25
Marbury felt that all life had been kicked from his body. He grabbed the stable’s support beam to keep from collapsing.
“Might I suggest that we discuss a few matters before we try to kill each other again?” Timon concluded. “But here is Anne—she was quick.”
Marbury twisted his body enough to see Anne running a bit more slowly than she had before, pulling the stable master by his sleeve, toward the stall.
“Another murder?” Marbury whispered. “Here?”
Timon stepped past Marbury and into the light of the courtyard. “You are the stable master?”
The man Anne led was Timon’s age, though much less vigorous, completely bald, and bent as if he’d carried the horses on his back. His clothes were the color of straw and mud; his hands were raw leather. His face, masked in ruddy red, revealed nothing about his character, but the eyes evidenced a hidden intelligence, a guarded power that, Timon guessed, few around him saw or understood.
“I am the stable master,” the man repeated, out of breath, when he drew near to the patient horses behind Timon. “Name of Lankin.”
“Well, Mr. Lankin,” Timon began, “we have something of a difficulty. It will require your utmost discretion. Deacon Marbury has returned from London with an unfortunate cargo.”
“Thom is dead,” Anne cried, “and there is another body in his coach!”
Lankin froze. “Thom?”
“I might have broken the news with a bit more care,” Timon said tersely with a glance in Anne’s direction, “but Anne has told the bare facts.”
“What did he do?” Lankin demanded.
“I am uncertain,” Timon began, “as to the exact events—”
“We were attacked on the road home,” Marbury croaked, making his way out of the stable. “The other man in the coach shot Thom. He would have shot me too, but for Providence.”
“Let us leave details for a less delicate moment,” Timon interrupted. Best not reveal everything to daughters and stable masters, he thought.
“Yes,” Marbury said softly. “Would you see to Thom’s body, Mr. Lankin? Brother Timon and I shall extract the other.”
“Thom’s body,” Lankin repeated, unable to quite grasp the reality of the words.
“I will help,” Anne said softly, her hand on the stable master’s shoulder.
Before protest could erupt from either Marbury or Lankin, Anne brushed past her father and peered into the coach.
“Miss—,” Lankin attempted.
“We shall need a sheet in which to carry the body,” she announced, “and I would appreciate an apron to cover my dress. There is a good deal of blood.”
She popped her head up and searched the stable walls.
Lankin took a moment to register what had been said, blinked, and turned away, headed back for his room. “Sheet.”
Marbury glared at his daughter as if she were a stranger.
Timon stepped back into the stall. “I believe I observed a leather farrier’s apron in the corner. Would that do?”
“Where is it?” Anne asked.
Timon stepped to the back wall of the stall, bent, and retrieved a single item from a tangle of hay, rags, and aprons.
“This?” He held one aloft.
“Thank you,” Anne answered primly, taking the dark brown apron from Timon with one hand delicately. “It will, at least, protect my skirt.”
“Anne,” Marbury began weakly.
“You and I should remove Pietro’s body now, Deacon,” Timon interrupted. “That will make it easier for Anne and the stable master to care for Thom.”
Marbury rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, blew out his lips, and nodded. Anne stepped back, slipping into the stiff, oversize apron. Timon moved to the coach and unceremoniously locked his wrists into the dead man’s armpits. Marbury hurried to join him, going to the other side of the coach, opening the door gingerly, and staring down at Pietro’s ankles.
After too long a pause, Timon said softly, “You pull, I’ll move through the coach and come out that door. We’ll lay him in the sun out there so we can get a better look at him.”
The stable master had returned by the time Timon and Marbury were both standing on the outside of the coach, holding the body, waddling toward the light on the cobblestones.
Anne and Lankin went to work at their own gory task more gently. Thom was wrapped in a sheet, the sheet was tied, and the body swung from the seat as if it were resting in a hammock.
Marbury and Timon stood in the courtyard, panting.
“What now, exactly?” Marbury stammered.
“How do you mean?” Timon swallowed.
“What do we do with the bodies?”
“We prepare Thom’s body for an honored burial, in the service of the King,” Timon answered, making certain he spoke loudly enough for Anne and Lankin to hear. “This one we examine.” His toe tapped the body at their feet.
“Examine?”
“Mr. Lankin,” Timon said, moving to the front of the stall, “would it be possible for you to see that Deacon Marbury and I were not disturbed here for the span of an hour?”
Anne and Lankin emerged from the relative darkness of the stall with their shrouded burden. They laid it gently on the stones, the sun adding blinding white fire to the sheet.
“I’ll need to see to a few things for Thom anyways,” Lankin sighed. “And I hope you mean it, that about the King’s service. Thom got little enough in this life—it would be nice for him to have honor in death.”
“I personally assure it,” Marbury answered solemnly.
“Good.” Lankin brushed his hands on his thighs. “Now, Miss Anne, I believe you and I ought to fetch a few of Thom’s things out of his hovel.”
Anne nodded, taking off the leather apron. “But I shall know the full story of this day before nightfall.”
Marbury sighed heavily.
Without further conversation, Anne and Lankin were off. Once they had disappeared around the corner of the stables, Lankin could be heard shouting stern orders, presumably at the stableboys, to stay clear of the courtyard all morning. They would surely be happy at the news. It meant far less work than usual.
“Where to begin?” Timon asked brightly.
“Who among our translators is dead?” Marbury whispered.
“Yes. That.” Timon bit his upper lip. “Mr. Lively has been murdered. His body was found in a state similar to Harrison’s.”
“The face mutilated?” Marbury gasped.
“Yes, though not so severely, it would seem, as was Harrison’s. Lively was readily identifiable. You should also know that Dr. Spaulding has assumed command with all the assurance of a man who is entirely ignorant of his task and has accused Dr. Chaderton of the murder.”
“God in heaven.” Marbury leaned back against the outer stable wall.
“As with Harrison,” Timon continued breezily, “there was a note in Lively’s mouth: ‘The enemy of man’s salvation uses all the means he can.’”
“What to make of these notes?” Marbury muttered.
“They are an attempt to tell us something, but it may be that the meaning is known only to the killer. These facial mutilations appear to be the work of a deranged mind.”
“Is Lively’s body still—”
“I removed it to the cellar of the Great Hall,” Timon assured Marbury. “Now I wonder if you would tell me, in a nutshell, what happened at Hampton Court that made you want to kill me, and where you acquired the dead body of this notable assassin.”
Marbury did his best to marshal his forces. “Our King is mad, witches are abroad, Mary wrote a Gospel, I was poisoned, then pursued on my way home by this creature, Delasander, who shot Thom and would have killed me but for boys who are starving in the woods outside of London.”
Timon stared at Marbury for the span of several long seconds.
“It might be best,” Timon began carefully, “to dispense with the nutshell and speak a bit more elaborately.
”
“Your immediate task is to examine this sack of bones.”
“Yes.” Timon looked down at his student. “It is.”
“You cannot imagine how I am in need of a change of clothing, a splash of water upon the face, and a gallon of brandy.” Marbury sniffed, rubbed his hands together, and took a step into the sunlight. “I ought to stay with you while you examine this assassin, but I propose that I repair, instead, to my rooms and gather my thoughts. Come to my study in, shall we say, an hour?”
“You will need a full night’s sleep and a good meal if you have been poisoned, though I concur with the concept of a large amount of brandy. However, time is of the essence. I would prefer to meet you in the cellar of the Great Hall within half an hour. I am eager to hear what the King told you, and you will be amazed, in turn, at what I have learned here in your brief absence. If your tale and mine concur even in the slightest, then I believe that we will have uncovered a plot to rattle the world. It is an ancient deception whose revelation could shake down the firmament; could change, I say without hyperbole, everything we know and do. Everything.”
26
Forty minutes later Marbury discovered that the cellar beneath the Great Hall was made of ice. He was certain that he could feel his blood slowing down. The marrow in his bones seemed to be snapping as he walked toward the dead body. Timon had brought down several candles, but their light only emphasized the cold. Marbury could almost see it hanging in the stale, dank air of the place.
“One benefit is,” Timon said, reading Marbury’s mind, “that at this temperature the body does not offend the nose.”
The cellar was a stone box, barely twice the size of Timon’s room. The ceiling was low, the floor was filthy. One wall was a rack, floor to ceiling, primarily containing claret and sack. Two of the other walls were similarly arrayed with bins for root vegetables. Carrots, potatoes, radishes, onions, and beets all lay in state with their fellows.
Lively lay on a table against the fourth wall. The body was illuminated at the head and foot by tall tapers. Timon held a third in his hand.
Timon had laid the body with great care, folding the arms across the chest. That made no difference to Marbury. He was still shocked to see the man’s face. Even in the dim, flickering candlelight, Lively’s face was a nightmare. Curled gashes opened like hellish red mouths. Eight or nine of them erupted from his cheeks, his forehead, across the bridge of his nose.
Without warning, Marbury’s brain echoed with recent words of the King of England: too many have been licked by the tongue of the devil.
“Would you care to hear, Brother Timon,” Marbury croaked, “our King’s theory concerning these murders?”
Timon set his candle down on the table, at Lively’s side.
“James believes that the devil’s minions, as witches, are everywhere. He believes they killed Harrison. He will think the same of Lively’s death. He feels these demons live in the very ink and paper of our work here.”
“King James has long pursued witches,” Timon said softly. “When he was King of Scotland he burned hundreds. One of his first efforts as King of England—”
“Yes, he devised the sternest act against witchcraft in England’s history.” Marbury shivered. “But if you had heard him speaking, seen the look in his eye—”
“Your own face betrays your fears about the King.”
At that Marbury stopped, realized what he was saying. He shivered, looking down at Lively’s face. “I would spend as little time in this cellar as possible.”
“Yes.” Timon sniffed. “Then please examine Mr. Lively’s face and tell me how these lacerations compare to those found on Harrison’s.”
“Harrison could not be identified by his face. It was entirely obliterated by wounds, perhaps ten times the number on Lively’s face.”
“This is what both Spaulding and Chaderton have told me. Good.”
“You surmise,” Marbury responded, “that the killer may have been interrupted in his work. Which could mean that there was a witness.”
“Exactly. But what to make of the note found in Lively’s mouth,” Timon said, failing to hide an admiration for Marbury’s powers of deduction.
“As you said”—Marbury nodded—“a message from the killer?”
“Possibly.”
“Tell me what you discovered in examining the body of Pietro Delasander.”
“He died of poison,” Timon answered. “That much is certain. It came from a ring on his left hand. Many such men wear hidden potions.”
Marbury stared. “You found something else. I can tell by the sound of your voice.”
“I did.” Timon’s face remained expressionless. “He had on his person a certain missive, secret instructions.”
Marbury squinted, hoping to hold back the cold through sheer force of will. “Secret instructions.”
“Later,” Timon responded perfunctorily. “They do not have immediate bearing on our circumstances.”
Marbury’s face betrayed his belief that Timon was lying.
“Incidentally,” Timon continued, as if he had not noticed Marbury’s expression, “I did not find any pistols on his body, but he had about him a pouch with shot and powder.”
“His pistols were taken from him by highwaymen.” Marbury smiled. “The very same men who saved my life.”
“You did, indeed, have an eventful journey.” Timon did his best but failed to understand Marbury’s delight at the mention of the highwaymen.
“May we leave this frigid place?” Marbury asked. “I have seen Lively. I concur with your sequester—this room will preserve him well until we decide what steps to take. What purpose does it serve to bring me here? Why did you not agree to come to my study when—”
“Chaderton has convinced me that invisible eyes and ears are everywhere. I do not believe that they are of a demonic nature, but I do believe that they are listening, watching—gathering information. I would make it clear to them that you and I are not easily dissuaded. We are men of iron whose tasks are not the least averted by hideous wounds, pistol shots, poison, pestilence, or witches. They must see that nothing will stop us.”
“Agreed,” Marbury responded, teeth clenched, “but could we be iron heroes in a slightly warmer room?”
“Please indulge me.” Timon leaned casually against the table upon which Lively lay. “Tell me about the poison you took.”
“I did not take it,” Marbury snapped, rubbing his hands together. His suspicions alerted once more, he did his best to ignore the cold. “I was given it in sweet cakes and pear cider.”
“Yet you survived.”
Marbury glared at Timon before he would answer. Timon returned the gaze without emotion of any sort.
“Surely the poison was intended for the King,” Marbury began slowly. “It was in his Privy Kitchen. An aide had about his person a remedy so potent—”
“A purgative,” Timon interrupted, nearly to himself.
“Yes. Very powerful. I may have vomited up my spleen. I was forced to perform this humiliating task in the hallway outside the kitchen.”
“With the King waiting inside?”
“I have never been so embarrassed in all my life.”
“Where and when were you given the food?”
“As soon as I arrived.” Marbury’s irritation was gravel in his throat. “In the Privy Kitchen, as I have said.”
“And you waited there for His Majesty for the span of . . . ?”
“Less than half an hour.”
“Long enough to feel the sting of the poison,” Timon said quietly, “but not quite so long that it could complete its work.”
“Sorry?” Marbury’s displeasure abated a bit in the face of a newer curiosity. “What manner of—”
“Did you not find it odd that this aide had an antidote with him?”
“It was explained to me,” Marbury said slowly, “that His Majesty was in constant danger of being poisoned. In fact he had been poisoned and saved
by the very remedy which restored me.”
“But the King was not coming to dine with you, am I correct?”
“It was explained to me,” Marbury answered weakly, “that this aide kept the potion on his person at all times.”
“A stroke of salvation for you.”
“Yes.”
Without thinking, Marbury too leaned on Lively’s table.
“But surely,” Marbury continued, “you don’t imply—”
“I only observe that you were poisoned in the King’s presence, then saved by the King. It is a ruthless but not unprece dented manner of establishing a sense of overwhelming gratitude coupled with a deep humiliation. It is a perfect combination to produce, in many, a certain loyalty.”
Marbury folded his arms, his shivering nearly constant. He realized that Timon had captured some important bit of information. Before he could completely grasp its meaning, Timon continued.
“You told the King secrets; told him there had been a murder. You said or implied that documents here in Cambridge—which he sent—may have been the cause of the crime. In turn he shared with you his war on witchcraft, the confession that he had been poisoned before—”
“And the accusation,” Marbury whispered, “that there are hidden or suppressed Gospels of our Bible, books which have not come to light in more than a thousand years.”
“After which,” Timon said, pounding the flat of his hand on the table, “you are pursued by one of Europe’s great assassins—the instant you leave Hampton Court! If the King wished to silence you, to keep his secrets hidden, there could have been no better executioner than Pietro Delasander.”
“You must tell me how you know him,” Marbury hissed.
“You must tell me how he died,” Timon shot back.
“I’ve already told you!” Marbury exploded.
“Highwaymen?” Timon responded with equal volume. “Very selective highwaymen who killed him and helped you?”
“There is more to the story.”
“Then tell it to me.”
“My blood is freezing!” Marbury’s shiver quickened, every muscle in his body twitched with the cold.
“We shall go upstairs, back to your study,” Timon explained patiently, “as soon as you have answered my questions.”
The King James Conspiracy Page 13