by Mary Burns
“Please, pray you all, be seated again, and be comfortable,” Mr. Howard said. “Miss Paget, may I serve you more tea?” As he was thus supplying me with more of the fragrant beverage, Mr. Wattendall took a seat in a plain chair next to the table that held the tea things. He cast a wistful glance at them, but apparently feeling unsure as to whether he should help himself or not, he turned his eyes back to the leather valise he had brought with him.
Mr. Howard was, however, the perfect host. “Mr. Wattendall,” he said, “please forgive the informality, but I do beg you to help yourself to tea, sir.”
A more grateful look was never given than the one the town lawyer bestowed on Mr. Howard. He did indeed help himself, and soon we were all settled, waiting for what would happen next.
John, as usual, remained standing, sipping sherry and leaning against the fireplace mantle, a little removed from the center of the party. Lord Parke was seated near me, in a chair matching my own, and we both faced Mr. Wattendall. Mr. Howard also stood; he had placed his fragile tea cup on the tray, and now walked slowly back and forth, his hands clasped behind him. He made an authoritative and commanding figure. He smiled, but it was not a comforting sight, I thought.
“Now, tell me, Mr. Wattendall,” he said, mildly. “What is in Reverend Crickley’s will that concerns me?”
Another unsettling burst of rain rattled against the windows; the wind was ferocious.
Mr. Wattendall set down his cup, cleared his throat slightly, and took up a paper from his valise.
“If I may take the liberty of reading the pertinent passage to you, Mr. Howard,” he said, then paused, looking around the room. “Unless, of course, you wish to hear it in private.”
“Thank you for your discretion, sir, but there is no need, I assure you.”
Mr. Wattendall nodded. “Paragraph thirteen. ‘To my friend and patron, George James Howard, in honor of his uncle, Sir William George Howard, 8th Earl of Carlisle, my fellow clergyman and life-long friend, I bequeathe and entrust the relics in my possession, long held in trust by my ancestors and forebears, known as the Glastonbury Relics, currently lodged in my cottage in Brampton, Cumberland, to be taken by Mr. Howard to Castle Naworth, and there displayed or stored accordingly, as he sees fit.’”
Mr. Wattendall made a grimace intended to be a smile, I surmised. “The Reverend Crickley, in a later paragraph,” he said, “entrusted to my care the making of an inventory of all the relics and precious objects he possessed, a duty the honor of which I am truly cognizant.”
“No doubt,” said Mr. Howard. He continued his slow pacing. “I understand that you may have been the last person to see Reverend Crickley alive, two nights ago.”
The lawyer looked concerned, and a bit wary. “I did see the Reverend on Monday, late in the day,” he said cautiously. “I’m not at all sure that I was the last one to see him, as you say, alive. There was a good deal of the day left after I took my leave.” He shook his head sadly.
As usual, I felt things were going too slowly, and decided to cause a stir.
“When Reverend Crickley gave you that relic, that finger bone of King Arthur, on Monday last,” I interposed, feeling the right of executrix to ask questions, “was it in regard to some effort you’d made on his behalf, or some charge he’d given you that you had executed?”
Mr. Wattendall turned his fish eyes on me; a greater shade of pale whitened his already sallow complexion. “I thought I made it quite clear this morning, Miss Paget, that I do not like being questioned as to the veracity of my statement regarding the Reverend’s gift to me.”
“And what about the Reverend’s desire to alter his will?” I said. “Is that something, too, that you’d rather not be questioned about?”
The lawyer flushed, rose to his feet, and became highly incensed. I saw Lord Parke put his hand to his forehead—probably in despair of my forwardness. I glanced at Mr. Howard, but he didn’t seem perturbed, rather, he was watching my interaction with Mr. Wattendall keenly.
“I cannot answer such questions,” Mr. Wattendall said in a high-pitched, icy voice, “and maintain the integrity of my professional relationship with my client, albeit deceased.”
“Your principles do you honor, Mr. Wattendall,” said Mr. Howard, attempting to soothe his ire. “However, there does seem to be some indication that the late Reverend did indeed wish to change his will, and you can imagine that Miss Paget might desire to determine if there were more than mere wish in the matter, and whether the changes were such that she might feel honor-bound to consider her friend’s last wishes, however incomplete, if they were to differ in any significant way.”
Mr. Wattendall tightened his lips, and seemed determined not to speak. I could imagine he might very well be wrestling with the notion that on the one hand, revealing Mrs. Barnstable’s position as possible heiress to the Reverend’s estate would (as he might think) greatly injure me, which he might be happy to do; but on the other hand, revealing any knowledge of a new will could lean to self-injury, in depriving him of the opportunity to (perhaps) make off with more of the Reverend’s precious relics or other possessions, under cover of making an inventory.
The moment was fraught with tension and silence, which the raging storm did its utmost to fill with clamor. Suddenly, the bellow of an immense wind, a crack of lightning, and a horrendous tearing and cracking sound filled our ears.
“Good Lord!” cried Lord Parke, leaping up and running to the window, at which John and Mr. Howard joined him seconds later.
“It’s the ancient oak by the stream, near the bridge,” said Mr. Howard. “I can see from here that it’s been struck.”
I rose as well and joined the gentlemen at the window. Remarkably, in all the pouring rain, we could see the enormous tree on fire, far down the lawn, near the entrance by an old bridge. It didn’t burn for long, the rain was too much for it, but it had certainly been split—the greater part of it lay across the bridge, as water from the rising stream flowed around it.
When we turned back to the room, not two minutes later, Mr. Wattendall was no longer in his place. In fact, he was gone entirely. John and I exchanged alarmed glances, but didn’t speak at first, interrupted by the butler entering the room. He spoke quietly to Mr. Howard, and after a brief back and forth, the master nodded and dismissed him.
“Billings tells me that the bridge is broken up, and the drive is impassable,” he said. “Indeed, in this storm, one couldn’t possibly get about—therefore, I invite you all to be my guests for this night, and hopefully by the light of day we’ll be able to assess the damage to the bridge, and see what we can do.” He smiled and shook his head at our initial sounds of protest. “Please, it is an honor to have you all here—and will provide a welcome distraction for my dear Rosalind, should she be able to join us for dinner. Billings has gone to see about your rooms, Miss Paget, Mr. Sargent—please do not be concerned. Mr. Wattendall…”
He looked around the room, just then noticing that Mr. Wattendall was not there.
“Where has Mr. Wattendall gone?” he said.
“He seems to have taken advantage of the oak tree’s demise to make his escape,” I said. A sudden thought occurred to me, and in a panic, I looked next to the chair where I’d been sitting.
“Oh no!” I wailed. “It’s gone!” I turned to John and Lord Parke. “My reticule! The book was in it!” They looked at me in dismay, but Mr. Howard then spoke.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Paget,” said Mr. Howard. “You have forgotten, you handed it to me, before Mr. Wattendall arrived.” He reached behind a stack of books on a table, and handed the little volume to me. “I placed it out of sight when he came in the room—given our suspicions, I felt it the wisest choice.”
I thanked him with all my heart, and clung to the book fiercely.
“But,” he said, “this seems to point very clearly toward Mr. Wattendall as, at the least, a person highly to be suspected.” He grimaced, and looked out the window at the unabating rain.
“He will have a wet walk home, but we will know where to find him tomorrow.”
34
Then came a night
Still as the day was loud; and through the gap
The seven clear stars of Arthur’s Table Round—
For, brother, so one night, because they roll
Through such a round in heaven, we named the stars,
Rejoicing in ourselves and in our King—
And these, like bright eyes of familiar friends,
In on him shone.
–Idylls of the King
Friday, 19 September 1539
Glastonbury
Feast of St. Theodore of Canterbury
About mid-morning, Gwillem Moor and Arthur heard the sounds of a carriage with two horses coming along the road to Sharpham, near the wood where they still camped out, hiding and waiting for a sign to make their move. Arthur still didn’t know what was the object of their final quest, but trusted in the blind harper to know what he was about.
“It’s Abbot Whiting,” Arthur whispered to the harper, when he’d returned from his perch in a tall oak, where he could see the road clearly. “I think it’s Brother Roger driving the carriage, but I think the Abbot’s alone.”
Gwillem Moor nodded, and pulled his hooded cloak more tightly around him. A chilly mist had formed over the waterlands in the night, and was not yet fully dispersed, especially here in the shadow of the trees. He was standing next to the trunk of an ash tree, and he all but blended into it, grey and brown and white. Arthur blinked a few times, as if his eyes were playing tricks on him—had the harper disappeared? But no, there he was, a solid figure once again. The man moved away from the tree, and placed a hand on Arthur’s shoulder.
“They’re coming today,” he said. “We must be ready to move at a moment’s notice.”
At mid-day, Arthur was sleepily whispering the psalm that he loved best, number ninety-one: “You will not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the plague that prowls in the darkness nor the scourge that lays waste at noon. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand fall at your right, you, it will never approach; his faithfulness is buckler and shield.”
The thunder of horses’ hooves startled him to full wakefulness, and he ran silently to the oak tree, climbing swiftly, in time to see three riders—Kings’ men—making with all haste for Sharpham. One of them was Richard Layton.
He shimmied back down the tree and ran to Gwillem Moor’s side.
“It’s Layton, with two others,” he whispered, breathless. “Just as you said.”
“Then we must go to the Abbey now,” came the blind harper’s response. “Leave Alaric here, he will come to no harm—and you will need him later.” He turned his sightless eyes in the direction of the great house at Sharpham. “May God’s good grace be with Abbot Whiting,” he said.
The Abbey grounds were eerily quiet as Gwillem Moor and Arthur approached it by the back gate. A heavier mist had settled on the water meadows that gave the shimmering lake quality to this low-lying land of Somerset. Ynys Witrin, the blind harper had called it—the Isle of Glass. The sun made no progress through the thick fog, and it seemed nearer dusk than mid-day. The high peak of the Tor was completely obscured.
“Where are we going?” Arthur asked, keeping his voice as low as possible.
“To the Chapel of Thomas the Martyr,” Gwillem Moor said. “Take us to the graveyard door.”
This was a side door to the chapel, opening into the Abbey graveyard, where lay countless and ancient remains of hermits, monks, lay persons—all of whom had hoped that the hallowed ground would ensure their swift passage into heaven. Arthur crossed himself as they stepped around the softly swelling mounds, most without stone or cross to say who they had been in life.
There were few lights in the buildings on the Abbey grounds—the refectory, the dormitories, the chapter room—and no sounds at all. Had Layton and his men already dismissed the monks? Was everyone gone?
They eased themselves through the heavy chapel door, where candles still burned brightly before the altar.
“Go to the pillar, in the main church, near the entrance to the Lady Chapel, where the Magna Tabula is mounted,” Gwillem Moor said, a hand on Arthur’s arm. He pulled a short knife from his pocket and handed it over. “Use this to loosen the fastenings that hold it to the pillar; I will be there to support its weight as we bring it down.”
Mystified, Arthur made for the pillar, the harper following at his heels. The Magna Tabula was a large, wooden case, made of thin oaken plank, some three and a half feet high and about the same across when opened. Inside were flat sheets of vellum, glued to thin wooden leaves, like pages in a book, that were hinged at the spine so they could be moved back and forth, to read what was written on them on both sides. Arthur had seen it frequently, and often spent time reading it, both to practice his Latin as well as to learn the information written there: a list of all the relics that resided in the Abbey and the Glastonbury chapels, as well as a brief recounting of the founding of the original wattle church by St. Joseph of Arimathea, the discovery of the tomb of King Arthur, and other stories that even in Arthur Joseph’s time had seemed like myths of a distant age.
Why were they taking this away? It had hung in the chapel for some two or maybe three hundred years, with an occasional edit or addition made to it by a scribe, at the direction of an Abbot. When pilgrims came to visit, one of the lay brothers would read it aloud to them, standing about in a group, as a more efficient way to tell them the history of the Abbey, without having to answer innumerable questions. Other than the information written on it, which was duplicated in other texts in the Abbey library, there was nothing very special about it.
Gwillem Moor held up the bottom of the Magna Tabula as Arthur worked at the nails holding it to a wooden frame mounted on the pillar. The first three gave little resistance, but the last one had been driven in crooked, and gave him much trouble. Just as he thought it was giving way, they heard voices outside, in the courtyard, and shouts amid the sound of horses.
Desperate, Arthur gave a fear-strengthened pull on the nail, and the box broke free. He helped Gwillem Moor with its weight, which was more than he’d expected, and they were able to close the wooden case, and fasten it shut with a hook and catch. It was much easier to carry closed, and Arthur took it in his arms, wrapping his cloak around it.
They heard men coming through the passage from the Lady Chapel to the main church. As quietly as possible, they swiftly made their way to the Martyr’s chapel again, but heard voices in the graveyard as well. Arthur looked up at Gwillem Moor in fear.
“Behind the altar,” the blind harper said. “Come.” He led the way behind the marble altar with its tall golden candles and bejeweled tabernacle. They hid themselves in an alcove that was in complete shadow. Arthur held the Magna Tabula tightly in his arms, and shut his eyes, as if that would make him disappear. Minutes passed in silence.
Arthur felt the wooden case move slightly, and opened his eyes to see Gwillem Moor looking intently at the front of the case, on which was inscribed a Cross that also was a Sword. The blind harper placed his hands flat on the case, one on either side of the Cross/Sword. Under his breath, the harper hummed ever so softly.
Arthur felt a trembling, a vibration, begin to stir inside the case—it communicated itself to his own body, and he felt waves of heat and light flowing through him. At the same time, the face of Gwillem Moor took on an aspect of joy and something like holiness, like grace—he laughed, soundlessly, his lips curved in a sweet smile, and his eyes sparkling. He lifted his hands from the wood, and clasped them together, in prayer or gratitude.
“The Man’s Word…and the King’s Sword,” he whispered. “Sight will be given, flesh riven… and the song shall be done by the set of the sun.” He was looking upward, above the great cross that hung over the altar in the chapel, at something only he could see.
The trembling ceased, and Arthur felt
his body to be his own again. He looked in amazement at Gwillem Moor, whose eyes engaged his with full seeing.
“Yes, I see you, Arthur Joseph,” the bard whispered, “and I know what I have seen. The King has blessed me. My time has come.” He looked out from their shadowed alcove, and smiled at the glittering arches of the church, the windows with the light slipping through the fog to touch their colors. “I leave this beauty for another realm, even more beautiful.” He turned his face back to Arthur, and touched the boy’s cheek with his hand. “It has been a blessing to see your face, my companion and guide.” Then, as quickly as it had come, Arthur saw the spark fade from the harper’s eyes, and they were blind again.
“Now wait here,” Gwillem Moor said. “When all is quiet, you take the Magna Tabula, make your way back to Alaric, and thence home again.” Arthur started to protest.
“It is not your place to stay my destiny,” the harper said, with somewhat of sternness in his voice, but more kindness. “This is the only path, and we must follow it.”
The men’s voices were threateningly near—another moment and they would be in the chapel itself.
“May the God of Light and Love keep you, my boy,” said Gwillem Moor, and kissed him on the forehead. Then, standing, he walked around to the front of the altar. Arthur heard him make some noise, as if he had stumbled while trying to get out the graveyard door. There were shouts from inside the main church, and seconds later men had grabbed the blind harper and rousted him out of the chapel. He heard shouting from the graveyard—the men there were running to the courtyard.
It would be enough of a diversion to allow Arthur to get away undetected. Willing himself to stillness, Arthur prayed fiercely that he would find the courage to go on alone, and to fulfill this final quest.
In the shadow of the alcove, the Magna Tabula fast in his arms, Arthur tasted the salt of bitter tears, as he wept for Gwillem Moor, for Glastonbury Abbey, and for all that was falling to ruin around him.