The Heretic’s Creed

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  The morning of our departure was grey and cool but we were well into March now, and there were hints of spring, with snowdrops and crocuses in the Stonemoor garden. Christopher Spelton and Walter Cogge were riding with us, bound for the court, to make their report to Sir Francis Walsingham.

  As we came to the foot of the hill and within sight of the tavern, we saw Will Grimes, just fastening the top of its half-door back, a sign that the place was open for business. He waved and Christopher and I rode up to him. The dog bounded out of the tavern, barking, but recognized us and skidded to a halt on its haunches, tongue lolling and tail on the wag. Will, grinning, patted its head.

  ‘Master Butterworth left this place to me,’ he said. ‘I miss him with all my heart, so I do, but I’ve a living to make and the village wants its alehouse.’

  We bade him farewell and gave him our good wishes for the future. ‘Grimes looks more like a hobgoblin than ever,’ I remarked with amusement as we rode off.

  ‘Or like a good fellow,’ said Christopher and everyone laughed.

  We were bound first for the Thwaites, to reunite ourselves with our coach. Then we would make for York and return the brown mare and the beautiful chestnut to the remount stable. When we got there, Master Maxton was extremely pleased to see them, though scandalized by their lack of condition. We pointed out that they were barely recovered from being out on the moor in winter, and assured him that they had been well treated since they were rescued. We would need fresh horses, though, for Christopher and Walter Cogge, who had been riding them.

  ‘If you can give me a guarantee that your new mounts won’t vanish into thin air first and then be found wandering in the cold on some bloody old moorland where’s nowt but frostbitten heather to eat,’ said Maxton acidly, hands on hips and looking more like King Henry than ever. ‘I’m ashamed to have horses in my stable in the condition these two are in!’

  ‘We promise,’ we assured him.

  We reached the south of England after two weeks of travelling. Cogge said that we must first go to Hampton Court, where the court was staying, and I demurred. ‘Shouldn’t we go to Doctor Dee first?’ I said. ‘To deliver the book. Where does he live?’

  ‘Mortlake,’ said Christopher. ‘Near Richmond. It’s not so far from Hampton Court and we can go on there after we visit the court, but reporting to Sir Francis Walsingham must come first. He is most likely with the court.’

  Coming to Hampton Court was so familiar that it almost felt like coming home. We arrived early on a fine afternoon, to see its walls of rosy brick glowing warmly in the sunshine, somehow made even warmer and rosier because of the decorative grey bricks that outlined them. The elaborate chimneys stood tall against a blue sky, with thin plumes of smoke here and there, and the River Thames flowed gently past, with ferries and barges and small pleasure craft afloat on its surface, sails swelling in a soft wind, oars creating ripples that shone gold in the sun.

  ‘It’s a lovely palace,’ Christopher remarked. ‘I have always thought so. Haven’t you, Ursula?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. I hope that Walsingham’s here, though. This long journey has tired me, and we still have to go to Mortlake!’

  Joseph stayed with the horses, but the rest of us all went together to find out if Walsingham could see us. We found that he could, and that we would not after all have to go to Mortlake. ‘Doctor Dee is here at court just now. I’ll send for him,’ said Walsingham, when Cogge, who had unobtrusively taken charge of the proceedings, had explained that we had brought John of Evesham’s book and had also, briefly, described the arrest of the priests and the unexpected danger into which Christopher Spelton and Bernard Hardwicke had stumbled at Stonemoor. We had been ushered into the businesslike office that was Walsingham’s place of work. He had them in all the Thames-side palaces and they were always the same: plain wood tables and seats, shelves laden with books, maps, deed boxes, piles of files and letters in dusty array, a pervading smell of ink, and a couple of secretaries earnestly busy, heads down. Since the rooms were all in palaces, they always had charming leaded windows, ornate ceilings, and panelling, but the workaday atmosphere that Walsingham created round him made these things almost invisible. I always noticed it. Stools and a bench had been provided so that we could all sit down, and I had taken a window seat. Having heard Walter Cogge out, Walsingham spoke quietly to the nearest secretary, who departed at once to find Dee. I relaxed against the window behind me, glad to be quiet for a while. I really was tired. I was in charge of the Observations, in its box, and I now realized how heavy it was. I set it down beside me and while we waited, I looked round the room, thinking yet again about the way Walsingham impressed himself on his surroundings.

  And then noticed that here, for once, there was something different. Under a shelf on the opposite side of the room there was a cupboard and its door had been opened and fastened back. I leant forward to see what was inside, and smiled, because the cupboard was occupied by a large black and white cat, lying on a heap of torn-up paper and curled affectionately round some kittens. They were all asleep.

  Walsingham saw me looking and he too smiled, which was always a disconcerting sight, since he was such a saturnine man, and his smiles tended to be those of grim satisfaction when he had caught someone out. They were usually widest when the someone in question was headed for the dungeon, the questioner, and very likely the gallows. This time, however, he was only expressing amiable amusement.

  ‘Unusual, in any office of mine,’ he said. ‘But there are always cats about in these palaces. We need them, if mice and rats are not to overrun us. That cupboard door has always been tiresome; it won’t stay shut. I came to my work one morning and found that Lisa had pawed it open and crept inside and produced a family. I have left her there. The kittens are growing fast; they’re already old enough to leave her. I sometimes have them tumbling round my feet. Just now, they’re asleep because they were fed only a little while ago. I saw the remains of a mouse in there this morning; she’s probably started teaching them to hunt. Do you need a cat? Lisa is a good mouser; they may take after her.’

  ‘As it happens, we do,’ I said. The remaining secretary and all my companions were laughing and I knew why. This was a most unlikely conversation for Walsingham’s office.

  ‘You can take one with you when you go,’ Walsingham said. ‘Someone will find you a basket. There are two ginger males, one black and white female, and one tabby female. Choose which you want! Ah. Here is Doctor Dee.’

  The secretaries were at once banished to the anteroom to sit among the junior clerks, while their master was in conference. They went, I think, with some regret. Doctor Dee probably intrigued them just as he intrigued me. I looked at him with interest, having wondered what this well-known and controversial character was like.

  He was in middle life, not unlike Walsingham to look at, being dark, tall, lean and austere, with a long face and a pointed beard. He had a close fitting black hood on his head and wore a long black velvet gown. I had rather expected him to have a gown with cabalistic signs on it, but his clothing had no decoration. Dee evidently didn’t want to draw too much attention to himself. I remembered that according to Cecil, he had chosen not to keep a cat, though he liked them.

  ‘I have been with her majesty,’ he said, when the introductions had been completed. ‘There are signs in the heavens of a danger averted, which is good news. Have you something to tell me about such a danger, Sir Francis?’

  Walsingham looked at Cogge and Spelton, and Cogge said: ‘As it happens, we may have. But first, Mistress Stannard here has brought you the book that you wished to buy. She has fetched it from Stonemoor House. There is quite a tale attached to that, but perhaps you would care to see the book first? You will want to be sure it’s the one you wanted.’

  I took the book to Walsingham’s desk and removed it from its box. Dee stooped over it, touching it with long, sensitive fingers, feeling the leather and tracing the gold-leaf pattern on the cover with a fingertip. Hi
s nails were short and neatly filed, but there was dirt under them, or perhaps it was ink, for he had ink-stains on his fingers. He opened the book with care, and then sighed with pleasure at the sight of the illustrations and the tables inside.

  He turned the pages slowly, pausing at the diagram of the sun and the planets. He fingered the text on the opposite page, obviously reading it with ease, which I had not been able to do, and then turned another page and for a few moments, studied a table of numerals, and then moved on to discover the drawing of the sun and planets aiming missiles at the Pope, and emitted a bark of laughter.

  ‘See this, Sir Francis! Come and share it with me!’

  Walsingham went to look over Dee’s shoulder and allowed himself a small, tight smile. ‘Witty,’ he said. ‘And also disrespectful. I am not so disrespectful myself. I am too well aware of the danger in Rome.’

  ‘I find this book a joy,’ said Dee. ‘And there is much knowledge here which I shall delight in studying in detail.’

  ‘You delight in the oddest things,’ Walsingham remarked. ‘You are very unlike me.’

  Dee looked up at him, and I noticed how very keen his deep-set dark eyes were. ‘We’re more alike than you think, Sir Francis,’ he said. ‘We both want to know. It’s just that we seek to know different things. You want to know what her majesty’s enemies are planning; I want to know how the universe works. That’s the only distinction.’

  ‘Yours is an ambitious plan!’ said Walsingham.

  ‘An age-old plan,’ said Dee reprovingly. ‘And in my opinion, what the human mind is for. However, I am concerned by the trouble that my search for knowledge seems to have caused this time.’ Dee’s voice was serious. ‘I know that two men vanished, who had gone to collect this book for me.’ He looked at Christopher. ‘One of them was you, was it not? You at least have come back.’

  ‘I was lucky,’ said Christopher. ‘I was nearly killed. The other man, Bernard Hardwicke, was killed.’

  ‘I am sorry for that. Truly sorry. I would never have asked to buy the book, had I known it would bring anyone into danger. I will take good care of it and see that it does no more harm! It is undoubtedly the right book. I thank you, Mistress Stannard. Are there expenses that I should repay to you?’

  ‘We can settle that later,’ said Walsingham. ‘For the moment, let us tell you the full story of how the book was brought here. Cogge? Please tell Doctor Dee what you have already told me, but perhaps with more detail?’

  Cogge once more launched into an account of our adventures, this time adding things that he had omitted when we first arrived. It was a lengthy narrative. It began with the disappearances of Hardwicke and Christopher, went on to the discovery of Christopher’s secret sign, to the finding of the boot, to the tricks Bella Yates had played with the book, and then her confession concerning her murderous attacks. He described Christopher’s narrow and miraculous escape, went on to the death of Butterworth, to Bella’s own narrow escape from the villagers, to the arrival and arrest of the five priests, and finally to Bella’s death at Stonemoor.

  ‘God’s teeth!’ said Doctor Dee at the end, visibly shocked.

  ‘Do you think she took the hemlock or was given it?’ Walsingham asked, at the end.

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Christopher. ‘We suspect that she was perhaps – encouraged to take it.’

  ‘We prefer not to enquire too deeply,’ said Cogge. ‘Sir Francis, you empowered me to bargain with Mistress Gould. I have done so. She will do as you wish. I felt that we could leave the precise manner of Mistress Yates’s death aside.’

  ‘I agree.’ Walsingham smiled his old, grim smile. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘since the priests did indeed arrive at Stonemoor and the warning must therefore have been passed to the Brownlows, we know for sure who our traitor is. We had a suspect and fed him with a tale that should cause him to have those Jesuit intruders sent on to Stonemoor for safety. He did so. He is a suspect no longer, but a proven enemy.’

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked.

  Walsingham’s smile dimmed somewhat. ‘Who was it would be a better question. We will never bring him to justice on earth,’ he said. ‘If he is arraigned anywhere, it is before the eternal throne. He is dead. It was Bernard Hardwicke. Obligingly removed,’ he added, ‘by Mistress Bella Yates.’

  Before we left, I looked at the kittens and picked out the tabby female. She had a white front and white paws, just as Huntress had had, and I hoped that she would resemble Huntress in being just as good a mouser. She clearly had the right kind of heredity. One of Walsingham’s clerks was sent to find a basket from somewhere, and came back with a very good one, with air holes in the front and a lid with a firm latch. The kitten was very sweet and snuggled confidingly into my hands when I picked her up. I settled her in the basket and then it was time to leave.

  We could have been accommodated at court that night, had we wished, but we didn’t. Christopher had a small house not far away, beside the Thames, and we went there, all of us glad to be, as Dale succinctly put it, somewhere quiet, ma’am, and safe and normal.

  It was certainly not a big place but it had two good-sized spare rooms upstairs, all the same, and there we slept that night, women in one, men in the other. There was one big bed that I could share with Sybil and Dale, and straw pallets for Walter Cogge, Brockley, and Joseph. Christopher had a caretaker couple, who showed no concern at all over having to arrange supper for us all at short notice. They clearly liked their employer and wanted to please him. From somewhere they produced a meat pie big enough to provide a good slice for us all, with a rich gravy, a vegetable stew, and a tart to follow, made from last year’s apples, the woman said, but sweet and tasty with cinnamon and nutmeg. There was ale, too, and a very good dry red wine. It turned into a most enjoyable evening.

  Christopher was an amiable host, presiding proudly over the long whitewood table in his dining room, his bald head gleaming in the light of several oil lamps, his brown eyes full of warmth as he watched us eating and drinking and feeling safe under his roof. We were all there, Joseph included. ‘We’ve all shared the same dangers. Joseph will not eat in the kitchen with Annet and Reg. He shares with us,’ Christopher said.

  I ate and drank and joined in the laughter and talk, but once or twice, I caught Brockley’s eye and knew what he was thinking. If, only last year, I had accepted Christopher’s proposal, I could have been mistress of this house, as well as of Hawkswood and Withysham. Had I wished, I could have been at Christopher’s side, the hostess here, the others my guests as well as his, and I could have been retiring that night, not to share a bed with Sybil and Dale, but to sleep in the main bedchamber, in Christopher’s kindly arms.

  If he ever asked me again, I thought, I would say yes.

  Next day, Walter Cogge said that he was going to his own home, which was in Berkshire. He had asked for and been granted, a well-earned break, before returning to court to take on any new assignment that was on offer.

  I asked Christopher what he meant to do. ‘If you would like to come on to Hawkswood with us,’ I said, ‘and make a stay for a while, you would be so very welcome.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, but I think not,’ he said. ‘I want to have a rest from work, just as Walter does, though it can’t be for long. I will be expected back on duty in a week. I want to spend that week putting my garden in order. The new spring growth has started and I’ve noticed that there’s weeding to do. Reg doesn’t like gardening much. He’s a marvel at mending shutters and hinges, and he looks after my horse and the chicken and pigs that I keep, and he does as much of the cooking as his wife does, but no one is perfect and there it is. He will be very happy if I weed the vegetables.’

  ‘Very well. Then we must say goodbye.’ I said it cheerfully. ‘But I hope to see you again some time.’

  ‘I expect you will. After a while, I hope to visit the Lakes in their new home and Hawkswood is on the way there, so no doubt I’ll call in on you. I shouldn’t really go to see Eric and Kate La
ke,’ Christopher said regretfully. ‘I shall have to make some excuse – tell them that they’re on the way to somewhere or other that I have to visit. Something of that kind. I really just want to see that lovely Kate Lake again. Just once! Do they know that I was missing and supposed to be dead, by the way?’

  ‘No, I never told them. I wanted them to enjoy the first days of their marriage with free minds.’

  ‘That was thoughtful of you. I might tell them myself,’ said Christopher. ‘Just to bask in their sympathy, especially Kate’s. Oh, I shouldn’t … but I shall do them no harm, I promise. Just visit them and tell them of my adventures, nothing more.’ He sighed, a genuinely sad sigh. ‘I promoted her marriage to my cousin Eric and began to regret it on the very day they met. You were partly responsible for that.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You had taught Kate how to dress, how to present herself! When I saw her that day, arrayed to meet a possible husband, it took me aback. I hadn’t paid her much attention before that. I thought of her as just another young girl. But when I saw her that day, I saw a … no, not a goddess, but a most beautiful young woman. I thought she was the most delightful, splendid lass I had ever set eyes on … only it was too late. Eric had come to meet her and they were staring at each other as though they couldn’t look away. The pupils of their eyes were all wide and dark. If I had realized sooner … if only … I would have proposed for her myself! Ah, well. Life isn’t always obliging.’

  He wasn’t going to offer himself to me again. Instead, he was going to yearn after Kate, to dream about her, to give himself up to hopeless love for her. And why not? She was not only a gallant young woman; she was beautiful and far younger than I was. Kate’s dark, glossy hair had no grey strands in it as mine now had. Her skin was dewy, her eyes melting. Why would Christopher not prefer her, now that he had seen her clearly? If he had missed his chance, so had I.