A Crowning Mercy

by Bernard Cornwell

  Toby shook his head. “I don’t remember. Where are they?”

  “Still in Somerset, I should think. Unless our enemies have declared war on hounds.”

  Toby smiled. “Where are Campion and Devorax?”

  “In the garden room. I suspect you’re leaving us, Toby.”

  Toby suspected his mother had listened from the garden. He leaned his dark red curls against the hall’s panelling. “Amsterdam?”

  “Yes. It appears the seals are being gathered.” She looked down at him. “I won’t stay in Oxford, Toby.”

  He smiled. “I know.” It seemed there was a small but fine house in Wiltshire that could be rented. The money had come from Lopez’s loan to Campion, but Toby knew his mother’s desire to go to Wiltshire arose because of a small, kind, sightless man. “I don’t suppose we’ll stay long in Holland, mother.”

  She sniffed. “Devorax says there are things to arrange there, whatever that means. It will be nice to have money again.” She stopped, staring down at her son. “I don’t trust him, Toby. I’m not sure that either of you should go.”

  He stood up, smiled, and kissed his mother on the forehead. “Let me talk to him. And don’t listen outside the window. You’ll catch cold.”

  “I can’t hear the half of what he says,” Lady Margaret said imperiously. “He mumbles and growls. You tell me. Now go on! I want to know what’s happening!”

  Common courtesy alone dictated that Vavasour Devorax should stand when Sir Toby, the master of the household, came into a room, but the soldier stayed slumped in the best chair, his gray eyes looking morosely at the newcomer. Toby ignored the rudeness.

  “Colonel? You’re welcome.”

  The ugly face nodded. His beard and hair, Toby noted, were strangely streaked with black. A bottle of wine, half emptied, was by his side.

  Campion came to Toby, lifted her face to be kissed, and he saw the relief in her eyes that he had arrived. He smiled. “Hello, wife.”

  She mouthed at him, her back to Devorax. “He’s drunk.”

  Toby looked at Devorax. “Do you want food, sir?”

  The face shook. “No. Do you want to know what’s happening?”

  Toby sat beside Campion on the settle. The candles flickered about the room. Vavasour Devorax groaned, pulled himself straighter in the chair and stared at Toby. “I’ve told your wife. Cony’s dead, we’ve got his seals, and you’re to take them to Holland.”

  Campion stared at Toby, Toby at the grim soldier who now put the bottle to his lips.

  “Cony’s dead?”

  “Sir Grenville has gone to meet his maker.” Devorax put the bottle down. “I don’t suppose his maker will be very pleased with what he made.” He laughed.

  “How?”

  “How?” Devorax laughed. “How do you think? I killed him. With this.” He tapped the hilt of his sword.

  Toby could hardly take the news in. He shook his head. “Didn’t he have guards?”

  “Of course he had guards!” The question seemed to annoy Devorax, but then he sighed, leaned back, and told the tale in a toneless, bored voice. “There was a murder in London last night. The Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey was also despatched to his maker. I did it. Then I went round London to Sir Grenville’s house, demanded entry with my men on the plausible pretext that we were the watch and wished to talk to a man who had known the Reverend Hervey, and once inside we did our business.” He smiled. “The fat little lawyer fought surprisingly hard and I ruined a perfectly good rug with his blood. We had to blow the locks of his strongbox, and inside were the two seals: Matthew and Mark.”

  Campion was holding Toby’s hand, gripping his finger stumps beneath the thin leather glove. Toby stared at Devorax. “You have the seals?”

  “Not with me.” He smiled pitifully at Toby. “You really think I’m going to ride halfway across England with half a fortune in my pouch? Of course I don’t have them. My men have them. They’re taking Lopez’s ship to the place where it will meet you.” He flourished the bottle at them. “All is over, children, your fortune has been secured by Vavasour Devorax.”

  Toby bridled. “My name is Sir Toby, my wife is Lady Lazender, and I trouble you to give us respect in this house.”

  The gray eyes, suddenly looking not drunk at all, stared at Toby. They seemed to suggest that Devorax could slit Toby apart, but then the bearded face laughed. “Your fortune, Sir Toby and Lady Campion, has been secured by Vavasour Devorax. Say thank you.”

  Neither spoke. Devorax laughed. He looked at the bottle, decided he might as well finish it, and tipped it to his face. He wiped his lips when he had done, smearing more of the strange blackness in his beard.

  “You are to meet me on Monday night. You’ll have to travel east, through Epping, and you’re to find a village called Bradwell.” He sneered. “A collection of hovels near the coast of Essex. You go through the village, keeping the river on your left, are you following me?”

  Toby nodded. “Yes.”

  “Just follow the coast. You’ll come to a barn. You can’t mistake it, it’s got a ruined tower attached, as if it was a church. On top of the tower is a beacon. That’s where I’ll be. Eight o’clock next Monday night. Understand?”

  Toby nodded again. “Yes.”

  “The nearest town is Maldon, but be careful. They’re all damned Puritans over there. They’d like to burn both of you at the stake. And one other thing.” He gave then his mocking, pitying smile. “Bring the Seal of St. Luke with you.”

  “Yes.”

  Campion let go of Toby’s hand. She frowned. “Why are you doing this if you dislike us so much?”

  Devorax shrugged. “Do I have to like you? I was ordered to do it, remember? By Lopez.”

  She looked at the ravaged face, half lit by the fire, half by the candles. “Why do you obey Lopez?”

  “Why not?” He reached down beside his chair and pulled up a second bottle of wine. “We all have to obey someone, unless we’re the King, in which case we expect other people to get us out of the mess we’ve made.” He pulled the cork and looked at Toby. “You don’t mind if I drink, Sir Toby?” He mocked the title.

  “You can give me a glass. I’m tired.”

  “Playing soldiers?” Devorax sneered. “The soldiers I fought with never took wine by the glass. They drank it out of the bottle.” He poured wine into the glass that Toby held out. Devorax leaned back. “That was real soldiering, not this prancing about in fancy sashes shouting prayers.”

  “Men are dying here,” Toby said.

  “Doesn’t take death to make a war,” Devorax said. He shut his eyes. “It takes hatred. Savagery.” He opened his eyes. “You know the King’s going to lose?”

  “Is he?”

  “Oh yes. There’s a new army being raised in the east.” He adopted his mocking tone again. “The New Model Army. Saints with swords, Sir Toby. They’re the most dangerous. A man would rather kill for his God than for his King. They’re going to win this war.” He drank. “I hope for England’s sake it doesn’t get like Germany.”

  “You fought there?” Toby asked. He sensed that Devorax was mellowing, that an anger was dying.

  Devorax nodded. “I fought there.”

  Campion spoke. “You knew my father there?”

  “Yes.”

  There was silence. Campion hoped for more. Devorax drank. Toby looked at the fire, then back to the soldier. “My mother says Kit Aretine was the handsomest man in England, and the wittiest.”

  Devorax gave a humorless laugh. “Like as not.” It seemed he would not say anything more, but then he leaned forward, wincing against a stiffness in the joints. “He changed though.”

  Campion was tense. “Changed?”

  “He became old. He saw too much. He used to say wit was an illusion and that you couldn’t keep illusions when you were trampling in blood.” Devorax shrugged. “Too clever for his own bloody good.”

  Toby waited, but nothing more came. “You knew him well?”

>   The gray eyes looked at him. The scarred face nodded. “I knew him well. Poor bastard.” He laughed to himself.

  Campion tried to urge him on. “Did you like him?”

  Devorax seemed to think about it, then nodded. “I liked him. Everyone liked Kit. You couldn’t dislike him. He was one of those men who could keep a roomful of people laughing.” The words seemed to come now as the soldier’s tongue loosened. “He could even do it in Swedish. Story after story, and we’d sit round camp-fires and nothing seemed too bad if Kit was there. You could be cold, starving, hungry as the devil, with the enemy a half-day’s march behind and he’d always know how to make you laugh.” He shrugged. “Some men have that gift. But he changed.”

  “How?” Campion was leaning forward, her lips parted. Toby saw her profile against the fire and felt the familiar pang at her beauty.

  Devorax wiped his lips with the filthy sleeve of his leather coat. For a second or two Toby thought he would not answer, then he shrugged. “He fell in love. He was always falling in love, but this time it was,” he shook his head, “different. He told me she was the second woman he’d ever really loved. The first was your mother.” He nodded at Campion. “This one was Swedish. She was beautiful, God she was a beauty! All his women were, but this one was made on one of God’s better days.” He grinned. “She had hair your color, Lady Campion, only she wore it short. She followed Kit, you see, and long hair’s a nuisance if you’re sleeping rough with an army. She went with us to Germany.” Devorax seemed far away, as if trying to relive the days of the great Swedish attacks on the northern Catholics. “Kit said it would be his last fight. He’d marry her, live in Stockholm, but he never did. She died.” He lifted the bottle. “And he was never the same again.”

  Campion made a noise like a small moan. “That’s awful.”

  Devorax laughed. “Worse than awful. I remember it.” He grinned. “We were in a small town and we thought the damned Catholics were miles away. They weren’t. I suppose we were drunk, we often were, and the bastards came into the town that night. Torches, swords, pistols, and half the town was burning thatch and the other half was dying Protestants with the Catholics riding their horses over them. God! It was chaos! They killed a hundred that night and took off half our horses.”

  Campion was frowning. “They killed her?”

  “No.” He drank again, closing his eyes as he tipped the bottle. Hooves sounded in the street, somewhere in the house a timber creaked. “Kit was fighting the bastards. He must have killed half a dozen. Everywhere you looked that night there were enemies. They were coming out of alleys, out of houses, and he was out in the street bellowing at them, hacking them with a sword. He was on foot, but they couldn’t touch him. It was nearly all over when it happened. She surprised him. She came out of their house with a dark cloak on and he thought her hair was a helmet. She suddenly appeared in the doorway and he shot her. Bang. Right through her pregnant stomach.” He shook his head. “He said he’d forgotten about his pistol till that moment. She took half the night to die. It wasn’t pretty.” He tipped the bottle again, drank, then wiped his mouth. “That’s your father’s story, Lady Campion, and if you want my advice, which I’m sure you don’t, then hope that you never meet him. He wasn’t the same again. He wasn’t the man your mother loved.”

  Campion’s hand was clasped around Toby’s. Her face showed an awful sadness at the tale. Devorax looked at her and grinned. “You asked. I told you.”

  She shook her head, horror in her voice. “It’s terrible.”

  “If he couldn’t tell a girl from a soldier and hair from a helmet, then he shouldn’t have had a gun in his belt.” He shrugged. “I suppose we were drunk.” He stood up. “I’ll leave you.”

  Campion stood up too. She was shocked by the story, by Devorax’s callousness in his telling of it, but she would have liked to hear more of her father. “Won’t you stay and eat with us?”

  “No.” Devorax pulled his sword straight. “I have other comforts at an inn.” He grinned. “You’ll be at Bradwell?”

  Toby nodded as he stood. “Do we travel with you?”

  “No. I travel alone. But I’ll be waiting for you. Eight o’clock, Monday night.”

  He left them, going into a street that was glistening from a fine drizzle. He carried the bottle away.

  Campion watched him go, seeing him meet a mounted man who held a spare horse. They disappeared toward Carfax, leaving her horrified by the story he had told. She was frightened, too, fearing to go into the east country, the heart of Puritanism, where the seals were to be gathered. She thought of Lazen, thought of giving it back to this family that had taken her in, loved her, and of which she was now a member. She clung to Toby, appalled by all the sadness in God’s world. She would go east for Toby and his mother.

  Two hundred yards away, near where a great fire had just burned a part of Oxford, Vavasour Devorax tossed the empty bottle into the ruins that still smelled of smoke. He looked at Mason. “Well?”

  “Sir Grenville Cony’s sent a dozen men to Bradwell, sir.”

  Devorax nodded. “And Mr. Slythe?”

  “He’ll be there, sir. Seven o’clock. He says Sir Grenville will go with him.”

  “Good.” Devorax grinned. “How many men is Slythe taking?”

  “He says six.”

  “Good, good. We can take care of Sir Grenville’s twelve.”

  Mason yawned. “Sir Grenville’s bound to bring some more with him.”

  Devorax was not worried. With his men and Slythe’s he had enough to destroy Sir Grenville’s guards and enough to put a small band into the village of Bradwell who could follow Toby and Campion toward the barn, cutting off their retreat. Mason looked at his colonel. “The girl’s coming, sir?”

  “Yes.” Devorax smiled. “She and her husband. Both of them.”

  “They’re not worried?”

  Devorax shook his head. “She thinks Cony’s dead.” He laughed. “She’ll be there, John, for her father’s sake.” He laughed again. He had watched the girl as he told the true story of Kit Aretine’s Swedish woman. He had seen Campion’s pity and distress. “She’s a romantic.” He said it mockingly then grinned at Mason. “Come on, John. I’ll find a whore for you. After Monday you can pay me!” He laughed loud, pleased with himself, for Vavasour Devorax had engineered what most would have thought impossible. Matthew, Mark and Luke were to be gathered at the sea’s edge, and it was Devorax, soldier and drunk, who had made it happen. The seals would gather.

  Thirty-two

  Toby and Campion left Oxford the next day, travelling alone. James Wright begged to accompany them, but Toby ordered him to stay with Lady Margaret instead.

  Lady Margaret embraced them both. “I don’t trust that man Devorax. I don’t think you should go.”

  Campion smiled. “What would you do if you were me?”

  Lady Margaret sniffed. “I should go, of course, child.”

  They did not know when they would return. Devorax had told Campion that Mordecai Lopez waited for them in Amsterdam, that they must first take the seals to the bank and then, under the Jew’s guidance, take the administration of the Covenant’s fortune into their own hands. It would be, Devorax said, a long, hard task. Toby kissed his mother, mounted, and smiled at her from the saddle. “Perhaps we’ll be back for Christmas, Mother.”

  “If not sooner,” Campion added.

  “I have decided to grow apples,” Lady Margaret said irrelevantly. “Andrew writes me that apples do well in Wiltshire.”

  Campion kissed her. “We shall miss you.”

  “Of course you will, dear.”

  They travelled on horseback, for a wagon could not have reached the Essex coast in the four days they had before the rendezvous. The days were becoming short, travellers were few, and the roads were wet and sticky. They rode mostly on the wide, grass verges, following a course that would take them well to the north of London.

  On Saturday they were deep inside Puritan East Ang
lia. In the hamlets of Essex they heard, again and again, the angry call for the King to be dethroned, for the nobles to be humbled, for each man to be equal. The war was no longer about taxes and the rights of Parliament; it was a religious crusade for the overthrow of the old order. The ancient slogan of the Peasant’s Revolt was heard: “When Adam delved, and Eve span, who was then a Gentleman?”

  Toby did not look a gentleman. He travelled as a soldier, sword belted over leather coat, pistol in his belt and helmet slung from his saddle. He looked like any other soldier returning from the year’s campaign, a pack-horse behind him, with his wife on a third horse. Campion dressed as a Puritan. She had bought herself a pair of slab-sided, stiff, leather shoes, and beneath her long black cloak was a Puritan dress with wide, white collar and starched apron. Her hair was modestly hidden by a bonnet. She had other clothes, clothes fit for Lady Lazender, but they were hidden in the pack-horse’s bundles.

  If her dress was sober and her demeanor modest, her hopes were high. Mordecai Lopez had done as he had promised, he had arranged for the seals to be gathered, and she rode to fulfill her strange father’s destiny. She felt little sorrow at the death of Sir Grenville Cony, none at Faithful Unto Death Hervey’s end, and she believed that the killing was now done. The seals had extracted their price of blood; now they would yield the wealth with which she could restore her husband’s family. She rode eagerly, not minding the cold winds and rain of autumn, the chill that brought a foretaste of the frosts to come that would harden the rutted roads into ice-sharp furrows.

  They crossed Epping forest, two travellers alone in an immensity of trees. The leaves had turned, were blown by the winds to carpet their path, and sometimes, deep in gold shadow, Campion would see a motionless deer watch them pass. Once they passed a camp of charcoal makers, their temporary turf huts almost unseen till the horses were close by. The turf-clad kiln silted blue smoke among the trees. The charcoal makers sold them hedgehog meat, roasted in clay. They knew nothing of the war, except that their charcoal was fetching a good price for gunpowder.