A Crowning Mercy

by Bernard Cornwell

  Toby and Campion could not travel on the Sunday, for this was Puritan country and the Lord’s Day was sacred. They had left the forest and were in a small-hilled country of rich earth and big, timber barns. They took the only private room in the tavern, its walls plastered with news of Parliament’s victories and they were given clean straw on which to sleep.

  They attended church, for to have avoided the day’s three services would have attracted suspicion and inquiry. Toby, not able to resist play-acting, gave his name as Captain Righteousness Prevaileth Gunn, and said they travelled to Maldon where his wife’s family lived. The preacher, an earnest young man who had prayed for the Royalists to be “scythed mightily that their blood might fructify the land of the Saints,” looked at Campion. They were outside the church, surrounded by villagers among the ancient tombstones. “And where does your family live in Maldon, Mistress Gunn? My own mother lives there.”

  Campion, not ready for the question, gaped.

  Toby put a hand on her arm and spoke soothingly to the preacher. “The Good Lord saw fit to make my dear wife simple-minded, sir. You must be gentle with her.”

  The women, who had sat with Campion on the women’s side of the church, clucked sympathetically. The preacher shook his head sadly. “I shall pray for her in evening worship, Captain Gunn.”

  Afterward, eating a cold meal in the tavern, Campion hissed furiously at Toby, “You called me simple-minded!”

  He grinned. “Sh! Dribble your food.”

  “Toby!”

  “And for God’s sake stop looking as if you’re enjoying yourself. They’ll know we’re impostors if we look happy.”

  She cut him some cheese. “I don’t know why I love you, Toby Lazender.”

  “Because you’re simple-minded, my love.” He smiled at her.

  They rode early the next day, crossing a land that was fertile and well watered. The sails of the mills still turned from harvest time. Many of the cottages were pargetted, their plaster outside walls molded to show sheaves of wheat or garlands of fruit. The wind blew from their backs, carrying high clouds to the east, and rippling the surfaces of the wide streams that flowed to the North Sea. Tonight, Campion thought, she would see the sea for the first time, she would be carried on a large ship and go abroad. She felt nervous of the unknown to which the seals drew her.

  This was their last day. The land flattened. By afternoon they seemed to be riding their horses beneath a sky vaster than any Campion had seen. The horizon was utterly level, broken only by a few, bent trees and the shape of a farmhouse or barn. There was a tang of salt in the air, a promise of the coast, and the first, lone screeching of gulls told them that their journey would soon be over.

  The houses were poorer now and fewer. The cottages, built almost as low as the salt-marshes’ tallest grasses, seemed battered by wind and rain. Tarred weatherboards clad the hovels. High overhead Campion saw geese flying in their tight pattern, their wings carrying them toward the sea and strangeness.

  They stopped in the late afternoon and bought bread and cheese from a dirty, bent woman who looked at them suspiciously. “Where be you headed?”

  “Bradwell,” Toby said.

  The woman shrugged. “Nothing at Bradwell.” She peered at the coin Toby had given her, then gave an abrupt nod. It was none of her business if outlanders wanted to pay good money for old cheese.

  They stopped to eat where the track was embanked against a marsh. A hundred yards away the rotting timbers of a boat stood like black ribs against the muddy bank of a creek. The water of the marsh was salt, the plants new to Campion. There was glasswort and sea-spurrey growing among the eelgrass, but to her they were as strange as this journey itself; reminders that she rode into the unknown.

  She saw the sea for the first time in her life beyond the small village of Bradwell. It disappointed her. She had not known what to expect, but from the poets she had taken a picture of vast waters, of tons of liquid dashing itself against black rocks. From the Old Testament she had a similar expectation; of Leviathan, of the deep, of something massive, moving and treacherous.

  Campion saw the sea far in the distance. Its surf fretted shallow at the edge of a great, spreading estuary, and between her and the sea was a mile of slick, rippled mud. The sea seemed to be a gray line, quiet and dull, edged with flashing white where the small waves broke on the glassy mud. Toby, who had seen the sea before, imagined the waters racing over the flat, mud shore, whipped up by an east wind into a savage, engulfing tide that would drown this flat land where the creeks tangled among the marsh.

  Campion pulled her cloak tight at her throat. “Is that where we’re going?” She nodded toward a small building, its high gable outlined against the darkening sky.

  Toby nodded. “Yes.” Beyond it, almost unseen because its hull was hidden by the land on which the building stood, he could see a ship; its mast a tiny scratch against the sky’s vastness. Journey’s end in England.

  “Toby!” Campion had turned, staring back at their path. Her voice was frightened. “Toby!”

  He turned. Behind them, a half mile behind, he could see four horsemen. Their horses were motionless. The west wind stirred the cloak of one man. They were helmeted, the setting sun glancing red from the barred steel. At their sides were swords. Campion looked at Toby. “They’re following us!”

  Toby looked about him. The track led only to the barn on the horizon. It was the only way to go. He smiled at his wife. “Come on. We’ll be safe.”

  He fidgeted with his sword-hilt, took one more look at the horsemen behind, and then led Campion along the marsh track to the place where the seals were being gathered, a building as desolate as the coast on which it stood, a building that had faced the gray sea for a thousand years.

  The Romans had first built in this place. They had made a fort to fight the Saxon pirates whose oared ships would come from fog-shrouded dawns into the estuary of the Blackwater. Here the Romans had worshipped the old gods, bleeding a dying bull on to the heads of recruits in the wet pit—the rites of Mithras—praying that the god would preserve their lives in the gray waters and misted dawns.

  The Romans had gone and the Saxons, pirates turned settlers, had brought their own savage gods before their conversion to Christianity. They built a church, using stones from the Roman walls, and the church, one of the first in the land of the Saxons, was a place of pilgrimage. Then came new heathens, their swords and axes more terrible than any the land had seen, and the Vikings swept the Christians from the flat, marshy land. The church still stood, but the worshippers of Thor and Odin did not know its God, and so the ancient church became a barn. It had been that ever since, an inconvenient barn, strangely built at the land’s edge, a place where sheep could be penned on a bad night. There was a tower, crumbling now, supporting a tall, iron basket in which a fire could be lit to warn mariners against the killing expanse of mud on which the wind and sea could tumble and tear a ship apart.

  To this forgotten church in a place where the gulls screamed above a desolate shore, Vavasour Devorax and Ebenezer Slythe brought their men. Here, too, had come Sir Grenville Cony, reassured by the men he had sent ahead that all was safe and well. His coach could go no further than the nearest farm, and from there Sir Grenville had walked. He crossed the low ridge of turf, all that was left of a Roman rampart, to see the rest of his advance guard dead or prisoners. Armed men faced him, musketoons levelled, and he turned, frantic, to see the horsemen galloping behind. Sir Grenville was taken, his men tied hand and foot, and ushered into the old building.

  Vavasour Devorax, with a touch of the dramatic, had prepared the barn for the seals. The earthen floor had been cleared of debris, the hurdles that penned the sheep on the marshes pushed to one wall, and a table had been fetched from the village. About the table were five chairs, one at the head facing two on either side, and on the table were two tall groups of candles. Ebenezer, who had ridden ahead from the farm, sat smiling his treachery behind the table. A pistol reste
d in front of him.

  Vavasour Devorax came forward. “Sir Grenville! Good Sir Grenville!”

  “Who the devil are you?” Sir Grenville’s bulging eyes flicked about the room. Guards grinned as they watched him.

  “My name is Vavasour Devorax.” He wore his barred helmet and, in the gloom of the barn, Sir Grenville could see little of the scarred face. He could see, though, that the tall, bearded soldier was smiling. “I am the man who killed Faithful Unto Death Hervey. I used another name, of course, but I know you’ll forgive me that. Otherwise we would not have the pleasure of your fat company. Sit down, Sir Grenville, next to Mr. Slythe.”

  Sir Grenville’s world, that had been buttressed so long by the seals, was falling about him. No Aretine! No victory either. He had been gulled here, tricked, yet his face showed no alarm or anger. He was thinking. He ignored Ebenezer, smiling his supercilious smile beyond the table, and looked instead at the tall, soft-speaking soldier. “We should talk, Devorax. I’m a man of business. We can reach an agreement.”

  The soft-speaking soldier suddenly snarled, became vicious. “If you don’t put your fat ass on a chair, Cony, I’ll rip your spine out with my bare hands. Now move!”

  Sir Grenville sat next to Ebenezer. They did not talk. Devorax smiled again, his voice resuming a silky, low politeness. “Now we wait.”

  Sir Grenville, still thinking how to avoid this trap, frowned. “For what?”

  “For St. Luke, Sir Grenville. What else?” Devorax laughed. “For St. Luke.”

  Toby and Campion could not escape. They were met by armed men, surrounded by barred faces, and in the dusk they stripped Toby of his sword and pistol. Toby fought, doubling one man with his fist, but then he was gripped and held, a sword threatening his throat, and Campion screamed at him to stop struggling.

  “How very sensible, girl.” Vavasour Devorax had come from the doorway.

  Toby wrenched at the arms that held him. “You bastard!”

  “Quiet, puppy.” Devorax seemed amused. “I don’t want to have to clean my sword just because you feel heroic.” He nodded to his men. “Take them inside.”

  Campion looked at John Mason, one of the men who had rescued her and escorted her from London to the safety of Oxford. “Why? Why?”

  Mason shrugged. “Do as he says, miss. You know it’s best not to cross him.” He gestured her to the doorway.

  Inside the barn, where the candles had been lit, she saw her brother and, next to him, Sir Grenville Cony. Alive. She cried out, but Devorax pushed her toward the chairs. “Sit opposite your dear brother, girl.” He looked at Toby and sighed. “If you struggle, puppy, I’ll just have to tie you to the chair. Be sensible. Sit down.”

  They sat. The guards stayed close to Toby and Campion. Devorax took the chair at the table’s head, put a square, leather travelling chest on the table before him, and smiled sweetly through the bars of his helmet. “I think we can begin now.”

  Ebenezer smiled at Campion. She was trapped. The daylight had long since faded at the high windows either side of the barn. Outside, where the Blackwater met the sea, the ship snubbed at its anchors and waited for the tide to lift the waters over the mudbanks. Campion’s river had brought her to this place of desolation, this place of bleak sky, land, and sea: the end.

  Thirty-three

  Through the broken roof and windows came the forlorn sound of the gulls. The wind sighed as it bent the eelgrass eastward. The sea grumbled where it broke at the land’s edge.

  Vavasour Devorax and Ebenezer Slythe smiled. Sir Grenville frowned. Toby held Campion’s hand beneath the table.

  Devorax took a pistol from his belt and laid it next to the travelling chest. “Dearly beloved brethren, we are gathered here together so that two of us can become rich.” He laughed.

  Ebenezer wore a black, fur-edged cloak. His own silver-hilted pistol lay beneath his right hand. He smiled at Campion. “Welcome, sister. You haven’t introduced me.”

  Campion did not speak. Devorax laughed. “It seems that Lady Lazender has lost her tongue. Let me do the honors. Mr. Slythe? Allow me to name Sir Toby Lazender. Sir Toby?” Devorax gave a mocking bow in his chair. “I don’t believe you’ve had the pleasure of meeting Sir Grenville Cony. He’s the fat one opposite you. Like you, he is my prisoner.”

  A guard stood close behind Sir Grenville, as men stood close behind Toby and Campion. She did not understand, thinking Sir Grenville to be among her enemies, and Devorax saw her confusion. He laughed. “Your brother and I have gathered the seals, girl.” The big soldier looked at Sir Grenville. Devorax seemed entirely at his ease, sprawled casually in the chair. “Lady Lazender thought you dead, Sir Grenville, a fact that gave her confidence in me. Her assumption was premature, but not by very much.”

  Sir Grenville said nothing. He simply watched Devorax. He hid his thoughts and his emotions.

  Devorax turned back to Campion. His eyes glittered behind the steel bars of his helmet. “Sir Grenville, girl, came because he feared Kit Aretine was searching for him in London. You owe me thanks, girl. I killed the Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey in your father’s name.” Devorax chuckled. “He died a peculiarly smelly, frightened death. Kit Aretine would have been proud of me.”

  “I wish he was here now,” Campion said with bitterness.

  Devorax laughed. “Put not your trust in failures, girl.”

  “My wife’s name is Lady Lazender.”

  Devorax looked at Toby as he might look at a tiresome child. His voice was bored. “If you aren’t quiet, puppy, I’ll slit your tongue.”

  Devorax’s men, interspersed with Ebenezer’s guards, watched in amused silence. They had drawn swords beside them, musketoons or pistols cradled in their arms. Devorax himself was utterly sober and his quiet, arrogant confidence easily dominated the strange stone barn. He looked at the dark sky through the broken roof. “We have time before the tide will be high enough. I thought a small discussion would pass the time. You might even amuse me by pleading for your lives.” He looked slowly from Sir Grenville to Toby, from Toby to Campion. “But we shall begin with the seals. I believe you have St. Luke, girl. Put it on the table.”

  Campion did not move. It was cold in the barn. She sensed the soldiers leaning forward to watch her.

  Devorax sighed. “Either you put the seal on the table, girl, or one of my men will search you for it. The choice is yours.”

  Toby took his hand from Campion’s. The movement made Ebenezer lift his heavy pistol, but Devorax reached out a huge hand and pressed down on the barrel. “I think the puppy has what we want, Mr. Slythe.”

  Toby reached beneath his collar, pulled, and the gold seal shone in the candlelight. He looped the chain over his dark red curls, then placed the seal of St. Luke on the rough timber planks. Ebenezer, smiling to himself, reached with his long, white fingers and pulled the seal by the chain toward him.

  Devorax looked at Sir Grenville. “I don’t believe you came empty-handed, Sir Grenville. Your two, please.”

  Sir Grenville’s chair creaked. Campion could hear the sea beating endlessly on the mud of the shore. The guard behind Sir Grenville grinned, pulled back the flint of his pistol so that it clicked loudly in the stone room.

  Sir Grenville blinked slowly, then moved a reluctant hand to a pocket. Devorax’s pistol was pointed at him. The fat man grimaced as he fished in the tight pocket, pulled, and suddenly the seals were there. He dropped them heavily on the table.

  The guard stepped back. Ebenezer reached for them, picked them up with a curious delicacy, and the seals were gathered.

  Matthew, Mark and Luke were together, as they had not been in half a lifetime. Their gold chains mingled on the table, their bands of precious stones winked like tiny fire-stars. It was a fortune.

  Ebenezer, his eyes dark as sin, stared at them. His mind was far ahead in the glory of power.

  Sir Grenville, eyes pale and prominent, stared at them. He was thinking desperately, knowing nothing was lost as long as cha
irs were around a table and men talked instead of killed.

  Campion stared at them. She thought of all the sadness and death they had caused, of the terror they had given her. She reached for Toby’s hand and it was warm to her fingers.

  Vavasour Devorax looked at the faces about the table, faces lit by the tall candles, and on his own face was an expression of satisfaction. “Perhaps we should say a silent prayer of thanks to an absent friend. St. John.”

  Campion’s voice was scornful. “Shouldn’t you thank your absent friend, Mordecai Lopez?”

  Vavasour Devorax chuckled, a deep rumbling sound of infinite amusement. “The girl wants me to feel guilty. My ‘friend’ Lopez.” He looked at her with insolent humor. “My friend Lopez is a Jew who has paid me wages for too long. He thinks a pat on the head will be sufficient for me. It isn’t. I want more from life than a leather coat and a sword, girl. It’s time I had some riches too!” He was becoming animated, close to the anger which Campion thought normal with this man. He leaned forward and scooped the three seals into his hand. “This is my reward for long service, girl, this!” He shook them so that the chains rattled together.

  Sir Grenville spoke for the first time. “If you are Lopez’s enemy, Devorax, then you’re my friend.”

  Devorax laughed. He put the seals down so that their chains trailed over the damascened barrel of Ebenezer’s pistol. “The word friend is suddenly very prominent this evening. I become rich and everyone is my friend. I don’t need friends!”

  “Then what do you need?” Sir Grenville was frowning, uncertainly.

  Devorax stared at him for a few seconds. “I need a certain whorehouse in Padua, Sir Grenville. It will keep me in my old age in a manner to which I have become accustomed.”

  Sir Grenville had at least started a dialogue with the soldier. He nodded with a smile at the three golden seals. “You can make a whorehouse out of half Europe with that money, Devorax.” Sir Grenville spoke patiently, equably, one reasonable man to another. “And without friends you will have small protection against the enemies you’re about to make.”