Blood Ties

by C. C. Humphreys

  If it’s possible, thought Thomas, rubbing his knee in vain hope, it’s even colder inside than out.

  The mist may not have followed them in, but the shadows caused by their weak lanterns were nearly as thick, walls of black lining the little chapel. St Peter in Chains, it was called. He had seen it by day, knew it brought succour to the warders and their families, to prisoners on a looser leash. By night it became once more the dark centre of the fortress, the last lodging place of those who had displeased the state, who walked across the Green he had just walked across, and were carried back. By night it was a place to be avoided, for unless you desired to spend time with the unquiet dead, why would you go there?

  Out of sight of the others, Thomas crossed himself, then allowed Tucknell to pass him, to lead again, moving swiftly to the side aisle on the right. There the warder proceeded more slowly, bent at the waist, his lantern swinging close to the ground in a semi-circle before him. The labourers waited at the doorway, barely across the threshold and Thomas heard, rather than saw, a flagon being passed, a gulping. He knew he should chastise them for their irreverence, within these holy walls. But he found himself envying them their solace.

  The lantern ceased its circling, was placed now on the floor. Tucknell stood, head lowered, silent, about six paces before the smaller altar on the right arm of the Transept. Thomas joined him, bent to investigate the flagstone. It looked like any other there, a pitted surface though smooth-sided, half a man’s height in width and length.

  ‘Are you sure this is it?’

  Tucknell made no move to speak, gave no sign that he had even heard, his eyes gazing down as if through the stone to some private past.

  Thomas pressed. ‘This stone is like the rest of them, Warder. Was there no mark to distinguish her?’

  Tucknell grunted. ‘Distinguish? His Majesty, the late King Henry, God forgive him his sins, ordered that there be no tomb, no monument. Wanted her driven from our memory as swiftly as from his. No funeral tears to stain his wedding day the following week.’ The warder made no effort to keep the contempt from his voice. ‘There is a mark, if you know where to look.’

  He pointed, raised the lamp. At first Thomas saw nothing unusual; then, on closer scrutiny, he made out what he’d passed over as just another scratch. A rose was etched there, in the top right corner, faint, tiny, no bigger than a little finger. Perfect. Someone had laboured with care to carve it, to make it beautiful yet inconspicuous. Thomas had heard, among the many rumours, that despite the erasing of her name, the blackening of her memory, a single white rose appeared every nineteenth of May in this chapel, on this stone floor. Someone would not forget her, nor the anniversary of her death. He looked up again, but Tucknell’s face was hidden in the gloom. His voice, when it came, was brisk, uninflected.

  ‘Shall we proceed?’

  More lanterns were lit, hung from brackets on the pillars, perched on pews pushed back, a little cave of light. The scent of old incense, of polished wood and tallow candles was replaced with that of burning oil and, soon, of earth freshly dug. The flagstone, and the four nearest it, were prised up and stacked. The three men set about the earth with a speed that showed their desire to be gone from this place, the clay-rich soil a growing pile, the men sinking slowly.

  ‘How deep must they go?’ Thomas called.

  Tucknell had withdrawn into the darkness and his voice came muffled, as if from afar. ‘Not very.’

  Despite his knee, Thomas was unable to sit. He leaned against a pillar, focusing forward, willing the men to greater exertion, to swifter result. He was tempted to leap into the widening pit, to aid them. His training had emphasized hard labour, good works, examples set … but he knew he would just get in the way. The shovel was not a tool that fitted easily into his hand. These days, it was the crucifix. Once, it had been the sword.

  There was a crunch, different to blade on earth, a rending and splintering of wood, a cry from the workman who struck of triumph, the note of it changing swiftly to fear. The three men scrambled out, moved into the shadows, crossing themselves, mumbling prayers behind their hands cupped over nose and mouth. Thomas willed his body forward, the lantern held before him like a weapon, its frail spill of light spreading across till it touched on something white at the centre of the darkness below. As it did, the stench reached him, putrid, some sick sweetness within it, surging out as if from a bottle long corked and suddenly opened, revealing its taint. He gagged, a sleeve raised instinctively to his face. His legs froze, the weak knee locked.

  ‘Still ripe?’

  He had not heard Tucknell approach and he started at the voice.

  ‘How can that be?’ His own voice was harsh, choked. ‘Has she not lain in this ground for nearly twenty years? Is it true then, all they said of her, that she would defy death?’

  The warder, giving no reply, stepped past Thomas and down into the grave. Unwilling to look, unable to look away, Thomas saw what could only be the palm of a hand, bones exposed beneath rotting flesh, beneath a frantic wriggling mass, maggots squirming in unaccustomed light. The smell seemed to hit him again with double the force, yet he could not avert his eyes, despite the sweat bursting from his forehead, his body close to revolt.

  Tucknell reached into the moving centre of the horror. ‘Poor lady,’ he murmured. Tenderly, he tucked the hand back into the splintered side of the coffin, then looked up. ‘She is not the one you seek. She has lain here just a year.’ Turning to the men he ordered, ‘Dig deeper, this side. And dig more carefully.’

  When the warder was once more beside him, Thomas, mastering his voice, said, ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Jane Grey. A simple maid, scarce seventeen. Another victim of another man’s ambition.’ The voice grew harsh as he gestured at the ground. ‘Do you know how many headless queens jostle for precedence down there? Three. Her, whose reign was nine scant days, whose rest we have just violated. Within two arms’ span lies another, Catherine Howard, a foolish, vain, girl who yet did not deserve this fate. And before them both, the first to find this false rest, the only one who deserved the title of Queen …’ He faltered, his anger no longer sustaining him. ‘Well, her you shall see soon enough.’

  Thomas had not yet cleared the taste of bile from his mouth when the shovel’s note changed for the second time. On Tucknell’s command, the men proceeded carefully, slowly clearing the earth, till a small, squarish casket was revealed, no deeper than the man’s leg beside it, barely as long. Tucknell returned Thomas’s querying look.

  ‘An arrow case. That was the best that was around to bury her in.’ He handed Thomas a short iron bar, flattened at one end. ‘We shall withdraw, sir, as you ordered. Call us when you are done.’ He looked as if he would say something more, then turned sharply away, herding the labourers outside, all soon swallowed by the mists at the door. All sound went with them and Thomas was alone, in a pool of flickering light, in the loneliness of a grave.

  He thought to call out, to bring someone back, the excuse of needing a lamp held. But his orders were clear. No one was to know his true mission. Most would think he was there to put an end to the rumours that her body had been spirited away, that she’d been reburied in her native Norfolk where, it was said, a white hare made a midnight run across the fields from the churchyard on each anniversary of her death. They could believe what they wanted. No one would ever guess the truth. For he was not there to verify what was within the grave. He was there to verify what was not.

  He could delay no more. Placing two lamps on the edge of the rough hole, he stiffly descended into it. He expected a struggle, but when the flat end of the bar was inserted under the lid, it gave easily, as if it had been barely nailed down. Two more positions, each with slight pressure, and the lid lifted. His fingers poised in the cracks, he uttered a swift ‘Ave’, then began to breathe slowly, evenly, bringing calm into his body, his mind, as he had been taught. He had done some distasteful things in his recent life. But they had all been to the service of God, in obed
ience to his superiors, the interpreters of God’s will. This task, however unpleasant, was just another, one more bead threaded onto the rosary of his redemption.

  He lifted the lid, set it aside, his nostrils prepared for the surge of corruption they had received before. But there was nothing, no scent except … yes, there was something now, mere mustiness and within it something soft, almost honeyed. It was there, for a moment only, and it was gone again, as if someone had held a flower to his face and then moved away. She had lain within this casket for nineteen years. The worms he had seen moving in the dead hand of another short-lived queen, would long since have finished their feast here.

  The dead hand of a queen. He had frozen there – his steady breaths, the sweet scent that had wafted away, the flickering of the lamps, all had lulled him. But the image of that hand roused him again. He had his duty to perform. All he had to do was find what should be there, and when it was found, he would make his report and return to the warmth of his lodgings, the night fading into another disagreeable task executed for the greater glory of God. His master would have to find a different method of coercion. His master was good at that.

  The skull lay at the bottom of the chest, to his right, beside slippered feet. There were yet some shreds of hair, coiled up, its famed lustre long since faded. Someone had wrapped a cloak around the body, but the wool had unravelled and he was able to reach easily to the damask dress beneath, its material un-frayed by the years. Reaching up, he found the sleeve at the shoulder, traced it down to where the garment ended.

  And there it was. A hand, or the bones of it, exactly where it should be. Clenched, no doubt a dying gesture, which the hardening that follows death had solidified. It was such relief to find it, his body flushing warm for the first time in an age. He was able to go back and say the strange report they had received from Rome was untrue. Thomas had no reason to love the woman within this barren chest. As an English Catholic, all the woes of his family had been caused, in a way, by the spirit once housed within these bones. But he’d seen the love she inspired in a man like Tucknell, the pain this exercise in duty was causing the warder. He was glad he would be able to end that pain, just by counting the fingers within the clenched fist.

  As he reached down he noticed again that the skull was to his right. By the feet. So he was holding the right hand. The skull had confused him, because he knew, the rumours told him, he should be looking at the left. The relief he’d felt evaporated, coldness returned, squeezing his heart. Suddenly he knew. Yet knowing was not enough, he needed proof. His master would accept no less than the testament of his eyes. Leaning across, he pulled at the remains of cloak that clung there, throwing aside the clumps of wool, scrabbling at the heavy grey sleeve that was somehow rolled under the body. It was light, mere bones, yet it took an effort to pull it out. Finally, it gave with a crack, as if something had separated within the folds. Gasping, his eyes closed, he held the dress at the shoulder and ran his hand swiftly down the arm within the sleeve.

  To nothing. There was nothing there. Where there should be a hand, a deformed, six-fingered hand, there was a void. He looked, though he had no need to open his eyes. His touch had told him the story, the prickle of shattered bone at the wrist digging into his questing fingers.

  Somehow he forced the dress back down, the remains of cloak back over. Somehow, he reached behind him, to grasp, to slam the lid onto the arrow chest. The sound was accompanied by a sob he could not prevent, both noises echoing in the vault of the chamber.

  When he opened his eyes again, feet were before him on the edge of the hole. Tucknell reached down, wordless, grasping the arm Thomas had thrust out as if to ward off evil. Pulled from the pit, his bad knee buckled again, and he slumped onto the nearest pew.

  ‘Done your duty, sir?’ Taking silence as his answer the warder went on. ‘Then maybe you will be so good as to let me tend to my Queen.’ He stepped down into the grave.

  Thomas breathed deeply, again and again, till he gained the strength to rise and limp to the chapel door. In the entranceway he paused, looked back.

  ‘I needn’t tell you, Master Warder, of the silence we require of you.’ He used the ‘we’. Tucknell had seen the signature on the pass.

  ‘You needn’t. I have a wife and a family. You shall have my silence.’ Tucknell paused, looking down. ‘The silence of a grave.’

  Thomas nodded. He thought of giving some word of comfort, some lessening of the threat he’d just made. It was still a weakness with him, wanting to be liked. But the threat was what mattered here, not his feelings.

  As he turned to the door, he hardened his voice. ‘See that you do, my son.’

  Tucknell, watching the cloaked figure meld with mist, spat out one word. ‘Jesuit!’

  He didn’t think he’d been heard. He didn’t care, especially. Anyway, the word that had once been almost an insult was now becoming common usage for the black-robed brothers of the Society of Jesus. No, all he cared about now was the task before him.

  ‘Oh my lady,’ he whispered, looking straight into the eyeless sockets of the skull, seeing, though he knew it was impossible, a deeper darkness there, ‘will they never let you rest?’

  Torchlight and candlelight bounced off shield, mitre and crown, off bridles held in bared teeth, couched lances, upraised swords. Every surface reflected flame, except for the floor, so that’s where Thomas looked, as was expected of him. The contrast to the mist-flecked darkness he’d come from left him little choice.

  The man he’d come to see had commanded silence with a gesture. Thomas watched the man’s shadow on the floor, heard him move from chessboard to chessboard around the blazing chamber, heard the clack of piece taking piece, the soft slide of felt on polished wood as another knight or bishop slid into position. Or pawn, Thomas’s role, waiting to report. It was said, by those who understood such things, that the Fox had a mastery of pawns.

  ‘Do you play?’

  The voice came so softly, Thomas was not sure he had heard. He looked up, blinking against the flames, and gazed into the only other darkness in the room. Behind the desk, the inevitable chessboard before it, a peaked night cap jutted. Within that shadow was the face of the Imperial Ambassador, Simon Renard. The Fox.

  ‘When I have leisure, my lord. And thus, not often.’

  A hand emerged, very white, very thin, the nails five perfect half moons. It floated briefly over the board, withdrew.

  ‘Chess is not leisure. Chess is life.’

  The hand came out again, striking like a cat. No, like a fox, his namesake. A knight joined his fellow on the desk’s surface, a queen glided forward.

  ‘Checkmate in three.’ A dry chuckle came, a rasp like sanded paper on wood. ‘I doubt the Prior of Ravenna will have seen that. He rarely looks three moves ahead.’

  The beautiful fingers lingered on the queen, stroking it from crown to hip. Then the man behind the desk picked her up, leaning forward into the light. Thomas saw again the pale, long face, all planes and angles thrusting down, the eyelashes luxuriant as a veil over dark pits of eyes. His gaze met Thomas’s across the room, and the voice, when it came, had none of its former languor.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘My lord, as we suspected. It was not there.’

  ‘Ah!’ There was a catch to that one syllable, something almost voluptuous. ‘So your leaders have proved right once again. I do marvel at the Jesuitical control of information.’

  ‘We do what is necessary, my lord. For the glory of God.’

  ‘Of course. Always and only for the glory of God, eh?’

  Thomas, hearing the mockery in the tone, breathed deeply. He had at least played enough chess to recognize so obvious a feint. The Society of Jesus had sent him to be this man’s right hand because the Imperial Ambassador was the real power behind Queen Mary’s throne. They and Renard wanted the same thing: England restored as a Catholic Kingdom and Imperially aligned. Compared to that great goal, the man’s irreverence was as nothing, anger mere i
ndulgence. Besides, an angry response would delay what Thomas most wanted to hear.

  ‘What now, my lord?’

  ‘Now, Thomas?’ Renard leaned back into the shadows again. ‘Now you are destined to travel, with all despatch, to Rome. To the young man who provided us with the tantalizing information you have verified tonight. That youth, according to your superiors, knows more than just what was missing from the tomb. He knows where to find it.’

  Suddenly, Renard was up, and across the room, his face thrust into Thomas’s, long fingers caressing him at the neck. It took an effort not to recoil from the contact, the breath that came, sickly, from between those thin lips. It was rumoured Renard suffered horribly in his stomach. It was why he never slept, spent all his nights awake among his chessboards, his spies’ reports, his intrigues.

  ‘Go,’ the whisper came on tainted breath, ‘fetch me back what was stolen. Fetch me that weapon of coercion. For the Glory of God. Go fetch me the six-fingered hand of Anne Boleyn.’

  Thomas shuddered, even though he’d known it would come to this, shuddered as he recalled that honest warder’s face, the plea to let his Queen rest in her grave. Shuddered because he, Thomas, had violated her tomb and would violate it again with his mission now. So often, the glory of God led down a hard path.

  Renard was back at the table. A scratch of a quill, a paper folded, wax melted, a signet placed to seal. Another and yet another followed.

  ‘This will get you across the sea to Antwerp. This is for the Cardinal, Carafa, in Rome. Only for his eyes, do you understand? Although I realize you will open and read it first.’

  ‘My lord, I—’

  ‘No protests, Thomas. I read your letters, as you read mine. Information is all that matters. Just make sure it is delivered. And this’ – he held up the final, smallest packet – ‘is for the Commander of the Imperial forces at Siena. It will get you, and our young informant, into the city.’

  ‘Siena?’ It was the first time Renard has taken him completely by surprise. ‘But Siena withstands a siege. They say it will last as long as the siege of Troy.’