Twilight of Queens: A Tudor Tragedy (Tudor Crimes Book 8)

by Anne Stevens

  “I swear,” Richard Cromwell says through a swig of cooling water, “that I have never seen the like of it before. Our priest is a man after my own heart, only cleverer!”

  The rest are within the confines of the fortress’s gate house, and slapping one another on the back, more in relief than joy. Even Mush Draper, who has seen enough fighting for a lifetime, can still not quite believe what has happened. They have bested at least a dozen armed men, without a single scratch to themselves.

  “Everyone is cleverer than you, old friend,” Tom Wyatt says, as he tries to catch his breath. “Though, I must confess, to not realising what the fellow was about. When he ordered up those flagons of lamp oil, I thought him mad.”

  Father Ignatius Loyola is a man of God now, and tries to avoid taking life, wherever he can. The simple expedient of throwing the oil over their adversaries, and advancing on them with a burning rag, wrapped about a stout stick has the desired effect, and they fall back, terrified of the immediate risk of immolation. The six comrades are out into the street, and making for the fortress in a moment. Their assailants dare not come too close, lest they be burned alive by Father Ignatius Loyola.

  “The Lord moves in mysterious ways,” Suffolk tells them, as he sheaths his dagger. He is pleased not to have had to fight without the comfort of armour, and a broad sword, in his two hands. “Now we know who our enemy is, though I cannot understand how he has managed to dig himself out of an Umbrian grave, and come all the way to Calais.”

  “It is not he,” Loyola says. “The dead will not rise again, until the day of resurrection. Malatesta Baglioni murdered his own uncle, and an older brother to become the Lord of Perugia. Once having assumed his position, he used his influence, and his military power, to gain favours for the rest of his people. He had an illegitimate brother, of a similar age, whom he loved more than the rest of his family.”

  “I wager he treated his horse better than his blood kin,” Mush mutters. “The man was evil, through and through.”

  “He was,” the priest explains, “but he loved his half brother, who is called Angelo. The young man was placed in the bosom of Mother Church, and became, first, a priest, then later on, a cardinal.”

  “What… so young?” Tom Wyatt asks. “I doubt he can be little more than forty, now.”

  “Pope Clement owed favours to Malatesta Baglioni, and sought to pay his dues by advancing the bastard brother to an exalted position within the church. Once made into a cardinal, Angelo received grants of church land, and was able to accrue vast wealth. He was a poor sort of a priest, and he has become an even poorer cardinal.”

  “Then this Cardinal Baglioni comes for revenge?” Suffolk asks. “Why does he act against us all?”

  “Because he can,” Ignatius Loyola tells the duke. “In Italy, if someone kills your brother, you swear a vendetta against him. Once sworn, it cannot be rescinded, and you must kill the killer of your brother. You might even go further, and kill the killer’s brother. His family then revenge themselves on you, unless you get them first, and so it goes on. They are a strange race… creating great art with one hand, and killing with the other. I put it down to the weather.”

  “Spain is hot,” Richard says, recalling his brief stay in the country, on his way to Venice. “Are you not Spanish, Father Ignatius?”

  “We spend our extra energy worshipping God,” Loyola replies, with a slight smile. “You protestants cannot understand.”

  “How came you to be involved?” Mush asks. He is eager to save his sister, and wishes to hear out the priest’s tale.

  “I was in Rome, hoping for an audience with His Holiness, when I came across Cardinal Baglioni. He was spending a fortune, trying to find out all about his brother’s death. I knew that he would, eventually, uncover my part in the business, and send men after me.”

  “So, you ran away?” Mush asks.

  “Of course I did,” the priest replies. “I slipped out of the Holy City, and made my way to Venice, where I knew Pippa Micheletto was living, after her marriage.”

  “Pippa whom?” Suffolk asks.

  “No matter,” Mush snaps. “Go on, priest!”

  “I arrived, only to find she and her new husband, Bartolommeo Rinaldi, had left for Genoa. It was their intention to board a ship for Spain, and travel on to England.”

  “Bartolommeo was a good friend to me, in Venice,” says Richard Cromwell. “He is a nephew to the Doge, and fought well alongside us, against Malatesta Baglioni. He and Pippa said they wanted to visit England.”

  “Quite,” the priest says, softly. “So, I sought a word with the Venetian Doge, and told him of my fears for any who helped bring down the condottiero. He sent out his agents, and they came back with the most awful news imaginable.”

  “Dear God, what has happened?” Tom Wyatt asks.

  “You remember Giovanni Ipolatto?”

  “Yes, he rode with us, and died in the last battle,” the poet replies. “I had sworn to see his wife and family were taken care of, and delivered his share of the spoils to his widow. It was enough to keep them, until mourning was past, and she could re-marry. I doubt she was more than twenty two, or three.”

  “Some men came, from Perugia,” Ignatius Loyola continues, though he does not want to tell the story. “They found where Ipolatto’s family lived, and murdered them all. The wife, her children, her mother, her father, and two younger brothers. Vendetta, you see. Cardinal Baglioni has sworn to avenge his half brother, and kills, wherever he finds anyone who can be implicated.”

  “Seven innocent people,” Mush says. “How were they guilty, Father Loyola?”

  “They were guilty, by association.” The priest sighs, and wonders how much bad news these young men can listen to in one sitting. “As was Antonio Puzzi’s brother, his widowed mother, and a twelve year old sister.”

  “Bastards!” Richard cannot believe such barbarity.

  “The murders were spread across Venice, and Verona,” Father Loyola explains. “Puzzi’s sister was a virgin, and it is bad luck to kill such a one, so the men who came, raped her first, then cut her throat. I almost lost my faith, when I was told.”

  “Then Cardinal Baglioni is reaping a harvest of blood,” Mush says, coldly. “Such a man can only be stopped in one fashion, and he will kill until we halt his rampage. Miriam is in his hands, and I fear greatly for her life.”

  “He will keep her safe, until all his enemies are drawn into the open,” Loyola tells them. “He has only to kill Will Draper, and his allies, and the task is almost done.”

  “Almost done?” Richard asks. “What of Pippa, and Bartolommeo? They are still free, are they not?”

  “Angelo Baglioni’s men caught up with them in Gerona. The Doge’s agents in Spain arrived too late. Giovanni fought well, and killed three of them, before he fell, and Pippa…”

  “Tell us, priest,” Mush says.

  “She swallowed poison.”

  “The same way she assassinated Malatesta Baglioni,” Tom Wyatt says, and nods his head. It seems fitting that the young girl was able to choose her own death, and so cheat the condottiero’s bastard brother of his revenge. “A remarkable girl. One day, I will sit down, and pen her story. I will make her live forever.”

  “That is small recompense,” Mush snaps. “We must bring this animal out of his lair, and slay him. Once Will arrives, we shall gather our strength, and prepare for the final confrontation.”

  “He is rich, and has many well trained men in his service,” the priest tells them. “I have spent months, running from him. The Doge begged me to stay in Venice, where I could be protected, but I could not. Baglioni blood is evil, and must be expunged from the land. Like cat and mouse, I move from hide hole, to hide hole, and seek to find a weakness.”

  “Have you?” Mush asks. “Is there a way to defeat him?”

  “Had he stayed in Rome, or even Italy, he remains untouchable. You cannot kill a cardinal, without the most awful repercussions.” The priest smiles then.
“Last week, he crossed out of the Lombard provinces, into Savoy. He intends to be present, when the final moves are made.”

  “Then he is here, in Calais?” Richard needs to see his foe, and cannot do with all this mystery.

  “I doubt it,” Loyola replies. “He is not that stupid, my dear old friend. He will stay in France, or perhaps he will position his forces in the Holy Roman Empire’s lands. That would make him closer to his main ally.”

  “He has support from Emperor Charles?” Barnaby Fowler asks. He has remained quiet throughout, but knows something of the emperor, and his ways. “I doubt Charles will furnish him with troops. He hates Henry, for casting off Queen Katherine, but this affair is not grand enough for him. We are all pawns, in his mind, and not worth the taking.”

  “I do not mean Charles,” Father Ignatius Loyola tells them all. “There is one, who pours gold into the Roman coffers, who calls himself…”

  “Anton Fugger,” Tom Wyatt says. “Then he is in this too?”

  “Fugger seeks to buy his place in heaven,” the priest explains. “He finances His Eminence, and ‘donates’ vast sums to the various cardinals. In return, Pope Clement has granted a dispensation to Anton Fugger, allowing him to bypass purgatory, and go straight to heaven.”

  “There is no purgatory,” Richard says. “The Tyndale bible tells us so. We are all God’s lambs, and he will treat us all with equal grace, when the time comes. Hell, however, is very real, and awaits all those who do not find favour in God’s eyes.”

  “You have a very odd way of believing, my son,” Ignatius Loyola tells the big man. “You claim that God deems us either ‘good’, and worthy of heaven, or ‘bad’, and fit only for the eternal fires of Hell. What of those who are mostly good, but with a little bad in them, or those who are bad, but do the odd good thing?”

  “Can we leave this for another day?” Mush asks. “We have evaded our enemy, for now, and should rest. Come the morrow, and our leader will be here.”

  Richard Cromwell has never heard Will Draper referred to as their leader before, but he understands the sense of it. In battle, or when outwitting an enemy, he is a true leader of men, and can be trusted above any other man. Though Thomas Cromwell is the cleverest man in England, his way of leading is different. He seeks to influence situations, until his will be done, and often gets his own way, without those he uses even knowing.

  “Then let us hope he comes with reinforcements,” Barnaby Fowler concludes, “for we six cannot win this war on our own.”

  “God will provide,” Father Ignatius Loyola says. On his journeys, he has been collecting together priestly soldiers, for his great crusade into the New World, where he has been told, by God, to spread the light of Christianity. Though they do not yet number a host, Loyola knows them to be amongst the toughest men in Christendom. “Even now, the army of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, is girding its loins, and making ready for its first, great battle, against the forces of Satan.”

  “Amen,” Tom Wyatt mutters. “I hope they have a few canon!”

  The small band of Englishmen, and a lone, Spanish priest, retire for the night, safe in the knowledge that the fortress of Calais is impregnable. They will sleep, or try to, and wait for the morning, and what it may bring.

  It is that same morning, in England, when John Beckshaw, the King’s Examiner, awakens, full of hope. He is refreshed from the few hours of broken sleep, and finds that he has, as if in a dream, come to a startling solution.

  “A fine morning, Sir Walter.”

  “After a bad night,” the Sherriff curses. “Another brutal death, and the loss of one of Abraham Polly’s best sheep. He is talking of having me up before the magistrate!”

  “Pay the man what it is worth,” Beckshaw tells him. “But first, answer me this, sir. Mistress Wells is a fine looking girl, and of the age to wed, yet you say her father refuses two good suitors?”

  “He does not,” Sir Walter replies. “It is all her own doing, my friend. She turns them away, saying a better man is coming.”

  “I suspect her father was angry at her.” John Beckshaw knows that for a girl to go against a father is a cardinal sin, and one not to be tolerated lightly. “Did he beat her?”

  “He dare not,” the Sherriff explains. “For she has the sight, and strange things can happen, if she is upset.”

  “Then he did nothing?”

  “He made her swear an oath.”

  “I see. In my experience, swearing oaths leads to nothing but heart ache and trouble. What did she have to swear to?”

  “Why, to choose between her suitors, if no better comes along in seven weeks.”

  “Seven weeks?” the Examiner is taken aback by such an unusual choice of time. “Why, pray tell, did he set it at seven weeks?”

  “He did not. It was Prudence who stipulated the period of time,” Sir Walter tells him. “She said that a man would come for her, in exactly seven weeks. If not, she would marry one or the other of her suitors.”

  “When was this?”

  “Let me think … ah, yes. About seven weeks ago. I say, that is an odd to do. I wonder where this fabled man is coming from?”

  “So, she must decide who to wed?”

  “Not any more, I suppose.” The Sherriff does not yet wonder why the Examiner is so curious about Pru Wells and her love life. “I suppose the choice is made for her.”

  “How so?” John asks, but thinks he already has the answer.

  “Why, my steward, Master Gray, killed by the beast last evening, was a suitor,” Sir Walter replies. “I would guess that she must marry the living one.”

  “What of Gabriel Haddow?” John asks.

  “The burgess?” Sir Walter shrugs. “I doubt his wife would have let him court Mistress Wells.”

  “Then we must make haste, sir, and arrest our murderer.”

  “Murder, you say?” Sir Walter frowns. This fellow is as odd as Will Draper, and seems to have some knowledge he does not yet possess. In the event of failure, he will be easy to blame. “Give me a name, and I will have the fellow in chains, before you can blink again.”

  “I do not know his name, sir, but you do.”

  “What, another riddle?” Sir Walter is becoming annoyed at this little game. “Very well, must I guess?”

  “No, for the list is short. Who else wished to marry Pru Wells?” John Beckshaw asks.

  “Ezekiel Longbutt, of course,” the Sherriff says. “He is a butcher, by trade, and one of the richest men in Hertford. Poor Zeke is quite mad with love for the girl. I do not see what this has to do with our beast though.”

  “There is no beast,” John Beckshaw explains. “There has never been a beast. It has never been seen.”

  “It ripped apart the sheep, and two men.”

  “It did not. There is no beast. Think, man.” John Beckshaw wonders at the man’s slowness of wit. “If a beast did not do it, then these crimes have been committed by a man.”

  “Ezekiel Longbutt?” Sir Walter Beasley shakes his head in disbelief. “Why would he kill so randomly? A sheep, then a lone man. No, it is mad.”

  “Is there anything more maddening than love?” John asks. “If you know that she must choose between you, or one other, the solution is clear. Kill your rival.”

  “Grey?”

  “Yes. The trouble with that though, is that everyone in the town knows he is your love rival,” John continues. “How then do you get rid of him? Why not commit a series of random murderous acts, and get the populace up in arms. There is a terrible beast amongst us, they think. The bodies are hacked apart… not torn with claws, or teeth, but hacked with a sharp knife, or a keen meat cleaver. Then, once we all believe the beast is killing at will, you murder your rival.”

  “Dear God!” Sir Walter is catching up, fast. “Of course. He is a butcher by trade, and knows how to make a carcass look as if some creature has been at it. You are right. Once the beast is to blame, he can kill with impunity. What do we do now?”

  “We must
have proof.” John Beckshaw thinks for a moment, then smiles. “Unless, the fellow admits his guilt.”

  “How do we get him to do that?”

  “Let him know that Pru Wells was right. A man has come, who will take her onto his horse, and ride away. Give out that the hunt for the beast is to go on, even though the King’s Examiner is leaving, with his newly betrothed lady.”

  “Sir, you are either clever, or mad.” Sir Walter suppresses the urge to think it is the latter. “He will become enraged, if what you surmise is true. He is besotted with the girl.”

  “She loves me, sir,” John confesses. “She has foretold these events, and we must allow things to run to their conclusion.”

  “Will you always love me?” Pru Wells asks, as they ride across the heath.

  “I thought you could see such things,” John replies. “You said I would come, and I came. You said we would wed, and we shall wed. Can you see no further, my love?”

  “No, there is a dark veil.” She settles into his arms, and sighs. “It is as if my life will go one of two ways, and the divided path is hidden behind the veil.”

  “Then you do not know what will happen in the next…”

  “Sir!” A great brute of a man is barring their path. In one hand, he carries a huge cleaver, and in the other, a butcher’s knife. “Climb down from your horse, for I will have words with you.”

  “Ezekiel?” Pru Wells tenses. “What is it?”

  “This is Hertford’s great beast, my love.” John reaches, stealthily, for the pistol hanging on his saddle. “Am I right, Master Longbutt?”

  “Climb down, Pru, you are staying here, with me,” the man growls. “This … creature is not the one for you.”

  “What are you saying?” Pru shivers with distaste for the wild eyed butcher. “I was never going to marry you, Zeke Longbutt.”

  “I’ve earned the right,” Zeke snaps. “You must marry me, after all that I have done for you… all the… blood.”

  “You killed Gabriel Haddow,” John says. “Then you killed poor Master Grey. You really think we would believe some sorry tale about ravening beasts?”