A Crowning Mercy (60 page)

She stared at the three cylinders of gold. 'So am I.'

'Pick them up, Lady Campion. They're yours.'

She stared at them. She did not move.

Devorax sighed. 'Sir Toby? Order your wife to pick them up. I really could not do all this again, I'm getting too old.'

Campion touched them. She fingered them cautiously, as if they might burn her, and then, decisively, she took her father's fortune. Matthew, Mark and Luke. An axe, a winged lion and a winged ox. She looped the chains wide about her bonnet and let the jewels hang bright over her cloak. Ebenezer watched. Sir Grenville watched.

The sound of the waves breaking in the night was closer now. Campion listened, remembering the poem that had comforted her in the Tower. She wondered if this was the sound of mermaids singing.

Vavasour Devorax heard the surf too, and he smiled at them. 'You'll be gone soon, we're just waiting so that a boat can get close enough to the shore.'

Campion looked at the scarred, ravaged face. 'You're not coming?'

'No.' He seemed to laugh. He looked at Sir Grenville and Ebenezer. 'I have this filth to clear up.'

Campion looked at her brother, but her question was to Devorax. 'You're not going to kill him?'

'I am!'

She shook her head. 'No.'

'No?' Devorax sounded genuinely surprised.

He had been her brother, whatever he had done, and in his defeat he looked young again. Devorax's betrayal had taken the supercilious smile from him, had taken away his newly won assurance, had left him as Campion remembered him at Werlatton; a gawky, awkward boy whom she had tried so hard to love, to protect from a world that was hard to the whole, let alone the lame. 'No. He's my brother.'

Devorax looked at her, shrugged. 'You're a fool.' He nodded. 'I'll let him live, but with a remembrance of me.' He stopped her question. 'I said I'll let him live.'

A soldier came to the door. 'Colonel? Boat's coming!'

'So soon?' Devorax put the bottle down. He nodded to Campion. 'Come on, you're going to Holland. Say goodbye to Sir Grenville, you'll not meet again.'

Campion did not. She stood up, Toby took her elbow, but she stayed a moment. She smiled at Ebenezer. 'Goodbye, Eb.'

His dark eyes looked on her with loathing.

She kept her smile. 'We'll be friends one day.'

He sneered. 'You'll burn in hell, Dorcas.'

She left her brother, guarded by Devorax's men, and she followed the tall soldier into the moonlit night. Their bags had been taken from the pack-horse and were being carried to the beach by two soldiers.

The waves sounded loud now. Campion could see the small surf as a white line that stretched in the darkness, a line that wavered, broke, thickened, moved endlessly. She pulled her cloak over the seals.

Devorax stood on the small ridge of turf that had once been a Roman wall. He was searching the sea's darkness. 'We use this place a lot.' Campion knew he spoke of the King's spies who went to and from Holland. Devorax saw something. 'Come on.'

He led them on to the beach, his boots crunching on the humped shells that marked the high-water line. Seaweed smelt strong.

Campion could see the large ship, lights dim at its stern windows while, much closer, oarsmen rowed a small boat towards the beach. The water showed white where their blades dug at the waves. Devorax pointed to the large ship. 'That's the
Wanderer,
Mordecai's ship. The crew are all his men. You can trust them.'

'Just as we trusted you?' Toby smiled.

Devorax laughed. 'Just as you trusted me.'

Campion looked up at the grim face. The moon silvered his hair, his beard, the broad buckle of the leather sword belt. 'Thank you.'

'You must be tired of thanking me.' He laughed. 'You'll forgive me, Sir Toby?' He did not wait for an answer, instead he scooped Campion into his arms and waded into the low, fretting surf towards the small boat. He called out in a strange language, received a cheerful reply, and then the boat was turned, its stern towards Campion, and Devorax lifted her inside. The bags were thrown in and Toby clambered over the transom. The wind blew cold from the Essex marshes. The waves lifted the boat, dropped it, slapped peevishly at the overlapping planks.

Devorax looked down at Campion. 'Tell Lopez I killed Cony.'

She nodded.

'And tell him what else I did.'

'I will.'

Devorax opened his pouch and tossed a square package to Toby. 'That's for Mordecai Lopez. Keep it dry and safe!'

'I will.'

Devorax reached for Campion's hand, pulled it towards him, then kissed it. 'It's a fair night for a crossing.' He released her hand. His men had already gone back towards the barn. 'God speed!'

The Dutch seamen bent their oars in the water. Spray broke on the bows and spattered back.

Campion turned. Devorax still stood in the surf. "Will we see you again, Colonel?'

'Who knows?' His voice sounded harsh again. The boat pulled away from him. Already Campion could see a bubbling, streaked wake behind her. The oars creaked in the rowlocks.

Toby held her. It was bitterly cold on the water. To his left he could see the sea broken into a stretch of serried, small breaking waves where the tide was frustrated by the great mudbanks. His arm was tight round his wife's shoulders. 'I'm glad he wasn't our enemy.'

'So am I.' She felt the seals under her cloak. They were safe. She was taking them from her enemies, from the war, to the fortune her father had wished on her so long before. She was leaving England.

She turned again, but already the shore was indistinct. She could see the sharp, pointed gable of the old barn against the night sky, but she could not see Vavasour Devorax. She gave a strange laugh. 'He kissed my hand.'

'Perhaps he liked you after all.'

The ship's boat bumped against the
Wanderer.
Men handed Campion up the ship's waist, strong hands leaned down to pull her to the safety of the deck. The ship smelt of tar and salt. The wind slapped ropes in the rigging.

The captain, bearded and smiling, took them to the large stern cabin. It was lit by shielded lanterns and made comfortable with cushioned seats. He gave them boat cloaks for warmth, promised them soup, and begged they excuse him while he set sail.

Campion looked at Toby. She was nervous and excited at the thought of a sea voyage. They were alone. They could look back on the night, remember its fears, the kisses beneath the threatening pistol muzzle, and the strange moment when Devorax had revealed himself to be Lopez's man still. Campion smiled. 'I love you.'

Bare feet ran on the deck over their heads. Toby smiled. 'I love you.' He put the package for Lopez on the cabin table, and froze.

A name was inked on the paper: 'Lady Campion Lazender'.

'It's yours.'

For a moment she stared at it, then, with cold fingers, she tore at the string and paper. Inside was a varnished wooden box. It was five inches deep, six inches square, with an elaborate metal latch.

She did not feel the ship lurch as the anchor sucked free of the mud. She did not sense the ship lean before the land-freeing wind.

She opened the lid, and she knew already what she would find.

The box was moulded inside, lined with red velvet. Four holes had been made for the four seals, and three were empty.

In the fourth hole, its chain wound about the protruding embossed steel, was the golden Seal of St John,

She opened one of the stern windows and she screamed into the night. She screamed like a gull on that desolate coast. She screamed at the marsh, the saltings, at the dark line of the bleak land, 'Father!'

Christopher Aretine did not hear her. He stood on the shore and watched the ship bearing his daughter away, taking her to safety, taking her with the love that he had so desperately wished for her. He watched till the dark shape of the boat was lost in the night.

She looked like her mother. To look at Campion was to remember the girl of so long ago, to bring back to Aretine the pain of hope and laughter, love and enjoyment, the memories. A hundred times he had wanted to tell Campion the truth, and a hundred times he had held back. Yet now she knew, and now she could find him if she so desired. She knew.

He turned, crunched over the shells and climbed the humped ridge of the turf. He envied her her love.

Aretine walked back into the barn, his eyes as empty as the sea. He picked up the wine bottle and drank, then looked at Sir Grenville. 'Time for you now, Cony.'

Sir Grenville frowned. His belly hurt, but he still hoped. 'Can't we talk, Devorax?'

The big soldier laughed. 'Devorax! You don't remember me, do you? You only remember me when I was young, when you wanted me in your stinking sheets, when you had my portrait painted on to Narcissus.' Devorax laughed at the quaking flesh beneath him. 'Do you still have the picture, Cony? Do you look at it and lust?'

Cony was shaking with fear.

Kit Aretine smiled. 'I came back from Maryland when the war began, Cony. I prayed you would be my enemy.'

'No!' The word seemed to be torn from the lawyer as if by a flesh-hook.

'Yes.' Aretine turned to Ebenezer, and his voice was colder than the wind that carried Campion away. 'My name is Christopher Aretine. Your sister pleaded for you. Should I let you live?'

Ebenezer could not answer. His bowels had turned to liquid. He could only remember this man hacking the corpse at Tyburn, slicing into the dead flesh with horrid skill.

Aretine turned away from them. His daughter had begged Ebenezer's life, but he was in no mood to grant it. He looked at his men and his hand gestured about the whole building. 'Kill them all.'

He walked out of the old stone building that had once been a church, and he heard the cries for mercy, the shrieking of Sir Grenville Cony. He heard the old, old sound of steel blades butchering men. He took no notice of their deaths. He walked to the ridge of turf and stared at the empty, empty sea and he thought of his daughter who had grown so straight and he felt a pity for himself. He drank.

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

Campion was crying, 'He's my father!' Toby stared at the four seals, together on the table, and shook his head. 'He didn't want you to know till it was too late.'

There was an inked legend inside the lid of the polished box. 'To Campion, with what I suppose is Love. Your father, Devorax, Aretine, Kit.' Campion shook her head. 'I don't understand!'

She picked up the final seal, the Seal of St John. It showed the poisoned chalice with which the Emperor Domitian had tried to kill the saint, and around the chalice's stem was the snake that had carried the poison away.

There had been a crucifix inside St Matthew for Matthew Slythe, a naked woman within St Mark for Sir Grenville Cony, and a silver pig inside St Luke for Mordecai Lopez. Her fingers unscrewed the final seal.

Inside, clasped in tiny silver claws, was her father's fear.

A small, silvered looking-glass in which he could see himself.

The ship bent into the night, and its burden was love.