A Crowning Mercy (28 page)

'You want to be there?'

'There is a seal to collect, remember?'

Ebenezer did not move, did not say anything.

Sir Grenville chuckled. 'And a large estate. I'll take possession quickly.'

"When?'

'As soon as we can march.' Sir Grenville shrugged. 'It will be early spring, but we can keep an eye on the place till then.' He smiled broadly. 'I shall make you my heir, Ebenezer.'

Ebenezer gave a tiny bow, then smiled. 'I hope your astrologer was wrong about the other thing.'

Sir Grenville wished the words had not been said. Despite the heat of the fire, despite the warmth in the room, he felt a chill go through him. Barnegat, poring over Sir Grenville's charts, had said an enemy would come from beyond the seas. He thought of Kit Aretine, but Aretine was dead! Sir Grenville shivered. If Kit Aretine had heard one hundredth part of what had been spoken in this room this Christmas night, then Cony could fear a death that would make the dying of Ebenezer Slythe's victims seem merciful.

'Put some logs on the fire, Ebenezer. Aretine's dead. He's in his American grave, and I hope the American worms vomit on his corpse. No. Barnegat meant Lopez, and if the Jew dares show his face in England we'll have him behind bars.'

Ebenezer limped to the fire, fed it with logs, and watched as the flames leaped bright. He leaned on the mantel, curiously elegant in his fur-edged, purple gown. His eyes were like twin points of white light. 'Do you want entertaining this evening?'

Sir Grenville twisted his head round. 'Do sit down, dear boy, my neck is hurting.' He watched Ebenezer limp back to the chair. 'What do you have?'

'A girl. She wants clemency for her father.'

'Who is?'

Ebenezer shrugged. 'A tallow-chandler. We think he was sending messages to Oxford. He says not.'

'Will you release him?'

Ebenezer shrugged. 'That rather depends on his daughter now.'

'What's she like?'

'Seventeen, a virgin, pretty enough.'

Sir Grenville laughed. 'She has no idea whose house this is?'

Ebenezer gave his master a pitying look. 'What do you think?'

'Forgive me, Ebenezer, forgive me.' He chuckled. 'Lead on, dear boy, lead on.' He heaved himself upright. He liked to watch Ebenezer taking his revenge on a world that had for so long not recognised the cripple's talents. Sir Grenville could watch from a darkened room through the window into Ebenezer's bed-chamber. Even without the instruments of torture which the government supplied for his work, Ebenezer was skilled at humiliating, hurting and befouling the innocent whose wholeness he hated. Sir Grenville followed him eagerly.

Rain started to fall outside the house, a freezing rain that fell in utter blackness, falling softly on the darkness of the marsh, on the river and on the congealing ice that slowly and imperceptibly spread towards the calm, western country hidden by night.

--<<>>--<<>>--<<>>--

'Do you always wear it?'

'Yes.' Campion firmly pushed Toby's fingers away from the seal and away from the white silk that covered her breasts.

He smiled. 'Mother says you've been reading John Donne.'

'And Spenser, and Drayton, and Ford, and Greene, and Shakespeare, and Sir Philip Sidney, and Royden, and even someone called Thomas Campion.'

Toby ignored her list. He shut his eyes. '"Full nakedness, all joys are due to thee."'

'Not here, and not now, Toby Lazender.'

'Yes, ma'am.'

Campion sat on a fur-covered chest that was in front of one of the great fires in the hall. The remains of yesterday's feast had still not been entirely cleared. The huge logs burned above a mound of glowing, shifting embers. Most of the castle was asleep.

They had sat up late the night before, after Toby had helped his father from the servants' hall and steered him to his bedroom. They would sit up late again this Christmas night, sharing words and silences into the small hours.

Toby, sitting at her feet, slid his hand up her be-ribboned arm, cupped her shoulder, pulled her gently towards him. He kissed her, feeling her respond, and then he opened his eyes to see if hers were closed. He found himself looking into two very open, very blue eyes. He leaned back. 'You're not taking me seriously.'

'Oh.' She mocked him with gentle pity.

She could see little change in him, though she wondered if there was a new toughness about him, put there by days in the saddle and the slowly accrued knowledge that he could survive in a fight. He had killed four times now to his certain knowledge, five if he included Thomas Grimmett in Scammell's house, and all four men had been killed at close range with pistol or sword. He had had time to see the fear in their eyes, to smell it even, and he had learned to conquer his own. He was, she thought, tougher, but that had not stopped him from being very gentle with her.

He smiled at her. 'The Reverend Perilly says you're not married. He says you're not married till...'

'I know what he says. Your mother says the same. He's right. I'm not married.'

'So are you going to marry me?'

She traced a finger down his nose, pretending to think. 'Yes.'

'When?'

'In three days' time.'

'I go back to Oxford in two!'

'I know.' She smiled.

They would marry. Even Sir George had given his consent, frowning after the Christmas morning service. He still thought her not the most suitable bride, would have preferred some girl with more certain prospects of a dowry rich enough to replace the roof of the Old House, but he would not stand in his son's way. 'You can't marry her yet, Toby.'

'I know, father.'

The Reverend Perilly, consulted after matins, had outlined the difficulties. Campion's marriage to Scammell, he had said, could be declared invalid by a properly convened church court and, even if Scammell dared attend the hearing, he could not fight the evidence of Campion's virginity. But that, Perilly said, must be attested by good witnesses; doctors beyond reproach, trusted midwives, and the process would cost money and time. The church courts no longer sat in London, the whole process must take place in Oxford, and he suggested it would be an ordeal for Campion. He had shaken his head. 'Are you sure Mr Scammell won't go to Chancery? There must have been a settlement.'

Sir George, hungover, had been gloomy. 'I'm sure of nothing, Perilly, except that Toby won't see sense.'

'You can hardly blame him, Sir George.'

Sir George smiled. 'No. So it seems.'

Campion would go through the ordeal, though not till later in the year when the roads were fit for travelling. She smiled now, looking at the two dogs that slept fitfully before the fire, their paws twitching as they chased imaginary rabbits. Her cat, Mildred, slept on Campion's lap. She had named the kitten, now almost full grown, after Mrs Swan. 'I wonder if she'll get our letter.'

'Mrs Swan?'

'Yes.'

'I don't know.'

She still smiled. 'Next Christmas we'll be married.'

'I know. You'll have to promise to obey me.'

'Like your mother obeys your father?'

Toby smiled. 'Just the same.'

Campion frowned. 'Do you think the Fleets are happy?'

'Mm.' Toby yawned. 'Anne likes the fact that John's boring. It makes her feel safe.'

'Will they really be enemies of ours?'

'No. Lots of families are divided. There's not much hatred.' He twisted his head round to look at her. 'I think the mistletoe needs us.'

'I think you've exhausted the mistletoe. I think I'm going to bed.'

'I'll take you.'

'Toby Lazender, I am quite capable of climbing stairs on my own.'

'Someone might jump out at you.'

'Not if you stay here, dear.' She laughed. 'That dreadful Ferraby boy might. Who is he?'

Toby smiled. There were times, he thought, when Campion began to sound like his mother. 'Mother wants him to marry Caroline.'

'All he did was stare at me with ox-eyes. Like a great, sad ox. I spoke to him once, and he dribbled.'

'Like this?' Toby made a grotesque face, drooling at the same time.

'Stop it. You'll frighten Mildred.'

He laughed. 'Ferraby's nervous of you.'

'I can't think why. Is he really to marry Caroline? He's so young!'

'He probably is.' He grinned at her. 'Money.'

'I didn't think it was for his looks.'

Toby gave her a slow smile. 'I shall marry you for your looks.'

"Will you now?'

'Yes.' He twisted around so he was kneeling in front of her. 'For your hair, your eyes, your mouth, and for the big, brown mole that you have...' He paused, his finger hovering just above her navel. He stabbed it down on to her stomacher. 'There.'

'Toby!'

He laughed. 'I'm right, there's no use in denying it.'

He was right. She was blushing. 'Toby?'

'My love?' He spoke in pure innocence.

'How do you know?' She spoke loudly enough to disturb the dogs who opened their eyes, saw it was not time for breakfast, and slumped back into growly comfort. The cat stretched its claws.

Toby was grinning. 'When you catch trout with your bare hands, you must move very, very slowly, and very, very quietly.'

'You saw me?' He nodded. She could feel her face redden. 'You should have made a noise!'

'I'd have frightened the fish!' he said indignantly. He laughed. 'I just looked through the reeds and there you were. The nymph of the stream.'

'Then, I suppose, your feet got stuck and you couldn't move?'

'That's exactly what happened.' He smiled. 'And when I'd seen all there was to see I went back downstream, splashed about a bit, and came back. And you said you hadn't been swimming.'

'And you pretended you hadn't seen anything!'

'You didn't ask me!' He pretended to be as indignant as Campion.

'Toby! You're dreadful!'

'I know, but you'll still marry me?'

She looked at him, loving his smile, but one thing worried her. 'When you were in the stream, Toby...'

'Yes?'

She was hesitant. 'Your mother says...' She stopped and waved a hand over her breasts. 'She says...'

He laughed at her confusion. 'Mother doesn't know tits from trout.'

Toby!' The dogs stirred again.

He laughed. 'I'll tell you, then. They're beautiful.'

'You're sure?'

'You want me to make certain?' He smiled. 'Will you marry me?'

'If you promise me one thing.'

'What's that?

She leaned forward, kissed him swiftly on the forehead and stood up, clutching Mildred in her arms. 'That sometimes you'll leave your boots on.'

'Whatever does that mean?'

She walked away from him, imitating Lady Margaret's voice. 'Nothing. There are some things that should not be told to the young.'

He caught up with her under the mistletoe, but she did eventually climb the stairs, regretting that she had to leave him, wishing she could wake next to him in the morning.

Yet, as she undressed in her room, it seemed to her that their future was once more a seamless blue sky of happiness, that her past was a fading, irrelevant memory of unhappy people who blamed their God for their own inadequacies. She had a whole life ahead of her, a life she would share with love, and she smiled when she thought that not once in three months had she given any thought to the Recording Angel with his massive, accusing book. He had been replaced by a guardian angel, shining and happy, and, as she knelt beside the bed in which the warming pan had long gone cold, she prayed in the chill bedroom, giving thanks to her God for a life that had become happy, as He wanted lives to be, and she prayed for the turn of the year, for the spring, when she could seal that seamless, happy, innocent future.

PART THREE

The Seal of St Luke

15

25 March 1644, New Year's Day, was bright and cold, one of the good March days that promise spring. Lady Margaret Lazender, with typical perversity, refused to recognise it as New Year's Day, preferring the continental and Scottish 1 January. Sir George, who liked tradition, scoffed at the January date, and made sure that he sent lavish greetings to his wife from Oxford. Yet, New Year's Day or not, it promised well. The corn had been seeded, there were calves in the steadings and Lazen Castle's dairy was busy after the winter's scarcity; the milk made sweet by the parsnip leaves on which the cows had been fed while they waited for the spring grass.

Great fires still burned in the castle, but now some windows were opened to let cold air scour the halls. There had been the usual rash of new babies, hastily christened, all owing their lives to last year's May Day. Lazen's church, oddly, was built within the circle of wall and moat and thus was in the castle's gardens. Each mother returned to the village bearing a small silver cup, of which Lady Margaret seemed to have an inexhaustible supply.

Most of the castle's treasures had disappeared. Colonel Andrew Washington, the commander of Lazen's garrison, had suggested that Sir George hide his most valuable pieces. They had been taken to the cellars, only a handful of old servants privy to what was happening, and there they had been walled up. The new wall had been smeared with a diluted mixture of cow-dung to make it look old and encourage the growth of lichen to disguise the hiding place. The household now ate off pewter and the gold and silver had disappeared from halls and rooms.

Colonel Washington, sent from Oxford, was a short, tubby man who did not look, at first sight, like an experienced soldier. The first impression was wrong. He was efficient, authoritative and he proved his reputation for bravery on his first meeting with Lady Margaret. He had been standing by his horse, staring thoughtfully at the ditches she had dug either side of the gatehouse, ditches that had suffered from the snow and rain of the winter. Lady Margaret had beamed at him. 'You see, Colonel! I have begun your work!'

Washington gave her a respectful look. 'What are they, your Ladyship?'

'What are they?' Lady Margaret looked astonished. She drew herself up to her full height, towering over the small colonel. 'They are fortifications, Colonel Washington, defences!'