Tales from the Vatican Vaults: 28 extraordinary stories by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Garry Kilworth, Mary Gentle, KJ Parker, Storm Constantine and many more

by David V. Barrett

  *

  20 November

  I had thought the priest would need to hide away, but today we rode out openly to hawk. He wears his years of study invisibly, like chain-mail under his doublet.

  He knows falcons well. He does not know me well, though. He questioned me on some dozen subjects I did not care to answer. ‘Do you love your father or mother most dearly?’ he said, as he handed me onto my horse.

  ‘I should be ingratitude itself if I did not love both.’

  ‘Was your Father Rutter a good priest?’

  ‘I do not know, sir. He kept us in the faith.’

  ‘And have you friends in the village?’

  I feared he might ride off to convert them, so told him I treasured no person above any other.

  Chafing under his interrogation, I questioned him in return. ‘Do you believe your work will bear fruit soon? Will England return to the faith in five years, perhaps?’

  ‘Struth, no!’ Then he said hastily, ‘Forgive me. You catch me in a melancholy fit.’ He is a mightily uneven man, flustered and assured by turns. ‘Ask no more questions. I must not give you knowledge that would harm you.’

  He has been harmed. He wore gloves to ride, and a hawking gauntlet, but I saw his hands at dinner. His fingernails are gone, leaving thick skin like melted wax. He shames us. Our family live secretly, and attend the heretics’ Mass in the village church monthly. We disdain to pay a fine, when others give all they have.

  I could only find weak words for him. ‘I pray we may all speak and worship honestly, one day.’

  He cast off my Father’s goshawk and we watched it ring up into the white winter sky. ‘Might you travel to the continent, one day, and join a convent?’

  I imagined it as the hawk circled: studying and singing with brave women in far lands. It would be good to be whole-hearted, to serve the Lord as the hawk seeks the rabbit.

  But I could not imagine leaving my home, the fields over which the hawk’s shadow was shooting.

  ‘I might,’ I lied, and it made the priest smile.

  *

  21 November

  The priest said Mass for us today. I have read the liturgy to myself, in the years since our old priest died, but not remembered how it stirred me. Kyrie eleison has the cadences of mourning, Gloria in Excelsis Deo rings like trumpets.

  Then the Agnus Dei – ‘take away the sins of the world’. I thought of poor Father Edward’s hands, and the sins of his tormentors. Father keeps the worst rumours from me, but everyone has heard of Richard Topcliffe, the Queen’s pursuivant. Was it he who hurt Father Edward? Was it blasphemy to doubt that the heretic-torturer’s sins might be removed? Or was it blasphemy to pray for it?

  The priest stooped to place the consecrated wafers in our mouths. I felt something thaw that had been frozen. I wanted faith to flow out of me into every part of the world.

  We dined together afterwards, and I spoke to Mother. ‘It is good to hear the Mass again.’

  ‘Yes – and in our house again.’

  ‘Would it please you for Father Edward to stay past Christmas?’

  ‘No!’ She gripped the table. ‘He should go from here as soon as your Father allows.’

  Silence spread around the table. Mother’s face bloomed scarlet. The priest looked over to us. ‘Mistress Barton, should I leave your home?’

  ‘Yes, you should leave! You are a good man, but your goodness will be the death of us. I would sooner have poison in my cup than you in my house.’

  She put her hand to her mouth and fled the room.

  *

  21 November

  A sad sight came to Rheims this morning – a man screaming as two men lifted him out of a carriage. Fortunately, on seeing the sky, he ceased to scream. He would by no means come back under a roof, however, so we set up a screen in the gardens where he might wash and dress himself. His clothes were stiff and his hair a bird’s nest from sea salt.

  He babbled, then grew calm, and confirmed what I had suspected: that under his long, rimed beard, he was Stephen Griffiths returned from England.

  He asked that a bed be placed in the gardens also.

  ‘There is no helping it,’ he said. ‘Father Garnet tried all ways but I cannot be within doors.’

  I told him the weather was too inclement, and assured him that we were safe here, not to be raided like English houses. But he fell into fits on the threshold, so we fetched out a pallet and blankets.

  Father Garnet, the superior who leads the English mission, had told me of this poor man’s condition – the pains in his head, and his terror of close places. I had not expected Stephen’s cheerful frankness. He had drunk beer, to permit him to travel by carriage, and I questioned him before the weakness might wear off.

  ‘What has caused this alteration in you, brother?’

  ‘Oh, one of our Order worked the change. One of my fellows here at Rheims – my rival, if a novice may have a rival, apart from the world, the flesh and the Devil. He was more zealous than I, more learned, more holy.’ He spat on the grass.

  ‘He is your brother in Christ!’

  ‘But neither good nor Godly, now. He met with us at the great gathering . . .’

  I knew of this ill-omened gathering. Garnet brought together all the priests of the English mission, twice a year. Many of our brothers lived in dark attics, alone for days at a time. Gathering together braced their souls, Garnet said, and forged new weapons for new battles. But a raid on such a gathering could destroy the whole mission at once.

  ‘That rival brother of mine – he said the Mass for us all. Then the house where we met was attacked. The pursuivants battered down the doors. Ten of us crammed ourselves into one of Owen’s nooks, trapped there for hours, while those foul men stabbed the beds and tumbled the furniture.’

  ‘Terrible.’ But some of our men have been locked for three days in a priest-hole, and not suffered for it after their release. ‘Did the confinement distress you?’

  ‘Oh, no! I have had worse hospitality. But the priest had pressed some charm onto my tongue with the consecrated host, and I felt it winding into my thoughts. Carving out a channel, like a worm, or a chisel . . .’

  This was a blasphemous fancy. ‘The other men – they did not feel this?’

  ‘They felt it not, but it worked on them. They cannot tell a lie, now, if asked a question.’ He tapped his finger on his forehead. ‘A gate has opened between my mind and my mouth, dear Father. My every conversation is a confessional, now. And I cannot bear to be hidden, or disguised, or kept in any closed place. I must be open in all things.’

  It was a vile tale. But then I recalled the recent spate of confessions, among our men in England.

  ‘Test me,’ Stephen demanded. ‘Ask me any shameful thing! Ask me if I have been a knave, a cozener, a lecher!’

  But my first questions were clear to me.

  ‘Who was with you at the gathering?’

  He gave ten names. Half the named men have been arrested for their unusual honesty; two of them are dead.

  ‘Which man said Mass for you, and them?’

  ‘Why, Father Edward Shepherd did it.’

  *

  21 November cont’d

  As soon as my mother left the dining hall, a farmer’s boy ran in, shouting that men on horseback were asking questions in the town.

  I took Father Edward’s arm. ‘I will show you the shortest way to the priest-hole, Father.’ I snatched up a knife from the dining table as we left.

  I stamped on the secret tile, let the false door-panel swing wide, and ducked into the room after the priest.

  The secret room was as long and wide as a coffin. The priest went ahead of me.

  ‘What have you done to my family,’ I asked, ‘that they are no longer masters of their own tongues?’

  He showed no surprise. ‘I have worked a charm on them. I understand it not myself. Maybe our Lord means your family to leave off dissembling.’

  ‘This is not God’s work.’ I
spoke too loud, and feared discovery, and dropped my voice. ‘It is Devilry.’

  ‘Call it what you will,’ Father Edward whispered back. ‘I am caught on the same hook. Do you love your family more than your faith?’

  I did not wish to answer him.

  But my tongue flapped against my teeth like a bird in a panic. ‘Yes. My family is dearer to me.’ I pointed my knife towards him. ‘How do I undo this charm?’

  ‘I do not know. No, put down your blade – I cannot speak more truthfully, Anne! For the sake of pity!’

  He feared me. He was scratching nervously at the skin of his wrists, one hand scouring up under the opposite cuff. He had strength but, pinned in this tiny room, he could not use it. I heard, from elsewhere in the house, the scrape and crash of furniture shoved aside.

  ‘Could you truly kill me with that knife?’ he whispered.

  ‘No, I could not.’

  The words sprang from my mouth unbidden. Father Edward struck at my hand. My blade clattered on the stone floor. We froze, and waited for the searchers to turn in our direction.

  We heard only a blunt knocking, far off. Then louder, sharper, with others joining in: a martial drumming on every piece of panelling, moving closer and closer. Until staves pounded on the false door to our little room and it shook under their blows.

  If one man were to step, by chance, on the tile that worked the mechanism . . .

  The priest pushed past me, to stand between me and the door. To protect me.

  And then the drumming passed us by.

  A hundred heartbeats later came a great creaking roar. They were pulling up the floorboards.

  We waited in silence until the cacophony ceased. My father called for us. Was he a tethered lure, bleating for the hunters? No, his voice was joyful.

  I backed out of the hidden room, shifting the lever that opened the heavy oak door. The priest followed me to freedom.

  I slammed the door against his head. I could not have stabbed him, that was true, but I only needed to intend this deed for a moment, then the weight of the door did all the dreadful work. He screamed, and I let the door swing free again.

  ‘Leave the house within a week or I will find another way to harm you,’ I said.

  ‘You cannot. I will ask you every hour whether you mean to injure me.’

  ‘Then I will plan a dozen ill deeds, and when you discover one I will find another. By horse, or on the cloister steps.’ I saw a simpler way. ‘Or I will ask you in front of my father if you have worked witchcraft on us, and you will confess it to him.’

  And then I was silent, because Father had rushed forward to embrace us both.

  *

  22 November

  I have tested Stephen. He does not lie – which is to say, he does not lie when he says that he must speak the truth. But can Edward Shepherd be the cause of it?

  Letters stream in from England. More of our men have announced themselves to be priests. They are believed to be a small cohort of a vast Jesuit army – when in truth, they form the greatest part of our mission.

  All talk without torture. Some confess strong sympathy for plots against her Majesty’s life, when our mission has sworn to take no part in such politics. Others declare that her Majesty is no true queen (when we have schooled them, time and again, to equivocate on that matter). Two priests – if reports do not lie – have announced that any man who commits treason against Elizabeth will win his soul’s safe harbour for eternity.

  The Queen’s advisors beg her for action: to make death the penalty for all recusants, and to raise armies to attack France or Spain. They tell her she will by no other wise be safe. Our priests, my brothers, are shown to her as evidence.

  The compass of the nation swings to war.

  And all these garrulous priests were given Mass by Edward Shepherd.

  I know not what to do. If I summon him to Rheims, will he come? It is doubtful, if he now labours for another master. If he remains in England, Catholic families will shelter him, and fall under his sway.

  Stephen Griffiths told me his own plan: to return to England.

  ‘I cannot waste myself here.’

  ‘You should ask my leave,’ I told him. ‘I am your spiritual director.’

  ‘I do not go as a priest,’ he said. ‘I go to kill Edward Shepherd, before he kills every Catholic in England, and – by fomenting war – half the men in Europe. I cannot expect your blessing, so I do not ask your permission. But I do ask for his whereabouts.’

  I did not sleep. His request racked me all night.

  This morning I find he has already left, and stolen from me all of Edward’s letters.

  *

  5 December

  The priest has gone from my home. His new home is twenty miles away, a house so large it would take a year to search.

  My family do not speak of the curse he has laid on us. We spend much time in solitary contemplation.

  After Father Edward left, I sat in the cold cloister-garden, trying to discover how much he has altered me. I asked myself questions, but could not make my tongue wag against its will.

  A young and pale-haired stranger entered the garden, picking his way around my mother’s bare rose bushes.

  ‘What is your name and business, sir?’ I asked with courtesy, in case he was a pursuivant, but as he drew close I saw his clothes were all over mud and twigs.

  ‘I am Stephen Griffiths, a Jesuit, come to kill Edward Shepherd,’ he said. Then he laughed. ‘And I say so grudgingly, of course. Curse the man. Has he lodged here?’

  ‘He has.’ I found that I still must answer honestly.

  The man plumped himself down on the ground and pulled up his feet to examine the soles of his boots. I could not believe him a murderer.

  ‘I marvel that you can walk abroad,’ I said, ‘If you must announce your intention to any who ask.’

  ‘Oh, I travel by night. Sleep in ditches all the day. Is that man, Father Edward, still in this house?’

  ‘He has left here, an hour past.’

  ‘So close! Tell me in which direction he went? And if he has locked up your tongue on the matter, draw me a map, or point. And give me a loaf of bread and a fast horse.’

  ‘I will give you the bread and the horse, but you need no directions. I will show you the way.’

  ‘You should not come with me. I am an honest villain. I mean to kill him, it is no sport.’

  I did not know if I wished to see the devil-priest dead. But I could not stay home.

  ‘You need me. Your tongue is not your own.’ It was a lie of omission, for it hinted that my tongue was free. But no dire consequence descended on me. It was a great relief to find I could deceive, even slightly.

  *

  ‘Sir – I would speak with Edward Shepherd? I hear he lives here and gives good Christian counsel.’

  I flattered until the servant turned back into the house, locking the door against us. Father Edward re-opened it, wearing another borrowed doublet, with a collar of cut-work lace.

  ‘Anne! You have made my host afraid. He thinks that every man in the country knows he shelters a Jesuit. Why do you come here?’

  Then Father Stephen stepped into his sight. Father Edward made the sign of the cross on his breast.

  ‘Are you my death?’ he asked.

  ‘I know not. The hour of your death is not mine to choose, but God’s.’

  ‘But have you come to kill me?’

  ‘Oh, yes! You cannot doubt it, Brother Edward.’

  ‘I will not let you in.’

  ‘Run to your hiding-hole, then – but I remember this house, and could tell the officers where to find you.’

  ‘You need not threaten me, brother. No place is safe for such as you and me. We are leaky boats, who cannot reach safe harbour.’ I searched Father Edward’s face for signs of devilish allegiance, but he looked bone-weary, uneasy in his courtly clothes. He stood to one side of the door, to let us enter.

  ‘I cannot join you in there, brot
her. And you are the cause of it, so you must excuse me. We will talk in the open air.’

  Father Edward guided us around a long wall of the house. He asked as we walked: ‘Why will you not come inside, Brother Stephen?’

  Father Stephen looked confused and insulted. ‘To enter a house is a kind of deceit – like hiding myself away. And thanks to you, I cannot abide any kind of lying.’

  Father Edward seemed just as nonplussed. ‘It does not seem like lying, to me. I am not affected that way.’

  ‘Ha! You are a lucky devil.’

  ‘I do find it painful to disguise myself.’ Father Edward’s hand crept to his lace collar.

  Father Stephen sniffed. ‘You have my sympathy.’ We reached a garden of knotted hedges. ‘This is a pleasant place,’ said Father Stephen. ‘It will be a shame for Anne and me to leave it, and a shame you will never leave.’

  The priests took either end of a wooden seat, while I sat a little further off on the grass. Hedges grown to hide lovers now hid Father Edward and me, and the snake I had let into the garden: Father Stephen, rocking where he sat and jesting at murder. I could not doubt his intent, but I could not persuade myself that it would happen. How would Father Stephen do it? Would he bid me leave, or make me witness it? Should I prevent it?

  ‘Your soul will pay a high fine for murdering me,’ said Father Edward.

  ‘Better my soul than all the souls of England. Our mission cannot thrive while you prosper, you gross carnosity. You are working for the crown?’

  ‘I have been sent out as their instrument. But my heart is with the true faith.’

  ‘What, weasel? If you are not a turn-coat, then how are you their instrument?’

  ‘I follow no instructions from them – I myself am their curse on English Catholics. Brother, what could I undertake to do, that would make you spare my life?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  I watched their strange duel of words. Each had a weapon which could undo the other, and yet neither was the victor.

  ‘How does it happen that we must speak the truth?’ asked Father Stephen.

  Father Edward smiled with grim relief, as though he had been waiting to be asked this question. He spoke in a confiding tone.