The Bones of Avalon

by Ormond House

  Where the fabric between the spheres is finer than muslin. The most memorable thing he’d said.

  ‘Do you know why this is?’ I said. ‘I can tell you.’

  And told him – why not? Time was running away from me – the secret which the monks had guarded and John Leland had tried to chart. Bringing the notebook from out of my doublet. Showing him the drawings. Explaining about the Zodiac. The mirror of heaven.

  ‘Ah.’ Benlow smiled at me. ‘So that’s what it is. Where did you find this, my lord?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Where did you unearth it?’

  His fingernails clawing my hose as I sprang up, my head bumping painfully against the boarded ceiling, and I could see the lumps now, on his neck. The lumps all black at the centre of them.

  ‘Someone had to bury it,’ Benlow said. ‘Pity they wouldn’t let me take the bones. I could’ve cleaned her up real nice. Made her look pretty again.’

  Within minutes, I was out of that temple of death and running back to the George as though pursued by all the demons of hell.

  L

  Emanation

  Found Cowdray in the dimness of the panelled room, replacing burned-out stubs with new candles.

  ‘Where’s Monger?’

  ‘Gone with Master Roberts. To Butleigh. I thought you knew.’

  ‘Of course I did.’ Sinking into a chair, head in my hands. ‘ Shit. ’

  Cowdray put down the candles.

  ‘Let me get you some meat, Dr John.’

  ‘No… no time. But some small beer…?’

  ‘Look, I should say…’ Cowdray brushed at his apron. ‘I didn’t realise there were things you hadn’t been told… by Carew and your friend. I’m not a man who… That is, I must needs keep these walls from falling down, you know?’

  ‘Cowdray, I’m not blaming you for my friend’s deceit. The money you’d make for accommodating Carew’s men, that was hardly to be turned down. It’s just… there’s something wrong here. Something very wrong.’

  Wanting to tell him what Stephen Fyche had done to Lythgoe. Wanting to cry it in the streets.

  ‘Dr John…’

  Cowdray’s gaze was in the gloom behind me. I turned quickly.

  The woman sitting in the most shadowed corner, to the left of the window, had long, silver hair, uncoifed, unbound. I’d never seen her before. In front of her on the board were pen and ink and paper.

  ‘Mistress Cadwaladr,’ Cowdray said. ‘A speaker of Welsh.’

  I inclined my head to her. Yet cautious.

  ‘My brother was a monk at the abbey of Strata Florida,’ Mistress Cadwaladr said. ‘I came here with him some years ago, and stayed. I was a cook at the abbey.’

  ‘After which,’ Cowdray said, ‘she worked with Cate Borrow in her herb garden. If that helps.’

  If ever a man spends his days looking over his shoulder, it’s you. You must know how you are.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whispered. ‘Thank you, Cowdray.’

  My dear John

  I am writing in our own tongue in case this letter should be intercepted, which I fear it might. I am aware that you do not speak the Cymraeg, but I think you might be able to read it.

  I believe the prophecies to have been conveyed to our sister through the good offices of her correspondent in France. The source would seem to be the French family’s own consultant. I know not the circumstances of this, except that they appear to have been secretly obtained.

  Here is the latest prophecy in full. The translation from French to English to Welsh will not, I hope, present too much fuddle in the meaning of it.

  Our sister is no better.

  I looked up.

  ‘I’m sorry all’s not well with your family,’ Mistress Cadwaladr said. ‘But what I’ve read, I shall forget.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I stared at the translation.

  Two names had at once presented themselves.

  Her correspondent in France: Sir Nicholas Thockmorton, the Queen’s ambassador. I’d met him once, only briefly, but knew he’d been close to the Dudley family. That he came from an old Catholic family, yet was now unquestionably Protestant. Knew also that he was considered a trusted adviser to the Queen and would keep her well informed about plans by the power-hungry Guise family to ensure that the daughter of Mary of Guise, the Queen of Scots, now Queen of France, would also one day be Queen of England.

  As for the French family’s own consultant, this could only be Nostradamus. Christ above, I could scarce believe it.

  Michele de Nostradame. This man had thrown a long and faintly sinister shadow over my career from the start. Some twenty-five years older than I, beloved by the French court and held in reverence over half Europe… for doing what I would not do. I’d never met him, nor sought to. If pressed, I’d say I was suspicious of his prophecies, so pretentiously laid out in four lines of verse… whilst wondering privately if the bastard possessed some faculty with which I’d not been endowed.

  He was known to be an astrologer but, if these prophecies were drawn from the heavens, then oft-times he and I saw different stars.

  I read the verse, as neatly transcribed by Mistress Cadwaladr.

  In the land of the great religious divide

  The dead witch shall haunt her daughter

  Till she shall kiss the bones of the King of all Britons

  And have them entombed again in glory

  Explicit. The dead witch, not Morgan le Fay.

  What was the sequence here? When had the forecast been received? Had the Queen believed herself haunted before or after its receipt? Either way, Nostradamus, if it was he, would know precisely what he was doing, the alleged bond of witchcraft between the Queen and her late mother having long been common gossip in France.

  Was it, then, an invented prophecy designed to unbalance the Queen in her mind? How much of this was going on? Think… the waxen effigy, all talk of which Walsingham had suppressed before it could reach court… the pamphlet prediction of the Queen’s death which had somehow found its way through the security. How organised was it, this mixture of sorcery and Machiavellian mind-play?

  And why had the Queen not been advised of what appeared to be a subtle, many-pronged assault on her senses, the higher mind and the lower mind, in wakefulness and sleep?

  Unless she was given false advice, whether knowingly or in ignorance.

  Did the answer to this lie in the line, they appear to have been secretly obtained?

  Obviously, we had spies in France at all levels of society. Had one of them got his hands on unpublished Nostradamus quatrains relating to the Queen of England? If this verse, for example, had been received as intelligence, then its credibility would obviously be enhanced.

  The Queen was superstitious, and there was no denying the eminence of Nostradamus, the respect afforded to him in France. I’d heard him credited many times with that terrifying prophecy of the killing of King Henri in the jousting, even though it came out of Italy. If Nostradamus said there was a bad air, people in France stayed indoors, farmers delayed the harvest. Our own archbishop, Parker, was once said – though he’d denied it – to have been deterred from accepting the Canterbury post by a prophecy of Nostradamus.

  And the man’s published predictions relating to the Queen had been so full of spleen as to be considered French Catholic filth. Never in the kingdom has arrived one so bad, he’d written when her path to the throne had been clear. Making reference also to her poor parentage. Anne.

  Intelligence from France would be passed to the Queen in person by Sir Nicholas Throckmorton. Did Cecil know of this?

  ‘You look perturbed, Dr John,’ Mistress Cadwaladr said. ‘And, if I may say so, very tired.’

  Cowdray had left us alone, with a jug of small beer.

  ‘I’m well,’ I said.

  No use in further conjecture. This should be discussed with Dudley, who knew Throckmorton far better than I did.

  ‘Master Cowdray,’ M
istress Cadwaladr said, ‘in asking for my help… told me you’d become quite intimate with Eleanor.’

  I looked up, startled. This was, it must be said, a woman of mature beauty, and the level of translation had said much for her intellect.

  ‘We’d known one another only days,’ I said. ‘But there was… much we had in common. I was intent on becoming her advocate at the assize. Distressed when she wouldn’t see me.’

  ‘I also find that hard to accept. Do you think you were lied to?’

  ‘It occurred to me. But… no. I think she was in some way persuaded to…’

  ‘Confess? How could she be persuaded to confess away her life?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Mistress Cadwaladr placed her hands together, palm to palm, touching her fingers to her lips.

  ‘Anything relating to witchery seems yet to be outside all normal rules. Her mother’s confession was the same. I worked with Cate in her garden. I’d grown herbs for the abbey kitchens, and later we’d both studied the works of St Hildegard of Bingen, regarding the curative properties of plants.’

  ‘Does that mean you were her first link with the abbey?’

  ‘In a way. Before her marriage, she worked alongside me there, as a kitchen maid. But when, much later, she became the abbot’s friend, I was never party to their discussions.’

  ‘I wish I’d known of you earlier,’ I said.

  ‘Oh…’ She looked not comfortable. ‘It’s some years since I left the garden. Not everyone would remember.’

  Disappointing. I’d been about to ask her if she knew what Cate Borrow had been engaged in before her arrest. I can only think my next question came out of an instinct.

  ‘Mistress Cadwaladr, why did you stop working with her? If that’s not an intrusive question.’

  ‘It’s something I’d normally consider quite intrusive. I’ve never spoken of it. I’m a private person and would not, in usual circumstances, even have come here today. But then… these circumstances are far from normal, aren’t they?’

  Kissing her fingertips again, as if this helped her reach a decision. I heard the clatter of hooves outide the window.

  She said, ‘Dr Matthew Borrow… is a good doctor. Studied at the famous Montpellier College. A great finesse in bone-setting, extraction of teeth. Able to conduct clever surgery to drain fluids from the brain, remove stones from the bladder. His hands… so deft and sensitive. Skills of a kind seldom – or so I’m told – found even in London. Glastonbury has been fortunate to keep him.’

  ‘He can’t have made much money here.’

  ‘No. I…’ She closed her eyes for a moment, bit her lip. ‘Friendship with Cate led me to assist Matthew in his work. Which, after a time, became… difficult. He has a strong… presence. A powerfully attractive emanation.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I’m not sure what explanation I might have been expecting, but it hadn’t been this.

  ‘I had a respect for Cate,’ she said, ‘and she was devoted to Matthew and all that he’d done for her. I didn’t want to… It became that I could not be near him.’

  ‘And did he…?’

  ‘No. He is a good man. A man of steadfast purpose. A Godly man.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘So I went back to Wales, to my brother’s house. Only returning last year, after his death. That was when I learned what had happened to Cate. What she’d become, that was tragic.’

  There was a silence. I heard the inn doors opening and voices in the passage.

  ‘What are you saying, Mistress?’

  ‘The herbs she used to grow were good herbs. I can only think she’d been mixing with the wrong folk, and it all went bad. He must have been sorely disappointed in her.’

  ‘Matthew Borrow?’

  She looked, for a moment, shocked at what Pandora’s Box she might have opened. Yet, in my fatigue, I could not see what was in it.

  ‘And now her daughter gone the same way… I should have seen it in her. She became my physician when I returned, and I thought she displayed the best qualities of her father. Not realising…’

  ‘You’ve… seen Matthew since your return? I mean-’

  ‘Most certainly not. Please.’ She stood up. ‘Forgive me. I’m glad I was able to assist with your translation.’

  The fatigue in me put subtlety beyond reach.

  ‘You think Cate-? You’re saying you believe both of them truly were witches?’

  ‘I… know not quite what I’m saying. And, indeed, would not be saying it at all if Eleanor were not facing the same fate. I can’t help thinking it beyond a coincidence. I beg mercy. Must go.’

  I should have persisted. Should not have let her leave so easily. Should have insisted on asking her more, but I’d heard Joe Monger’s voice in the passageway and was impatient to hear the news from Butleigh.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you for your help.’

  I held open the door was for her – yet a small and slender woman, not made shapeless by childbearing.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Monger was saying outside. ‘Master Roberts found exactly what we were looking for.’

  LI

  Reward

  The task had not, it seemed, presented any great difficulty. Not with Lord Dudley in his finery and a posse of armed men. And, in the background, Monger, the farrier, who was known and trusted by the vicar, the blacksmith, the miller.

  One wood which was spreading so that the circle of oak trees was no longer at its centre. Oh, yes, it had been known there was a grave here, a burial by night many years ago, and no-one talked of it and no-one went near for fear of ghosts.

  ‘Thick with brambles,’ Monger said, ‘except for one bare patch.’

  ‘Where nothing will grow,’ I said. ‘I’ve heard of such places. Oft-times it’s the grave of a murderer, as if the ground itself were poisoned.’

  ‘Lord Dudley set the men to dig,’ Monger said. ‘First, about four feet down, a stone cross was unearthed. A fine thing – a crucifix, bearing a figure of Christ. Old but not that old. As if it were from a church. And then, a couple more feet down… not a full length casket, more like a household chest.’

  Monger had suggested it should be brought back to Glastonbury, but Dudley had thought for a few moments and then said no, it should be broken open in case it was not what it seemed.

  ‘In truth,’ Monger said, ‘I think it was a household chest, rudimentary and not very old.’

  As there’d been some superstition among the men, Dudley himself had prised it open up with a spade. There, inside, was a far more ornate container of oak, with a glass top.

  ‘A leaded window, in effect,’ Monger said.‘With six square panes. Through which we could see the bones. It was, in its way, a very solemn moment.’

  They’d found lettering indented in the oak. A simple legend:

  Rex Arturus.

  Legend, indeed. Some of the men had been sorely afraid, one even instinctively crossing himself in the old way, trying at once to hide the gesture.

  ‘So you didn’t try to open the inner box?’ I said.

  ‘Why would we? As Lord Dudley said, and I was inclined to agree, the opening should be done with full ceremony, before a high altar. Relics last entombed before Edward I, he said, should not be exposed to the air of another time except before its monarch.’

  Even though all my instincts had said this was where Arthur’s bones would be found, it was yet strange to think it had all happened so quickly, as if destiny were at work.

  Would have been strange. And glorious and mystical. Had I not known what I knew.

  Monger opened out hands still browned with earth.

  ‘Lord Dudley said we should give thanks to God for this and at once fell upon his knees, and the rest of us followed. Then he bade me say some suitable prayer. Which I did. And we then we knelt in silence for two minutes or more before Lord Dudley arose and commanded that the box be placed upon the cart.’

  Dudley taking off his own cloak to co
ver the box. Then more prayers had been said before it was driven into the village.

  What had happened then was that the cart, with the bones upon it, had been driven to the church where, to pre-empt gossip, an announcement was made that the remains of King Arthur had this day been discovered by Lord Dudley, the Queen’s Master of the Horse, and were to be taken at once to London. Riders then being dispatched to the sheriff at Bristol to arrange for a company of men to ride out to join them.

  ‘No undue ceremony, then,’ I said.

  Monger looked at me and smiled.

  ‘Such a pity that you aren’t with Lord Dudley, to share the glory of such a famous discovery. It being, after all, the result of your scholarship.’

  ‘Lord Dudley said that?’

  ‘He said you’d understand.’

  ‘Oh yes. Perfectly.’

  A man who brings to his Queen such an irrefutable symbol of her royal heritage… something which bestows upon her monarchy’s most mystical aura. That man… he may expect his reward.

  ‘Scholarship is its own reward,’ I said. ‘Um… Joe. Before the box was covered over, did you get a good look into it? Did you see the bones… clearly?’

  ‘Well enough. The box was, I suppose, more like a reliquary than a coffin and, having been boarded up inside the chest, was largely free of dust. The glass was a little milked but, on the whole, it could not have been better for its purpose.’

  ‘Large bones? Is it possible to say?’

  ‘Certainly, the leg bones were of such a size that some were laid diagonally. The skull placed at the centre.’

  ‘Large skull.’

  ‘I’d say so.’

  ‘Any marks upon it?’

  ‘Damaged, certainly. Several dents, and a clear hole in the cranium, as if made by a heavy blow from a sword or mace.’

  Thus matching the description set down by Giraldus Cambrensis all those years ago, and committed by me to memory for just such an eventuality.

  … in the skull there were ten or more wounds which had all healed into scars, with the exception of one which had made a great cleft…