[David Becket and Simon Ames 01] - Firedrake's Eye

by Patricia Finney

  ‘But who will pay the fee…?’ she asked, fretting at the sheet with her fingers. ‘My husband should not be…. ’

  ‘No, if there were fee to be paid, which there will not, then would I pay it,’ said Simon, ‘since it was I brought you to this pass.’

  She opened her eyes wide then. ‘I think you should not blame yourself, ’ she said. ‘If I had been in mine own chamber at home, all hung about with damask and attended by three midwives and all my gossips, yet still might I have taken a fever.’

  Simon shook his head. ‘Nevertheless,’ he muttered, and for an occupation to his hands, he dipped the cloth Catherine had been using in the pewter bowl of rosewater upon the table and cooled her head with it.

  ‘All for nothing too,’ she said. ‘I know not where Adam went, not at all, only I was glad he left me at last because I thought he was using my house for a safe harbour for the paying of villains.’

  Simon never paused. ‘What villains?’

  She moved her hips uneasily, caught the sheets as the afterpain went through her, then relaxed. Simon dabbed the new beading of sweat from her lip.

  ‘I know not. A very pockmarked man, a boy… a zany…. And he talked of great changes, of a great benefit to our religion and there is his pardon from the Pope. Oh alas for it. What should he need such a thing for save a very great sin that must mean his death?’

  ‘What indeed?’ murmured Simon.

  ‘I wish I could see clear what to do, Simon, I am so uneasy in my mind, I must make my soul in a fit state to meet my Maker…’

  ‘Hush now,’ said Simon. ‘No need to think so. I would send you home now if I dared move you. I wish I had never brought you here.’

  ‘If wishes were horses all beggars would ride,’ she said, and smiled crookedly.

  Henderson knocked, escorting Dr Nunez who came in wearing his physician’s gravity and wisdom like a further gown upon his long sober one of brocade edged with marten.

  He did what he could, bleeding her eight ounces from the arm to try and relieve her body of the poisoned blood infecting her womb, and giving her a draught to make her evacuate any other poisons about her gut. But whenever a woman comes to birth of a babe, she and the child step into God’s hand, only leaving when she is churched, for if she has survived so long then is it likely she shall live to bear another babe, in accordance with Eve’s sentence.

  Ames and Hector Nunez left her with the wet nurse and Mrs Nisbet to void herself upon the jakes and went to Simon’s little room in Coldharbour that was already piled up with papers and ciphers. Dr Nunez found Simon’s abandoned cuirass and raised his brows at his nephew.

  ‘I thought you were still wearing this?’ he asked in Portuguese.

  ‘It is heavy and it wearies me.’

  ‘Time enough to sleep when you are dead, Shimon. Wear it, so I can tell Leonora that you do.’

  ‘Mrs Fant?’

  Dr Nunez pulled out a pipe, packed it with tobacco and lit it with a coal from the fire, before offering it to Simon who took it reluctantly.

  ‘Is she a Papist?’ he asked. Simon nodded. ‘If you would be merciful to her then, nephew, find her one of her own priests.’

  ‘Is it so bad?’

  Nunez puffed upon his pipe. ‘Were you the husband I would speak of hope and prayers to the Almighty for her deliverance.’

  ‘Her husband has disowned her.’

  ‘Very wise of him, seeing where she is. You however are not her kinsman and to you I will speak the truth: if a woman takes fever in her womb within a few days of childbed, then she may live indeed if she is strong and hale, but she is more like to die. In every ten that sicken I find one or two that live.’

  Simon bowed his head. ‘Will your treatment help?’

  Nunez shrugged. ‘I have known it work, sometimes. But I think she is sad in her heart of another matter, and that is not good. Where the spirit is strong and loves life, then I have seen men recover of the plague, but here…. Ay well, look not so sad yourself, Simon, take more tobacco, for it also drives away melancholic fumes from the gall bladder.’ Simon drank the smoke obediently and coughed. ‘I cannot take to this medicine,’ he said. ‘It makes my head giddy and my lungs short.’

  ‘Yet persevere, for it is an excellent herb, new to us but ancient among the wild men of the New World.’

  ‘Will you attend upon her still?’

  ‘Of course, since you ask me. And I have often wished to see the sights of the Tower, although I have never done so before. These cases proceed quickly. I think I shall visit the Jewel House and the Menagerie at least which will fill the afternoon. Would you send a man to guide me so I am not coneycatched at every turn?’

  Nunez’s treatment did not halt the fever which ran through Agnes’ body like an army pillaging a town while Simon slept exhausted on a borrowed truckle bed. In the afternoon Simon sent a message to Mr Norton asking that he might bring a priest to Mrs Fant, and then, seeing how swiftly she was failing, went of his own authority to the cell of Father Hepburn. He was an old and holy man that was ordained priest under Queen Mary and in the Tower since the mid-seventies.

  He was one that greatly desired to see an angel, but had never caught sight of one, which seemed to me a sad thing, seeing that I am daily plagued with them unwilling. But he is too well-seated in his reason to find them save in his sleep. There I believe he hath nightly converse with them, only to forget in the morning, from which it may be guessed that angels too love to sport with those who love them best.

  He had no holy oil to anoint Agnes, but he took his breviary from a hidden place by his bed and came at once with Simon.

  Henderson was deep in disapproval, muttering of Papistry and idolatry and a soul lost to the true Religion, until Simon turned upon him and snapped.

  ‘If it should ease her soul and make its flight sweeter, then I shall do this and take the consequences, idolatry or no idolatry. There is idolatry enough in your pure Religion, it seems to me, idolatry of men’s words.’ At which Henderson left off muttering of Papistry and protested indignantly that he should reason with her and try and save her soul.

  ‘No. She will not be troubled. You showed little enough interest in her until she was dying: Christians are all the same, spiritual kites every one.’

  Which led Henderson to mutter of Hebrews who knew not their place. To be certain sure that Mrs Fant was not disturbed while she made her confession, Simon himself stood watch at the door to her Tower, sitting on the wall walk and blinking into the courtyard. At last, frozen with cold as the sun set in brazen triumph and his chilblains throbbing, he knocked and entered with a fresh candle, and found Father Hepburn sitting upon the stool, with his head bowed and Agnes unmoving and unbreathing upon the bed. Catherine and Joan the wet nurse were weeping over the babe in the furthest comer, whither they had gone so as not to overhear her confession.

  ‘I must speak to you in private, sir,’ said the priest, rubbing his eyes. ‘Poor lady, her heart was sore burdened.’

  Simon gestured that the priest should go before him to his own little room, where the fire had burned out and the ink frozen again. On their way, the priest looked about him curiously, freshening his eyes upon the cobwebbed old-fashioned magnificence of the Queen’s unused corridors. Henderson was sent to fetch more wood and coals, tutting and shaking his head and while they waited to be warmed, the priest told Simon the most important of the things that Mrs Fant had bidden him say, which was but a sequence of numbers.

  ‘The poor lady asked my advice in this,’ he ended, ‘and it was a thorny question; I think you know its nature sir, whether to tell you the few things she knew of her brother’s conspiracy or to hold silent as her brother forced her to swear. I told her that as she was cleft between two evils, all she could do was choose what she thought was the lesser with an honest heart, and God would surely pardon her the other. Which she has now done. Her other affairs are in order: she made her will before she left home and the rest is matter only between herself a
nd God.’ Simon sighed. ‘Why could she not have told me this before?’ he asked. ‘Why?’

  ‘She had sworn to her brother that she would not,’ said the priest, ‘and being of gentle blood, prized her given word. But I advised her that if it touched upon the Queen’s safety, then she had a larger duty than to her brother or her honour, and if she failed out of mere pride, then God would require it of her soon.’

  ‘Does not this go against your Religion?’ Simon asked, after Henderson had lumbered resentfully in and laid a very ill fire and lit a candle. ‘So to help me in my task?’

  Fr Hepburn’s face settled into its lines of repose, his eyes watery, and the fingers tangled together by habit. ‘It is a hard question,’ he said midly, ‘and I make no pretence to have answered it, for where indeed does our duty lie? But Christ hath said, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God’s.” This I know: that God hath made Princes for our ruling, and that as He made Queen Mary, so also He made Queen Elizabeth and He knoweth all things, to the innermost heart of even so riddling a Prince as our own Sovereign Lady. And so I cleave to the old thinking: that to make and unmake Kings and Queens is not within the compass of any but God. If, as Mrs Fant said, her brother plans to shed such sacred blood, I care not which cause he says he does it in behalf of, it is not mine and I will aid him neither by deed nor word nor silence. And further, Mr Ames, I will not willingly see any foreigner sit upon the throne of England. ’

  ‘Yet our Sovereign Lady has kept you mewed up here these ten years and more.’

  ‘If the case had been opposite and I a Protestant in her sister’s reign, of blessed memory, then would I have burned like as not, and I am not one that hungers for true martyrdom. A little cold and discomfort will suffice.’

  ‘Sir, you put me to shame,’ said Simon, after a while.

  ‘Good,’ said the old man with a smile. ‘I have always wanted to do so. If I must suffer bodily, it is only fair that you should suffer in the mind.’

  ‘I think I will quit this work and do some other thing to serve this land,’ Simon said all in a rush.

  ‘She said you were an inquisitor, though you treated her gently enough. ’

  ‘It is true.’

  ‘Were you one of those who questioned Father Edmund Campion?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘He, I think, was not treated so kindly.’

  ‘No sir, he was racked.’

  ‘To any effect?’

  ‘We found his printing press, if that is what you ask?’

  ‘How was he broken, was it the pain?’

  Simon paused. ‘No sir, I think not. He was a clever witty man and he thought he could outwit me. But he could not.’

  ‘And was he plotting against the Queen?’

  ‘No. Only so far as any priest must plot against the Queen, by trying to turn her subjects away from the religion she has ordained for them.’

  ‘Can any King or Queen rightly do that?’

  ‘Can the Pope?’

  ‘You then uphold the doctrine “Cuius regio, eius religio”, as the King worships, so shall the people?’

  ‘It seems a sound and simple thing, conducive to good order.’

  ‘And yet Mrs Fant said you are a Jew.’

  Simon bent his head. ‘This is a thing that greatly troubles me, sir. It was not for his religion that we racked Father Campion. It is forbidden to me to do so in any case: for us it is a sin to persecute for religion’s sake. Only we do not know beforehand which Papist we catch might have knowledge of a Guisan plot. I have often thought on this. If we put none to the question, then will hidden treason fester and flourish until it break out, murder the Queen and destroy the realm. We are afraid. We dare not risk permitting even one that seems to us tainted to escape unquestioned, lest by so doing we let slip the one who will kill her.’

  ‘“We are afraid”.’ repeated Fr Hepburn, ‘Do you find much truth upon the rack? Or do men lie to you so you will abate their pain?’ Simon did not answer. ‘Do they not accuse any whose names they can recall, only to stop you hurting them? Is this not as unreliable if not more so than mere clever speech and cross-examination and outwitting them? Surely they lie?’ Fr Hepburn smiled. ‘I have never been tested so, but 1 too have thought on it, and I know my weakness: I would name every name I could as a dangerous traitor, cause untold suffering to the innocent and guilty alike, yea, conjure plots from the air, if only you would not test me further. Am I the only cowardly priest you have found?’

  Simon was silent and Fr Hepburn narrowed his eyes. ‘As to religion, Mr Ames – I think you are an honest man, but surely what you say is naive? I doubt not but that the Queen is a merciful and gentle Lady that loveth all her subjects, Catholic and Protestant alike. But Walsingham? Topcliffe? Norton? Are these men not of the sect called Puritan? Do not other Puritans gather together to speak of altering the realm? It seems to me that they are harsh men, deep-dyed in heresy, that hate the rule of bishops and bitterly resent the governance of a woman. And tell me, sir, how many Puritans have you racked?’

  Simon looked at him for a while, his lips pressed tight together and then rose and thanked him courteously and escorted him back to his own cell and the care of his anxious Yeoman Warder.

  On his return, dizzy with suppressed thinking, Simon searched out amongst his many papers, my own ballad of Tom O’Bedlam, in its manifestations with Throgmorton, Dun the ballad seller and Agnes Fant and began applying the simplifying art of number to it. A quarter of an hour later he left Coldharbour at the run, grabbing his hat as he went, and scurried down to the Lion Gate.

  XLVII

  Mr Hunnicutt was taking the evening air in Seething Lane having but an hour before left the most important meeting of his life, when he saw Simon Ames, the clever little Marrano, come running heavy-footedly round the comer from Tower Street, puffing and blowing like a horse ridden post.

  ‘Mr Ames, Mr Ames,’ he cried, blocking the man’s path. ‘What is the matter sir, what is afoot?’

  ‘Sir Francis…’ gasped Ames, trying to dodge past. ‘Is he there? I must… we have no time to waste, none…’

  Cold coils of suspicion began to constrict the pleasant remains of Mr Hunnicutt’s dinner.

  ‘Why, he is at Whitehall, Mr Ames, did you not know? Her Majesty summoned him but two hours ago.’

  There followed an explosive string of Portuguese, which Mr Hunnicutt supposed were oaths, and Ames threw his velvet cap on the ground, then picked it up and tried to dust it down.

  ‘Thither I must go then.’ He turned away, returning down Seething Lane and no doubt intending to go to the Custom House Steps.

  ‘But Mr Ames…Hunnicutt hurried after him, plump hands outstretched to slow him down. ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘I have untangled the elements of Mr Throgmorton’s plot, which I may say were staring us in the face, and I must see Sir Francis.’

  ‘Well, well, permit me to help you, sir, permit me to come with you, I shall find a good fast boatman… But the tide is at the ebb, surely sir, it would be better to gain upriver of the Bridge and then find a boat. ’ Ames paused and looked distracted. ‘We need horses.’

  ‘Stay there, catch your breath, you shall run yourself into a calenture. I will fetch mounts.’

  Hunnicutt bustled in at the stable gate, caught hold of a groom he knew and within minutes, two tall rangy horses were saddled and waiting. He mounted one with a heavy upward flip from the groom, and trotted down Seething Lane, where he found Ames hopping from foot to foot and wrenching his hat about. Ames was in the saddle with extraordinary speed and urged his horse to a reluctant trot and then to a heavy-footed canter. There were still folk about on the streets, although the curfew had sounded, and they looked curiously at the pale red-nosed and insecurely seated man in the lead, and his rotund companion trying hard to keep up. Then any in their path cursed and swore and must leap for it because both were riding far too fast for the city crowds where a trot is a difficult matt
er thanks to the press of people. Hunnicutt’s horse pecked at a hole in the ground, Ames found his way blocked by a pedlar’s cart full of newly unloaded Seville oranges, set himself and jumped the whole affair to Hunnicutt’s horror and astonishment. They swung off Tower Street to circle about St Dunstan’s in the East, from there into Thames Street, still heading west, at which point Ames struck his hat on the horse’s flank and kicked the bad-tempered gelding to a true gallop. Romeland and St Magnus’ church whipped by Hunnicutt in a blur, they crossed the busy intersection with New Fish Street with nary a look nor a check, skidded to a trot as they passed the entrance to Old Swan Lane and the regulars at the Old Swan Inn stood and stared to see Ames urge his astonished horse through the narrow lane and down to the Stairs.

  ‘Do you, Mr Hunnicutt, take the horses back to Seething Lane, while I find a boat,’ said Ames curtly as he slid down from his horse without a tremor.

  ‘Ah no, no, Mr Ames, I insist, I shall bear you company, we may need the horses to return…’

  ‘I expect to be at Whitehall all night.’

  ‘Well, there may be messengers, no sir, take the horses to Old Swan stables to rest and I shall find a boat. Remember, despatching is my trade, though I must say I never thought to…

  ‘Do it.’

  Fortunately by the time Simon Ames sprinted back Hunnicutt had found a suitable boatman and primed him well with gold. For the first time in his life Simon jumped into a boat without hesitation and Hunnicutt nodded to the boatman who leaned his thick-muscled arms against the rip of the tide to bring them clear of the Bridge’s turbulence.

  ‘Perhaps a horse were faster,’ Simon said, gnawing at his lower lip and unknowningly ripping a small piece from his penner.

  Hunnicutt leaned forward and patted his knee comfortingly.

  ‘No, Mr Ames, this is my trade, depend upon it, a boat is faster, even against the tide.’

  Darkness was coming down thick and fast, a sour smell of snow on the air. The boatman had his regulation lanterns ready lit fore and aft and the water-strewn lights from his and the other boats glittered on the great buckler-sized badge on his arm and his worn red coat.