by Deryn Lake
But there was no response and, greatly disturbed, the dreamer retreated down the stairs to where a troop of guards led by a member of the Privy Council whose name he did not know, awaited the Duke.
Arrest, thought the dreamer in a panic, they’ve come to arrest my father.
Then the mighty cord which attached him to his sleeping body gave a sudden tug and in dread that he might die if he did not return soon, the dreamer re-entered his mortal shell to wake panting and gasping in the indescribable light of the blue mosaic room.
Salina, his principal female slave, stood staring at Zachary anxiously. ‘Master, you shouted for your father so wildly that I thought I had better wake you. You had lost all colour. Forgive me.’
She said no more, touching her forehead to his naked foot in the ultimate gesture of servitude. Zachary sat up slowly, looking about him in a dazed manner. Normally he had a smile for the girl but this day could find none.
‘I’m all right,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘but get me something to drink. I feel as if I’ve journeyed very far.’
She nodded and withdrew, leaving him to lie back on the pillows and slowly take stock, both of his present situation and the future.
Just over three years ago Zachary Howard had been captured by the Turks and would have ended a galley slave had it not been for a very simple conjuring trick which had made the captain of the Turkish vessel laugh so much that Zachary had found himself hustled before Barbarossa in order to repeat it. His silly hobby of sleight-of-hand, done to impress the ladies of the Court, had at last borne fruit. He had apparently produced a Tarot card from out of his ear and, when asked to repeat it, done the same from his mouth. The card Zachary had chosen for this childish trick had been that of Death, portrayed as the Grim Reaper, so that when the laughter had died away a question mark had been left.
Barbarossa, who understood more English than he admitted, had consequently hissed instructions for Zachary to read his future and had not for a second taken his gaze from his captive’s face, intimidating him with every glance, knowing that he, the great pirate captain with his flowing beard and black eyes, held the power of life and death between his fingers.
Zachary had never forgotten that moment, could recall it even now, the faint smell of spice which seemed to pervade both the vessel and its owner, the black hypnotic eyes fixed upon him, the sound of the ship creaking as it rode on lively anchor.
Instead of the Tarot he had produced the dark crystal which he had taken with him to Venice, the place of its origin. Even Barbarossa had given the smallest start on seeing the blackness of the orb, twinkling like quartz where Zachary laid it reverentially upon the Captain’s table.
As Barbarossa had put his wiry hands upon it, so invited by Zachary, the crystal had dramatically given the blood-flush, and Zachary could have kissed it. Now it would definitely be shown to Suleiman as a marvel. Forestalling any idea that the pirate might have of purloining the orb, the astrologer had said, ‘There is a curse on it. Only I must handle the crystal,’ and he had uttered a low-voiced incantation.
The bluff had worked and to add to his air of mystery, Zachary’s predictions for Barbarossa had struck a chord, particularly with regard to his love affairs of which, the astrologer was amazed to see, the pirate had many.
It had not been a far cry from there to Constantinople and the fabled Topkapi Palace, set like a citadel on a promontory overlooking a sea the colour of anemones. Zachary had been marched in a prisoner through Demir Gate and thence through the Gate of the White Eunuchs to the throne room. He had come out again as a treasured guest of Suleiman the Magnificent.
In such a dazzle of jewels, of peacock fans, of sapphire glass and heavenly rubies, it had been an instinctive thing for Zachary to prostrate himself at the feet of such a being as the Sultan, to bend his rough head before the turned-up toe of the silver shoes and ask for clemency. There had been a gentle laugh at that, and a hand had come down and stroked his hair as if he had been a dog. Then the astrologer had been bidden rise and sit on a stool at Suleiman’s feet and converse as one cultivated man to another. A lasting friendship, a relationship like that of father and son, had been bonded from that moment.
Now, with that day receding into memory, Zachary smiled grimly. The Sultan’s friendship had extended only so far. Soon realising his prisoner’s enormous potential as an astrologer and fortune teller, Suleiman, on the death of his principal wise man, had put Zachary in his place. The Englishman had been given his own suite in the Palace, his own slaves — including the beautiful Salina — and everything he could wish for, except freedom. Threats and pleading met with equal lack of success. The Sultan Suleiman always turned a deaf ear to that which he did not wish to hear.
Even now, sensing the terrible danger in which the Duke of Norfolk had been placed, Zachary knew that to go to his royal master would be a forlorn hope. Suleiman’s love was selfish. As far as he was concerned, the astrologer was as close to him as if he were his own son, and the rest of the world simply did not matter.
Salina returned, bearing some golden fluid in a glass vessel. ‘This will soothe you, Master. Drink a draught and be strong again,’ she said, placing it on a low table beside him.
Zachary brushed it aside. ‘Salina, my father in England is in danger. I know it. Yet I am unable to help him.’
She stared at Zachary in silence, her pointed brows drawn down as she puzzled. Eventually she said, ‘Could you not think so hard that your wife will understand and act for you?’ Though she shared his bed whenever he wanted it, and had borne him a child, Salina knew everything of Zachary’s other family and cherished each one of them as if they belonged to her.
‘I could try,’ he answered, biting his lip.
Even as he shuddered from the idea Zachary knew what must be done. Once more he must attempt that dangerous trick of projecting his astral being out of his body, risking that it might be unable to return.
‘Will you help me, Salina?’
By way of reply she put her hands to her heart, her lips and her forehead, then bowed silently; an elegant gracious creature, mistress of many feminine secrets.
Together they went outside and she settled at his feet, both of them sitting on the balcony of his bedroom, watching as the moon rose up out of the sea. From a burner set beside the astrologer blue smoke wreathed and coiled, full of a deep and drowsy incense.
Much as she had no wish to disobey, the slave felt the strangest sensations. She stared at the silver deepness of the night so intently that it began to dance before her and press in on her so hard that she felt she might be squeezed into eternity.
Salina reached out for Dr Zachary’s hand and as his fingers closed over hers, he pulled her upright. They stood side by side on the balcony and looking behind her she saw that another astrologer and his slave sat motionless and staring, where she had been but a moment or two before. Her master turned on her the strangest look but said nothing as Salina, knowing that she was dreaming but nonetheless afraid, held on to his hand ever more tightly.
Now the dream became fantastic as she and Zachary left the Palace and entered a strange dwelling near a river. Salina saw dark timbers and white walls and looked in vain for mosaics and coloured glass. Then she dreamed that they climbed the stairs together and looked into a bedroom where two boys slept. From Zachary’s description of them, the slave recognised Jasper and Sylvanus. She watched, huddling in the shadows, as her master kissed both of them and spoke softly. The boys stirred in their sleep but did not wake.
Now he crossed the landing, Salina close behind, and entered another room. In a great bed, her dark hair spreading over the pillow, lay Cloverella, fast asleep. Even in the dream Salina was glad to see his wife was alone and knew that her master would be pleased. He sat on the corner of the bed and kissed Cloverella on the lips while his slave peeped from the doorway, afraid of being seen.
‘Cloverella,’ Zachary was whispering urgently, ‘please hear me darling. I cannot be long. I am al
ive and well. A prisoner but safe. One day I will come back to you. Do you understand?’
Cloverella sighed and turned over, she was still deeply asleep. Zachary put his hands on her shoulders and shook her gently.
‘Please, my darling, wake for just a second.’ He kissed her again on the cheek and this time she did as he bade her. Momentarily Cloverella opened her eyes. She looked at Zachary and gave a wonderful smile, then her gaze slid to Salina, who instantly stepped away so that she would not be seen. By the time she peeped again, Cloverella had gone back to sleep.
‘My darling, please help my father. The Duke is under arrest and will be lodged in the Tower. Go to see him and tell him I said “A cat’s whisker”. Do you understand? “A cat’s whisker”.’
In her dream Cloverella nodded and it was then that Salina felt a violent shudder warn her that soon she must return to her body. She tiptoed forward and pulled gently at Zachary’s hand. He looked up, startled, and Salina realised that she had been forgotten. Soundlessly her lips formed the word, ‘Come.’
He did not want to leave his sweetly sleeping wife and it was only by tugging a little harder and silently imploring that Salina eventually got him to his feet.
‘Master, please,’ she gasped into his ear, ‘my heart feels as if it might burst.’
Zachary looked from one to the other, not for the first time in his life torn between two women. But Salina’s distress was too real for there to be any hesitation. Holding her to him, Zachary willed with all his might that both of them might enter their mortal bodies, and it seemed then that he and his slave both fell, down and down a never-ending tunnel at the bottom of which there was nothing but moonlight.
Chapter Thirty-Three
On the eve of the Duke of Norfolk’s execution his closest family were allowed to take leave of him. His Duchess, who had never loved him, bid him a stony-faced farewell but wept after she had left the room, though his daughter Mary flung herself into her father’s arms and cried bitterly. She had given evidence against her brother Henry, who had so incensed her with his jibes that she should become her own father-in-law’s mistress — she had been married to Henry’s bastard son who had died while still in his teens — that she had turned on him violently.
‘Hush, hush,’ Norfolk said, patting her neat head. ‘I am so old anyway that the axe will make little difference.’
‘But it is utterly unfair,’ she whispered mutinously. ‘You served him well.’
‘He,’ the Duke whispered back, ‘cares for nothing and no one. He is drowning in a sea of blood.’
After she had gone, the old man prepared himself for death, groaning at the cold of his bleak cell on that raw January night of 1547 as he knelt to pray. Far away in thought, he was a little startled when the warder, coughing in the doorway for interrupting a man on his knees, said, ‘Your daughter-in-law, Your Grace.’
He looked up, expecting to see Surrey’s wife, now a widow as his poor colourful maddish son had gone to the block eight days earlier, but took a startled breath as the warder stepped aside to reveal the small dark beauty whom Zachary had married.
‘My dear Cloverella,’ he said, struggling to his feet, all thoughts of ancient enmities banished at this late hour of his life. ‘How good of you to come.’
She hurried towards him, her arms outstretched, and gathered the old bear to her diminutive frame.
‘Lord Duke my father,’ she whispered into his ear, so much in the way that Zachary used to speak that the hair rose on his head. ‘I have come to see you on behalf of your son, my husband.’
He held her at arm’s length, his weary old eyes staring into hers. ‘What are you saying, my dear?’
‘That I dreamt of Zachary so vividly the other night I believe him to be still alive. I know it sounds foolish, Lord Duke, but it is the truth. He told me to say to you “A cat’s whisker”.’
‘A cat’s whisker?’ repeated the Duke, puzzled. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know. I thought it to be some private code between you.’
The Duke shook his head. ‘I’m afraid it conveys nothing.’
Cloverella looked crestfallen. ‘You are certain? I had hoped in this way to prove he lived. Oh Lord Duke, please cudgel your memory. Do the words remind you of nothing?’
Dimly something stirred in Howard’s mind and tired as he was he began to cast back, frowning with the effort of remembering. Then suddenly it came to him. He stood once more in Zachary’s house in Greenwich, Sapphira a little child held tightly in his arms. He put her down and handed her to her mother, Jane, who left the room. He began to discuss the King’s Great Matter with Zachary, man to man. Then out of the blue he had asked the question, ‘Will I survive His Grace?’
Now he remembered vividly the look on Zachary’s solemn face as he answered, ‘By a cat’s whisker, you will.’
‘God’s mercy!’ he exclaimed aloud and Cloverella drew closer so that they could whisper.
‘What is it, Sir? What have you remembered?’
‘I asked him if I would outlive His Grace the King and he answered, “By a cat’s whisker, you will”.’
Cloverella stared at him in wonderment. ‘But surely …?’
‘It is impossible I know, but I recall now how positive he was.’
‘But it would have to be tonight,’ whispered Cloverella. ‘His Grace would …’
‘Don’t say it,’ muttered Norfolk, drawing her as far away from the door as possible. ‘Don’t even breathe it. To speak it is treason.’
‘But treason or no, Zachary could not be wrong about a prediction of that magnitude.’
The Duke broke out in a clammy sweat. ‘My dear Cloverella, I must sit down. I suddenly feel the world spinning about me.’
She helped him on to the hard wooden chair, the only one provided in that uncomfortable cell, then sank onto the floor at his feet.
‘You really believe he came to you? That he is alive somewhere?’
‘I do Lord Duke and this strange coincidence has proved it to me.’
Norfolk shook his head silently, mopping his brow.
‘If what we think might happen did happen,’ Cloverella murmured, ‘what would be your position?’
‘A stay of execution.’
‘The cat’s whisker,’ she said in triumph and rose to her feet.
‘Well, well,’ the Duke answered softly, suddenly too weary to stand. ‘We must await events.’
His daughter-in-law bent over his ear. ‘If the Reaper is out stalking tonight he may find a victim even more resplendent.’
‘The cruel master instead of the loyal servant?’
‘Justice,’ answered Cloverella softly. ‘Slow, inexorable justice. The mills of God.’
*
Throughout January the King had grown weaker. The musicians had long since ceased to play in the Palace of Whitehall and every day the bustle of Palace life diminished. The Queen, who had been sent to Greenwich to keep her Christmas, had been called earlier in the month to take her leave of her royal husband, as had Princess Mary. The two younger children were not fated to see their father again, remembering him only as a huge terrifying figure, very much alive, for from Henry Tudor’s deathbed the entire family were quite deliberately kept away. He was to die amongst his Gentlemen, in authority to the last.
It was Sir Anthony Denny, relatively new to court, who had finally had the courage to tell the King he was dying, for even to speak the word was an act of treason. But Henry would not hear of it, refusing to send for Cranmer, insisting that he would summon the Archbishop when he felt it necessary. By the time he awoke from a fitful sleep he had left it too late, the King could no longer speak.
Henry Tudor had once saved Archbishop Cranmer from a charge of heresy and now the prelate came at speed from Croydon to repay his debt and ease his royal master’s passing from the world. He found a quiet room, only a handful of courtiers present beside the grim-faced physicians, several men, including Lord Hertford and William Pa
get, striding the corridor outside. The atmosphere was stuffy, hot from the roaring fire, the air heavy with the smell of spices and expensive scents which disguised the odour of rot emanating from the dying hulk in the bed. Henry had taken to that bed before Christmas, now he was about to leave it for ever.
Cranmer bent over the moon face, its half-open eyes sightless.
‘Your Grace,’ he whispered urgently, ‘Your Grace, can you hear me?’
Henry made no response and Cranmer, terrified that his royal master might leave the world unshriven, said with some urgency, ‘Your Grace, give me a sign of the repentance of your sins and your faith in Christ our redeemer.’
There seemed to him, then, to be a glint in the dying man’s eyes and the Archbishop, in something of a frenzy, grabbed both of Henry’s hands in his. There was a definite answering movement which could merely have been a spasm but which poor Cranmer took to be a response.
‘His Grace wrings my hand,’ he said loudly, ‘as token of his repentance.’
He made the sign of the cross on the King’s forehead. ‘May the soul of our most Gracious Lord, Henry by the Grace of God King, rest in peace, shriven of its sins and trusting in Christ. Amen.’
There was a murmur in the doorway as those in the corridor, realising the end was imminent, came into the room and dropped on their knees, then there was silence broken only by Henry’s rasping breath.
Edward Seymour, kneeling close to the bed, found himself staring in disbelief at the mountainous form gasping its way out of the world. It was almost impossible to credit that death was coming for that most powerful of beings who had controlled the destiny of so many for so long. But if it truly was, if his royal brother-in-law was about to breathe his last, then all Edward Lord Hertford’s carefully laid plans could start their fateful course.
Henry’s will, made a month ago at the end of 1546, named the line of succession and the King’s executors, but said nothing about the appointment of a regent or protector. Yet as uncle of the new King, and with Thomas now a member of the Council, it would seem a small step for Edward to become virtual ruler of England. The man born the son of a humble Wiltshire knight trembled with the excitement of it all and almost missed Henry Tudor’s final breath.