8
He crunched down hard. Warm liquid squirted, splashing to the ground, bloody gobbets flecking it. Vile. Burnt on the outside, bloody and raw on the inside. In disgust, he dropped the meat pie, vowing silently never again to eat of Doll’s table. He spat out the few chunks of half-cooked meat that had got into his mouth and looked up. Broken shafts of sunlight pierced the misty morning air. Jack stood before the door to the Carmelite Friary cellar, his breath steaming. It was a dangerous business, coming and going to the place, not because the authorities took an especial interest, but because the faithful Catholics still attending Father Adam’s private Masses were liable now to turn violent if they thought they were being watched. Especially by someone whom they might rightfully suspect was a government man, he thought. The door was thin and did not quite meet flush with the walls. He could hear the drone of Latin through it. Returning to the street, he stood conspicuous in its centre and blew into his hands, warming them.
It was a strange thing to start a day knowing that death would follow no matter what fell out.
Within minutes, there was noise at his back. Two voices rose and fell in the alley that ran between the old Friary and the building next door, a man’s and a woman’s. ‘… dangerous courses,’ said the female, her voice genteel.
‘Only way be b’violent means,’ said the rougher male. The two appeared, the man spitting at the ground and the woman wrinkling her nose and stepping around it. ‘E’en it take blood to rid us o’ the heretics, blood it be.’ The fellow was short and squat, his face hard. His companion was well-dressed, and together they had the aspect of a mistress and her servant. The woman caught Jack looking first, and her eyes widened in fear. She tugged on the man’s arm. ‘Come, let us be away.’ Thankfully, her friend seemed too preoccupied with his angry excitement to notice her manner, and the pair melted into the January morning. When they had gone, Jack gave another look around the wide street. Nothing. He blew once more into his hands, turned his back to the brightening city, and re-entered the alley.
The door was locked, and he rapped. It opened. The torches were lit, and Adam stood aside to let him step into the still-freezing cellar. ‘Jack,’ he said, grinning. He gave a toss of his curls. Jack grinned back and flicked his own tawny fringe out of his eye. ‘You were not stopped, nor watched in coming?’
‘No, father.’
‘I have good news. A gentlewoman just left – says she has a safe place I might be protected.’
‘That is good news. Where?’
‘Sheffield. To be nearer to the queen of Scots. I can say no more. You understand.’
‘Of course, father. When do you leave?’
‘Soon. Perhaps. I can’t abandon the flock here until more true men come from Douai.’
‘I … I shall miss you.’
‘You will be taken care of.’ He patted Jack’s shoulder. ‘Please, kneel.’
Jack crossed to the centre of the cellar, where he habitually knelt to take Mass. The damp immediately began to bleed into his knees. ‘I will miss all who come here,’ said Adam. The young Jesuit had moved over to his strongbox, which had a cloth overlaid and was sporting all the accoutrements of a makeshift altar. The gilt of a crucifix gleamed as torchlight wavered on it. Adam’s back obscured it and then he turned back to Jack. ‘Bow your head, my son.’ Jack did, watching until the priest’s lower legs took their position before him. ‘In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti. Amen.’
Jack kept his head bowed, but let his eyes swivel upwards. Adam raised his right hand as though to bless him. But too far. The light this time glinted off of something sharp. Jack threw out his left hand, grabbing the man behind the knee. He jerked it, hard. Adam stumbled, his weight shifting to his other leg. His arm swung wildly. Before he could recover, Jack drew free the dagger Polmear had given him. In one swift movement, he gripped the hilt and swung it sideways, into Adam’s left leg. It pierced his thigh. He screamed. The blade he had been swinging in the air fell from his hand and he followed it to the ground. Jack sprang up and kicked it away. He then leant over the fallen priest, who was still screeching in pain, and twisted and jerked his dagger free. Retrieving it brought fresh howls of agony and a jet of blood. Red washed over the flagstones, sank into the dirt.
Jack backed away until he hit the wall. He had been proven right, yet he took no joy in it. Instead, he felt a curious detachment. He looked down and was surprised that the hand which held the dagger was shaking. Father Adam was writhing on the floor, trying to staunch the bleeding with the folds of his cassock. Jack turned from him, slowly, and opened the door to the cellar. ‘Polmear,’ he cried. ‘Polmear!’
His shouts echoed down the alley. Rather than Polmear, they hit an elderly couple who had been coming towards the door, already tentatively drawing wooden beads from the linings of their coats. At sight of Jack, they began furiously trying to conceal them and fled. Jack’s heart leapt as he saw Polmear step around them and bound towards him. ‘You were right?’
‘Yes. Yes, I was right.’
The two men stood inside the cellar, the door closed firmly behind them. Polmear put his boot down on Adam’s ankle and the man yelped. ‘Father Diamond, isn’t it?’ Adam looked up. Anger managed to crush the pain out of his expression, albeit momentarily.
‘Heretic scum,’ he said, and then clenched his teeth.
‘That’s as may be, lad. But I’m not killing old women, sodomising priests, gutting churchmen. Oh, we know all about your plans, don’t we Jack? Seems you’re no more expert in the art of killing than your mad dog.’ Adam managed to spit at him. ‘Right proper uncouth too, this one.’
‘You’ve … been … following me,’ gasped the Jesuit. His words, when they were out, sounded more like a question.
‘I didn’t have to,’ said Jack. ‘You revealed yourself.’
‘Aye,’ said Polmear, laughing. ‘Friend Jack here was mighty secretive last night about what revealed you to him. What was it?’
‘He … he knew about the old woman being burned. Even before the other fellow said to him what had happened, he said, “we’re here to save souls, not burn old women”. But we only just knew she had been killed. Only just brought the news. He knew, though. He’s the one wants the religious wars here. I heard people leaving this place – the man was talking of blood. He’d worked him up.’
‘Listen to the lad,’ Polmear barked, grinning. ‘A mind as sharp as the blade he just stuck you with, Father Diamond. What do you think of that?’ He squatted down next to the fallen priest and hugged his blonde head as though they were old friends. Adam wriggled and jerked but had no strength to free himself.
‘No use,’ coughed the priest. ‘No use, you fool. I’ll … be revenged. The flames … will rise … Paris will burn. Blood … blood will wash away the sinners. Like you. Like … Your wife … will die.’
‘What did he say?’ asked Jack. He repeated it in a shout. ‘What about my wife?’
Polmear’s voice turned hard. ‘What is this of Paris? Where’s your attack dog, priest? The animal you’ve loosed in the north?’ Adam said nothing. ‘Who are the other diamonds? What foul act are you plotting? When?’ He shook at him. ‘Ah, well, there’s poor sport.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve killed him.’
‘What?’ gasped Jack.
‘A knife in the leg. Sometimes has that effect. Brings too much blood out too fast. Hell’s breeches, Jack Cole – you really are bad at making friends.’ He dropped Adam’s head and it fell to the ground with a sickening crack. ‘And if the knife didn’t, that did. A damn shame. Our friends in London should’ve liked to make him sing before the end.’
‘What do we do?’ Hysteria sang on the edge of Jack’s words. He had brought the weapon only on the unlikely chance that Adam somehow smuggled the murderer past Polmear, who was stationed on the main street outside, watching the alley. He had expected simply to draw some confession, some proofs or incriminating words from the priest’s mo
uth, so that he might be arrested. It had all happened too quickly – an accident. ‘I won’t be protected for this, I’ll be hanged! I didn’t mean it – not to kill him – I swear – just to bring him down!’
‘Becalm yourself, laddie. Not the first time you’ve killed, as I hear. Can’t be helped.’
‘But what do we do?’
‘Leave the little shit-poll to rot. He’s no use dead.’ Polmear nudged him again with a foot. ‘Filthy mad papist,’ he growled. Jack shook his head.
‘He said something about Amy – he knows something. He must have friends about her.’
‘The other priests?’
‘No,’ said Jack, shaking his head. ‘He was … like a wolf hiding amongst sheep. I’m sure. I’m going to her. I’m going.’ Polmear stood and took his arm. He shook it loose, waving the bloody dagger in fury.
‘Whoa, laddie. Don’t forget that you’re a servant of her Majesty. Of Mr Walsingham.’
‘Fuck Walsingham,’ spat Jack, reddening immediately.
‘Not a job I’d fancy. I’ll forget that. Listen, boy, Mr Walsingham is on the continent himself, as I said – in Paris.’ Polmear bowed his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Eventually, he said, ‘I’ll have to get word to him. Word that this diamond thing is real. That a Jesuit priest was one of them. And an attack dog. If this priest is one of them then are at least two in the north. Well, one now. And that he threatened Paris. It might be that he’s found something there himself. Your wife…’
‘Amy.’
‘Aye, Amy. She’s with the countess of Northumberland, isn’t she?’
Jack shrugged, a little huffily. ‘Wouldn’t know. You fellows tell me nothing.’
‘Wherever she is, she is Mr Walsingham’s. As you are. Both protected, as far as our people can.’
‘Paris is near enough to the Low Countries. Closer than the bloody north. I’m going. I’m going to Walsingham and telling him this is all over. And getting news of my wife and getting her and getting out of this and …’
‘Easy, lad. You’re excited. You need to take a walk, breathe the air. You can’t get to Paris in a day. One more night and I promise I’ll take you with me in the morning. Might as well, eh? No reason to sit around and wait to be murdered by this,’ he nudged the dead priest, ‘creature’s wild dog.’
‘You promise? Your word?’
‘I promise,’ said Polmear, grinning, and putting a hand over his heart. ‘On my honour. Yet … I’ll be plain with you – I’m a plain man. I’ve long since written the secretary that Father Corpse here had two Jesuits with him. Our master will want to know their names and movements, sheep or not. Fair warning to you, lad. You can’t protect them.’ His features lightened again. ‘Come, let’s get away from here before more papists come. Let them find him. Christ alone knows what this city will be when the news gets out. Good Protestants murdered, another priest dead. If the folk are twitching for their daggers already, they’ll have them out at this. It would be a sore thing if he got his religious wars through spilling his own blood, eh? Mad fool.’
Polmear fished through the dead man’s things, finding the key to the cellar door. ‘Look here,’ he said, holding something else up and whistling. ‘I’ll be having this.’ Light bounced off a little diamond-headed pin.
‘You can’t rob him. It’s not right.’
‘Hark at it – it’s not right, says the man who stuck a blade in the creature’s leg. Go on then, you have it.’ He pitched the pin into the air and Jack caught it. He rolled it around in his palm.
‘Not so shy about having it yourself, eh?’
‘I’ll keep it,’ said Jack, slipping it inside his coat. ‘Maybe … maybe if he gets buried and we know where, I’ll leave it on the earth. Some day.’
‘You do that. Let’s go. Leave him to watch the world burn from Hell.’ He took the key, locking the door as they left. It was a flimsy thing, but it might keep the news from spreading until they could be safely away.
The energy had drained from Jack and Polmear guided him like a sleepwalker, first through the market, where he forced food down his throat, and then to bed in the backroom of Doll’s tavern before the short, snowy day had even ended. The room was still as bright as it ever got when Jack allowed the blanket to be pulled up around his neck. He stared at the cobwebby ceiling.
‘Get some sleep, lad.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Depends what it is. Something I can answer?’
‘Maybe. If you wish to. What did you do? To become known in the north. You said you made errors. That’s how come you could train me and watch ports and that, but you couldn’t do the quiet, watching sort of stuff yourself.’
For a while, the only sound was that of the drinkers in the next room cackling and swearing. ‘A woman,’ said Polmear.
‘A woman?’
He sighed. ‘Gave my heart to a nice northern girl. Alice, by name. Still sore at the name Alice. Pert little thing, yellow-haired and with white teeth. She loved those teeth. Catholic. And I got full of ale and told her what I was about. Bragged, you might say. The next morning, three of her brothers came at me in the street with clubs. Mob of their friends in the town were fitting to join them. Things didn’t look too good for young Edward Polmear.’
‘In York?’
‘No, no – was in Bolton then. When the Scotch queen first came to England. Not long ago, but it seems it. Learnt me a lesson then. Beaten right out of town, so I was. And the news running out ahead of me – “this way comes a southern man, watching for to ruin us all”. Clannish lot in the north. Sir William – I worked for him then – he washed his prim little hands of me. I’d have starved had Mr Walsingham not given me another chance. Saw I had a mind, he did. My face was known, my name too, but my mind still worked. I’d sailed a bit – my old dad was a sailor – so he set me to work. Good man, is Mr Walsingham. He’ll see me right.’
‘So it was a woman that … that put you where you are.’
‘No, lad. It was myself. There’s a lesson for you – don’t blame other folks for your own daft mistakes. When you’re a dolt, own your doltishness.’
‘Yeah,’ Jack yawned. ‘I will.’ His mind had turned entirely to his departure from York. The next morning could not come soon enough.
***
When the noontime dinner hour came and went without word, Acre began to wonder. Wonder grew into the closest thing he knew to worry. Worry became a cold and angry certainty. Something had gone wrong.
A sudden, heavy snow flurry had forced the people of York indoors, and those who remained on the streets were huddled together around braziers. It looked to him as though those who shared ideals flocked together: the angry, blood-frenzied Catholics fired up by Father Adam were together; elsewhere the Protestants warmed their hands together; at separate fires stood those moderate Catholics, bewildered, frightened, and worried about the perverted and violent turn their church seemed to have taken. Muffled so that his face could not be seen, he ensured that none paid attention to this lonely young man abroad on a dirty day.
The door to the cellar was locked. A bad sign. He had been told that he would be contacted either directly or through one of the hired runners earlier. His fellow diamond, the religious knave, would not have left the boy to rot and gone off elsewhere. He looked up and down the alley. No one. He launched one hard kick at the centre of the door, just by the iron handle. The whole thing fell inward off its hinges. Inside was gloomy, only the faint light from the dull day attacking the dark. The smell of spent torches, acrid and stinging, lay thick in the air. He let his eyes adjust.
Inside, Acre found the body of his fallen brother.
He knelt to the floor, his jaws clenched, and took his hands. Something snapped within him. His eyes glazed over. He saw Adam as he had been at fifteen, two years older than himself. That was when he had found out the truth. His brother had turned to religion, claiming that what the thirteen-year-old Acre had been was not mad, but destined to be
an avenging angel. He had believed it, because he had loved him. Love was something he had never believed in – it arose in others as some imbalance of the humours that send them skidding to others who had the same imperfection at the same time. Yet he loved his brother as deeply as he knew how.
And that boy – the boy who had humiliated him the day before – had killed him.
He wondered if Adam had seen his death coming. It was a thing he had often wondered when watching people die – did they know that their fleeting time was at an end? Did they appreciate that every foolish act they had ever done in their lives was about to be wiped away, bootless, of no consequence? Or did their minds continue to work even until oblivion overtook them – did their thoughts stubbornly try and tether themselves to the world of men, unwilling to let it go on without them? Did Adam’s?
He felt around under his brother’s torn cassock – Jack Cole, who called himself Jack Wylmott – had dug around under it. He felt for the pin that should be there but wasn’t. Thief, he thought. Only the religious items remained, and, he noticed, the dagger that had once been the old woman’s, Oldyngham’s. He slid that into his belt and then sat down, legs splayed, beside the corpse. No tears came, just one low, tortured wail. Acre lay awhile with his dead brother, saying nothing, staring into the abyssal gloom. He thought that perhaps someone came – one of the religious folk – but they ran off when they saw the broken door. After that no one tried.
When darkness had fallen hard, and he judged it to be very late, he lifted Adam’s body under one arm and began dragging it out of the cellar. He kept to side streets and alleys, stopping to rest often. The town watch was abroad, but they did a poor job of patrolling the streets – because he, Acre, had done a good job of making them frightening places to be, even for the men charged with keeping the peace. Eventually he half-dragged him over the bridge, looking, perhaps, like a man taking a drunken friend home, and out to the Dominican Friary’s overgrown former parklands. There, in the falling snow, he laboured through the night to bury him. The grave that had been meant for Jack Cole was now too good for him. He would lay his brother there, amidst the broken ruins of the religion he had loved for its truth and hated for its corruption.
Divided Loyalties: An Elizabethan Spy Thriller Page 16