Lord of the Abbey (5 page)

Rowena took a deep breath to help ease her nerves. Both gentlemen were watching her, wide-eyed with interest. She fought to overcome her sudden shyness. She was not used to being the center of attention. Rowena went on, “I quite by accident found the letter several months ago sewn inside the cover of a book in the library at Stonedown Manor. It fell from the book cabinet I opened. When I picked it up I noticed the parchment protruding from the damaged corner. The book was copied by monks at the Abbey before the Dissolution. The book is called
St. Augustine on the Trinity
. I confess I never gave the book any consideration in all the years I’ve been at Stonedown.”

She wavered as she realized the undivided attention of the company was still upon her. Was acutely aware Harry Bellingham’s dark brown gaze had not moved from her, it lingered still. His expression was pensive, and there was something more. Something she could not name.

She admitted to herself again, he was a distractingly handsome man with his dark, coffee-colored hair, and rich brown eyes. His sculpted face all hard planes. His lips – well his lips did seem to hold her attention. Rowena did not remember the last time she thought about kissing a man. His lips seemed so – well so sensuous, quite kissable, really. What was she thinking? Rowena had only been kissed twice in her life. Kissable? Why was she thinking of such a thing now. And the last thing she wanted or needed was to think of kissing a man. Especially him! She would not marry, did not need to. Or want to. She was free now. For Aunt Frances made certain Stonedown would always belong to Rowena.

“
Who wrote this letter?” Harry asked her. He was quite intrigued. By the Lady, as well as her tale.

“
William Dulac, who was adopted by Lady Dulac of Dulac Manor the day the King’s men arrived to dissolve the Abbey. He was born William Fotherby, was orphaned at a young age, about the age of five, I think. Abbot Whiting took him in, cared for him, taught him to read and write. William was trained to be Abbot Whiting’s personal servant. The Abbot arranged for William to be adopted by the widow, Lady Dulac, and he sent him to the Lady for protection before the Abbey was destroyed. The letter is long and detailed. I brought it with me tonight, you may both see it.” Rowena paused and looked to Sir John, “Excuse me, Sir John? Do you think we could have the valise brought in?”

“
Of course, my dear.” Sir John smiled at her. He rose to seek out Woollard.

“
I am sorry for the interruption, gentlemen, Aunt Frances. Back to the letter. Apparently, William helped the Abbot hide away some of the holier and more valuable treasure weeks and in some cases months before the King’s men arrived. He does not give away the exact location of any of the treasure in the letter, however, he does mention that he hid letters written by the Abbot revealing the location of all of the hidden items in case the King died and the Abbey was restored to the Holy Father in Rome. He mentions a secret chamber in the Manor.” Rowena took a breath.

“
I don’t suppose William Dulac revealed the location of the Abbot’s letters or the secret chamber in
his
letter?” Lyon posed.

Rowena shook her head ruefully. “Unfortunately, no. I wish he had. However, he does allude to the fact that there is a definite clue in the letter which leads to something. Another letter? The actual treasure? I’m not certain which.”

“
Lady Rowena, your valise.” Woollard followed Sir John into the room and placed the valise on a table beside her.

Rowena opened the leather satchel and removed a large old book. She slipped several faded pieces of parchment from inside the front cover. Rowena held the letter up for display. “Would you gentlemen care to read the letter?”

It was Lyon who stood closest and retrieved the letter.

Harry moved to where Lyon stood and looked over his shoulder at the old, faded document. He looked to Rowena, “I imagine, having studied this for months, you are far more familiar with the content. The shaky hand and old language is daunting. Would you do us the honor of reading aloud, Lady Rowena?”

“
Certainly, if you wish, Lord Glaston,” Rowena acquiesced, made somewhat uneasy by his request. She expected the men to want to read it for themselves. No matter. If reading aloud would help her obtain permission to look for the treasure, so be it.

Dulac Manor, Stonedown, Glastonbury 1599

As Queen Elizabeth, daughter to King Henry who destroyed the Abbey at Glaston, still upholds the Protestant faith in England, I fear my eminent passing may leave the secret of the Abbey’s Holy treasures untold. My Grandmother, the Dowager Lady Dulac, and I thought at one point Queen Mary might return the Abbey to Rome and restore her to her original greatness, but alas the good Queen died before the plan was set in motion.

I will not tell any of my five living children, nor their heirs, this secret for it is still a most dangerous secret to bear. At present, times are still turbulent and fraught with uncertainty and there still remain life threatening consequences regarding religious matters.

I have chosen to leave several well-placed letters in particular places where it is my hope they might be found in the distant future, when the fact of my true birth shall not cause pain to my children or grandchildren, nor the shadow of treason hang over their heads and threaten them with harm or death. I could not bear seeing the shame in their eyes whilst I live, nor would I leave this life knowing their lives were at risk.

I made a promise to Abbot Whiting that I must uphold, and I do so at this time. There is no chance of the Abbey of Glastonbury being returned to the Holy Church of Rome in my lifetime, which may well be short at this old age of seventy. The Abbey was left in ruins since before the Abbot was murdered, and remains so to this day.

I was but a boy of ten on the eve of the arrival of the King’s men to arrest the beloved Abbot Whiting. I was taken in by the Abbot at the age of five, an orphan, named William Fotherby. Abbot Whiting was somewhat strict, but a kind-hearted man of the cloth. He taught me himself to read and write. I tried very hard to please the Abbot for he was a good and decent man.

Though I did not fully comprehend how much he cared for me until I reached my manhood, I feel he must have loved me as dearly as I did him, as evidenced by all he did to protect me during that dangerous time.

Abbot Whiting arranged for me to secretly leave the abbey grounds and emerge a new person at the end of the tunnel leading to the Pilgrim’s Inn with the help of Esau Davitt. I became a young gentleman by name of William Dulac. My hair was shorn and I wore the new, fine clothes of a gentleman’s son. Esau Davitt took me to sleep in a room above stairs until morning when I waited in the publick room for the Dulac servant who would come for me. I was to pretend I traveled from Bath to Glastonbury with servants who were instructed to leave me at the Inn. That I was the illegitimate get of Richard Dulac, who was recently deceased. I was being returned to my grandmother.

Who should I see whilst I waited by the window in the publick room? None other than the King’s men come to arrest the Abbot. I held in the lining of my bag the very letters written by the now Holiest of martyrs, Abbot Whiting, though concealed in the lining as they were. I feared the letters or my identity being discovered as I was then delivered by a Sir John Darney, man of the King, to the Manor.

Lady Dulac, my new grandmother, was one of the strongest and bravest women I’ve ever known. I came to love her as much as I did the Abbot. She found the perfect hiding place for the Abbot’s letters, a secret chamber in this manor, so secret I sincerely doubt they shall ever be found without knowledge of such place. In my adult years I made certain the chamber was not easy to locate and have kept a close eye on the location for all these decades. Not one of my children, grandchildren, or great-grand children ever found or had knowledge of the secret room.

Grandmother and I upheld our charade and silence together, until her death thirty years ago, when I went on alone to keep the secret of the letters, the Abbey treasures, and my birth. I never even told my dear wife, Anne, who died five years past. I would not strip my lineage of the Dulac name and wealth, and bring them shame, and worse, to lose all that Lady Dulac has kindly bestowed upon us. Nor can I risk their lives for such a secret being revealed. The Court is still rife with treachery. So I shall carry these secrets with me to my grave. Much like the Abbey’s coat of arms was a symbol of her protection before her demise, I shall protect her secrets and mine ever after, possibly for eternity.

I made a promise to Abbot Whiting, and a promise is an oath. I must write this down, so the secret is not completely lost without any hope of the Holy treasures and relics being restored to the Abbey. Mayhap in future she shall be rebuilt to her once unsurpassed glory.

It is important to me, this promise, this oath. The Abbot kept me from becoming a starving orphan, taught me well, and was responsible for my living through the ruination of the abbeys. Because of him I became a gentleman and lived a very privileged life. I have a large family I treasure. I owe him everything. All he ever asked of me was this one thing, to pass the knowledge of the sacred abbey relics and Holiest of treasures and secrets along. So, I must. I do.

Many weeks after I became William Dulac, grandson to the Lady of the Manor, I witnessed my dear benefactor, Abbot Whiting along with two other monks that I always thought highly of, John Thorne and Roger James, dragged through the town on hurdles and paraded like animals through the streets of our town.

Grandmother moved me indoors to the safety of the Manor, and I then watched from my bedchamber window as they were pulled cruelly up Torr Hill. They were rudely pushed to their feet by guards when they stumbled down. I watched in horror, while my grandmother stood beside me holding me in the strength of her loving arms, while I wept bitterly for the loss of a man whose memory burns brighter than that of my true parents. Parents whom I lost whilst I was very young.

The old Abbot’s condition was far weaker than it was the night I left him at the Abbey. On his last day, he appeared to be ravaged by illness and foul treatment at the prison. He was exhausted and stumbled much. His black robes were dirty and torn. Yet he climbed on, to his death at the top of the great hill, to the chapel of St. Michael, where just outside the tower, the three of my good fellows were tortured and hung for High Treason against the King.

Before he was hung Abbot Whiting looked heavenward, a testament to his faith. Then he looked down the hill, in the direction of the Manor. Did he know I watched? I think so, for he made the sign of the Holy Cross and I like to think he gave me one more blessing before his passing. Did he really look at me or was it the fantasy of a broken-hearted boy? I do not know. Tears burn my eyes still when I think upon it. As I am old, my emotions are easily affected.

The executioners tore Abbot Whiting’s body to pieces and left his head upon a pike at the top of the Abbey Gates as a reminder of what happens to those who would defy the King. It was years before I was able to walk through those gates, stroll through the ruinous bones of the once great Abbey of Glaston and not be overtaken by grief at the memory of my benefactor’s head hanging there. I heard they sent a piece of Abbot Whiting’s body to Wells, another here and another there, places I no longer remember in my dotage.

Ah, the past. All long gone. Still vivid in an old man’s memory.

But I promised dear Abbot Whiting I would not let the secret of the Abbey’s treasure die. I’ll not just out and reveal the locations for I’m not certain where this particular book might find itself. A book I found in the rubble of the Abbey strewn over her grounds weeks after it was destroyed. Sir John Darney took me there, for I asked him to. I wanted to see the effects of the ruination of my former and much loved home with my own eyes. Thinking it just the curiosity of a young boy, Sir John obliged me. He guessed my affected state whilst roaming the ruins was attributed to the grizzly site of the Abbot’s head hanging above the gate.

I ask that God guide the right person to discover the letter in this book. I pray it to be a Dulac.

We began to move the most sacred of the Abbey’s Holy treasures months before the King’s men arrived in Glastonbury to murder the beloved Abbot and destroy the Holy Abbey and Great Church.

Abbot Whiting and I first removed the large, great sapphire which hung suspended above the gilded super altare. The Abbot replaced the sapphire with another blue carbuncle. He said it was imperative we replace it, for most knew of the sapphire brought to Glastonbury Abbey centuries before by St. David of Menevia.