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

by Clive S. Johnson

  “It’s not only its potency, though, Rodrigo, but its rarity. Uncommon even in its own lands, to have it for use in Moorish hands so far from there renders it rarer still than hen’s teeth.”

  At last, Rodrigo stirred and turned a jaundiced eye upon Jusuf. “So your master’s master is unlikely just to shrug off its loss and console himself with ordering more siege engines be built.”

  “Far from it. They’ll come looking for me once the Nao Providência returns to Cueta without me, and once no tidings of plague reach the ears of their spies. They’ll search me out to recover their crowning weapon, so it can be aimed once again at the heart of Christendom—unless…”

  Rodrigo only lofted his brows.

  “Unless such prospect be made impossible in their eyes.”

  “Impossible?”

  “For its whereabouts to have gone with me beyond all earthly knowing. But, seeing your heed of Mistress Trewin and her unborn babe has stayed your actual hand in this, it now only leaves its fatal blow to be played out in a story told.”

  “A story told?”

  “Convince them I was swiftly taken by some ague of this country’s cold winter, and with it thereby the whereabouts of my burden. There would then be no profit in sending their agents here to Cornwall, for it could never be found without me.”

  “So,” Rodrigo drew out, clearly thinking the idea through, “this is your favour of me: that I deliver either—your death actual or death feigned.” When Jusuf only nodded, Rodrigo sat for some time, staring into the dying embers of the charcoal as the rain thundered down more heavily on the roof of the forge.

  Eventually, he slowly nodded, his eyes searching out Jusuf’s. “I do not forget the debt I owe you for my life, Jusuf al-Haddad. I thought it would be for ever writ upon my heart, but now, by granting you your own, that debt will have been settled, and I will owe you nothing more.”

  A simple curt nod from Jusuf sealed their deal, although bitter regret filled his heart.

  “Very well,” Rodrigo said, “then you’d better have died somewhere other than Bodmyn, just in case they don’t believe me. I’ll say we were on our way to seek work in Falmouth when you succumbed to the wet and cold and soon died in Truro, buried in a pauper’s grave.”

  “When we do part company, then, you’d best take my gold ring. My master will know it. It’ll add weight to your claim.” Jusuf raised the distinctive ring to his gaze, wondering how difficult it might be to remove. Its loss would be a great regret, he knew, for it was the only memento left him of another woman for whom he’d sacrificed all.

  Then he caught sight of Gwenna, sitting patiently on the far side of the hearth, leaving him perplexed he’d not seen her enter. He stared at her, wondering if his thoughts of sacrifice had somehow conjured her before nothing more than his own mind’s eye.

  “Well?” she said. “What happened?” but Jusuf felt a single tear trace a chill path down his cheek, his heart now leaden at Rodrigo’s friendship lost. At first, his words wouldn’t come, not until alarm flooded Kate’s face.

  “I’m… I’m sorry,” he almost wept and shot unsteadily to his feet. Grabbing his cigarettes, he turned for the door but then stopped. “I just need a moment to myself, Kate. Don’t worry; I’ll be all right,” and he stumbled out into the late summer evening air.

  Colin fumbled a cigarette from its packet but failed to find his lighter. A familiar rasp came from behind him and he turned to find his lit Zippo in Kate’s outstretched hand.

  “Do you still want to be left alone?” she said, once he’d lit up.

  He shook his head and Kate slowly embraced him, squeezing some reassurance into his chilled bones. And there they remained whilst Colin’s untouched cigarette burned down between his fingers, until Kate’s warmth steeled his heart enough for him to summon the words he needed to tell his tale.

  They retreated to the warmth of the chalet once Colin had finished. Kate’s pad still lay untouched on the table, beside the joss stick holder, clearly forgotten.

  “Shit,” was all she found to say.

  They both sat down, facing each other across the table, the holder menacingly between them.

  After a stunned silence, Kate nodded at the thing. “But there’s no trace of glass about it.”

  “No,” Colin agreed, lowering his gaze and once again peering minutely through its many holes. “Not now. But was there?” He then breathed a sigh of relief. “It can’t be Jusuf’s plague-burden. If it was, then it’s no longer as it started out, for there’s definitely no glass left, and so its plague must have escaped, which we know can’t be true.”

  He sat back and stared at Kate. “I mean, does it really look like their equivalent of a nuclear bomb? Because that’s in effect what his burden was. Bigger even, if it genuinely could have wiped out the whole of Christendom back then.”

  “Far more now, Colin. Just think about it. Think of the free and fast movement people have about the world today, flying here and there on holiday and business; the vast amount of trade there is compared with back then. And Jusuf’s description of it makes it sound a lot like those outbreaks they had in Africa, back in seventy-six.”

  “Oh yeah. What was it called?”

  Kate couldn’t remember, but thought it’d something to do with the name of the river near the village where it started. “If I recall,” she said, “because they couldn’t treat it, there was some talk of it spreading unstoppably to the rest of the world, even from its remote corner of Africa. I know Cornwall’s not exactly an international hub, but imagine if it got out here. It wouldn’t take long for the millions of grockles who holiday here to carry it to places like London. Then it’d be just a few short hops to becoming a worldwide epidemic.”

  “Well,” Colin said, “at least this holder isn’t his burden. I’m pretty sure of that now. But it must mean it’s still out there somewhere, still hidden in Cornwall. Oh, and we still don’t know what Jusuf needs us to do, but it’s got to be about keeping his burden safe. It just has to be.”

  “Ah, right,” Kate said, lowering her gaze. “Sorry about this, but there was something else I couldn’t help asking just before you stuck the joss stick in. Something I clearly got answered, though.”

  Colin could only gawp at her.

  “It was just this issue of me and Gwenna being linked, you know, through our bloodline.” Colin was mystified. “Her being barren bugged me. It would have meant I couldn’t have been a direct descendent, only through a relative, which doesn’t seem nearly direct enough for what’s been happening.”

  “Right. I see what you mean. Yeah, fair point, but now we know—she wasn’t barren at all. More to the point, though, it’s what finally decided Jusuf to stay here, and with him his blasted burden.”

  “A plague that’ll stay active for a thousand years, Colin. Remember? A thousand years.”

  “But still safe in its hiding place.”

  “Or will it be?”

  “Eh?”

  “If that was true then why the phantasms, and why your conviction that Jusuf had something he needed us to do?”

  “And something I reckon he’s not yet aware of, himself.”

  “Uh?”

  “He’s still no idea we’re spying on him; thinks his vision of you came from their past, not their future, just like his grandad’s ‘Songs of Our Forebears’. Something’s yet to happen, Kate, I’m sure of it. Something that’ll make the penny drop for Jusuf, and that something is what we need to find out next. I just need you to be as convinced of it as I am the next time I light a joss stick,” and he stared down at the holder again.

  “Ebola,” he said. “That was its name; I remember now.” But he felt happier that the thing before him wasn’t a fifteenth-century Ebola equivalent of Nuclear Armageddon. He knew full well, though, that such a deadly thing still lay hidden somewhere not a million miles away, hidden but somehow not safe at all.

  31 Mould

  Jusuf was in something of a daze, following his disc
ourse with Brother Cagan at Saint Petroc’s. He was trying to remember all the man had told him as he approached the doorway out from the nave of the church into its porch. Huddling closer into his coat, in preparation for the midwinter cold without, he didn’t at first recognise the robed figure also going that way, arms laden with rolls of parchment.

  “Ah, well met, Jusuf al-Haddad,” Dom Francisco’s confident tones cut to Jusuf before being swallowed by the large space of the nave. The Dom’s intelligent eyes held Jusuf in their gaze for a moment, across the top of the parchments. “If I could prevail upon you?” he said as he stood before the closed door.

  “Of course, Dom Francisco,” and Jusuf opened it for him.

  “Here measuring up for some work or other?” the Dom asked, jerking his arms to stop some of his load from slipping.

  Jusuf stared at him for a moment. “Oh, no. Some other business with Brother Cagan, Dom Francisco.”

  “Oh yes,” and the Dom’s eyes briefly narrowed before he stepped through into the porch. Jusuf followed him. “If you wouldn’t mind again?” and the Dom nodded at a side door within the porch.

  Jusuf swung this door open for him too, revealing a tight curve of steeply rising steps within.

  “There’s another at the top if I could press you into sparing me the time,” and Dom Francisco nodded up the staircase.

  It proved a bit of a squeeze for Jusuf’s large frame, and somewhat dizzying as he carefully trod up the triangular treads, pushing open a small door at the top. It opened into an airy and bright cell, a narrow window-opening in the far wall and a square mullioned one to his left. The still day’s low winter sun slanted through this and into his eyes. The air in here had even more of that sharp edge to it that so reminded Jusuf of his childhood winters in the Rif mountains.

  Dom Francisco had hurried to a large sloping desk in the centre of the room, onto which he spilled his burden. One of the parchments rolled off, falling at Jusuf’s feet. He bent and retrieved it, returning the yellowed document to its fellows.

  “Thank you, Jusuf al-Haddad.” The Dom then sat on the desk’s bench and began sorting through the pile.

  Jusuf was about to take his leave when Dom Francisco said, “An accommodating man, our Brother Cagan. I did expect a little reluctance, I must admit, but he seemed quite keen to share his wealth of knowledge with me.” There seemed a delight in the Dom’s eyes, a warm smile playing about his mouth. Jusuf found himself relaxing a little in the man’s reassuring presence.

  He stepped nearer the mullion window and stared out at the sharp outlines of the rooftops of Bodmyn below. The creak of a wagon came to his hearing, the top of its load slowly passing beyond the churchyard wall bordering the road to Liskeard. A cry of greeting cut through the thin air from somewhere further towards the town, a reply lost to the distance.

  “I trust the brother proved just as helpful to your good self, Jusuf al-Haddad?”

  “The brother? Oh, yes. Indeed, Dom Francisco. Most helpful, but it’s still all new to me.”

  “New?”

  “Hmm? Oh, I mean this business of…” Jusuf turned and stared into the Dom’s eyes, seeing a welcome there. “I am to take baptism, Dom Francisco, into your Christian Church.”

  “Well, well; that is good to hear.”

  “But there are many things I’m required to accept; things I need to think hard about.”

  “Indeed. That I can well imagine. But I’m pleased to hear you are seeking sanctuary in our Lord’s teachings, Jusuf. Or… Or is there a more earthly imperative, I wonder. A cause pursuant to a certain smithy’s mistress, perhaps?”

  Jusuf shot him a guarded glance.

  “Sit here with me, Jusuf al-Haddad,” and the Dom patted the bench beside him as he shuffled up to make room.

  When Jusuf had sat down, Dom Francisco turned his placid face to him and placed his hand on top of Jusuf’s. “I know I should not speak this aloud, but our Christian Lord has ever had a place in your Muslim faith. Islam has always held the Prophet *s ibn Marym in high esteem, Jusuf, as I’m sure you already know. Our Lord Jesu is rightly recognised as the Muslim prophet who came before your own and final Muhammad; that our Lord’s holy teachings did pave the way for his own.”

  “It is so, Dom Francisco. You know your Quran well,” and Jusuf’s respect for the Dom strengthened, but more so at the ease with which he spoke his words rather than their bare meaning.

  “Your conversion to our Christian faith need not be seen as a betrayal of your Islam one, my friend, but a settling of your spiritual eyes upon its earlier teachings. After all, it was from the holy words of *s ibn Marym, our Lord Jesus Christ, that your own prophet’s wisdom came. And so, through a Christian faith, may you still honour Allah.”

  Jusuf’s mouth hung loose, a clarity and an appeasement of his closely felt guilt cascading through his previously troubled mind like a mountain stream. Before he could express his gratitude for the Dom’s thoughtful words, the man patted Jusuf’s hand, removed his own and leant away a little.

  “But my understanding, from no more than a passing interest, of course, is that the mistress be still wed.”

  “Ah, yes, indeed so, Dom Francisco,” Jusuf said, lowering his voice, “but there are some who were with her husband at Blackheath who have recently come forward with accounts born of freshly revived memories. It seems there are three who now have clear recall of his passing from this world.”

  “How…how fortunate, Senhor Jusuf. Clearly a sign of God’s own benevolence; of His bestowing His gift of Grace upon your forthcoming betrothal. And I assume these previously forgetful fellows are at last willing to offer such witness?” to which Jusuf nodded, briefly hiding his face from Dom Francisco’s knowing smile.

  “Well,” the Dom wondered, “perhaps it’s the proximity of the venerable Saint Petroc’s bones that has brought you such beneficence.” When Jusuf only stared blankly at him, Dom Francisco grinned and tapped the parchments before him, drawing Jusuf’s attention.

  “I came all this way from Mosteiro de Santa Maria de Alcobaça to study the renowned Bodmyn Gospels, scripted here in this very priory. To feast my eyes, Jusuf, upon its now five-hundred-year-old recounting. Although, I suspect I have seen intimations of a Breton hand in parts. But be that as it may, my journey has proven wonderfully… Well, illuminating,” and he let out a single laugh at his own jest.

  “But Saint Petroc’s bones, Dom Francisco?”

  “Hmm? Oh, yes. Now where was I? Of course, the patron saint of this and I believe a few other churches hereabouts. Did you know the venerable saint’s remains were stolen from this very church? Well, not this new one, but the one that was here before it.”

  Jusuf shook his head.

  “Apparently, a canon by the name of Martyn was bribed by a house in Brittany—the abbey of Saint Méem’s of Mevenus at Laon—to steal the relic away into their hands. That was long ago, though: in the year of our Lord one thousand, one hundred and seventy seven.”

  “But you said…”

  “The loss was eventually noticed, Jusuf, finally getting to the ear of the then King Henry. Irate, he threatened—as only a wrathful king can—the abbot of Mevenus, who soon relented and had the relics returned. They were sent back here in an ivory cask, in way of appeasement, although missing a rib—I wouldn’t, though, go so far as to say in way of apology, as this letter from the shameless abbot to Prior Roger makes abundantly clear.”

  He tapped the sheet of parchment in question, drawing it once more to Jusuf’s notice. This time, at the disturbance, its wax seal slid from the sheet and dropped over the edge of the desk, hanging by its cut tongue of parchment.

  Jusuf stared at the seal, his brows furrowing, then at Dom Francisco.

  “Is something wrong, Senhor Jusuf?”

  “Wrong?”

  “You seem distracted.”

  Jusuf lifted the heavy seal in his hand, gently rubbing a thumb over its surface. “I’ve not seen a seal since landing on these shores, Dom
Francisco, but this one looks different from the ones common in my own land. Is it fashioned from something other than beeswax?”

  “Ah, I see. No, Senhor Jusuf, bar some minor differences in elements they are the same. It’s just that this one is so very old.”

  “But I have seen a couple reputed to be just as old before and they’ve never looked anything like this, not at all as dull and chalky.”

  Dom Francisco laughed, but not unkindly. “You have much to learn of these cold and wet northern lands, my friend. Much to learn. Here, things are subject to all manner of spoiling rarely seen in our fairer lands. Here, they seldom dry out fully, and so are apt to become invaded by all manner of moulds.”

  “But I was led to believe sealing wax remained unchanged by the passage of time, like…like glass.”

  “In the hot, dry south, yes, but not here, Jusuf. Here, it’s made brittle by such moulds as this. Like so,” and he took the seal from Jusuf and easily broke a small piece from its edge.

  Jusuf drew in a sharp breath, his eyes wide and staring at the crumbs in Dom Francisco’s outstretched palm.

  “It seems important to you,” Dom Francisco noted, but Jusuf hardly heard, so furiously were his thoughts now tumbling through his mind.

  32 Down Through the Unfolding Years

  Having mentioned the work awaiting him at the smithy, Jusuf left Dom Francisco to his studies and returned to the porch. Cold air caught in his throat as he stepped out and along the path beside the church. Although his mind lay elsewhere, something he passed lying on the grass caught his eye. He stopped and bent to pick up a fallen branch, deadwood from the churchyard’s trees, its black and sodden bark encrusted with a velvet-like bloom of greys and yellows and whites.

  “Mould,” he said to himself and shook his head. “Only three hundred years of it eating into that document’s seal and Dom Francisco could already so easily crumble it between his fingers.”

  He thought back to the glass phial in which the plague had been trapped, at the length of its neck he’d seen filled with sealing wax. “About twice the thickness of the abbot’s seal,” he reckoned.