by David Walton
"On the ground!" screamed the officer. "I warn you, we will fire!"
Matthew ignored him. He drew quintessence, as much as he could. It wasn't a lot, not like the jar full of salt water that Catherine had drunk before driving back the manticore armies. He just hoped it would be enough.
At the officer's order, a row of matchlocks opened fire. Iron balls pinged off of Matthew's skin, doing no harm. He closed his eyes and released the quintessence he was holding, and a dazzling white light blazed out from him in every direction, not enough to burn anything, but enough to blind anyone looking at him, at least temporarily.
"Run!" he shouted. "This way!"
He led them toward the north, into the trees. Their best chance was to try to make it to the salt farms, the only human habitation outside the settlement, and now the only human habitation left on the island. At the center of the farmed area was a cluster of buildings, surrounded by a miniature version of the settlement barrier. There would be some supplies there, at least, and some protection from the manticores.
Where had the Spanish come from? The memory of his conversation with Ramos de Tavera flashed through Matthew's mind. Had it been a trick? Perhaps Tavera had been on one of those ships, only a few hours' sail away, and had lied about being in England. The bell-boxes required a quintessence field, after all. That meant he either had a shekinah flatworm, or he was in the vicinity of the island. How much did they know?
They should have prepared for this, Matthew realized. They knew someday the Spanish would be back. They had put all their faith in the protections around the settlement: the barrier, the alarm bells, their stores of weapons and salt and mercury and vitriol. Now all of that was lost, and they were helpless, with no backup plan, no shelter they could run to. They should have built another settlement, or stored supplies in a cave somewhere. Of course, they hadn't planned for someone's botched experiment to destroy the entire colony.
When they reached the farm buildings, Matthew examined the supplies. No weapons. Some salt. Enough food for a day or two.
He sat down in the dirt and covered his face. Quintessence had always been his ally, a willing servant that brought good to people whenever he touched it. His inventions had provided food, shelter, safety, and comfort to everyone in the colony. Now he had destroyed everything he had ever made, and everything else besides.
Blanca sat with him and put her arm around his shoulders, but he shook her off. He didn't want comfort. He wanted to make it right.
CHAPTER 13
RAMOS slept late, having spent most of the night experimenting in the cellar. He broke his fast with Antonia, a spread of cheese and fruit and thin bread, and gave her nurse instructions for the day. It was mid-morning by the time he descended to the cellar, expecting to find Barrosa already at work. Barrosa, however, was missing, as was the Ignis Dei. Ramos searched to be certain, but there weren't that many places it could have been hidden. It was clearly gone.
Only the king or Barrosa could have taken it. If a thief had discovered the room, he would have taken the gold, not the Ignis Dei, which was useless at any rate without one of the pearls they kept in their pouches. Ramos felt a chill. Barrosa would only take it on the king's orders, and if the king took it, it was because he planned to use it. But for what? Was it valuable as a weapon after all? If he had just wanted another demonstration, then why didn't he ask?
Ramos charged back up the stairs and made his way to the king's privy chambers, a lavish wing of the palace that also housed the king's menservants and most favored courtiers. The queen had her own chambers in another wing. He found the vice-chamberlain, the member of Philip's court responsible for organizing his schedules, travel arrangements, and paying the expenses of his retinue.
"Where is his Majesty today?" he asked.
The vice-chamberlain peered through tiny French half-glasses as if examining a bug. "What is your business with the king?"
"I am his court astrologer and advisor on natural philosophy. I have a special commission from His Majesty, and I need to know where he is."
The vice-chamberlain pressed his lips together. He shifted papers on his desk from one pile to another. "Are you a member of the king's privy council?"
"No. I just told you, I'm . . ."
"Are you on the king's medical staff or a member of the nobility above the rank of earl?"
"Are you even listening to me?"
"This is my job, sir. Only certain people are permitted to know the king's location."
Ramos pounded the corner of the desk. The Spanish government was full of people like this. King Philip ruled his kingdom through a vast bureaucracy that generated enough paper to fill the English Channel, all of it managed by minor functionaries who guarded their fiefdoms with weasel-like ferocity. Each of them considered themselves indispensible to the running of the empire, and none would share information if they had an excuse to withhold it.
He tried another tack. "What about the court secretary? Juan Barrosa? Are his whereabouts so tightly protected?"
The vice-chamberlain shifted papers again—Ramos could have sworn he moved the same stack back to its original location—and cleared his throat. "What is your business with His Majesty's secretary?"
Ramos leaned forward. "Listen," he said. "In about a minute, I'm going to push all your papers off of this desk and scatter them on the floor. That is, unless you can give me a straight answer to this very simple question. Do you know where Barrosa is?"
The vice-chamberlain swallowed. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, then said, "He went to Smithfield. For the execution of the Protestant conspirator."
"Thank you," Ramos said with a short bow. "You've been most helpful."
He strode quickly away, heading for the stables where he could saddle a horse.
"The king will hear of this!" the vice-chamberlain shouted at his back.
SMITHFIELD was a large, grassy clearing, lovely compared to the mud and filth of most of London. It had been used for jousting tournaments for centuries, and once every year it transformed into a fairground, with rows of tents, mummers, jugglers, sword-swallowers, minstrels, and hordes of laughing children. It was also an execution ground. A generation ago, those saints of the faith who had refused to acknowledge Henry VIII as the head of the church had been burned alive here for their resolve.
Mary had been continuing this tradition as of late, only she was executing Protestant heretics instead of the faithful of the True Church. John Rogers had been the first, executed back in February, for preaching heresy day after day in St. Paul's Cross. Despite many warnings, he had made reference to "pestilent Popery, idolatry, and superstition" before a large crowd, and had earned himself quick passage to the fires of hell for his blasphemy.
The criminal to be executed today was even worse, a Bible translator named Charles Shiveley, who not only preached insidious doctrines, but called on Englishmen to cast Queen Mary aside in favor of her Protestant sister, Elizabeth. Heresy and treason both.
When Ramos arrived at the field, hundreds were already gathered, lining the path down which Shiveley would take his final walk. The sky was bright and clear, with a strong wind blowing out of the east. Soldiers held back the crowd, and Woodroofe, the sheriff, trotted up and down the grounds on horseback, scanning the crowd worriedly.
Shiveley's wife was there along with her ten children, the older ones holding or helping the younger, waiting for Shiveley to appear. Mrs. Shiveley held the littlest girl herself, a tiny thing no more than three, and murmured in her ear.
In the execution yard, a stout pole with a crossbar had been driven into the ground. The pole was a freshly-stripped green, but the ground around it was blasted black from prior execution fires. Two carts of logs and kindling were trundled into the yard, and men began to stack wood in heaps around the pole. The brisk wind ruffled Ramos's hair.
On the other side of the crowd, sitting high on a curtained dais, were the king and queen. Philip reclined in a high-backed, lacquered
chair, a small smile on his face, watching the crowd. Mary had eyes only for her rounded belly, which she patted and stroked incessantly. A coterie of maidservants followed her everywhere now, making sure she was comfortable, offering food and drink, helping her to walk as delicately as possible so as not to harm the all-important child. She was withdrawing from public life more and more as her son grew. Officially, Mary was the monarch of England, and Philip only her husband, but she adored Philip and yielded power to him as she readied herself for her anticipated role as mother of the prince. Before long, she would go into her confinement in preparation for the birth and leave the ruling of the kingdom entirely to him.
This execution was, of course, happening at Philip and Mary's command, but Ramos was surprised they had actually come to witness it. Maybe Shiveley was more important or influential than he'd realized. And where was Barrosa? Ramos couldn't reach the dais through the tightly packed crowd. He would have to wait until the execution was over.
Woodroofe spurred his horse down the path and met a group of soldiers advancing the other way. The crowd waited, restless but not loud. Some children, oblivious to the morning's grave occasion, darted across the path, chasing each other and laughing. Ramos scanned faces, looking for any he recognized. So many people. He guessed that few of them actually knew Shiveley, or cared about him. They had come to see the spectacle.
A moment later, Woodroofe stepped aside, revealing Shiveley, barefoot and chained, and the crowd roared to life. Many did call words of consolation and strength to him, but many more elbowed their neighbors and pointed and laughed. Shiveley held himself straight despite obvious physical weakness, and began his walk to the stake, singing the Psalm Miserere.
They stopped him when he reached his wife. She stood clutching her family and weeping, but he gazed at her with a determined calm. Woodroofe said, "Even now, sir, if you will but recant . . ." He had a showman's eye for drama, positioning Shiveley just out of reach of his weeping family. His wife tried to reach him, but the soldiers held her back. Shiveley turned aside and continued his march. His wife screamed his name. At the pole, he took his place, allowing them to shackle his hands behind him without a word of complaint.
Ramos had seen it before, but he still found it hard to understand. What drove such a man? How could he hold to heresy with such a stubborn and evil will? The man knew what was coming, and that was just a taste of what would follow for all eternity. Why would he not recant?
Across the yard, Ramos spotted the triangular beard and slight frame of Juan Barrosa, bustling back and forth behind a screen, conferring with servants. A creeping feeling of dread gripped him. Something was amiss. He renewed his efforts to circle around and reach the dais.
When Shiveley was secure, Woodruffe raised his voice above the crowd and the wind. "Charles Shiveley, you are convicted of denying the Christian character of the Church of Rome and the real presence of the sacrament, and of plotting to overthrow her Majesty, Queen Mary, in favor of her sister, the Princess Elizabeth. For this, your body is to burn to serve as a warning, to those who watch, that the greater fires of Hell await."
"It waits for you, Woodruffe!" a man's voice shouted. A soldier pushed into the crowd, but the man who had spoken was already gone.
"Hold! A pardon from the queen!" A soldier ran up to Woodruffe and held out a parchment to him. Woodruffe read it and then raised it above his head, fighting to keep hold of it in the gusting wind, until the crowd quieted.
"I hold here a pardon for Charles Shiveley, signed and sealed by Her Majesty, the Queen," Woodruffe said.
Ramos was surprised, thinking at first that the man had truly been pardoned, but then he recognized the ruse. This was no free offer. The deception annoyed him. There was no need to battle heresy with lies.
Woodruffe held the flapping paper out to Shiveley. "Only revoke your abominable defamation of the Holy Sacrament and swear eternal fealty to Mary, your queen, and you shall live."
Shiveley stared at the paper, and for a moment, Ramos thought he would relent. Then he lifted his eyes to the sheriff's, and spoke in a bold voice that reverberated through the yard. "My fealty belongs first to God, whose glory I shall soon see. Second, to Elizabeth, the trueborn Queen of England!"
The crowd roared, and it was impossible to tell whether more of them shouted against his words or in favor of them.
"So be it," Woodruffe said. He opened his fingers, and the paper fluttered out of his hand, dancing erratically out over the crowd. He gestured, and a man stepped forward with a torch to light the fire.
Before he could do so, King Philip stood and raised a hand, his raised position on the dais making him clearly visible to everyone. The torch bearer stopped short. Everyone fell silent. Woodruffe looked as astonished as everyone else.
"Douse the fire," Philip ordered. "Remove the wood from around the stake."
By the time they did so, Ramos knew what was coming. The screen underneath the dais, where he had seen Barrosa, had a small hole cut in it, and Barrosa was now nowhere to be seen. Ramos pushed his way into the crowd, trying to make it to the royal platform before it was too late.
"These are troubled times," Philip said in his rich and commanding voice. He was not a tall man, but his presence arrested every eye. Woodruffe looked surly; this was his show, and he hadn't been expecting an interruption.
"The poison of heresy has leaked into many corners of the world," the king continued. "In this land especially, many doubt the True Church and fall into wickedness and treason. Yet God has not changed. Bear witness, all you who gather here! So that there may be no doubt that we rule by divine order, and that Charles Shiveley stands under condemnation not just by man, but by God, we will not light the fire today. Instead, we look to God to bring his own judgment. If this man has sinned, let God himself light the fire!"
Woodruffe looked stunned. His head swiveled comically between the king and the piles of logs, uncertain how the show should proceed or if he had a part in it any longer. The crowd stared at the stake, hushed and expectant.
Ramos started running, shoving people out his way, knowing he couldn't get there in time. This was wrong, a far worse deception than the fake pardon. Philip was fabricating a miracle on the scale of Elijah's fire from heaven before the priests of Baal, but it was nothing more than a charlatan's trick. Worse, he was using Ramos's discovery to do it. Ramos wanted no part of this hoax.
In the center of the clearing, Shiveley suddenly cried out. He looked around, trying to find what had hurt him, and then screamed, twisting his body as if to escape some invisible fire. His face bore the terror not only of the pain but of its apparently miraculous cause. He screamed and writhed, while the crowd looked on in silent awe. There was no fire, and yet he burned.
"Stop this! Turn it off!" Ramos said, still trying to push through, but his shouts only broke the silence, prompting the crowd to erupt into noise again. Those who loved Shiveley wailed and begged God for mercy, while others railed against heresy and spat at him.
Shiveley lived for a horribly long time. When Ramos finally reached the platform, it was too late to save him. He found Barrosa behind the screen, aiming the Ignis Dei through the hole and peering through to view his handiwork.
"For the love of mercy, add more salt!" Ramos said.
Barrosa looked up. "The king's orders were . . ."
"He will burn in Hell soon enough. Give him more fire and end this charade."
Barrosa still didn't move, so Ramos grabbed the jar himself and poured salt into the pearl compartment. Shiveley's clothing flared up in a rush of bright flame. The smell of meat filled the square, familiar from a hundred inquisitions.
As Shiveley's screams fell silent, so did the shouting of the crowd. They watched mutely as the impossible flames devoured the flesh. There was no need for Philip to say any more. They knew a miracle had taken place.
Ramos slammed the barrier down, blocking the prism from the quintessence light and thus turning off the fire. "This is vile
deceit," he said. "Do you think you are God? Can you stand in His place and bring fire from heaven?"
Barrosa didn't flinch. "Apparently I can."
"It's a lie. This is Aaron, forming a golden calf and giving it to the people to worship. You have called God what is merely a work of man."
"Is it?" Barrosa flushed and his voice rose. "Is this your work, Ramos de Tavera? Did you create quintessence? Did you bottle it up in this pearl? This is fire from heaven, if ever there was."
"Lies. You stretch the truth until it breaks. This is a natural force, found by men, brought home by men, and directed by men. By me. And you use it for falsehood."
"It's God's work, Ramos. Why do we burn heretics? To terrify the rest into contemplating the just and miraculous and very real, eternal fire of God. Isn't that what I'm doing? Just a little better than most."
"Look where you are. Out in the open? No. You hide here like a thief, hidden from view, and you tell me your motives are just? If this is God's work, then stand in the light, for all to see!"
Barrosa bit back a retort and spun away. When he turned back again, his face was set in hard lines. "Do you think I had any choice? This was neither my invention nor my idea. Maybe you should have thought of the consequences before you showed this to the king."
"I gave the king a weapon to fight the Protestants, not a tool to gull the simple into believing they'd seen a miracle," Ramos said. He would have gone on, but Barrosa was looking past him with a grim smile.
"I am using it to fight the Protestants," said a commanding voice behind him. Ramos whirled. It was the king.
"Your Grace," Ramos said, dropping to one knee.
"You object to this charade," Philip said.