by Sarah Rayne
‘Well, I shall never recover and that’s all there is to it,’ said Father Abbot, with decision. ‘You have allowed that English robber to strip this Abbey of its most precious possessions, to say nothing of the sheepfold and afforestation income, and what I am to say to the community—Well, you’ll have to tell them. I can’t.’
Martin said, ‘The rents are not so very much. And England is a long way from here. It wouldn’t be the first time that returns had been adjusted.’
Father Abbot said aghast, ‘You would lie to Thomas Cromwell?’
‘If it meant the saving of our Abbey I would lie to Thomas Cromwell, Henry Tudor and the entire College of Cardinals,’ Martin replied. ‘I agreed to cede half the income for ten years,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t specify which ten years.’
‘Well, but—’
‘Nor,’ he continued, ‘does the Agreement bear the word “consecutive” anywhere in it.’ It was rare for the stern Brother Martin to smile, but he smiled now, his thin, stern face suddenly relaxing into mischievous delight. Father Abbot stared at him.
‘But, Brother – that is surely – bless my soul, I’m not sure what it is, except that it sounds very devious.’
‘It is devious,’ Martin agreed, leaning forward. ‘But Cheke was present at the writing of the Agreement – Ralph wrote it out for us and made two copies – and Cheke signed it and sealed it with Cromwell’s seal. He didn’t challenge the wording at all.’
‘Of course he didn’t challenge it,’ said Father Abbot, who could not recall when he had last been so shocked. ‘He didn’t know he was dealing with a master of sophistry!’
‘In England they call it being a lawyer,’ responded Martin instantly, and Father Abbot threw up his hands in frustration.
‘We aren’t going to renege on the arrangement,’ said Martin, adopting a more persuasive tone. ‘We’ll pay the dues, but we’ll do one of two things. Either we’ll pay only in the years we’ve had good returns – which could take a very long time indeed – or we’ll defer the start of the payments, for fifty or a hundred years if we can. And I don’t believe,’ said Martin, ‘that there’s a thing that anyone can do about it. Thomas Cromwell’s a lawyer and the King himself has studied law. They’ll both see the argument.’
‘Henry Tudor’s a rogue,’ said Father Abbot at once. ‘And Thomas Cromwell’s a villain. They’re already calling him Malleus monarchorum – hammer of the monks. And this is the man you think you can cheat!’ He mopped his brow and gestured weakly to the mulled wine.
‘Would you have preferred Rodger Cheke to carry tales of carousing and drunkenness back to Thomas Cromwell?’ demanded Martin, replenishing the glass.
‘See now,’ said Father Abbot, rallying, ‘you know as well as I do that that was an isolated incident. It was extremely unfortunate that Cheke and his men should choose that very minute—’
‘Wilfrid is prostrate with remorse.’
‘So I should hope,’ said Father Abbot tartly. ‘For you know quite well that we never carouse, not from one year’s end to the next. We’re a – a most abstemious House,’ said Father Abbot, drinking his mulled wine, apparently unaware of irony. ‘And it’s very unfair if we’re to be accused of laxity and forced to buy that frog-eyed Englishman’s silence.’ He looked at Martin from under his brows and added waspishly that if they were to be deprived of their Founder’s chalices, it would be no more than God’s justice on Rodger Cheke if every one of them was broken on the journey to England.
Martin said politely, ‘Would you have preferred closure, Father? Disgrace and scandal and the community made homeless?’
‘You’re a hard man, Brother Martin,’ said Father Abbot, glaring. ‘I sometimes wonder if you’ve an ounce of feeling in your entire body, because—’ He broke off as the sound of footsteps came pattering along the corridor. There was a cursory knock and the door was flung summarily open to reveal Brother Wilfrid, his plump face ashen, his hands clasped agitatedly.
‘Forgive the interruption, Father but – oh, is it you as well, Brother Martin? – well, I’m very sorry to come bursting in on you if you’re in conclave, but there’s been a, well, a terrible thing—’ Wilfrid paused to get his breath and reassemble his wits. ‘A terrible thing,’ he said again. ‘I don’t know how to say it—’
‘What—?’
‘It’s the tomb,’ said Wilfrid. ‘Father Abbot, Brother Martin, Sir Rodger Cheke’s men have forced the tomb of Ahasuerus open.’
Martin was on his feet, but Wilfrid, who had by now regained his breath, waved him back.
‘It’s no use you going down there,’ he said. ‘Because they’ve already left, they went early this morning, furtive as tomcats while we were all at Lauds, and if I’d guessed what they were up to while we were all thanking the good Lord for the new day—’
Martin and Father Abbot both said exactly together, ‘What about the tomb?’
‘Gaping open like a hungering, black-mouthed beast,’ said Wilfrid, with an unexpected note of poetical macabre, and Martin felt a cold hand brush the nape of his neck. ‘The slab forced up with no more ado than if it had been one of my pastry crusts – and with no more consideration for damage to Abbey property than you’d expect from a drunken sailor! – and the coffin scooped out like a—a mussel from its shell! Quite gone! And if you’ll kindly excuse the liberty, Father, I’d be very grateful for a mouthful of that mulled wine, because it’s been the most dreadful shock—’
Martin ladled out a measure of wine and passed it across. He looked at Father Abbot, his eyes dark with anger, but when he spoke, his voice was quite steady.
‘Cheke’s men have clearly taken far more than the bargain,’ he said. ‘I suppose they saw the tomb as some kind of valuable historical relict to present to the King.’
‘Yes, Brother, and hadn’t we the silver coffin made some years back to replace Simon of Cremona’s old one?’ put in Wilfrid who was, truth to tell, beginning to rather relish the excitement of everything. ‘It’d be valuable on its own, that coffin.’
‘It would,’ said Martin grimly. ‘Very likely we’ll find a few other things missing as well. The sacristan had better start making an inventory. That Englishman may have stripped the Abbey of everything precious it possesses.’
‘I knew it,’ wailed Father Abbot. ‘It’s the biter bit, it’s retribution on us for being devious. God’s mills grinding us into dust. He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it—I told you, Martin, I said: never trust an Englishman.’
‘So you did.’
‘The hiss of the viper and the smile of the Saxon with a knife beneath his cloak, dear me. I remember my father quoting that to me, not that Sir Rodger did smile, cold-eyed, fish-blooded creature, but he did wear a cloak—Ahasuerus’s tomb plundered, the thing we’ve all vowed to guard with our lives—yes we have, Martin – our lives, leave aside our souls—’
‘Souls don’t come into it,’ said Martin. ‘Cheke and his men can’t have got far if they only left at daybreak. And if they’ve got Ahasuerus’s silver coffin, it’ll slow them down considerably.’
‘And then there’re the chalices,’ remarked Wilfrid.
‘How did you know about that?’ said Martin sharply, and Wilfrid turned fiery red with embarrassment and said that Brother Ralph had just mentioned—
‘There’s a sight too much gossiping goes on in this monastery,’ said Father Abbot crossly. ‘Well, Martin? What are we to do?’
‘Go after them,’ said Martin, meeting his superior’s eyes straightly. ‘Follow them to England if necessary and bring Ahasuerus back.
‘Return him to the tomb before he can walk in the world again.’
Sir Rodger was very glad indeed to reach England safely. He had endured five separate bouts of vomiting on the boat as well as the indignity of purging at the same time. And as anyone who had suffered it knew, there were certain awkward practicalities involved in simultaneous vomiting and fluxing. In the end, he had been forced to crouch over a pail in a sheltered
corner of the deck, retching miserably into a pan. It was not at all the kind of thing that enabled you to exert a proper authority over your men, and Sir Rodger knew perfectly well that vulgar epithets – of which ‘Tossguts’ was the mildest – had hissed derogatorily around the boat, just out of his hearing.
But the journey was behind them now, God be thanked, and here was a very flattering invitation for a night or two’s hospitality at the house of no less a personage than the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. Quite aside from the honour, this would save Sir Rodger the price of a common lodging house before presenting himself at Greenwich and meant he would have a couple of nights’ rest and a chance to plan exactly what he should say to Master Cromwell and the King. Really, the invitation was very timely.
The Duchess received him with offhand civility. She had heard good things of Sir Rodger from Thomas Cromwell, she said, and had wanted to meet him. Sir Rodger, no innocent when it came to Henry VIII’s Court, thought: aha! the Howards trawling for likely spies to infiltrate Court again!
The wine proffered by Her Grace was so sour it nearly made him gag, but he downed it valiantly and heard that the Duchess had been acquainted with his maternal aunt.
‘You will know of her of course,’ stated Her Grace. ‘For a time she was Lady in Waiting to my poor doomed granddaughter.’
‘Granddaughter?’
‘Anne Boleyn,’ said Her Grace crossly and stumped off to tell her housekeeper that the small room on the second floor would do very well for this Warwickshire hobbledehoy; they need not bother to air it, and they were to place the gape-mouthed yokel exactly level with the salt at supper – no higher, mind! – and keep him out of the Duchess’s way because he was no more suited to be recruited as a Howard spy than the stable-cat!
Sir Rodger eyed his allotted chamber with determined gratitude. It smelt of mildew and he would have preferred the sheets to have been fresher, to say nothing of the sweeping up of the mice-droppings in the corner, but he was not going to be finicky about it, because to be given a chamber to yourself was a luxury on its own, and to be noticed at all by the House of Howard was flattering beyond expectation. It was unfortunate he had not remembered his aunt’s service with the disgraced Anne Boleyn, but doubtless it had gone unnoticed.
When he found himself allotted a place level with the salt he was sure of this. Really, things were turning out very well. The exquisite jewelled Italian chalices from Curran Glen Abbey were all safely stowed in saddle bags, along with the very good silver plate and the marble statuary. Several other things had found their way into the baggage as well: some very valuable gold candlesticks and bowls, which would adorn Sir Rodger’s house in Warwickshire, and a number of twelfth-century illuminated manuscripts which could be presented to His Majesty. The King had a scholarly turn of mind – Sir Rodger had no time for people who said rudely that Henry was becoming a bloated old tyrant – and he would be very pleased with the gift. He would be very interested as well in the curious and remarkable silver tomb that Sir Rodger’s men had carried up from the Abbey crypt under the most awkward of circumstances, and brought across the terrible Irish Sea. The silver coffin alone would be immensely valuable, leave aside what other artefacts they might find sealed inside it. He would instruct his men to lever it open but he would wait until tomorrow, because if you were opening up an ancient coffin you wanted daylight when you did it.
Sir Rodger Cheke, pleased with himself and with life, ate his dinner in this exalted house, drank the wine poured for him and prepared to enjoy the music of a travelling minstrel who was about to play for the company’s pleasure, and who was eyeing the saucy-eyed, red-haired minx at the Duchess’s side with undisguised interest. Sir Rodger, not to be caught out a second time, demanded of his near neighbour who was that pretty child, and learned that it was yet another of Her Grace’s granddaughters.
‘Edmund’s girl,’ said the neighbour. ‘Catherine Howard.’
‘Ah? Indeed?’
‘Due to go to Court next week. I shouldn’t be surprised,’ said Sir Rodger’s neighbour, ‘if she didn’t catch a few people’s eye.’
Sir Rodger thought he would not be surprised either.
Catherine Howard had heard with pleasure the news that a travelling minstrel was at the gates, asking if he might entertain them at supper. Grandmother had given permission – a little music would cheer them all up, she had said – and Catherine, who liked music, had been pleased. There might be a new song or two that she could learn and play at Court next week. It was an immense honour to go to Court to be in the Queen’s household; Grandmother had said she was to hold her head as high as anyone, never mind that it was that great, ungainly Flanders mare whose service she would be in, and she must behave with the dignity suitable to her family, even when it was only Anne of Cleves who occupied the place alongside the King. Catherine was a bit light when it came to dignity, said Grandmother reprovingly, but providing she did not forget herself with any unsuitable young men at Court, there was no saying what might be ahead, said Her Grace with the cunning of one who fifteen-odd years earlier had seen one granddaughter rise to undreamed-of heights and did not see why a second could not do the same. It was unfortunate that the first granddaughter had met that ignominious end on Tower Hill, but the Duchess was inclined to blame the sire rather than the dam there: Anne’s mother had been the Duchess’s own beloved daughter and clearly blameless, while Tom Boleyn was the descendant of upstart Norfolk mercers and nobody that anyone had really heard of. What was in the meat came out in the gravy. Anyway so long as Catherine remembered not to mention her dead cousin, and especially not in the hearing of the King or the Queen, she would do very well, said the Duchess firmly.
Catherine quite saw that you did not, if you had the least shred of self-preservation, emphasise your kinship with a lady found guilty of adultery and incest against a King of England, particularly when the King was Henry VIII. There were rumours that he had never really got over Anne’s wantonness and that he sometimes moaned her name in his sleep, but nobody believed this last, because whoever else Henry Tudor might call for in the night watches, it would certainly not be his faithless murdered Queen.
Grandmother had instructed the minstrel to play some of the good old tunes tonight; they did not want die-away dirges more fit for a funeral than for a Christian table, she said tartly, and they would have something to cheer them up.
‘Whatever you wish, madam.’ He had an odd way of speaking; English, but with a lilt at the ends of words. Italian, was it? The Italians were rather attractive. The minstrel was rather attractive. Catherine eyed him speculatively.
He played the most beautiful music she had ever heard. To begin with, he sang about the old days of England, when it had been called by other names, and travellers and mariners had seen it as an island of magic and enchantment. He sang of the days when men could talk to beasts and spirits lived in trees and magic stalked the earth. Lovely! thought Catherine. Lovely to hear about the world when it was sparkly new, when there were no bewildering changes of worship so that you were not sure if it was safe to admit to a Catholic upbringing, and when you did not have to worry about letting slip the name of a fascinating, disgraced cousin in the King’s hearing, or even whether Grandmother might discover that you were not as chaste as you were supposed to be.
Catherine was not precisely surprised when the minstrel sought her out after everyone had gone to bed, although she was a bit taken aback that he should have done it so soon. In Catherine’s experience you played a game of flirting first: you exchanged languishing looks, and then you progressed to hand-clasps, the apparently accidental brushing of a hand against a breast or a thigh. From there you went on to stolen meetings in shrubberies or music rooms where nobody ever went, or sweet-scented apple orchards in the drowsy heat of a summer’s afternoon where you explored one another’s bodies more intimately, and where there were any number of delicious conclusions that could be reached.
The minstrel had clearly surveyed
the terrain before making the tryst, and Catherine, slipping through the door of the rather gloomy book-room where Howard ladies had occasionally retired to write a letter or nurse a headache or meet a lover, thought he had chosen well. Nobody was going to come in here at this time of the night.
The minstrel was standing beneath one of the burning wall brackets, and the flame fell across his hair, turning it into an aureole of radiance. His cheekbones slanted upwards, giving his face a three-cornered faintly feline look. And if I look hard enough, thought Catherine, with a sudden prickle of fear, I believe I might find that his ears are pointed.
She did not do so. She stood just inside the door and folded her hands and looked at him with the demure smile that was not demure at all, and waited.
The minstrel said in his soft beautiful voice, ‘My lady, I am here to fulfil a promise made many years ago.’
‘A promise?’ This was intriguing, even if it was not quite what Catherine had been expecting. She said, ‘What promise?’
He paused, studying her, and then said, ‘That as soon as I judged you sufficiently mature, I should give to you this.’ And held out a lute, worn smooth with age, polished to a deep mellow sheen with usage.
‘It is very old indeed,’ he said sitting on the deep window-seat, the shutters drawn against the night and the light from the wall sconces falling more directly across his face. Catherine could see now that he was older than she had thought. He would certainly not see thirty again, and he might not even see forty. By ordinary standards this was quite old, but old was not a word you could apply to him. Ordinary was certainly not a word you could apply either.
She said abruptly, ‘I don’t know your name.’
‘Nicolas.’ He gave it the Italian emphasis.
‘Nicolas. You have – no other name?’
‘Not one that matters.’
‘I see.’ Catherine did not see at all, and this whole thing was beginning to take on a dreamlike quality. She said, ‘Please tell me about the lute.’
The minstrel said, ‘Four hundred years ago the lute belonged to my ancestress, who brought it out of Cremona. She was a lady of very great beauty and courage and there is a tale that she bargained with the devil for his music and that the devil succumbed.’