortal range.
“I desire to offer fervent prayers of thanksgiving.” Nefer got up and took the radio out of Joseph’s hands. “Give me leave, señor, to commune with the blessed saints for a while.”
It would have been dangerous to get in her way. He bowed her out of the room, and she swept up the stairs, music trailing after her. Joseph pulled at his beard thoughtfully. He extended a hand to Xenophon.
“I shall see thee to thy horse, good fellow. By your leave, Sir Walter?”
Sir Walter waved his spoon at them in a dismissive way. They exited together. I got up and went to sit beside Nicholas. We looked at each other: he was still fuming. Yet he moved his thigh just a little closer to mine on the settle.
“What a joyous occasion this is!” exclaimed Master Ffrawney, when he realized that nobody else was going to make conversation. “Now good fortune and the blessing of the saint will surely attend the faithful in this house!”
“Even so.” Sir Walter did not look up from his porringer.
“Amen!” Master Ffrawney looked pointedly at Nicholas. Nicholas did not move, but his eyes swiveled to look at Master Ffrawney.
“Now I wonder,” Nicholas drawled, “what miraculous cures we shall owe to the holy pelvis of the Magdalene?”
Oh, what a smell of testosterone. Bright red and flashing, the readout appeared in midair, showing me the changing blood chemistry of all three men, with figures on the statistical probability of violence erupting. My body was already moving of its own accord, but as I got up to leave, I touched Nicholas’s shoulder.
“Master Harpole,” I quavered. “There is a thing I saw from the window, that I would know more of. Will it please you to come see it with me?”
With a last contemptuous stare at Master Ffrawney, Nicholas got to his feet and followed me out of the room. I led the way to a gallery on the second floor, well away from the monkey smell, and looked out a window at the rainy landscape. I found a gilded cupola to point at.
“There! What is that, please?” I asked. He looked briefly.
“That is the roof of the aviary,” he said.
“Oh. We went there, didn’t we? How different it all looks from up here.”
He didn’t say anything. I looked down at the floor. “I would not have had you come to blows with Master Ffrawney,” I explained.
“Small matter if we had.” He smiled bitterly. “Belike I’d have cracked his hypocrite’s crown for him.”
“Wrath is a sin, is it not? Wherefore be glad you have not sinned.”
He nodded, calming down a little, watching the storm.
“I am sorry about the box,” I said at last.
“What, the Ark of the Covenant?” He lounged against the wall, turning to face me. “Sweet Jesu, Lady, what a piece of arrant popery! And your father a learned man too. Truly the more I know of him, the less I know what manner of thing he is.”
“Master Harpole, there are no religious relics in that box.”
“No!” He flung up his hands in mock amazement.
“But my father did not feel himself amongst folk he could trust, and he had to say something. The box is—” I thought fast. “The box is connected with his studies. His more arcane studies.”
Nicholas gave a slow incredulous grin. “What? A wizard?” Damn it, didn’t anybody believe in witchcraft anymore?
“Rather, I should say—” I looked up and down the corridor. I switched to Greek. “My father has made some study of what you might call alchemy. Also mathematics and the properties of physical bodies.”
“Ah.” Suddenly Nicholas was interested. “You mean he is an hermetic philosopher? He has studied Vitruvius?” What was I getting myself into? I did a fast access and discovered that he was talking about early, early science and technology, which only secret societies and clandestine brotherhoods were concerned with right now.
“Yes,” I said cautiously.
“Then I understand you.” His face brightened with speculation. “Why, all the several parts of your story now become a whole. His Greek physick, his sufferings at the hands of the Inquisition—and it’s evident he hath been at the Emperor’s court—and this careful model of the Ark of the—” His mouth dropped open. He closed it.
“Your father is a Jew,” he said quietly.
I remember thinking calmly, How silly, just before the shock wave hit. I saw the men and the glowing coals in the little room. I saw the bullying face of the priest. I saw, I saw, I saw—
Babbling frantic denials, I began tearing at my sleeve, I guess to show the blue veins that would prove I wasn’t a chueta. Wouldn’t you think a sophisticated creature like me would be able to handle a few bad memories? Except that this was the central trauma that Dr. Zeus had used to fix my indoctrination, to remind me always why I worked for them. They’d never meant to cure me of it. They’d tucked it deep down inside, the battery that powered my machine heart.
“Look, look—” With a great ripping of brocade my bare arm emerged. Nicholas seized it and held me still. His face was horrified. “Look!” I sobbed.
“Rose!”
“Look…” A yellow light stopped flashing, and a noise died away. Far off, Joseph was running back toward the house in a panic. He saw us at the window. He stopped. He watched us.
Nicholas had put both arms around me and embraced me, lifting me clear off the floor. He was so warm, and the gallery was freezing cold. I stopped shaking. Systems normalizing. “Your father was not alone in prison,” he guessed in a whisper, setting me down carefully. “They had you, also, and—” Something in my face must have told him to stop there. But I had control of myself now. Yes. I could speak.
“Have you any idea,” I enunciated, “what such a base and unfounded accusation means in Spain?”
He nodded slowly, not taking his eyes from my face.
“You could be as pure of blood as the Emperor himself, but if you were ever even so much as accused,” I began to gasp again, “just accused—”
There were footsteps approaching the bottom of the stairs. Nicholas glanced down and drew me away with him, swiftly up the corridor to a smaller stair. It ascended steep as a ladder. We climbed it in haste, I hitching up my skirts so I wouldn’t trip.
Through a little cut-corner door at the top was his room. It was Spartan and small, its slanting ceiling high and sharply angled.
The bed had been extended for his great length by having a chest put at the foot of it. There were books piled and tumbled on every flat surface. There was a chair by the window. There was a candle, upright amid drips of cold tallow from hours of reading.
He led me to the bed and sat me down on it, then wrapped my torn sleeve back about my arm. He put his blanket over my shoulders for good measure, then looked around his room in a helpless way. “Wait,” he said at last. “I’ll come anon.”
He hastened down the stairs again. Clunk, clunk, clunk, I heard his footsteps descending.
I sat there on his bed. I could pick him up descending through the house in great agitation, with bursts of interference when someone else spoke to him. Nefer’s radio was broadcasting a pavane now; nothing much must be happening with the royal wedding. Joseph had moved about thirty meters from his previous position and was reading me.
Mendoza?
Go to hell.
No, seriously. Are you—
I’m just embarrassed. Horribly embarrassed. Now get out.
He politely withdrew. How could I face Nicholas again?
It was calming to try to read his books’ titles, all scattered as they were. Let’s see, this one was the Enchiridion Militis Christiani. Predictable. De Servo Arbitrario, also predictable. The Wicked Mammon, this one was supposed to be
out of print, wonder how he’d got a copy? The Prologue to the Romans, in English. A Preservative against the Poison of Pelagius, wow. I had begun to cry, little snively tears. I wiped them away angrily.
Clunk clunk clunk, there was Nicholas shouldering through the doorway. He was carrying a pint of something that steamed, and a ball of thread with a needle stuck in it.
“I must go,” I said, mustering all the Hispanic dignity I had available. “This is not seemly, señor.”
“Your sleeve must be mended first, lest it be remarked upon,” he said. “And I think you will not want your duenna to do it, involved as she is in her devotions.”
“She is a good woman and greatly stupid,” I covered. “She truly believes that thing is a holy relic, and my father hath not seen fit to enlighten her. Nor doth she know of his private studies. I trust, sir, you will not tell her.”
“Not I.” He sat down beside me and put the pint pot in my hand. “Now, drink that off straight. It will calm thee.” Awkwardly he threaded the needle.
“What is this?” I peered into the drink.
“Burnt sack and eggs.”
Oh, no. But scanning revealed no pathogens, and it smelled all right, so I tasted it cautiously. Not so bad; something like eggnog. I sipped at it and watched him mend my sleeve with big clumsy stitches.
“Now, God He knows I am no tailor, Rose, but this will hold thee until thou canst better mend it thyself. Thou hast learned to use a needle?” he asked dryly.
“Yes.”
“It is well. I am glad that thou, knowing so much Greek, hast a plain skill or two.”
“You are too kind,” I said, cold.
“Kindness is the duty of any Christian, Lady, is it not so?” He switched to Greek. “Hear me. What I have been told today, I will tell to no one. But, having said this, I must caution you again to hide your past. Better you had let me think your father a papist knave than to tell me such secrets. I believe you are innocent and pity your sufferings, yet there are those who would gladly see you burn even here in England. Though, God willing, this shall not become so fearful a place as Spain.”
