Marbury jumped to retrieve his knife.
Timon raced past Anne.
Alarm was in the stranger’s voice. He carried vital news—or a deadly threat. Timon produced his blade; Marbury held his aloft and followed after.
Timon burst into the common yard, came face-to-face with the stranger, and said, “Stand where you are,” his voice like sand in a mill wheel.
The man halted instantly. He was dressed in ice white and cold blue. His face bore traces of powder, a bit of rouge, and just a touch of purple shading at the eye. His black riding gloves seemed out of place with the rest of his costume.
Marbury exploded through the door the next instant, with Anne close behind.
The man held his arms outstretched so that everyone could see he had only one thing in his hand: a small leather pouch. Tightly tied, it bore the seal of King James.
Marbury and Anne flanked Timon. Only then did Timon glance down at Anne’s soft, white hand. It held a thin, round blade, all point and no cutting edge. It was a weapon to dissuade an attacker, not kill him.
The King’s man smiled. “Deacon, is this any way to greet the man who saved your life?”
Marbury tilted his head a bit. “Dibly?”
“The King thought it would make matters easier if someone you knew came from Hampton Court. He felt certain you would remember me.”
“You know this man?” Timon asked quietly.
“He saved my life,” Marbury answered, lowering his knife. “He is the man who gave me the King’s antidote when I swallowed poison at Hampton.”
“Poison?” Anne lowered her weapon as well.
“This missive contains a matter of the gravest urgency,” Dibly insisted, hoisting the leather pouch aloft.
“Of course,” Marbury stammered.
Timon alone held his ground—and his knife.
“You must gather all the translators together.” It was a command; Dibly’s voice and demeanor betrayed his true character, which was built of sterner stuff than his outward appearance would indicate. “What I have to say must be heard by all.”
“This is the man who had, on his person, a convenient counter to the King’s poison.” Timon did not bother to hide his suspicion. He seemed, in fact, to emphasize it.
Dibly turned a withering gaze Timon’s way. “This is doubtless the monk, Brother Timon, whom you mentioned to His Majesty. He is, in some small part, a reason for my visit. And may I say it was a difficult journey. You have no idea how exhausting it is to ride a horse from London to Cambridge with only one stop to change mounts. And no one has yet offered me a libation or a crust of bread. What a thankless job it is to serve a king.”
Dibly tucked the leather pouch under one arm, removed his black riding gloves, slipped them neatly into his belt, and folded his hands in front of himself, waiting.
“Will you attempt to stick me with that dagger, Brother Timon?” Dibly asked after a heartbeat. “I hope not. I have no antidote for that.”
“I have not yet decided what I will do,” Timon answered.
“I only ask,” Dibly said calmly, “because the news from His Majesty is really most important, and I would prefer not to be distracted by blood on my nice blue doublet.”
Timon took note that Dibly did not specify whose blood would cause the stain.
“Might we—we should offer you some meat and drink, then?” Marbury stammered.
“Gather the translators,” Dibly insisted, grinding every word to a fine dust, all civility gone from his voice and face.
The demons of curiosity, however, insured that the translators would gather no matter what Marbury or Timon did. First from one door and then another the men appeared, some still dressing.
“We should have realized,” Anne whispered, “that if I could hear this man’s voice, everyone could.”
Running, as best he could, toward the spot where Dibly stood, was Dr. Spaulding, clad in silver. The early-morning sunlight made him almost invisible in its reflection.
“What has happened?” he demanded, out of breath. “Who is this man?”
Dibly reached for the pouch under his arm and held it high without looking back at Spaulding. “This is an urgent instruction from His Majesty for all the translators of his new Bible. If you are not such a man, go back to bed.”
Spaulding arrived, slipping in the dewy grass, directly in front of Dibly, who still refused to take his eyes off Timon.
“I am not merely ‘such a man,’” Spaulding panted, sneering. “I am in charge here!”
Dibly permitted himself a bubbling bit of laughter. “Hardly.”
Spaulding began to sputter his response, but Chaderton, whose sleeping quarters were closer to the Deaconage, had arrived upon the scene. His plain brown robe and sleeping cap were a sober contrast to Spaulding’s glinting blaze.
“The royal seal,” Chaderton observed to Anne.
“Silence! Everyone!” Dibly bellowed, but his tone and manner were not, even at top volume, entirely impolite. “If you are the King’s translators, then let us adjourn to the place where such work is done. I am under instruction to confiscate certain documents, and to insist on a specific course of progress from this day forward. I must have the complete attention of all the Cambridge men working on this translation. Or, I should say, all the men left alive.”
Dibly arched a single eyebrow at his last remark. In that instant Marbury concluded that, despite certain impulses to the contrary, he did not really care for Dibly at all.
The other men gathered slowly, variously dressed in blue, purple, gray, and black. They had heard Dibly’s declaration and were silent.
A sense of doom seeped into Timon’s glorious state of bliss. His ears were assaulted by the sound of hissing as Dibly sighed and flicked a serpent’s tongue to slake his lips.
“There has been,” Dibly announced softly, “a significant shift in His Majesty’s desires. Immediately, certain work will cease. James will manifest his legacy in this manner: the Word of God shall be in perfect concert with the will of the state. And the whims of a king.”
“No,” Timon protested, before he could think.
Dibly turned to face Timon directly. “Put away your ridiculous knife, Brother Timon. Where is there, anywhere in creation, a weapon that can cut the whims of a king?”
51
Moments later the men were seated at their desks in the Great Hall, waiting for the messenger to deliver his news.
Anne had been banished and fumed outside, straining to hear through the door. She clasped her robe tightly about her neck and paced in a pattern so erratic that it frightened the wrens in a nearby hazel tree. They scattered into the air.
Inside the hall, Dibly slowly opened his pouch, a faint smile upon his lips. Spaulding was still sputtering damp protest under his breath. Marbury had chosen to take Lively’s desk, and Timon stood beside the seat that Harrison had occupied. He thought it unwise, given recent premonitions, to sit in the dead man’s chair.
Dibly had commandeered the station that had belonged to Roger Andrews. He took his time, relishing the discomfort he was causing. Suddenly his right hand shot into his pouch, snatched a page, and held it aloft for all to see. It was affixed with a large wax circle.
“The King’s signet seal,” Spaulding whispered reverently.
Without further explication, Dibly lowered the page, held it close to his candle, and read.
“‘The translators of Cambridge in the matter of His Majesty’s Bible are hereby commanded to hasten with God’s speed to complete their work. They are directed to copy, as precisely as their scholarship will allow, the existing Bishops’ Bible, altering nothing, adding no new work, deleting none but the most grievous of Catholic errors. This work is to be finished by All Saints’ Day.’”
The room exploded.
Anne heard the din from outside, though she could only distinguish unconnected words and phrases: All Saints’ Day, Bishops’ Bible, Catholic errors. She pressed herself against the oute
r door, listening intently. She debated the merits of crashing into the hall and demanding to know what had happened.
Inside, Dibly raised his hand aloft once more, with a new page waving in the wild air. Flickering candlelight made the paper seem alive.
One by one the men noticed Dibly’s tableau, and fell silent.
When tense order had returned, Dibly continued, “This paper empowers me to confiscate all of the so-called secret texts which His Majesty sent here, and any other documents which I deem aberrant.”
“You deem?” Richardson demanded.
“I have been told what to look for,” Dibly said, lowering his paper authority.
“You are taking all the hidden texts,” Timon said simply. “You are retrieving all of the books James sent.”
“And any others of a similar nature.” Dibly blinked once.
“Pause a moment,” Spaulding began, trying to catch up with what was happening.
“Then why did His Majesty send them here at all?” Dillingham interrupted.
“Roger Andrews requested them,” Dibly explained. “Our King is currently working on a second volume of his masterwork, Demonology. Your Andrews was helping. It is, in fact, the death of Roger Andrews that prompts my visit—his death and strangely related occurrences.”
“Yes,” Richardson nodded sagely. “The murders.”
“The King is, quite naturally, concerned about the murders,” Dibly began hesitantly, “but a more immediate problem has provoked my visit. Only yesterday, the Westminster translators were visited by an infamous assassin, a man named Pietro Delasander. He fought with the guard, made threats upon the person of Dr. Lancelot Andrews, and escaped imprisonment there. Delasander attempted to masquerade as your Deacon Marbury. Dr. Lancelot Andrews informed His Majesty at once. Delasander is almost certainly the man who killed Roger Andrews. And Delasander is a student and known cohort of your strange guest, Brother Timon—who masterminded the murders.”
All eyes fell on Timon. Spaulding nodded with great satisfaction. Both Marbury and Chaderton seemed about to speak when Anne, unable to contain herself any longer, burst into the room.
“You must not allow this!” she shouted.
The walls agreed, echoing her ire.
Dibly turned slowly, his grin becoming a disfiguring grimace. “A girl? A girl is raising her voice against the King’s command?”
“I see no king in this room.” Anne shook her head.
“I am the King’s voice in this room!” Dibly snarled. “I have come to arrest this Brother Timon.”
“I told you all!” Spaulding shouted triumphantly.
“No,” Anne said instantly. “I know for a fact that Brother Timon was asleep in our kitchen when Andrews was murdered. And I am a witness to that murder.”
“As am I,” Chaderton began, “and the killer was certainly not Brother Timon.”
“Silence!” Dibly demanded.
He whirled suddenly to face Timon, producing a pistol from his leather pouch.
“Powder and ball are in place,” he assured Timon. “Flint locked, trigger cocked.”
“I do not care for these new weapons.” Timon shrugged. “The ball falls out; the powder fails to ignite. More than half the time, a weapon of that sort does more harm to its owner than it does to the intended victim. But shoot, if you must, or if you can. It does not matter to me. You will not arrest me or take me with you. You may kill me, or you may provoke me to kill you. Those are your only choices this morning.”
“Good!” Dibly enthused. “I have always wanted to be able to say that I have killed a man before breakfast. It has such a deliciously brutal tone, and it would surely frighten my rivals.”
Dibly took a quick step closer to Timon and aimed the pistol directly at Timon’s face.
In the blink of an eye, Richardson swooped up from his chair, tore off his ermine cape, and used it to cover Dibly’s head. With the same motion he slapped the pistol from Dibly’s hand as if he were disciplining a child who had stolen a sweet. The gun hit the hard floor and the ball rolled out.
Richardson deftly took hold of Dibly’s head and shoved it with all his might down onto the top of the nearest desk. A loud thud was followed by Dibly’s immediate collapse onto the floor.
“There,” Richardson said proudly, smiling at Timon. “I have rendered him unconscious. Tie him up. Splash him with cold water. Get him to tell you who he really is. No one that rude could be an emissary from the King. I told you I would come to your rescue when the time was right, Brother Timon.”
“You did indeed, Dr. Richardson,” Timon answered, staring down at Dibly. “You are a man of your word. Like the knights of legend.”
Richardson glanced at Dibly, brushing his hands together. “What an awful young man.”
“Yes,” Timon agreed.
“Well.” Richardson patted his stomach. “We should have breakfast and sort all this out.”
There is England’s greatest weapon, Timon thought as he stared at Richardson’s face, the ability to forge ahead. Never looking backward, this is what I must learn from them.
“Brother Timon and I have already had our breakfast,” Marbury said, coming to stand over Dibly. “Perhaps the rest of you would care to go to the dining hall in my Deaconage for such repast and allow us to take care of this unfortunate man.”
Marbury’s eyes shot briefly to Anne, who nodded once.
“Gentlemen,” she began instantly. “Shall we?”
She headed toward the exit from the Great Hall.
“This person, Dibly, may have soiled my cape,” Richardson said briskly. “If he has, I do not wish to wear it. Give it away.”
“We shall join you in a very few moments,” Brother Timon said, kneeling beside Dibly. “Then, as you say, we will sort out all of this business.”
“I am hoping for sausages!” Richardson shouted, a wild joy flooding his words. “God’s eyes! I am famished.”
The other men glared at Richardson, unable to keep up with the events as they were happening. Richardson seemed unaware of their confusion and followed Anne toward the door. One by one, not knowing what else to do, the rest filed out. Timon had seen faces like those before. Men too long in combat or hopeless prisoners often exhibited the same demeanor.
When everyone had gone, Timon pulled the ermine cape from Dibly’s head. The forehead was caved in and already a deep purple, but there was no blood.
“Is he dead?” Marbury asked, kneeling beside Timon.
Timon felt for a pulse, then licked his forefinger and held it close to Dibly’s nose and mouth.
“His heart is still pumping,” Timon said softly, “but I can detect little breath. This purple stain on his head means that his brain is bleeding into his skull. He may not survive.”
“What to do?” Marbury said calmly. “He saved my life.”
“He did that as a ploy, not as an act of kindness. He poisoned you and then gave you the antidote to make you grateful, to assure your allegiance to the King.”
“You cannot be certain of that.”
“Enough,” Timon insisted. “We must concentrate on the moment at hand.”
Marbury shook his head. “Concentrate on what?”
“We must have answers from Dibly.” Timon slapped Dibly’s cheek.
Dibly’s eyes flew open, and he exhaled. “Who struck me?”
Timon looked down at him. “Richardson.”
“That windbag!” Dibly coughed. “What was his weapon?”
“Harrison’s desk,” Timon answered. “He pushed you against the corner of a desk.”
Dibly smiled. “Good. Let it be said that Harrison struck me. I can stand for the irony of being attacked by a dead man. That is my style.”
“Be still,” Marbury encouraged, “you have a wound.”
“Help me up,” Dibly demanded.
Timon held him down instead. “You said that the death of Roger Andrews prompted your visit.”
“I did.”
“
How could you or anyone else in London know of that death even now?” Timon demanded. “It happened mere hours ago.”
“That is correct.” Marbury let go a pained breath leaning against the nearest desk. “But what if he knew, beforehand, that Andrews was to be murdered?”
“Exactly,” Timon affirmed. “He had such confidence in the killer—”
“—that he considered the murder a fait accompli,” Marbury concluded.
Timon looked down at Dibly again. “If you had paused a moment to think, you would surely have realized your temporal error.”
“Then . . . is Dibly in league with the killer?” Marbury said, unconsciously moving slightly away from Dibly.
“More to the point,” Timon whispered, covering his mouth with his hand, “is King James?”
Dibly suddenly lurched forward, producing a small stick wrapped in cloth with a single briar protruding from it.
Timon pushed himself away in a frenzy. “Poison!” he called.
Marbury jumped as far away as he could, drawing his knife.
Dibly was on his feet, panting, his head beginning to bleed from the wound Richardson had caused.
“Do not allow that fang to touch you,” Timon whispered. “It is far worse than any knife.”
Dibly squeezed his eyes shut as if he was having trouble focusing. Timon used the moment to grab Harrison’s desk by the legs and swing it toward Dibly. He moved it with surprising speed and force, and it crashed into Dibly, knocking him to the floor.
Dibly’s hand still held the poisoned briar. He spun the stick; the cloth unwound from around it and flew away. Then he struggled upward.
“He may throw it,” Timon warned under his breath.
Marbury retreated farther, but Timon was obviously the object of Dibly’s attack. Dibly flung himself with all his might onto Harrison’s desk for support. It shoved forward and Dibly was nearly within reach of Timon’s face.
Dibly swiped his poisoned claw through the air. In a blur Timon produced two blades, one in each hand, and threw them both.
One buried itself in Dibly’s throat, the other in his belly.
The King James Conspiracy Page 25