The Forebear's Candle: A time travel mystery and love story set against the intrigue of Henry Tudor's England

by Clive S. Johnson

  Before he could raise the issue of what question they needed to pose of his next phantasm, their morning’s walk began to make some unexpected sense. A sense that was other than its simple pleasures of sights and sounds and scents, other than the invigoration of its healthy exercise. It seemed to Colin that it had contained a lesson, one he needed to heed.

  “It’s odd, isn’t it?” he finally said to Kate. “How so much of the world comes in pairs; you know, from little things like the two wings of a butterfly to the big ones like good and evil; with everything conceivable in between, like our left and right hands, men and women, and the land and the sea. We’re even in one of a Siamese twin of villages, for heaven’s sake.”

  Kate at first only stared at Colin, her glass paused at her lips, then her eyes narrowed a touch.

  “And how sometimes,” Colin went on, “we walk a fine line between the two, like our walk along the coast this morning: the land of Cornwall on one side, the Atlantic Ocean on the other. And how, within the here-and-now, we’ve touched so intimately upon an Iron Age hillfort, a late medieval church, an Early English chapel, an eighteenth century folly, and an historically recent wartime gun emplacement. You know, Kate,” he now said quite quietly, “we unknowingly walk a fine line between the past and the present.”

  When Colin looked at Kate again, her glass still hovered before her lips, but lips that were lightly parted. She blinked and they silently snapped shut.

  “Colin,” she carefully said, putting her glass down, “you didn’t by any chance have a sneaky spliff before we left this morning, did you? You’re not going to get on to Yin and Yang, and Cheech and Chong, are you?”

  He grinned at her, a little sheepishly. “Until just now I was going to suggest our most important question of my next phantasm would have to have been what that damned joss stick holder’s all about. But our walk today has taught me that there’s something even more important.”

  “Which is?”

  “Which is, my dearest love, why Jusuf has gone to all the trouble of breaching that normally inviolable line between the past and the present: ‘What, in God’s name, does he want with us?’,” and at that, he raised his glass to his lips and sank half his pint of beer.

  “Well, it was probably more likely in Allah’s name, but be that as it may, there’s also…” but then she shrugged, her gaze stolen away by the view across Cawsand Bay. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re probably right,” she finally said without looking at him.

  “You don’t agree?”

  “No, no I do; you are right. I can see that. But then it’s…well, it is only a feeling you had, that he wanted us to do something for him. We’ve nothing concrete to support that idea. But if that’s what you want, then it’s fine by me. How the hell I’m going to formulate it in my own mind so it’s ‘Targeted’, though, I’ve no idea.”

  “Well, if I go back there again this evening, after we’ve eaten, that’ll give us the rest of the day to come up with some ideas.”

  Kate nodded. “Okay.”

  After they’d leisurely drunk up, they spent a couple of hours wandering the byways of both ancient villages, sampling ice-cream and window shopping in the various craft shops. Finally, they made their long way back up the road to where they’d parked the car. Before Colin unlocked its doors, though, he stared out across Whitsand Bay, to a grey line of land now visible along the furthest horizon.

  “Is that the Lizard?” he asked Kate and pointed.

  “Er…yeah, that’s it.”

  “The most southerly point of mainland Britain,” Colin said whilst wondering what it had really been that had driven Michael An Gof, the blacksmith, to leave his parish of Saint Keverne and march to his death at Blackheath. And again, Colin felt that thin line between the here-and-now and the past once more blur, if only a little, and if only for the briefest of moments.

  29 Deceit

  The forge had become Jusuf’s favourite place to be, now the summer had given way to autumn, the only one other than his bed where he really felt warm. Outside, the rain lashed down, having already turned the road into a river.

  He grabbed a horseshoe in his tongs from its bed of whitely-glowing charcoal and turned it over, judging its orange glow as being no more than that of a quarter-hour-to-sunset sun. Another minute or so and he swiftly rested it, the yellow-white of an hour after dawn, against the anvil’s horn, striking it repeatedly with his hammer. Then it was straight back into the charcoal until its colour once again looked right.

  Thrusting a long-handled spike sharply through one of its cleat holes, Jusuf carried it quickly through to a stallion hitched to the post in the barn, the beast still contentedly eating from its nosebag.

  “Here we are, my beauty,” he soothed as he ran his free hand down the horse’s off-hind fetlock and caught the lifted hoof. He offered up the shoe, now clearly a perfect fit, before resting the horse’s pastern against his leather-aproned thigh and pressing the hot iron home. A fizzle of horn blew out swirls of blue smoke that drifted about Jusuf’s head as he squinted through it all at his work. Then he drew the cooling shoe away and dropped it to an abrupt hiss in a nearby bucket of water.

  He groaned as he straightened and looked out through the open doors at the rain, shivering at the sight, hoping Rodrigo hadn’t got drenched. When he lifted the shoe from the water, he found it had cooled enough and so reached into his apron pocket for some cleats.

  Before long, the new shoe had been nailed snuggly to the stallion’s hoof, deft strokes of a file smoothing off the points left protruding from its wall. A quick brush of neatsfoot oil brought the horn to a glossy finish and removed the parings that had got into the frog, the job well and truly done.

  “Master Trefowlin?” he called towards the door through to Mistress Trewin’s cottage as he wiped his hands on a rag. “Your lordship’s stallion be ready.”

  The horse finally put its weight on its new shoe, lifted its tail to one side and defecated onto the stone floor, steam rising from the dull-green pile of dung. Just then, the cottage door opened and a portly man squeezed through into the barn, Gwenna behind him.

  “Thank ‘e for the oatcake an’ ale,” the man said over his shoulder, but his gaze was already upon his master’s horse. An expert eye appraised the hoof, which was lifted for inspection, and he nodded approvingly.

  “His lordship were well pleased with her ladyship’s mare, ‘specially after all this sucking mud we’ve had.” he said, lowering the hoof and straightening to face Jusuf. “Feather in your cap he’s sent you his prize stallion, Master Joseph. I think you’ll be seeing more of his mounts. Oh, and his lordship instructed me to settle up a bit more than we agreed, as a mark of his gratitude, which I’ve already done wi’ Mistress Trewin.”

  Jusuf smiled and nodded his thanks, then removed the horse’s nosebag and unhitched it. Once Master Trefowlin had fastened his coat tightly about himself Jusuf handed him the lead rope. The man then pulled a wide-brimmed hat down over his head and grinned at Jusuf.

  “Good to find a blacksmith who handles horses so well,” and he leant a little closer, “without need of a stick or switch, eh?” He winked before curtly nodding and lashing tight the neck of his coat.

  As he led the stallion out into the rain, Gwenna came beside Jusuf. “Ah, a bit more goodness for our vegetables,” she said, and Jusuf turned to see her take up a shovel.

  “No, Gwenna, I’ll do that. There be quite a pile, and you ought to be staying in the dry,” but she pushed him out of the way and bent to the still steaming dung.

  “I be no weakling, Jusuf, and I certainly ain’t ailing. So out of the way wi’ thee,” and she scraped up the stallion’s gift for the garden.

  Jusuf caught himself and stood back, watching as she brushed the excess onto the shovel and carried it two-handed to the back door. As it closed behind her, Rodrigo’s voice startled him.

  “Lover’s tiff?”

  When Jusuf turned his narrowed stare to him, he found Rodrigo standing just insi
de the barn’s doorway, a broad grin across his face, but the eyes within looked clouded.

  “Eh?” Jusuf could only find to say.

  “Come on, my friend. I’m not blind, you know. Ever since I got back from Saint Winnow you’ve both been—”

  The back door opened and Mistress Trewin hurried in, shaking water from her skirts.

  “Ah, Master Rodrigo. You ought to be out of that coat and getting yourself dry,” she called. “You’ll catch your death like that,” and he looked down at the puddle about his feet. “I’ll go get you something hot,” she said before replacing the shovel and vanishing through into her cottage.

  Rodrigo stamped his feet on a dry patch of floor before coming in fully and taking off his coat. He hung it up to dry on one of the coat hooks and took up a brush, quickly sweeping both the stain of horse muck and the mud from his boots out into the road.

  As he placed the brush back against the wall, he quietly said, “It’s your own business, of course, but it seems to me you’ve been a bit more out of sorts these past two weeks.” By now he’d turned Jusuf a concerned look.

  Jusuf stared at him for a moment, seeing a valued friend he’d hardly treated as such, not when it came to the really important things—like trust. He shivered in the cold damp air gusting in from the rain and drew in a long breath as he glanced at the cottage door.

  “You’d best come through to the forge,” he said and led the way into its gloom.

  He drew two chairs up to the hearth, offering one to Rodrigo, then sat heavily in his own. His friend held his hands out to the heat, rubbing them together as they warmed. They quietly sat like this for a while as Jusuf tried to sort through his thoughts, then Gwenna came in with a bowl of hot pottage.

  “Here we be, Master Rodrigo. Get yourself around this. Do you want some, too,” she aimed at Jusuf, but he shook his head and thanked her for the offer. “Then I’ll get back to me sewing,” she said, a small frown sent Jusuf’s way. When he imperceptibly nodded, she wiped her hands on her apron and nodded back herself, a glance at Rodrigo before she quietly withdrew. The sound of the cottage door softly closing soon came to their ears.

  Jusuf gave Rodrigo time to eat, time he spent fruitlessly choosing his words. Eventually, his now unaccustomed Arabic slipped unguardedly from his mouth of its own accord.

  “Mistress Trewin is with child.”

  Rodrigo froze, spoon in hand, eyes wide and upon Jusuf. Then the man swallowed with difficulty before his mouth dropped open.

  “Yes, it is mine, my friend,” Jusuf answered to the unspoken question.

  “But,” was all Rodrigo could summon.

  “Clearly Gwenna’s womb was not made barren, after all,” and Jusuf sighed, “so the blame has to be laid at the feet of her husband’s weak seed. I did wonder: him being an only child; like father, like son, eh?” and Jusuf leant forward towards the heat and rubbed his face with his large black hands.

  “When…”

  “This is her second missed bleed,” Jusuf said, lifting his hands away to speak, and he could see Rodrigo counting on his fingers.

  “April then?”

  “Unless my own seed proves weak, not that it has before.”

  “Due when the captain could turn up at any time.”

  Jusuf shot Rodrigo a pained look. “I cannot abandon her, my friend. I cannot. If I survive this damned cold land’s winter, then I must be here for her. I must provide for them both.”

  “But what of Santander? Of your burden-of-a-gift to Castilla y León? Your master in Ceuta?”

  Jusuf sat up, his jaw set firm as he searched Rodrigo’s eyes. “Which brings me to a great favour I need ask of you; a favour I fear you will deny me when you hear of my deceit.”

  “Deceit?”

  After taking in a deep breath and slowly releasing it, Jusuf turned his gaze to the crackling and now amber charcoal, the lash of rain on the roof of the forge bringing a shiver to his back. His chair creaked as he shifted uneasily.

  “When I set out from Ceuta with you, you were just one of the Christian infidels, one of the enemies of Allah. You and the captain believed I carried a weapon to strike only at the heart of Castilla y León, at the heart of a troublesome neighbour not just of the Saracen world but also of Portugal. But my burden, Rodrigo, would have struck far wider than that…far, far wider.”

  The suspicion that had taken a hold of Rodrigo’s face hurt Jusuf in a way he’d once never believed a Christian’s look could ever have done. It made him feel dirty, unworthy of the man’s friendship.

  “What is your burden, Jusuf al-Haddad? Really. What did we aid you in bringing to our Christian lands?”

  Jusuf drew his lips to a thin line and stared through Rodrigo.

  “Plague, Rodrigo. Plague.”

  “Plague?”

  “Of the sort never before seen here in these northern lands, not even in my own land of al-Maghrib. It was brought at great cost over hundreds of leagues out of a country far south of my own, far down where people are few and far between, isolated in their villages within the great forests there. It is a heinous affliction, an unstoppable curse that draws the organs of the body as a suppurating mass through every bodily orifice, that soon erupts through ones it creates itself.”

  “And you’ve seen this for yourself?” Rodrigo’s face now showed true horror.

  “I said it had been brought north at great cost, a cost I have seen with my own eyes. A cost I risked myself when I was set to oversee its preserving and imprisoning within its glass phial.”

  “I now see you’re a man of far wider knowledge than would be expected of a simple blacksmith, and clearly well-versed in the arts of subterfuge.” Rodrigo got up and went to stand in the opening through to the barn, as though distancing himself. Eventually, he stared back at Jusuf.

  “Unstoppable, you said. So it would have crossed the mountains into Portugal?” Jusuf nodded, unable to speak the words. “And so where would it have ended, eh, Jusuf? At the northern shores of the Eastern Sea, perhaps?”

  “At my successful return, or at the first tidings of the plague itself, my master’s master, and all rulers along the northern coasts of our lands, would have barred their ports to trade. No ship would have been allowed in until the following spring, by which time the cold northern winter would have destroyed what was left of the plague. Leaving the way clear for an invasion by the combined forces of Allah; may his providence forgive me my sins.”

  “Would? You keep saying ‘Would have’,” but at Jusuf’s silence, Rodrigo came and stood before him, his head turned away slightly as he clearly came to a realisation. “You’ve already decided, haven’t you, Jusuf?” he said in a softer tone, “not to strike with your lethal weapon.” He bent and placed his hands on the arms of Jusuf’s chair and stared him in the face. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be telling me this now. So, has it taken a Christian woman’s charms to bring you to this?”

  Jusuf looked up into Rodrigo’s eyes. “Not just one woman, nor one man,” and he grasped Rodrigo’s arm, the man flinching, “but all those I have come to know here. All those Christians who have accepted this Blackamoor so readily into their midst. You and they it has been who have shown me that we are no different, that good and bad reside here in no greater part than amongst us Arabs and Moors.”

  “And your plague would have travelled this far, would it? All the way to Cornwall?”

  “To the borders of Christendom.”

  Rodrigo snatched his arm from Jusuf’s grip and clapped his hand to his head as he turned away, staring at the darkened roof above him. Then he turned sharply back to Jusuf. “Where is your plague-burden now, Jusuf? Where is this work of the Devil? Not still up in the loft’s rafters above our pallets, I hope.”

  “It’s been far away and safe for a while, Rodrigo. Where no one can stumble upon it.”

  “Thank sweet Jesu for that. And don’t tell me where, Jusuf. I don’t want to know. Take that sinful knowledge with you to your grave.”

&
nbsp; “A grave I now know must be here in Cornwall’s soil, one way or another; whichever way you choose to grant me that favour I mentioned.”

  “Ah, yes. That. Well, go on, then. Tell me what need you have of me that will keep Christendom safe.” and Rodrigo stepped back a pace, a wary look still in his eyes.

  “If you no longer trust me, my friend,” Jusuf told him, spreading his arms wide to lay open his breast, “then your favour to me must be to strike me down right now, and so consign the Devil amongst you to its long and lonely imprisonment; to kill me for the sake of your beloved Christ and all his followers.”

  Rodrigo remained silent, his gaze pinned to Jusuf’s breast, his hand already at his belt, upon its dagger’s hilt. His words came hesitantly and quietly then, as though roused from deep within a dream: “Aye, it would truly be just for all His faithful followers—all but Mistress Trewin and her unborn babe,” and he turned his back on Jusuf, turned his back and slowly shook his head, his hand no longer at his knife.

  His shoulders lifted as he clearly took in a deep breath, then he asked, “So, Jusuf al-Haddad, bringer of great evil to our lands, what is the nature of the favour you have been brought to ask of me? A favour I would have given before without the slightest thought, whatever you would have asked, but which I now may need some time to consider.”

  30 Armageddon

  “My plague-burden, as you called it, is of immeasurable value,” Jusuf said when Rodrigo had seated himself once more in his chair. “A wealth greater than all the amassed riches of all the Muslim worlds. The greatest weapon of war, needing only a single thrust, its fatal wound then likely seen as no more than an act of your own God’s retribution. A natural calamity, and so without blame of man nor nation.”

  Rodrigo ominously kept his own counsel as he stared into the embers of the forge’s hearth.