The Heretic’s Creed

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  ‘Provisions of some sort,’ Brockley said, as we stood in a row and stared from a window in the guest hall. ‘That’s a side of beef – the ladies have had an ox slaughtered, I fancy. That’s probably a keg of ale or wine and that’s a sack of flour, for sure. There are supposed to be sixteen women under this roof, not that we ever see much of them. They must take some feeding.’

  He was right in saying that we saw few of the ladies. We were waited on exclusively by Angelica Ames and Margaret Beale, with Mary Haxby helping them, clearly as a subordinate, and occasionally, the scuttling Annie. We saw no one else, though we did learn some of the customs of the place. The ladies addressed Philippa Gould as Mother and each other as Sister, but that was among themselves. To us, they were Mistress so and so. We were already comfortable with that, and accepted the rules.

  We remained in the guest quarters, although to mitigate the tedium, Angelica brought us chess and backgammon sets and at Sybil’s request provided embroidery frames, some silks, and two cushion covers, with half-completed embroidery, which gave some occupation to me, Sybil, and Dale. We ladies never went outside, though Brockley did, since as well as lending a hand with clearing snow from the track he also spent a good deal of time in the stables, helping Joseph to care for our horses and developing a friendship of sorts with Walter Cogge.

  ‘Who isn’t what he seems, madam,’ he said, as he came in for supper on the second day. ‘He wasn’t there to start with this morning and I filled the mangers on my own, and then he did come, but there was something – different – about him and after a minute or two, I knew what it was. He smelt of incense.’

  ‘This is a Catholic household,’ I said mildly. ‘Cecil knows that the man who acts as groom and bailiff for the women here is probably their priest as well. I expect he’d been saying Mass.’

  ‘Here in England, I never thought to find myself in a house where Mass is said and no one does anything about it,’ grumbled Dale.

  ‘I doubt if he’s doing much harm,’ I said. ‘Anyway, as we know, the authorities are already aware of him. I think we’d better close our eyes and ears to his activities. And our noses.’

  ‘We can’t very well close our ears,’ said Sybil. ‘We’ve heard matins being sung.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I said, somewhat tartly. ‘Mistress Gould said openly that they live as much like Benedictine nuns as they can and Cecil thinks that Walsingham wants them left alone for some subtle purpose of his own. We must mind our own business.’

  Chess, backgammon, and embroidery barely filled those three days, though. Time dragged. The feeling of being trapped grew on me steadily and I felt nervous in a formless yet very real way. I wanted to get away from Stonemoor. I slept badly at night and once had a confused and alarming nightmare, in which I was searching for John of Evesham’s book and thought I had found it, except that when I tried to pick it up, it turned into a demon which leered at me from an evil face and bared hideous, yellowed fangs at me. I woke suddenly and sat up. My heart pounded and I was sweating. The dark of the night seemed terrifying and only the solid presence of Sybil, breathing peacefully beside me, kept panic at bay. In my mind, something connected with the dream – an idea, a memory, I didn’t know what – nagged irritatingly and then faded. Whatever it was, had gone. I tried to breathe calmly, like Sybil, and gradually the incipient panic receded.

  Dimly, in the distance, right on the edge of sound, I once more heard chanting. It couldn’t be matins this time; I knew I had been asleep for many hours, far past midnight. This was probably one of the early services – lauds or prime. Because Uncle Herbert and Aunt Tabitha had preferred the old faith (they had deplored King Henry’s destruction of the monasteries), I knew the names of the Benedictine chants.

  I knew I should not be alarmed because I could hear chanting now. We sometimes heard it during the day as well, and were growing accustomed to it. It was natural enough if the ladies really were following the Benedictine order of services. I lay down again and tried once more to sleep but couldn’t. I stayed uneasily awake until dawn. I was thankful when daybreak edged through a crack in our shutters and I could get up and open them to the light, such as it was, since the day outside was iron-grey as usual and it was much too cold to leave the window open as well as the shutters. Light still had to filter through those thick panes of glass. Even so, normal daylight helped to smooth ugly images away.

  The sense of imprisonment bore heavily on all our spirits. Most of the time, apart from the occasional chanting, Stonemoor House was not only shadowy but very quiet and the silence was oppressive, as though our, ears were stuffed with wool. The slightest sound from the outside would have us hurrying to the window, to relieve our boredom by watching such thrilling spectacles as Walter Cogge briskly shovelling more snow, creating paths between the gate, the doorways and the stable or, once, a couple of cats fighting. Our longing for life and movement was as great as that.

  ‘This house needs people in it,’ Sybil said once, sitting with needle upraised over her embroidery frame, and cocking her head as if to listen for sounds that were not there.

  ‘It does have sixteen ladies,’ I said mildly.

  ‘No, I mean real people.’

  ‘But aren’t the ladies real?’ said Dale, genuinely confused.

  Sybil snorted. ‘You know what I mean! It’s a house that ought to be full of movement and voices. It needs a family – husband, wife, servants bustling about, children running and playing, somebody’s old mother or aunt always wanting errands run, somebody practising a spinet, visitors coming to dine … life.’

  ‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘It feels like a house of the dead. If only the sun would shine!’

  On the fourth day, we awoke to the sound of rain, and the air felt noticeably warmer. The rain fell all day, washing the snow away and blowing against the windows, and the sound of running gutters was everywhere to be heard. The cheerless stone walls around us were suddenly kinder to the eye, even showing glints of flint and crystal here and there. We retired that night feeling heartened, and on the fifth morning there was the longed-for sunshine, in a clear, washed sky.

  Looking out of our window, we saw for the first time the outcrops that had given the house its name. Now that the snow was gone, we could see that they littered the hillside as though a giant wagon, laden with stones, had at some time overturned.

  ‘I think,’ said Sybil, when we had breakfasted and Mary Haxby had cleared the table, ‘that we might put a few things into our saddlebags. I fancy we’ll be able to get away soon – today, even! Tomorrow, anyway.’

  ‘Tomorrow, most likely,’ Brockley said. ‘I understand from Cogge that there’s been some flooding along the road we’d have to take, going back to the Thwaites’ farm. We might do best to wait a little. Still, the horses can be exercised properly now; they’ve been cooped up too long. Walter and Joseph and I have done what we can with them, leading them round and round the stable yard, and the heavy horses are quite stolid, but ours’ll be mighty fresh if they don’t stretch their legs before we start our journey.’

  ‘I’ll make a start on the packing,’ said Dale, and rising from the table hurried up the stairs. ‘I’ll help,’ said Sybil, and followed her. Brockley, showing no immediate signs of leaving for the stable, leant back with a sigh. ‘I’m thankful to feel we’ll soon be away from here, madam,’ he remarked. ‘Fran will be glad, too. She doesn’t like this place at all.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ I said. ‘I shall pray, tonight, that we can pay for that wretched book, collect it, and be off in the morning.’

  We smiled at each other, easy in each other’s company. We had never been lovers in the physical sense but we really had come very close to it once, and we had found a substitute intimacy in a link between our minds. It was strong, strong enough on occasion to arouse Fran Dale’s jealousy. I sometimes thought that Queen Elizabeth, who was, after all, my half-sister, had a similar relationship with her favourite, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester. Many people thou
ght she was, or had been, his mistress but I knew it wasn’t so. Their bond, too, was one of the mind.

  At length, however, I said: ‘Well, Sybil and Dale are already preparing for our journey back to the Thwaites. I had better go upstairs and …’

  ‘Ursula!’

  ‘Ma’am!’

  Up on the gallery, Sybil and Dale had burst out of our room and were calling to me together as they rushed down the stairs. Both were wide-eyed, as if with shock. ‘Please come!’ Sybil gasped as she reached us.

  ‘And Roger too. We’ve found something!’ cried Dale.

  Brockley and I both sprang up. ‘Whatever is it?’ I demanded.

  Dale started to answer but Sybil gave her a silencing push and in a lowered voice, as though she feared eavesdroppers, she hissed: ‘Upstairs, in the window chest! Come quickly!’

  We sped up the stairs in a body. Either Sybil or Dale had opened the window and our room, because for once it was full of bright sunshine, looked completely different from the bleak place it had been hitherto. Sybil’s and my saddlebags were on the bed and the lid of the chest below the window seat was thrown up.

  ‘I went to the chest to take out the dresses I put there,’ Dale said, pointing, ‘and Mistress Jester came to help and … see there! Mistress Jester and I both looked into the chest when we first got here, but there was hardly any light then, the whole room was so gloomy, and neither of us saw. Even now, I didn’t understand at once but then Mistress Jester said …!’

  ‘This time, I realized straight away,’ said Sybil. ‘Look!’

  Brockley and I gathered round, and saw.

  It was a red chalk circle, quartered by a cross.

  I looked at it, and the unease which I had felt about this house, even before I set out for it, quietly congealed into genuine fear.

  ‘It was in shadow the first time I opened the chest,’ Sybil said. ‘Deep shadow – I just didn’t see it! But this is just the kind of place where Master Spelton might have put it. Not too obvious, but where it might be found by someone who was on the watch for it!’

  I took a grip on myself. ‘So Christopher did come here!’ I said. ‘He was here. He must have slept in this very room! That woman – Mistress Gould – has lied to me, lied to all of us. All the ladies have lied, in a way. They must know why we are here, and if so, they must have recalled Christopher’s visit. They must all have seen him or at least known he was here. What in God’s name has been going on in this house?’

  ‘Something has, that’s for sure,’ Brockley said. ‘I was so certain at first,’ he added ruefully, ‘that there could be no danger here, but doubts about that have been creeping in, bit by bit. Well, here’s the proof.’ He frowned. ‘I suppose no one actually looked for signs in this house. Mistress Gould said the men from York made a search but she didn’t say that they opened cupboards and chests. They probably didn’t. Would they have known about Master Spelton’s signs, I wonder?’

  ‘I expect Cecil gave full information to various county sheriffs,’ I said. ‘Local constables would have been alerted and various private contacts that Cecil has in the north. Landowners and merchants and the like – he said as much to me. Most would have passed the work on to underlings – well, that’s understandable; think of the area they had to cover! Details like secret signs might not have been passed down and even if they were, the sheriff’s men might have hesitated to pry overmuch when they were going through a house full of women. Didn’t Mistress Gould say that one of them was young, which probably means inexperienced, and that the other one kept apologizing? They might well have thought of Stonemoor as a great house, full of dignified ladies, and been a little awed by it and unwilling to poke about too thoroughly. Besides, they probably had instructions already, issued by Walsingham, not to harass the ladies of Stonemoor. The idea of searching this house might have embarrassed them.’

  Sybil, reasonably, said: ‘Well, now what do we do?’

  ‘What I would like to do,’ said Brockley grimly, ‘is to seek a private interview with Mistress Gould, hold my dagger to her throat, and recommend her to explain herself.’

  ‘Only you would never be able to make yourself cut her throat,’ I said, ‘nor would it be legal! You would find yourself on the gallows for it and she would know that perfectly well. No. I think we should simply get our hands on that book, get out of here as fast as possible, and report what we have found to the High Sheriff in York. His name is Sir William Fairfax, I believe. Let him take the responsibility after that.’

  ‘Are we to go straight there, or keep to our plan of collecting the coach?’ asked Brockley. ‘If we go back to the Thwaites first, we would have to go in the opposite direction from York, and waste time.’

  I thought about that for a moment. ‘I think you should ride for York, and that Joseph should escort the rest of us to the Thwaites to collect the coach. Then we’ll make for the main road and join you in York.’

  ‘But just what is the report to say?’ asked Sybil querulously. ‘It’s all such a muddle. Master Spelton must have been here since he left his sign, and that probably meant that he felt he was in danger here – but why should he? I don’t understand. I know none of us feels happy here but it’s not reasonable. Why should there be danger in this house? Master Spelton didn’t collect the book, obviously, because that’s still in its place in the library. Does this sign mean that something happened to him here? And that he expected it to? But that Principal or Mother or whatever she calls herself, she exchanged letters with Doctor Dee, didn’t she? She wants someone to buy the book. What’s it all about?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ I said. ‘An enquiry needs to be made but not by us. I agree that it all sounds quite crazy but there must be an explanation!’

  ‘I feel, madam,’ said Brockley, ‘that you should be the one to make the report.’

  ‘I can write it, perhaps,’ I said.

  We all stood silent, thinking about it, and then, breaking into our silence, came mundane noises from somewhere outside. A horse whinnied and someone was shouting, apparently for attention. Whoever it was kept on shouting; presumably the attention wasn’t forthcoming. Brockley made an impatient noise and then strode out of the room, to run down the stairs and cross the guest hall to look out of the windows on the far side. He turned to call up to us. ‘It’s Will Grimes! With a horse and cart this time and he’s on his own. There doesn’t seem to be anyone on duty at the gatehouse. I’m going out to see what’s the matter.’

  The rest of us trooped downstairs after him and made our way out into the courtyard in his wake, tramping through snow to reach him. We found a depressed-looking horse in the shafts of a cart loaded with two large bags of something and a crate, and Will Grimes, who greeted us with irritated demands to know where everyone had got to.

  ‘Last time I was here, Mistress Bella Yates, she said as salt and candles was wanted and would Master Butterworth see to it. He arranges to supply the ladies with things like that. Well, we had plenty to hand – we allus lay things o’ that sort in for the winter. We’ve sent to order more for us, so here’s some for the ladies – two big bags of salt and a crate of candles. And here I am and the gate was open but who’s in charge of it? No one that I can see! So who do I give this here to, and who’s a-going to pay me?’

  ‘Where’s Walter Cogge?’ said Brockley, looking round.

  ‘Oh, him. Out on the farm – I seed him go through the village. Happen he’ll be looking to see how many acres are under water. But meanwhile, what do I do with this?’ Grimes gestured at the contents of the cart. ‘And I was to ask for medicine for Master Butterworth – his guts are giving him trouble again. Bad trouble; looks right cheap, he does. Where is everyone? How can I go and look for someone? Ladies that’s almost nuns don’t like men wandering round their house.’

  I said: ‘We women will go and find someone. Meanwhile, you’d better come into the guest wing for the moment, Master Grimes. You’ll be out of the wind there.’

  Grumblingly,
Will produced a cloth from the cart to fling over the back of the horse, and then came indoors with us. He and Brockley went into the guest hall, while Sybil, Dale, and I plunged through the door into the main house and into the chilly passage, searching for signs of life.

  We reached the big main vestibule without finding any, but having got that far, realized that we could now hear something. There were raised voices, not that far off. ‘I think it’s this way,’ said Sybil, making for the entrance to the gallery.

  We went on, along the gallery and past the library. The voices, which by now were clearly those of women arguing, grew louder. At the end of the gallery, there was a staircase and beside it, a door, and the voices, a welter of indignant exclamations and protest, some of it hysterical, came from the other side of it. We stopped.

  ‘What do we do?’ Dale whispered. ‘We can’t just walk in on … dear heaven!’ One voice, which sounded like that of Philippa Gould, had burst out so loudly that it overwhelmed all the rest.

  ‘Why,’ Philippa was demanding, in tones of the utmost exasperation, ‘why must I be burdened with such an ignorant and obstinate fool of a sister and why do so many of you listen to her? Tell me that!’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Sybil. ‘Surely there must be someone, in the kitchen, maybe. If only we could find them.’

  ‘I think they’re all in there,’ I said.

  ‘But we can’t …’

  I also felt that it would be highly ill-mannered and tactless to intrude on what was obviously a major quarrel among the ladies, but there was Will Grimes waiting in the guest room until someone could be found to receive what he had brought and pay him for it, and there was his horse, standing out in the courtyard in the cold, even if it did have a cloth over its back. And down in the village, Master Butterworth was ill and in need of medicine. I took a deep breath and then, stepping forward, I rapped on the door.