Chaos

by A D Swanston

  ‘The testons matter. What is their purpose beyond embarrassing the Dudley family?’ Simon’s tone had angered him and his voice rose. It was as much as he could do not to hurl himself at the man, although to do so would certainly be futile. Behind him, Gabriel would be holding a loaded pistol.

  ‘Must they have a purpose? Is there a purpose to our lives or are we merely at the mercy of capricious gods? What purpose is there in pain and suffering?’

  ‘Did Fossett kill John Pryse?’

  ‘He and the man’s son killed him together. Fossett did not deserve to live. He was a preening fool of strong opinion and little intelligence. And he had disobeyed my orders. Isaac Cardoza should be alive.’

  ‘Why was Fossett’s body removed from the deadhouse?’

  ‘Surprise, shock, fear. Confusion and paradox.’ Perhaps Roland Wetherby had been right. Their enemy could indeed be François Rabelais or at least a disciple. ‘There are few locks that Gabriel cannot pick and few street urchins who will turn down a penny in return for helping to move a body.’

  ‘And many who believe in the power of witches. To change shape, to fly, to remove bodies.’

  ‘Quite so.’

  ‘The slogans. Were they your work also?’

  ‘Not all. There are those who lead and others who follow. They served our purpose.’

  ‘Plague crosses, a bag of testons outside the Cardozas’ door, a cross on my door. Why?’

  ‘You have answered your own question. They were there because you have to ask why.’

  Riddles and puzzles. The stuff of fear. ‘When will you tell me why I am here?’

  ‘Soon, doctor. Meanwhile, Gabriel has visited your house.’

  Christopher started. ‘Why?’

  ‘Do not be alarmed. Nothing has been damaged or removed. Except for one thing. It is beside you.’

  Christopher looked down. Gabriel had made not a sound in placing his lute case by the chair. He reached down for it.

  ‘Do open it,’ said Simon. Christopher took out the lute and plucked the treble string with his thumb. The sound was true. ‘I somehow knew that you would play and asked Gabriel to check. I do hope you are not offended. But really, doctor, to hide such a master-piece under a pile of old clothes – it is almost an insult to the maker. Venetian, is it not? A magnificent instrument which I shall much enjoy hearing. I noticed the plate on the peg box. It was a gift from the Earl of Leicester. He must think very highly of you. Now what will you play for us?’

  Not only had he been poisoned but his house had been entered and searched. Yet still he did not know what his captors wanted of him. Ignorant and powerless, he could only wait and try not to let fury and frustration cloud his mind. He tried a different tack. ‘What is the meaning of the crosses? Or are they not crosses?’

  Simon clapped his hands. ‘Bravo, doctor. Now what might they be if they are not crosses?’

  ‘The Greek letter chi, symbolizing chaos.’

  ‘Exactly. Just as the music of the lute, when poorly played, may symbolize chaos. Or, when played well, harmony and order. Or love. The courtly noble or the jesting fool or the lovelorn youth. Have you ever wondered at the conversation a man may have with his lute? That is an extraordinary thing, is it not? A man and an object in conversation.’

  ‘Why do you seek chaos?’

  ‘Before the world began, there was chaos. Out of the chaos came order and it is order I seek. The order that comes with knowledge and truth.’

  ‘And you are willing to kill to achieve this.’

  For the first time, Simon’s voice rose. ‘Enough. I wish to hear you play, doctor. I wish to know if the music of your lute is as beautiful as it is. What will you play?’

  ‘I will play nothing until you tell me why I am here and what you want with me.’

  ‘That is a disappointment, doctor.’ Now the voice had taken on its harsher tone. ‘I trust you will not regret it. If you will not play, I have no further use for you today. Leave me.’

  Christopher felt the pistol at his neck. He put the lute back in its case and stood up. As he did so, he turned suddenly and thrust the case into Gabriel’s face. If he could overcome Gabriel, he could force Simon to speak. Before Gabriel could react, he picked up the chair and rammed its legs into his stomach. Gabriel yelped but did not drop the pistol. Christopher made a lunge for it. He was quick but Gabriel was quicker. He stepped aside and slashed the barrel across Christopher’s face. Christopher stumbled and fell, blood running down his cheek.

  Gabriel stood over him, the pistol pointing at his eyes. ‘You were warned. A foolish attempt, doctor. Do not make another.’

  ‘Gabriel is right,’ said Simon. ‘I did not see what you did, but whatever it was, it was foolish. Another attempt would be fatal.’

  The weather must have turned colder and the candle had burned out. Christopher huddled under the blankets and touched the bloody bruise on his face.

  ‘Out of the chaos came order,’ Simon had said, ‘and it is order I seek. The order that comes with knowledge and truth.’ What did he mean by that? Knowledge of what? The truth of what?

  Not diseased, yet unwilling to show his face. Why? A man who disliked firearms yet could not escape responsibility for at least two deaths. A man who played on human fears. In pursuit of ends he had not disclosed. Why not? More paradox, more enigma.

  The food and drink came again. At least he was not going to starve to death and if Simon had wanted him dead, he would have ordered Gabriel to kill him by now. Nor was he being kept alive just to play the lute. What did Simon really want of him and how long was he to be held in this place? And what of Roland, what of Ell? Were they searching for him? Had Leicester sent for him only to find that he had disappeared? Would Christopher ever find out?

  He guessed that it was mid-afternoon the next time Gabriel escorted him up the steps to the hall, but could not be sure. Heavy drapes covered whatever windows there were. It was a house that sunlight could not enter.

  ‘Are you in better humour today, doctor?’ asked Simon. ‘I do hope you are ready to play.’ There was an edge to his voice, as if he were nervous or excited.

  ‘Why am I being held here?’ asked Christopher, struggling to hold in check another urge to throw himself at the faceless figure.

  ‘That you will discover soon.’

  ‘Where am I? What is this place?’

  ‘I am surprised you have not asked this before. Sit down and I will tell you my story of this house. It is my own story, one I made up while sitting here by the fire. Like all stories it may be true or it may not. I will tell it to you and afterwards you will play.’

  Christopher sat and waited. After a few minutes, Simon began.

  ‘Where this house stands there was once a small community eking an existence from the river and the land. The community was destroyed in a great flood nearly ninety years ago and now the land is almost deserted and such dwellings as remain are but mean hovels.

  ‘A rutted highway, banked up with soil and stone to protect it from the river’s incursions, still runs through the land and a hundred yards to the east of it, on a low plateau of higher, firmer ground, a single house remains, largely hidden from view by a copse of alder and birch, and protected by a maze of ditches that criss-crosses the treacherous land around it. Anyone unfamiliar with the marsh at this place risks his life if he tries to find a way through it.

  ‘The house, two storeys high, with solid stone walls, a straw-thatched roof, shuttered windows and doors fashioned from thick oak panels, was built by a merchant who made his fortune in the trading of wool a hundred years ago. A man of social as well as financial aspiration, he brought the oak from the Essex forests and the stone from quarries in Kent and in doing so he risked much. The cost was enormous.

  ‘When the house was completed he furnished it extravagantly, moved in with his servants and set himself to find a wife. Within a few months, however, his dream of a thriving community centred on his grand mansion had been swept away in
the flood and he was forced to leave it to the mercy of the wind and the river. He never found a wife and died sick and broken.

  ‘For decades the house remained deserted but it was well built with deep foundations. Its present owner paid little for it, the isolated location being a deterrent to other buyers. But not to him. His purpose it suited admirably. He did not do much to repair or refurbish it other than to replace the ancient, rotting thatch with grey slate tiles and to clear the chimney – a feature of which the merchant had been especially proud – of birds’ nests and other debris. His furniture was plain and functional and his possessions few.

  ‘The house had been designed around a great hall from which a grand stair curved up to bed chambers above and from which doors led to the kitchens, a cellar, storerooms and servants’ quarters.

  ‘Even in midsummer the shutters were never opened and the house was dark. Now, when winter has yet to give way to spring, it would take fifty wax candles to light the hall and fifty more the rest of the house. That had been one of its attractions. A shadowy house, black and silent, well hidden and unknown to all but a few. From here the owner wove his spider’s web of shock and deceit and rejoiced in the chaos and confusion they sired. And he took pleasure in finding a certain symmetry in the house’s history. One man’s dream had become another’s, entirely at odds though those dreams were.

  ‘At one end of the hall the merchant had built a fireplace wide enough to accommodate six-foot lengths of timber but the owner allowed only small branches and brushwood to be burned on it and then only at night. He did not want unwelcome visitors calling to discover the source of the smoke. It was not that his presence was entirely unknown, merely that he wished to be solitary and to be asked no questions.’ He came to an abrupt end. ‘That is the story I have invented, doctor, and that is the house in which we sit. Now you will play for me.’

  ‘I will not. I may be your prisoner but I am not your musician to perform at your request.’

  ‘In that case you will not require your lute.’

  As soon as the hooded figure began to play, he knew. In the right hands the ivory lute produced a sound unlike that of any other. Its notes held a particular clarity, a resonance that spruce could not offer. He longed to leap at Simon and take it back. The lute was his. It should not be played by another man, however skilled a musician.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and Gabriel spoke into his ear. ‘It would be unwise to interrupt, doctor.’ Christopher clenched his teeth and gripped the arms of the chair. Simon was an accomplished player – quicker and more fluent than he was – but hearing the music was like an arrow in the chest. Only with difficulty did he take Gabriel’s advice.

  Simon finished the piece and put down the lute. ‘Venetian music for a Venetian lute, doctor. I do so enjoy music of that period, although it is sadly out of fashion now. Do you not agree?’

  ‘That is my lute. You have stolen it from my house.’

  ‘Borrowed, doctor, borrowed.’

  ‘What is your purpose in holding me here?’

  ‘Well now, doctor, it is almost time that I answered that question.’ Simon stood up, his back to the room. He was not a tall man, slim and narrow in the shoulder, his head tilted a little to one side. He kept a hand on the arm of his chair and did not look round. ‘For a man condemned to a life of solitude, music is magical in its beauty. The pleasure of discourse, the touch of a woman, even to walk down a street unmolested – all are barred to me. From an early age I read whatever I was given – the Bible, Plato, Machiavelli, Rabelais, Chaucer – but the lute was my only real friend and the one thing that I looked forward to each day. I had no teacher but learned for myself. The lute asked me questions and I tried to reply. As I got older the questions became more difficult and I realized that there were no more answers. Our world is capricious and it is easier to accept that than to look for reason.’

  Simon paused as if to gather his thoughts. ‘Having spent most of my life in reading, playing and thinking, I have concluded that reality and illusion are not always easily distinguished. You will recall Plato’s story of the prisoners in the cave. They see shadows moving on the wall but do not know what is causing them. For the prisoners, the shadows are reality.’

  He paused again and took several deep breaths. The effort of standing and speaking was tiring him. ‘I will not fulfil my three score years and ten, or anything like it, a fact to which I am entirely reconciled.’ There was a short laugh before he continued. ‘A brief fancy is often superior to a longer one, do you not agree? That is why I have also sought to amuse myself in other ways. The testons and the crosses and the slogans served that purpose well and brought you to me when the time was right. Bringing you here earlier would have been easy enough but unamusing.’ He paused to take a few short breaths before continuing. ‘Since the death of my mother, dear Gabriel, who has known me since the day I emerged from her womb, has been my only companion and my loyal servant. Although, sadly, he has no talent for music, I owe him a debt that I can never repay. And now I have need of your service, doctor.’ He paused again. ‘I wish to play for the queen.’

  Christopher stared at Simon’s back, wondering if he had heard correctly. ‘And how in the name of God do you intend to do that? Is she to be invited here?’

  Simon laughed. ‘A delicious thought but alas, no. It is you who will make the necessary arrangements.’

  ‘And how am I to do that? Even if I were not held in this hellish house of darkness, how would I persuade Her Majesty to allow you into her presence, let alone listen to you play?’

  ‘I have given that much thought and believe I have a solution to the problem.’

  ‘And what is your solution?’

  ‘You will find that out later today. Meanwhile, Gabriel will escort you back to your room. Tell him if there is anything you need to make you more comfortable.’

  ‘My freedom would help.’

  ‘Oh, I almost forgot. I wish the Earl of Leicester to be present also. I believe that the queen would like him there and I am aware of his love of music.’ He sat down. ‘Gabriel will tell you when I am ready.’

  CHAPTER 29

  Gabriel had brought a new candle. Christopher sat in the cell that Simon had called his room and watched the flame flickering.

  The man was clearly mad. A lunatic who should be in Bedlam. A madman who had been perfectly lucid but was capable of making such an outrageous and absurd demand. How in the name of the devil’s whores did he imagine that Christopher was going to arrange for him to play for the queen and the Earl of Leicester? And how did Simon think he would escape capture? As the instigator of murder and coining he would certainly be hanged and probably drawn and quartered.

  Then he realized. Simon was not so mad after all. It was perfectly simple. He was going to do exactly what the traitor John Berwick had tried to do. He was going to take a hostage and hold him – no, her – until he had played and been allowed to depart unharmed. While Christopher sat helpless in his cell, Gabriel would be paying a visit to Wood Street.

  Yet there remained unanswered questions. What would Simon do to ensure that the whereabouts of this house were not revealed? Where did he expect to play? And how would he leave after playing without being arrested or followed?

  Nor would Leicester ever agree to a hooded stranger being permitted access to Whitehall, let alone into the queen’s presence. The very idea was monstrous.

  The candle was still burning when Gabriel returned. Christopher heard his footsteps and saw the spyhole cover being drawn back. He stood away from the door and watched while Gabriel opened it and motioned with the pistol for him to go up to the hall. He did not speak.

  Simon was at his usual place by the fire, playing another old Venetian tune on the ivory lute. He was hooded. Opposite him, at the other end of the fire, sat another figure, also hooded and bound to the chair with rope. Although the figure was in shadow, Christopher knew at once that it was not Katherine.

  Simon finished
the piece and stood up. Keeping his face hidden, he took two steps, reached out and pulled the hood from the other figure. It was Roland Wetherby.

  Christopher rose from his chair and was immediately pushed down by Gabriel behind him. ‘Roland, are you injured?’ he asked.

  ‘My pride, only,’ replied Wetherby. ‘More importantly, are you injured?’

  ‘No, I am uninjured, although if I am forced to remain in this place for much longer I shall certainly lose my wits.’

  ‘Forgive me, Mr Wetherby,’ said Simon. ‘Despite my solitude, I have a taste for the dramatic. I once tried to write a play with a part for myself but, alas, I have not the playwright’s skill and soon returned to my music. Perhaps someone more skilled will one day do it for me. Did you enjoy the tune?’

  ‘I would have enjoyed it more without a hood over my head. Who are you and why are we here?’

  Simon laughed. ‘The very questions Dr Radcliff has been pestering me with. I am Simon and you are here because I wish to play the lute for the queen and the Earl of Leicester.’

  ‘Although he has not disclosed how or why this is to be done,’ said Christopher. ‘Warwick’s notion of a game appears to have been apt. This man, a coiner and a murderer, sees us as his pieces to be moved about the board as he chooses.’

  ‘Dr Radcliff is ill humoured because I have borrowed his lute. However, Mr Wetherby, now that you are here, it is time that I explained what I have planned. Do, please, listen carefully.’

  ‘Have we any choice but to listen? I am bound to this chair and Dr Radcliff has a pistol at his head. But kindly make your explanation brief. Already I tire of this game.’

  Simon clapped his hands. ‘If only things had been different, Mr Wetherby, I believe that we would all have been good friends. Your spirit does you credit. As does Dr Radcliff’s. But I have long since given up wishing things were different.’ While Christopher and Roland were seated, he remained standing. ‘I am anxious to achieve my one ambition while I can. That ambition is to play the lute for the Queen of England and to do so in the Great Chamber of Whitehall Palace.’