The Heretic’s Creed

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  At last she looked up. ‘I would be betraying my faith.’

  Cogge said: ‘In the flames, you might not feel that your faith was so important. You would be feeling something quite different and more forceful. Let me remind you that to assist the supporters of Mary Stuart is to betray England. Your father encouraged you to keep the laws of England, did he not?’

  ‘Yes … but I have thought sometimes … surely Mary is the rightful queen. She would bring England back to the faith!’

  ‘So that’s what has been going on in your mind? You did know, perfectly well, who your five visitors were, didn’t you? Mistress Gould, most English people don’t want to be brought back to the faith and it’s not your business, or Mary Stuart’s, to force them. Nor,’ said Cogge strongly, ‘could they be forced except by using force. You do realize that Mary could never take power in this realm without outside help?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Philippa was genuinely puzzled.

  Christopher groaned. ‘I sometimes think,’ he said to me, ‘that well-meaning, unworldly people are the most dangerous folk in the world.’

  ‘I mean,’ said Cogge, ‘that any help she obtained would almost certainly have to come from Philip of Spain. Do you like the idea of a Spanish army marching across England? Bringing the Inquisition along with them?’

  Philippa stared at him. ‘Mary has let it be known that she would never do that; that she would lead, not compel.’

  ‘Mary wouldn’t have any choice,’ I snapped. ‘Philip of Spain would see to that.’

  ‘And the Inquisition …’ said Cogge.

  His lecture on the known activities of the Inquisition took about fifteen minutes. I will not quote it here. He spoke evenly, in that melodious, educated voice which was so surprising in a man of his appearance. What he said made Dale cry while Sybil at one point stopped her ears. I listened but my skin crawled and my stomach clenched. Philippa listened too, her face tight. At the end, she seized her wineglass and emptied it.

  Then she said: ‘Very well. I see. I … agree.’

  ‘Let’s all drink to that,’ said Christopher in a cheerful voice, and we did. Thin and sour though the wine was, I was glad to feel it running warmly down my gullet, bringing solace to my shocked and shivering body.

  ‘You are wise,’ Cogge said to Philippa. ‘Continue to be wise. Don’t attempt to cheat. If you are honest with us, we will be honest with you. You will be doing right, do you understand? And you and your ladies will be safe. We will not interfere with your … practices here, as long as they remain unobtrusive. Except, of course, that our protection can’t extend to Bella Yates. She is guilty of one murder and one attempted murder.’

  He too drained his wine. ‘Two of the sheriff’s officers will return here presently to take her away. Sir William Fairfax will be pleased with this day’s events, I think. He’s a fine, brisk, upstanding man – even his beard seems to crackle with energy – and he is new to his position, desirous of doing his duties well and leaving a good memory behind him. Capturing five Jesuits and bringing a murderess to justice will make an excellent beginning for him. However, before his officers come back, I want to question her. I want to know all the facts, first hand, and to know her side of it. That’s only just. Mistress Gould, will you take me to her?’

  Unexpectedly, Philippa smiled. ‘I left her locked in her room. But I think she may have gone by now.’

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Gone how? Out of a locked room?’

  The confused chorus died down after a moment. ‘Perhaps,’ said Philippa, ‘you would all like to follow me.’

  I had never seen the topmost storey before. It consisted of one long passage lit by skylights, and with small rooms on either side of it. ‘It used to be a series of connected bedchambers,’ Philippa said as she led us along it. ‘I had them partitioned into small rooms. I told you that, I think.’ She took a key from her girdle and inserted it into a lock. ‘Here we are.’

  It was the smell that hit us first, the reek of vomit and faeces. Bella lay jerking convulsively in a tangle of sheets and coverlet. She was not yet dead but death was not far off and no one was going to be able to hold it off. A phial lay on the floor. I picked it up. It was empty, but when I sniffed at it, I recognized it and recoiled.

  Gladys’ unlovely description of this as resembling cats’ piss was all too accurate. ‘Hemlock,’ I said.

  ‘She took that rather than be taken to York,’ said Philippa. It was only later that it occurred to me that her remark held an ambiguity. She did not seem shocked or repelled, only sad. ‘It was among her potions. She sometimes used a drop or two to relieve pain for people who wanted her help.’

  Her tone became defensive. ‘I am glad that she did swallow it! I didn’t want her dragged to York, any more than she wanted it. She’s my sister. She has already come near to being hanged. She has been terrified enough. No, I didn’t want her held in some filthy prison and tried and then brought to another scaffold. Let her go now. It will soon be over, Bella. Then you can sleep. I wish you’d told me where you hid John of Evesham’s book, though.’

  Bella’s agonized eyes sought her sister’s face. She tried to speak, but then craned over the edge of the bed, shaken by a bout of vomiting, though she had already brought up everything that was inside her, and only watery stuff came out. It splashed on to the floor. It was Sybil who stepped compassionately forward and helped her to ease herself back on to the bed.

  ‘Bella,’ said Philippa urgently, ‘where is the book?’

  Bella’s eyes had closed, but they opened again as a convulsion shook her, making her body jerk and twist. The dark eyes were filmed, blurred, and full of tears. She looked piteously at her sister and in the eyes that were now being hazed over by the approach of death, there was surrender. She tried to speak and failed, but raised a feeble hand and pointed, jabbing a forefinger downwards, at the straw pallet on which she was lying. She managed one word.

  ‘M … m … mattress,’ she said.

  Cogge marched us all out, except for Philippa, who threw off his hand when he laid it on her arm. ‘I will stay until she is gone,’ she said, and he let her.

  The rest of us went out, and back to the guest hall. Once more, we sat down. I said: ‘I’ve seen hemlock poisoning before. I thought then: those stories they tell of how Socrates died so gently. They’re not true. It’s a horrible business.’

  Sybil said: ‘Do you think she took the hemlock herself? Or did Mistress Gould give it to her? Telling her it was better than being arrested and probably hanged successfully next time? Did Mistress Gould pass judgement on her, in a way?’

  She took it rather than be taken to York. ‘I wonder,’ I said. ‘Mistress Gould didn’t put her back in the cellar, did she? Did our Philippa decide to let her sister die in the comfort of her own room?’

  ‘We’ll probably never know,’ said Cogge. ‘It would be hard to prove, either way.’

  We sat there for quite a long time. Mary Haxby came to us again, bringing food, in dishes which she banged down viciously on the table. We thanked her politely, but we couldn’t eat much. Then, at last, Philippa came in. In her hands was a box like the one we had been shown in the library. ‘It’s over,’ she said. ‘Bella has … gone. I have set two of my ladies to clean the room and wash her and lay her out decently. Mistress Angelica Ames is supervising them. I hope my sister can be buried in the church here and that Doctor Rowbotham will agree to preside.’

  ‘He can be ordered to do so. He has encouraged highly unlawful behaviour and would do well to do as he’s bid,’ said Cogge shortly.

  ‘I have brought the book that caused all this trouble,’ Philippa said. She set the box down on the table and opened it. Then she lifted out the volume that was inside

  ‘This is the real one,’ she said. ‘This is John of Evesham’s Observations of the Heavens. It was hidden in her mattress, as she said.’

  ‘Did you give your s
ister the poison? Or talk her into taking it?’ Cogge asked, more, I think, from curiosity than in an attempt to solve the mystery. Philippa barely glanced at him. ‘She took it of her own choice, rather than face what lay ahead,’ she said. ‘Do you want to examine the book?’

  Ambiguity again. I looked at Cogge, caught his eye and gave him a small shake of the head. Don’t persist, that little movement begged him. Don’t pursue this. Let it go. He stared at me and then returned my signal with a very small nod. I was glad, for it was best.

  Philippa had placed the book carefully on the table, in the centre, so that we could all gather round and everyone could see it.

  It was so very beautiful. The first book we had been shown was nothing by comparison.

  This one was old but it must have been carefully preserved through the centuries because the white leather cover was still white. It was thick, rich leather, the kind that made one’s fingertips want to touch it, to feel its cool smoothness and its soft depth. The complex gold-leaf pattern and the title on the front cover were undamaged. I could see the lettering of the title but from where I was standing, it was upside down. I reached out and twitched the book round so that I could see it properly. Archaic though the lettering was, it was also clear-cut and I could understand it perfectly well. Observations of the Heavens by John of Evesham. Yes. This was genuine.

  There were some small signs of misadventures through the years. There was a brownish smear along the top edge and a blackened corner, as though someone who was injured had at some point handled it and left a trace of blood, and as though the book had at some time been rescued from fire. But they were very tiny blemishes and in a way underlined the book’s antiquity.

  ‘Open it,’ said Philippa. ‘Look inside.’

  I did as she asked, and slowly began to turn the pages. Once more, I was smitten with its amazing beauty. So were the others. There were murmurs of admiration.

  The stiff vellum pages were a joy to behold. The strong, dark script was enlivened at the start of each section by exquisite pictures, in which the initial letters were embedded. The little pictures were far more perfect than those in the book we had already seen. They were miniature marvels of clear blue and red and green, embellished with gold and silver leaf. Tiny figures gazed in wonder at moon and stars; there were heraldic and mythical beings but not, this time, unicorns or camelopards; instead, these were to do with the zodiac and the constellations. Here there was a lion, there a pair of scales, on the next page a fish … and the man with the club in his hand and a sword at his belt and a dog at heel was surely Orion the mighty hunter of legend.

  There were more little drawings in the margins, haphazard ones, without colours, suggesting frivolous moments on the part of the scribes. There was a delightful little picture of a man, seated, dressed in a long robe with stars embroidered on it and a cat curled up on his knee; another, a skittish one, showed a rearing horse and a rider who had fallen off and was tumbled on the ground alongside, arms and legs waving in the air. The detail encompassed in these tiny spaces, at most an inch each way, was incredible.

  I couldn’t make much of the text and still less of the arithmetical tables which appeared on several pages. But I could appreciate the elegance of the lettering and the numerals and the ornate gold borders, like graceful chains, which surrounded the tables. Then I turned a further page and there, exquisitely drawn, was what I had been looking for, a diagram of the sun, with concentric circles drawn round it and on each circle, a planet, labelled with its name. By looking carefully, I could decipher the names. Closest to the sun was Mercury. Then came Venus, then Earth, then Mars, then Jupiter. The sun was in gold leaf, the planets each a different colour. The Earth was green, like grass.

  Then I turned another page and burst out laughing. The others leant close to see what had amused me and all but Philippa, who clicked a disapproving tongue, laughed too. We had found the drawing which the indignant Bella had considered blasphemous.

  It was, in fact, very amusing and had a kind of good-humoured charm. Clearly, John of Evesham had regarded the Church’s dislike of the theory that the Earth and planets all circled the Sun as unreasonable and had illustrated his opinion in a most entertaining fashion. The picture showed a Pope seated in a chair and using his arms to protect his head from celestial missiles. A golden figure whose face was a flame-crowned sun and whose eyebrows were drawn together in a frown was hurling a golden spear. On a small silver disc, evidently meant to represent the planet Mercury, a silver figure with outspread wings stood poised on one foot. He held a longbow and was aiming a silver arrow at the cowering ecclesiastic below. Venus, more graciously, was robed in a delicate shade of turquoise and held out imploring hands, pleading, it seemed, for the Church to reconsider. The Earth had a green man on top, his body clothed in ivy and his face surrounded by it, just like the inn sign I had seen long ago, hanging above the door of an inn called the Green Man. The maidservant who had told me that he was a forest god would have enjoyed this picture, I thought, for a forest god was just what he was like. He was flourishing a club. On top of a scarlet disc, presumably Mars, stood a martial being with golden breastplate and helmet, brandishing a sword.

  I looked at it and suddenly, from the mists of times past, John of Evesham emerged, not any longer as just a name, but as a real man. A man of knowledge. He had known several cultures, he was a scholar, and he was also a man of humour and imagination. I wished I could have known him.

  I said: ‘John of Evesham was very determined about his theory that the Earth spins round the Sun. And prepared to make fun of anyone who wouldn’t accept his ideas. And that is what drove Bella …’

  ‘Into a career of madness, trying to protect the world from heresy,’ said Philippa miserably. ‘Yes. The diagram and that picture are the crucial pages.’

  I said: ‘This book is a lovely thing. It’s worth more than we paid for it. Much more.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Philippa. ‘I didn’t really know what to ask. Ask too much, I thought, and the sale wouldn’t go through. I still have the money that Master Hardwicke gave me for it. Bella said she had bought the book back from him and at the time I believed that, but I didn’t choose to repay her. Only, I couldn’t decide whether I ought to keep the money he had paid me, or not.’

  ‘It’s yours,’ said Christopher. ‘If we can take the book. Mistress Stannard is right. This book is worth far more than you asked.’

  Philippa smiled, though sadly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You will be financially all right in any case,’ said Cogge. ‘We shall keep our word about that. You can expect another Queen’s Messenger in due course, with a purse for you. All you have to do, is keep faith – with us.’

  Afterwards, when we were on the road home, Sybil remarked: ‘I think that the promise of money did a lot to reconcile Mistress Gould to the idea of betraying any future visits from Jesuits. How money talks!’

  ‘With a loud voice,’ Brockley remarked. ‘Ah, well. It comes in useful, sometimes.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Consolation Prize

  There were several final things to do before we left, of course. Bella Yates was given the funeral that her sister wanted, in the churchyard at Thorby. Walter Cogge and Christopher had had speech with Doctor Rowbotham who was not likely, ever again, to encourage his flock into mob rule. He had a chastened air and agreed – though sulkily – that since no one knew for certain whether Bella had taken her fatal dose herself or been given it, she could be buried in consecrated ground. We attended. So did most of Thorby, and Rowbotham conducted the service.

  As we stood by the graveside, cloaked against the cold wind while Rowbotham pronounced the committal, I said to Christopher: ‘I am so thankful that all this is over. I’ve been frightened often enough in the past, but never quite as I have been frightened in Stonemoor. I think I must be past the age for secret assignments now. I’ve lost my nerve.’

  ‘Have you? Well, it’s understandable. As a way of life, yours
must come hard on a lady nearing middle life. You don’t mind me saying that, I trust?’

  ‘No. Because it’s true.’

  ‘All the same,’ said Christopher, watching as Rowbotham cast a clod of earth down into the grave, ‘in Stonemoor, what probably happened was that you sensed an atmosphere of evil. So did I. It was very strong, and yes, frightening, and all the more so because one couldn’t see where the enemy was.’

  Brockley, standing on the other side of Christopher, said: ‘I don’t believe madam will ever lose her nerve. I agree about the sense of evil. I felt it, too.’

  I looked down into the grave, at the clod of earth now crumbling on the lid of Bella’s coffin, and remembered her terror when the villagers dragged her out of Stonemoor House, and how I had pitied her.

  ‘I don’t think Bella was evil to begin with,’ I said. ‘I suppose she thought she was fighting for her faith. Some people might say that she had a right to do that. Only, she went too far and then …’

  I thought of Bella, brooding over what she had done, exuding darkness from her mind and filling Stonemoor House with it.

  ‘She let evil in,’ said Walter Cogge. ‘She didn’t have the right to murder people for refusing to agree with her. That’s the way the officers of the Inquisition think and they’re about as evil as it’s possible to be. If there were no other reason for keeping Mary Stuart from trying to claim England’s throne, and arresting her supporters, that would be enough.’

  I didn’t want to go on thinking about Bella. The thought of her produced such a muddle in me, of pity, fear, and sheer horror, that I didn’t know what to do with it and in my mind, I ran away from it. And not only in my mind. ‘I shall be happy to ride away from Thorby,’ I said.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said Brockley.

  We left Stonemoor the next day, bidding farewell to a subdued, withdrawn Philippa, who since her sister’s death had looked every morning as though she had wept in the night. She said farewell in courteous tones but she did not wish us a safe journey, nor, clearly, did she want to clasp our hands in parting. We parted from her with relief, leaving her to the life of deception to which Walter Cogge and Sir Francis Walsingham had condemned her, and hoping earnestly that we would never have to return.