What a day this was! I was forthwith received by His Majesty, as Clarence, beaming at my side, proudly introduced me as his successor.
King James is not a prepossessing man, but a shrewd and most learned one. He is said to have been able at the age of eight to translate any chapter of the Bible from Latin into French and thence to English. He looked at me most kindly as I fell on one knee before him.
“I bid you welcome, Parson Fish. I hear it is you who translate The Song of Songs.”
He could have said nothing dearer to my heart. “I have that honour, your majesty,” I stuttered.
“Then tell me, Septimus Fish. Do you believe my fair cousin a witch?” His Majesty wore a brooding look as though the matter much troubled him.
“None who has met her would believe it, sire,” I managed to reply, startled at the question.
“Yet it is plain in the Scriptures that Satan can transform himself into an angel of light.”
I should tread carefully. His Majesty is not only well known for his learning on the subject of witchcraft, but has written a learned book upon the subject, Daemonologie.
“The Second Book of Corinthians, sire,” I replied. “But do you not advance the argument in Chapter III of your writings that witches are the Devil’s servants, not his masters as are necromancers? They are therefore surely not so blameworthy for their deeds.”
“What if it be so, Septimus? By the law of deodand the instrument of death is guilty. It is for God to judge intent.”
“A confession would be required,” I maintained stoutly. The very idea of the countess being accused of witchcraft was abhorrent and I could see Clarence supported me wholeheartedly. “And witnesses too.”
“The countess is my cousin. You would have her thrawn with a rope?” This terrible torture is necessary to root out the evil amongst us, but it was not to be contemplated for the Countess Lucy.
“No, sire,” I replied firmly. “I would listen to evidence gathered from others – and be sure they are good men and true.”
“I have tried to do so in other cases, Parson. Yet few would speak against Agnes Tompson, save Master Torture himself, and she was most surely a witch. She confessed from her own lips that she would have my death. She took a toad, hung it up by the heels for three days, keeping its venom in an oyster shell until she might obtain a piece of my linen and bewitch me to death. Nor would many speak against Agnes Sampson, who cast black cats into the sea to create a storm for my journey. Worse, she told me what had passed between my queen and myself upon our wedding night. Is that not proof enough?”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Her Majesty restrain a giggle, and I hastily concentrated on His Majesty. I was aware that His Majesty’s cousins could not wed without his permission. Perhaps he would welcome the countess’s lack of issue if she were proved a witch. I was all the more determined this should not happen.
“So I bid you, Parson Fish,” he continued, “now you are to be chaplain to my cousin, look out for Master Bell. My cousin’s choice is not to my taste, but she is a fine persuader.”
The little foxes that spoil our vines. I thought of the merry scene around us. Would death intrude once more?
“Your Majesty –” My position before the king was rudely challenged by a splendidly attired gentleman, with a thick Scottish accent. He was a thin man, and sly of face; his eyes flickered everywhere. The watcher in the quiet places, I thought, even before I heard his name.
“The Master of Carlross,” Clarence hissed in my ear as we stood to one side.
“A country farmer is no fit bridegroom for a Carlross.” We heard the Master drip casual words of poison in the King’s ear.
“Thomas Bell looks a fit man to bear fine children,” I murmured to Clarence, but the Master of Carlross’s fox’s ears were sharp.
“Who are you?”
“His Majesty’s translator of The Song of Songs.”
He sneered. “You are a fortunate man, to work on the poetry of lust and desire.”
“Love for the church of God,” I replied reprovingly. “As Origen in his commentary declares . . .”
He did not hear me. “It speaks of the body and the desires of men,” he said as if to himself. He looked lustfully towards the Countess Lucy, and I thought that he had more than succession to a title after her death in mind. He would marry her himself to enjoy her estates and body now. I thought once more of Thomas Bell. I must watch the Master of Carlross’s every move.
It was a full hour before the countess and her groom, now even more stupefied by drink, approached the table. She would plunge the knife into the cake and the first slice be given to her spouse. The King and Queen descended from the dais to stand at the countess’s side, with her groom on the other. I had the honour of standing next to Her Majesty. Clarence and I were stood either side of the cook who had created this masterpiece, and opposite the bridal couple, that we might bless the ceremony. If that cake were poisoned . . . No, I would not think that. Even so, I found myself on edge as the other guests crowded round, with the Dowager rudely pushing her way to stand between Clarence and Thomas Bell. The Master of Carlross, taking advantage of her clearing a path to the table, followed in her wake and stood by her side. I would watch them both most carefully.
The countess made as pretty a speech as I have ever heard, and there seemed little doubt that she had been deceived into truly loving this fellow Thomas. No thought of danger seemed to occur to her. I saw the Master of Carlross’s envious eyes on her groom. I felt the hatred from the Dowager, and I was grateful for Clarence’s stalwart presence.
“Dearest husband.” The gentle bewitching eyes looked into his, as Lucy Carlross took the knife in her hand to destroy the delicate masterpiece, “I cut this cake that we shall be blest by God with children.”
“Never,” shrieked the Dowager. “You’ll not see him in your bed.” The guests gasped, but quickly fell silent, obviously remembering that the Countess Lucy was a witch.
His Majesty turned his wrath upon the Dowager. “Be silent, madam,” he roared.
If there were candidates for witch around, it should be the Dowager Hengest, I thought. Every wrinkle of her skinny face proclaimed her hatred of the countess.
“I loved your son, who was my husband,” the countess replied to her, trembling, “though he gave me no child.”
“A witch cannot conceive.”
“No,” Lucy declared, turning bravely to Thomas, “but I am no witch. I cut the cake with your son, Madam, seven years ago. We were married three years, and in that time I should therefore have conceived. There is no blame on me.” She added gently, “Go, madam, and leave my new husband and myself to our joy.”
A harsh cackle from the Dowager. “It will be short, witch.”
At a signal from His Majesty, the king’s men rushed to stand either side of her to restrain her lest she made a movement towards the countess – or her groom. The Dowager burst into scornful mirth, but it was quickly drowned by the guests’ cheers as the countess again took the knife in her hand and plunged it into the sugar paste gatehouse of Edinburgh Castle.
To shrieks of laughter and delight from the guests, it proved not to consist entirely of sugar paste and board. Instead from underneath its cover a multitude of doves flew out from their sugar paste covering, causing great confusion, blundering into ladies’ coiffures and gentlemen’s hats as they established their newfound freedom. It pains me to say that evidence of the birds’ panic was liberally spread over the guests’ clothes, including my own. I am told by Clarence there is a court fashion for such conceits in which blackbirds or frogs in pies leap out to amuse the company. I am old-fashioned, and dislike such tricks, but today it served a purpose. Excitement and pleasure, as the guests intermingled and attended to their attire, dispelled all talk of witchcraft.
When order was restored some time later, we resumed our places at the table. The cook had cut the castle of the sugar paste cake into neat slices. Such was the jostling of the gues
ts around us that I could not be sure of how many pairs of hands passed that first important slice to the countess. I saw only that the Dowager and the Master, now free of their guards, were two of those pressing close to Clarence with outstretched hands after he had taken it from the cook, and that it was from His Majesty himself that the countess received it. Bleary-eyed though he was, Thomas Bell suddenly came to life, as she presented the slice of cake to him. He looked at it doubtfully as well he might.
“Stay with me with flagons,” he shouted, and his wish was quickly answered, as he picked up the glass before him.
I shuddered again at this misuse of Hebrew, and saw His Majesty’s eye upon me. As a scholar he obviously shared my distaste at such a travesty. Then he turned his attention to Clarence, who observed sombrely: “Too many flagons have stayed him already.”
I read disgust on my friend’s face, but on the Dowager’s I saw hatred, and on the Master’s envy.
“Dearest Thomas, to thee I pledge my life. May God in His mercy keep us safe and bless us with issue.” Lucy seemed not to notice his heavy intake of wine, and Thomas hastily set down his wine and took up his cake, which he obediently ate. That done she followed suit with the piece of cake handed to her. Thomas immediately toasted her again, perhaps emboldened by the fact that no harm had befallen him.
The bridegroom was still alive and the evening was now for merrymaking. No one cried “witch” now, as the company drew back to allow the King and Queen to return to their dais, and the masquers to make ready and the tables be cleared. The Queen looked wistful, for in her youth she had dearly loved to appear herself in such diversions.
“Scantily clad,” Clarence had told me in shocked tones.
The festivities would begin with a dance led by the bride and groom. The trumpets played the fanfare, the musicians began to play. I noticed that Thomas seemed ill at ease, holding on to his bride as if for support not to lead her in dance. She seemed not to think it strange, perhaps taking it as an indication of overindulgence in claret. Then to the general horror of the assembled company, he fell to his knees, vomited, and collapsed, spread on the floor at his bride’s feet.
There was a moment of horrified silence, as the countess knelt down beside him. She took one look at him, then blindly held out her arms like a moth fluttering in the candlelight. Perhaps it was not Clarence whom she sought, even though he had hurried to her side, but the aid of a Higher Power.
Thomas Bell was dead. The Dowager had also hobbled to his body, waving a wax image stuck with pins. “’Twas hidden in the cake,” she shouted. “The witch, behold the witch!”
Her ladies gathered round the countess to protect her, as the Dowager continued in her triumph, “Your Majesty, even you cannot save the witch now. Let her burn. To the stake with her.”
The Master of Carlross was more subtle, but no less eager. “She must have a fair trial, sir. Beat the confession from her. A beating will bring the truth and excise the Devil for the sake of her soul. And,” he paused, “for your sake, sire.”
This point, I could see with sinking heart, was not lost on His Majesty. With a third husband dead killed in his presence, it was incumbent upon him to act. Our vines have tender grapes, where monarchy is concerned, and little foxes must be stopped.
The Queen was silent; even she did not plead for mercy, though Clarence had told me her liking for the countess was great. So it was I, I realized, who must take the lead if she were not to face certain death. Clarence seemed incapable of speech, so I forced my way forward to His Majesty’s presence, with Clarence anxiously beside me. The physician had done his work, although there was little of it, for Thomas was surely dead. Two guards held the countess, and others held back the guests that King James might confer without distraction. They all held swords being expert in war. Had I not just settled on those very words for translation?
His Majesty looked at me keenly. “You are her advocate, Parson Fish?”
“More evidence is required, sire.”
“Than that clay figure?”
“In this case and in that of the other figures, someone else could have hidden them in the cake and lain one on Sir John’s pillow as he died.”
Clarence eagerly supported me. “Yes, yes.”
His Majesty seized on this. “A Solomon come to judgment is Septimus Fish.”
Emboldened, I continued: “There are others who would gain by her death – or by her childlessness. No witchcraft is involved here but foul murder, not just today but for the countess’s last three husbands.”
Clarence looked startled and somewhat apprehensive that I should speak out so boldly.
“How was this achieved?” His Majesty thundered.
“By poison, your majesty. Poison added to Sir John’s food and to the slice of sugar paste cake handed to the grooms.”
The fair countess was sobbing, beyond hope, which made me all the more sure of my mission. “Simply in the case of Sir John by one of the many who visited or ministered to him.” I continued. “As for the bridal cake, at the nuptials . . .”
I paused, thinking of the scene at the wedding of the Earl of Lillyfield, as well as of Thomas Bell. I could discount the creator of the cake himself, surely, but what of the pairs of hands that passed that piece of cake to the groom? How easy it would have been to add a dose of vital poison if one were fully prepared.
“What poison?” His Majesty questioned me.
“The venom that acts so speedily, even arsenic would not serve so well. The one that masquerades in all our gardens as a flower, well known to the Romans, and one that has speedy reactions as we have just witnessed.”
“Hush, Pastor Fish. We know of it. By whose hand was it administered?”
I quickly realized my dilemma, but saw its answer. “That is for a trial to decide. I would arraign the Master of Carlross and the Dowager Hengest forthwith to question them further. Both were between the pastry cook, who cut the cake, and the groom.”
A cry of anger came from them both – not unnaturally.
“Both?” King James frowned. “That is not possible. How shall I tell which of them did Satan’s work without the torture? And, without knowing which is guilty, torture cannot be applied. An interesting matter of logic, Fish.”
I racked my brains for guidance, and the answer came again: “Take them one by one privily, sire. Tell them both that you know their guilt, but that they shall go free if they surrender their rights to the countess’s lands and title. He or she who eagerly agrees is guilty, but he or she who protests innocence, protests it with truth.”
“A Solomon indeed. It shall be done.” King James’s face lit up with relief.
The other guests were bidden to retire to Saxton Hall, while the countess remained with the guards to know her fate. Clarence and I prayed together that His Majesty might be successful – although on my part at least it was without much hope that my prayer would be answered.
Alas, when His Majesty reappeared, it was in high ill humour and the Dowager and Master of Carlross walked free. My heart sank.
“Solomon!” His Majesty ordered me to his side. “Both protest their innocence. What say you now?”
“I would ask time to pray further,” I said with heavy heart. I could see no way out of this dilemma. God hath indeed strewn my path with thorns. Which of these two and how and why? I prayed long and hard, and so did dear Clarence. When at last God spoke to us, we looked at each other for some time with the love born of those many evenings of conviviality. Eventually Clarence nodded, but his usual merry face showed no signs of mirth now.
“Septimus Fish,” His Majesty summoned me once more. “I command you to speak.”
I fell to my knees as if pleading even now for what I must say. “Jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance,” I began.
“Proverbs Six, verse 34,” King James rejoined briskly.
“The first day of vengeance was the death of Sir John Hengest,” I continued, “the n
ext that of the Earl of Sully, and the next of the Earl of Lillyfield. And now,” I added heavily, “that day is today. The Song of Songs speaks truly, sire. Your cousin is the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valleys. She is all fair. There is no spot in her. How could that jealous man stand by to see her the barren bride of another, then espoused to yet another husband, and another and –” I paused “– to Thomas Bell when that bed was rightfully his? That jealous man would come into his garden, your cousin, sire, and there eat his honeycomb and drink abundantly. Can he be blamed for this? God called him to admire His work in creating the loveliness of Lucy Carlross. This he saw as his work. If there was witchcraft it was in the eyes that God created. They were no work of hers, and no blame of his that he succumbed.” I paused again, unable to speak for tears. “O that thou wert as my brother . . .”
“Speak, Septimus,” the King commanded me gently.
I sobbed. “I name Archdeacon Hall.”
Clarence turned to me, his face ashen, but to my relief I could see no condemnation on that sad countenance so dear to me. He would not repudiate my charge. “Forgive me, Clarence, forgive me,” I babbled.
“I do, Septimus. I do. Go in peace and fear not the judgment of our Lord. Nor need the countess, whose beauty and charm are not of her own making, nor her power over men. Sire, she is no witch,” Clarence declared. “Those images were placed there by another, the Dowager Hengest, who seized the chance to lay one on her son’s pillow, guessing what I had done and why, and reasoning that I might do so again.” Clarence embraced me. “I would not have asked to marry the countess, Septimus. Who can wed the sun? I wished only to be her chaplain, without the interference of a jealous husband. Yet she must have suspected me, for she asked me to leave her service. Even then,” he embraced me again for the last time, “I could not bear to think of her in the arms of an other, least of all Thomas Bell’s. My sister, my spouse, as the Song of Songs so truly calls her.”
After Clarence had been led away to leave me in my anguish, His Majesty turned to me, seemingly much troubled. “How did you know it was the Archdeacon, Septimus?” he asked. “Though he passed the piece of cake onwards, I doubt that there was time for him to add poison to it.”
The Mammoth Book of Jacobean Whodunnits Page 12