by Glenn Cooper
Now the tears flowed. “We have no money, sir. He has not been able to work. I have begun trading his leather stock to other guild members for food.”
“So, you have no boots, and you have no money! What would you have me do, woman?”
“I do not know, sir.”
“It seems that your husband will be spending his last days in prison at his majesty’s pleasure, and you too will see the inside of a debtor’s cell. When you see me next, I will have the sheriff.”
Elizabeth fell to her knees and wrapped herself around his stockinged calves. “Please, no, sir. There must be another way,” she sobbed. “Take his tools as payment, take what you like.”
“Elizabeth?” Luke weakly called out again.
“Everything is fine, husband,” she shouted back.
While seeing these thieves to prison would give him satisfaction, he knew he would rather spend the rest of his morning at a new cordwainer than tramping around the foul city looking for the sheriff. Without answering, he went to the worktable and began to inspect the array of pincers, awls, needles, mallets, and knives. He snorted at them. What use to him, he wondered? He picked up a semicircular bladed instrument, and asked, “What is this?”
She was still on her knees. “It’s a trenket, a shoemaker’s knife.”
“What would I do with this in my belt,” he said derisively. “Cut off someone’s nose?” He poked around the table some more, and concluded, “This is rubbish to me. Have you anything of value in here?”
“We are poor, sir. Please, take the tools and leave in peace.”
He began to pace back and forth, looking around the small room for something that would satisfy him enough to abandon his threat to have them arrested. Their possessions were indeed meager, the kinds of goods his servants had in their peasant houses.
His eyes fell on a chest near the hearth. Without asking permission, he opened it. There were winter cloaks, dresses, and the like. He stuck his hands in and felt underneath and touched something hard and flat. When he parted the clothes, he saw the cover of a book.
“Do you have a Bible?” he exclaimed. Books were rare commodities, and valuable. He had never seen a peasant or tradesman possessing one.
Elizabeth quickly crossed herself and seemed to say a silent prayer. “No, sir. It is not a Bible.”
He lifted the heavy book from the chest and inspected it. He puzzled at the date on the spine, “1527” and opened it. A sheaf of loose parchments fell onto the floor. He picked them up, glancing quickly at the Latin. He saw the name Felix on the top page and put the sheets aside. Then he inspected the pages of the book and cast his eyes on the seemingly endless lists of names and dates. “What is this book, madam?”
The fear dried Elizabeth’s tears. “It is from a monastery, sir. The abbot gave it to my husband. I know not what it is.”
In truth, Luke had never spoken to her about the book. When he returned to London from Vectis years earlier, he had wordlessly placed it in the chest, and there it had remained. He knew better than to remind her of Vectis. Indeed, the very name was never uttered in their house. She had a sense, however, that the book was wicked, and she crossed herself every time she had to use the chest.
Charles turned page after page, each one awash in the year 1527. “Is this some kind of witchcraft?” Charles demanded.
“No, sir!” She struggled to sound like she believed her next words. “It is a holy book from the good monks of Vectis Abbey. It was a gift to my husband, who knew the abbot in his youth.”
Charles shrugged. The book was bound to be worth something, possibly more than four shillings. His brother, who was more skilled with a pen than a sword, would know the value better. When he returned to Cantwell Hall, he would seek his views. “I will take the book as payment, but I am most displeased by this venture, madam. I wanted my boots for the Royal Council. All I have is my disappointment.”
She said nothing and watched the baron put the loose parchments back into the book and stride out of the shop and onto the street. He dropped the book into his saddlebag and rode off in search of another bootmaker.
Elizabeth climbed the stairs and entered the cubby, where Luke lay in a feverish, wasted state. Her hale, strapping man, the savior of her life, was gone, replaced by this old, shriveled shell. He was slipping away. The tiny room smelled like death. The front of his shirt was smeared with old brown blood and sputum and a few fresh streaks, bright red. She lifted his head and gave him a sip of ale.
“Who was here?” he asked.
“The Baron Wroxall.”
His watery eyes widened. “I never made his boots.” He was seized by a paroxysm of coughs, and she had to wait for his chest to quiet.
“He has left. All is well.”
“How did you satisfy him? He gave me payment.”
“All is well.”
“My tools?” he asked sadly.
“No. Something else.”
“What then?”
She took his limp hand in hers and tenderly looked him in the eyes. For a moment, they were young again, two innocents, on their own up against the large, cruel forces of a world gone mad. Those many years past, he had rushed in and saved her, as chivalrous as a knight, plucking her from that stinking crypt and a horrible fate. She had tried her whole life to repay him and had woefully failed to produce a child. Perhaps, in a small way, she had saved him today by tossing a bone to the wolf at the door. Her beloved Luke would be able to die in his own bed.
“The book,” she said. “I gave him the book.”
He blinked in disbelief, then slowly turned his head to the wall and began to sob.
Chapter 17
The instant Will awoke, he recognized the old unhappy syndrome, his head filled with lead weights, his mouth sponged dry, his body wracked by flulike myalgias.
He had a whopper of a hangover.
He cursed at his failings, and when he saw the quarter-full bottle next to him on the bed, lying there like a streetwalker, he angrily asked it, “What the hell are you doing here?” He had an urge to spill the contents down the sink, but it wasn’t his property, was it? He covered it with a pillow so he wouldn’t have to look at it.
He remembered everything, of course-he couldn’t use the pathetic excuse he’d blacked out. He’d cheated on ex-wives, he’d cheated on girlfriends, he’d cheated on women he was cheating with, but he’d never cheated on Nancy. He was glad he felt like crap: he deserved it.
Nancy’s text message was still there, unanswered on his cell phone. After he got out of the bathroom, full of minty toothpaste to mask his hangover mouth, he used the one available bar to call her. It was early there, but he knew she’d be up, feeding Phillip, getting ready for work.
“Hi,” she answered. “You’re calling me.”
“You sound surprised.”
“You didn’t text me back. Out of sight, out of mind, I figured.”
“Hardly. How’re you doing?”
“We’re okay. Philly’s got an appetite.”
“That’s good.”
His voice sounded off beam. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
She didn’t sound convinced. “How’re you getting on?”
“I’m in a big old country house. Feels like I’m in an Agatha Christie book. But the people here are being-very nice, very helpful. It’s been worth it. There’s been a breakthrough, but you probably don’t want to hear about it.”
She was quiet, then said, “I wasn’t happy, but I’m over it. I realized something.”
“What?”
“All this domestication. It’s hard on you. You’re too penned up. An adventure comes along, of course you’re going to jump at it.”
His eyes began to sting. “I’m listening.”
“And there’s something else. Let’s look to move sooner rather than later. You need to get out of the city. I’ll start talking to HR about possible transfers.”
He felt unspeakably gu
ilty. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Tell me about your breakthrough.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t over the phone.”
Concern crept back into her voice. “I thought you said you were safe.”
“I’m sure I am, but old habits…I’ll tell you in person soon.”
“When are you coming home?”
“I’m not finished yet, maybe a day or two. As fast as I can. We found the first clue. Three to go.”
“Prometheus’s flame.”
“Quite the puzzler, that Mr. Shakespeare. Big old candlestick.”
“Ha! Flemish wind next?”
“Yep.”
“Any ideas?”
“Nope. You?”
“I’ll think about it. Come home soon.”
It was the middle of the night in Las Vegas, and Malcolm Frazier was sleeping beside his wife when his mobile phone vibrated and chimed him awake. One of his men was calling from the Ops Center at Area 51, offering a perfunctory apology for disturbing him.
“What’ve you got?” Frazier asked, swinging his feet onto the floor.
“We just intercepted cell-phone traffic between Piper and his wife.”
“Play it for me,” Frazier demanded. He shuffled out of the master bedroom, past his children’s rooms, and he landed on the family room sofa as the file started playing.
He listened to the audio then asked to be patched through to DeCorso.
“Chief! What are you doing up at 2:00 A.M.?”
“My job. Where are you?”
He was sitting in his rental car, by the side of the road within sight of the lane to Cantwell Hall. Nobody was coming or going without his noticing. He had just peeled the cellophane off a chicken sandwich and wound up greasing his cell phone with mayonnaise. “Doing my job too.”
“Any sight of him?”
“Other than screwing the granddaughter last night, no.”
“Moral turpitude,” Frazier mumbled.
“Say again?”
Frazier ignored him. He wasn’t a dictionary. “Funnily enough he just called his wife. Not to confess. He told her there’d been a ‘breakthrough’ and that he wasn’t finished yet, another three clues to find, he said. Sounds like he’s on a fucking scavenger hunt. Now you know.”
“The food here sucks, but I’ll survive.”
Frazier had personal knowledge. “I know you will.” Then he added, “Keep your head down. The CIA promised the SIS they’d find out what happened to Cottle, and our CIA liaison guys are asking us some halfhearted questions. Everyone on our side wants it to blow over. It’s the other side I’m worried about.”
Frazier had trouble getting back to sleep. He replayed the strategy in his head, trying not to second-guess himself to the point of madness. He had decided to let Spence run free for the time being to give Piper the rope he needed to do whatever the hell he was doing in England. So far, so good. It looked like Piper was onto something. Let him do the work, Frazier thought. Then we’ll reel him in and reap the benefits. They could always pick up Spence and the book. He wouldn’t be hard to find. Frazier had his house in Vegas under surveillance, and guessed he’d surface well before his DOD. Spence was a dead man walking. Time was not on his side.
When the housekeeper put a plate of fried bread on the table, Will looked at it suspiciously. Isabelle laughed and urged him to keep an open mind. He crunched down, then said, “I don’t get it. Why would you ruin a good piece of toast?”
Fried eggs, mushrooms, and streaky bacon were served up in short order, and out of politeness, Will forced himself to eat. His hangover was making everything arduous, even breathing.
Isabelle was fresh and chatty, like nothing had happened. That was fine with him. He’d go along with the game or delusion or whatever it was. For all he knew, maybe this was how kids hooked up these days. If it felt good, do it, then forget about it-no big deal. It seemed like a reasonable way to handle things. Maybe he’d been born a generation too early.
They were alone. Lord Cantwell hadn’t surfaced yet.
“This morning I researched Flemish windmills,” she said.
“That was industrious of you.”
“Well, as you were going to sleep half the day, someone had to start in,” she said saucily.
“So where’s the next clue?”
“Haven’t got one.”
“One what?”
“A clue! Your brain’s not up yet, Mr. Piper!”
“I had a rough night.”
“Did you?”
He didn’t want to go there. “Windmills?” he asked.
She had some pages printed off an Internet site. “Did you know that the first windmill was built in Flanders in the thirteenth century? And that at peak, in the eighteenth century there might well have been thousands of them? And that there are currently fewer than two hundred in all of Belgium and only sixty-five in Flanders? And that the last working Flemish windmill ceased operation in 1914?” She looked up and smiled sweetly at him.
“None of that’s helpful,” he said, gulping more coffee.
“No, it isn’t,” she agreed, “but it’s gotten my mind cranking. We need to have a thorough look around for any objet d’art, image, painting, anything whatsoever with a windmill motif. We know there aren’t any books of interest.”
“Good. You’re going full throttle. I’m glad one of us is.”
She was enthused, a young filly straining at her bit for a morning run. “Yesterday was one of the most stimulating days I’ve ever had, Will. It was incredible.”
He looked at her through his bilious haze.
“Mentally stimulating!” she said, exasperated, but then at a whisper, under the washing-up noises of the housekeeper added, “And physically stimulating too.”
“Remember,” he said with as much gravitas as he could muster, “you can’t disclose any of this. They’re some very serious people who will shut you down if you do.”
“Don’t you think the rest of the world should know? Isn’t it a universal right to know?” She curled her mouth into a bright smile, “And, parenthetically, it would launch my academic career in a spectacular way.”
“For your sake and mine, I’m begging you not to go there. If you don’t promise me, I’ll leave this morning and I’ll take the poem with me and this’ll be unfinished.” He wasn’t smiling.
“All right,” she pouted. “What shall I tell Granddad?”
“Tell him the letter was interesting but didn’t shed any light on the book. Make something up. I’ve got a feeling you’ve got a good imagination.”
They began the day with a walk through the house, looking for anything remotely interesting. Will brought along another cup of coffee for the road, which Isabelle thought was very American of him.
The ground floor of Cantwell Hall was fairly complicated. The kitchen wing in the rear of the house had a series of pantries and disused servants’ quarters. The dining room, a well-proportioned front-facing room, was located between the kitchen area and the entrance hall. Will had spent all his time the previous day in the Great Hall and the library and this morning he was shown another large, formal room facing the rear garden, the drawing room, which they also called the French room, holding a starchy collection of eighteenth-century French furniture and decorative pieces, which looked unlived-in and unvisited. Will also discovered that the reason the Great Hall was windowless was because its front-facing wall was no longer the outer wall of the house. A long gallery had been constructed in the seventeenth century, connecting the house and a stables area which had long ago been converted to a banqueting hall.
The gallery originated through an unnoticed entryway in the hall. It was a high-ceilinged, darkly paneled corridor lined with paintings and the odd piece of stone or bronze statuary. At its other end, it emptied into a vast, cold hall that hadn’t hosted a banquet or a ball in a good half century. Will’s heart sank when he entered. It was filled with packing crates and piles of furnitu
re and bric-a-brac covered in sheets. “Granddad calls this his bank account,” Isabelle told him. “These are things he’s decided to part with to pay the bills for the next few years.”
“Could any of this stuff date back to the fifteen hundreds?”
“Possibly.”
Will shook his throbbing head and swore.
The banqueting hall was connected via a short corridor to the chapel, a small stone sanctuary, the Cantwells’ private house of worship, five rows of pews and a small limestone altar. It was simple and quiet, Christ crucified looking down on empty pews splashed by morning sunlight that filtered through stained glass. “Not used much,” Isabelle said, “though Granddad wants the family to do a private mass for him here when his time comes.”
He pointed over his head. “Is this the spire I can see from my bedroom?” Will asked.
“Yes, come and look.”
She led him outside. The grass was thick and wet, the sun made everything glisten. They stepped into the garden, just far enough to get a glimpse at the stone chapel, and the sight of it almost made him laugh. It was a curious little building, a novelty with a distinctive Gothic architecture, two rectangular towers at the front facade and at its center over a rectangular nave and transept, a steep pointy spire that looked like a lance thrust into the air.
“Recognize it?” she asked.
He shrugged.
“It’s a miniature version of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Edgar Cantwell had it built in the sixteenth century. I think the real thing made an impression.”
“You’ve got an interesting family,” Will said. “My guess is the Pipers probably cleaned the shit off of the Cantwells’ shoes.”
To Will, the only good thing about the long hours that followed was that his hangover slowly resolved. They spent the morning rummaging through the banqueting hall, focused on Flanders and the wind, but cognizant of the remaining clues as well-a prophet’s name, a son who sinned-as vague as they were. By lunchtime he had a fair appetite.
The old man was up and about and joined them for sandwiches. His memory wasn’t all there, so it was easy for Isabelle to deflect him from the Vectis letter. However, he did remain fixed on the purported Shakespeare poem because it seemed that financial worries were foremost on his mind.