Love's Alchemy

by Bryan Crockett

  Even if Jack’s mother mistook the source of his unease, she sensed his disquiet: “Fear not the journey,” she said. “Sir Thomas will bless you on your way.”

  “Yes,” he muttered ruefully. “Sir Thomas.” Sir Thomas More. . . . Sir George More. . . . Anne More. . . . Why was it his lot always to be plagued by More? More and More and More.

  “Well,” his mother said. Her chair creaked as she rose. “For now, to bed. But doubt it not: Sir Thomas will protect you.”

  As he wished her good night he tried to keep the rancor out of his voice. But there was no keeping it out of his mind, which seethed with greater turmoil the longer he sat before the last of the ash-coated embers in the fireplace. After a few minutes of halfhearted prayer—mere mouthing of words to a God that seemed too distant to hear them or care about them if he did—Jack rose and began to pace.

  Friends: he wanted his friends. Months had passed since he had seen any of his male companions from the old, heady days of study and revelry at Oxford and then at Lincoln’s Inn, and months more would likely pass before he could be reunited with any of them. They alone seemed to understand him when he sank into these fits of fretful melancholy. He missed Anne too, but even she would prove powerless to quell this beating in his brain. Burr was good enough company but much older, and of a different cast of mind from Jack’s. Nor could the old knave be fully trusted. No, he needed Tobie Mathew or Henry Goodyer or Christopher Brooke. Mathew would understand his doubts about the Church of England, Brooke his lascivious desire for Lady Bedford. But no one had a soul as comprehensive as Goodyer’s, a mind as nimble, a heart as open, a spirit as rare. No one else on earth, not even Anne, knew Jack Donne the way Henry Goodyer knew him. No one’s counsel was wiser. If anyone could tell him what would quiet these unruly thoughts, it was Goodyer. Not since Jack’s brief encounter with Goodyer at the Wizard Earl’s house had he sensed the wholeness of soul his friend seemed to bring simply by his presence, sometimes even in his letters.

  Jack felt no inclination to write, but penning a letter to his friend could hardly be worse than this tormented pacing in the dark. He set about blowing an encrusted ember into heat enough to light a small piece of kindling, added a larger piece, then a larger, and soon had the fire roaring again. He found oil for the lamp, lit the wick, and sat at his mother’s little writing-table with paper, ink, knife, and quill.

  Without putting Goodyer’s name on the page, Jack began with indirect references to his troubles, lest the letter be intercepted by some spy and used against him or his friend. But before he had written half a page, he found himself spelling out some of the particulars of his misery. By the time he had started on the next page, he was pouring onto the paper all the molten leadenness of his sinking soul. He told Goodyer of the twisted wretch Cecil’s forcing him into betraying Catholics, told him of such doubts about the Protestant faith that he, the most miserable Jack in Christendom, teetered on the point of rejoining the Church of Rome. In fact, he said, unless God instructed him otherwise he intended to go through with the reconversion. In Rome he would confess all to the Jesuits, in penance offering his services as a double spy, an intelligencer ideally placed to wreak subtle, malicious vengeance on Robertus Diabolus. He told Goodyer of his lust for Lady Bedford, a fire that grew hotter in his loins with every word he wrote. He told his friend of the surging, savage violence within him, of his intent to leave Lady Lucy screaming with rapturous spasms of pleasure ripped from pain.

  Of what these things would do to Anne he wrote nothing at all.

  As if to ratify a vow, whether heavenly or hellish, he signed his name with a flourish, then pricked his finger with the penknife and squeezed a drop of blood that he let fall onto the page.

  His brow moist and his breath labored, Jack sat feeling chastened and weak, as in the hour after the breaking of a long fever. The wood in the fireplace hissed and popped. Tongues of fire shifted and dazzled like moonlight on a rippled lake. He sat watching the flames until it was time to throw another log onto the embers or go to bed. Wearily, he picked up the letter with its words and its drop of heart’s-blood. He leaned forward and flipped the pages onto the coals. Flames leapt up to embrace the words as if sensing some passionate, self-consuming kinship with them.

  He forced himself to other thoughts. Family: he needed to think of his little family, not the siren Lady Bedford, the one woman on Earth whose seductive song he might follow to perdition. Of all women she alone could act the succubus, devouring his willing soul.

  He closed his eyes tightly. Family. Think of family. Anne and the children would be long after their first sleep now. Constance would be dreaming away with her thumb in her mouth, and Little Jack would be on his back, impervious to the cold, his blanket long since kicked away to the side.

  Well. Time to go to bed. Still, Jack did not stir from the chair. He sat exhausted, perhaps dozing, perhaps not, until dawn began to break.

  His mother’s letter in his hand, he got up and went to the little sewing closet where his mattress lay. But he doubted he could sleep. By the growing light of dawn he found black thread and a needle. With his dagger he slit through the stitching at the top of his right boot. He inserted his mother’s letter between the leather plies, then took from his satchel the Wizard Earl’s letter and slid it in next to his mother’s. He held the boot up to the window and re-stitched the leather plies, using the same needle-holes the boots’ cobbler had made. Before he had finished, he heard Chute and Burr talking softly upstairs. Or maybe it was only Chute muttering to himself, as he did from time to time. He heard someone on the steps. The needle and thread were still dangling from the top of his boot, which he hastily pulled onto his foot. From where he sat he could not see the staircase. A shadow fell across the doorway. Burr.

  “Ah,” the old man said. “Awake already. Is there aught that you lack?”

  “No, Tim, thank you.”

  “Has Kaatje arrived?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Then I will lay a fire in the kitchen.”

  “Good.”

  A few minutes later he heard Chute coming down the stairs. The red-cheeked man yawned and stretched away his stiffness. As he descended he asked, “Sleep well?”

  “Well enough,” Jack said.

  “I know no other bed to match the one upstairs for warmth and comfort, not even my softest goose-down four-poster at home.” Jack had heard him say the same at least twice before, so he did not reply. Chute began to stroll about the room, humming.

  There was no sleep in the offing, so Jack stoked the fire and sat to write another letter. Soon his mother came in and stood warming herself with her hands behind her and her back to the fire. She chatted briefly with him, then listened patiently to Chute’s aimless natter. Burr came in and sat in the corner chair to read one of Elizabeth’s books: North’s Englishing of Plutarch’s Lives of the Most Heroick Greeks and Romans. During the stay Burr had shown no interest in any of Elizabeth’s decidedly Catholic volumes: polemics, catechisms, lives of the saints. The old servant seemed to prefer reading about the ancient world. When Jack’s mother remarked on the preference, Burr said simply, “I myself am ancient.”

  Jack traced a finger along the bracelet on his wrist. Firelight glanced off his wife’s copper-gold hair interwoven with the leather bands. Beginning to feel troubled once again by the force of his desire for Lady Bedford, he wrote some lines for Anne. For her they would be a delight. For him they would serve as a sort of penance for his lust. He titled the poem The Relic:

  When my grave is broke up again

  Some second guest to entertain

  (For graves are only sacred till

  The churchyard grounds have had their fill)

  And he that digs it spies

  A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,

  Will he not let us alone,

  And think that there a loving couple lies,

  Who thought that this device might be some way

  To make th
eir souls, at the last busy day

  Meet at this grave and make a little stay?

  If this fall in a time or land

  Where misdevotion doth command,

  Then he that digs us up will bring

  Us to the Bishop and the King

  To make us Relics; then

  Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalene, and I

  A something else thereby;

  All women shall adore us, and some men,

  And, since at such time miracles are sought,

  I would have that age by this paper taught

  What miracles we faithful lovers wrought.

  The love between us, More and Donne,

  In binding double flesh in one,

  With fine-spun golden filaments,

  Rarer than the elements

  That trace the falling stars

  And blazing, live no sooner than they ebb,

  More fine than Vulcan’s web

  That snared the winsome Queen of Love, and Mars,

  Shall outlive monuments of bronze and brass.

  All measure and all language I should pass,

  Should I tell what a miracle she was.

  The firewood had burned to embers. Despite the chill in the air, Jack was perspiring—he hardly knew why—by the time he got to the last verse. The paper bore the blotted-out and superimposed words and phrases usual in Jack’s first drafts, so he wrote out the poem again in fair copy. On a separate page he wrote an ordinary letter describing Antwerp’s crowded streets and the fishy, boggy smell of the air—not too different from London’s—then, as gently and with as many assurances as he could, told Anne the three travellers would be venturing yet farther away, even as far as Rome. He powdered and blew the ink dry, folded the pages, sealed them for mailing, and laid the letter aside for Burr to post that afternoon on his way to the docks to inquire about passage to Rome.

  The poem’s first draft with its blottings, hatch-markings, and revisions still lay before him. Some days had passed since he had posted any of his verses to Lady Bedford. How difficult could it be to change a few words and make a second copy for her? By the time he reminded himself he had written the poem to Anne in penance for his lust, he was already turning over alterations. He could make the verse at once lighter and more lascivious, the way Lady Lucy seemed to like her poetry. He could change faithful lovers to harmless lovers, then wholly recast the last stanza, the one mentioning Anne by name. He tried some lines, and after half an hour had cast the stanza for Lady Bedford in place of his wife:

  If thou and I at last might couple,

  Bodies willing, lithe and supple,

  Saint Lucy’s glist’ning radiance

  Would slide all darksome shadows thence.

  Thy husband and my wife

  Might soon forgive a love like thine and mine,

  Their jealousies consign

  To dull Oblivion’s unrememb’ring life.

  If I could kindle thy bright spark to fire,

  And lightened, prick the strings of thy quaint lyre,

  We’d sing the world a miracle entire.

  On a fresh piece of paper he wrote in fair copy the whole of Lady Bedford’s version. He sealed this poem too, addressed the outside, and laid it with the other. He had no more finished with the letters than a knock at the door interrupted him.

  It was, oddly enough, a courier bearing a letter: a man who said he also carried some mailings for London to place on a ship that would sail across the Channel the next morning. Jack paid the courier, took the letter from him, and told the man to wait. The message was addressed in Anne’s hand. Jack tore open the seal.

  My dearest J,

  A courier waits at the door, so I must be brief. I trust and pray that you and your mother are well, and that this missive finds you safe at her house.

  I have it on the highest authority that G, the man you seek, lies in England, and as I think, in Warwickshire: for how long, I know not. But seek not for him in any other land.

  Your children fare well but for missing their father. As for me, longing for your return, I remain as ever,

  Your faithful, beloved

  A

  Jack broke the waxen seal from his letter to Anne, dipped his pen, marked through the passage about traveling to Rome, and scrawled across the bottom of the page Missive regarding G received. Sailing soon for Warwickshire and home. He held the paper to the fire to dry the ink quickly, resealed it along with Anne’s version of the poem, and gave both letters to the courier. Turning to Burr, he said, “Our plans have changed.”

  CHAPTER 11

  “God’s wounds! Where is Chute, that scurf-ridden, rabbit-sucking, arse-kissing son of a mongrel bitch? The ship sets sail within these five minutes, and the rat-pizzled miscreant does not show himself.” Jack took a few angry paces along the dock and glared down the road Chute would likely travel, but there was no sign of him. “You told him where and when to meet us, did you not?”

  Burr’s face hung in its usual droop, his dour countenance reflecting no sign of urgency. “Indeed, I informed him. My instructions to him were most thorough, for the man falls something short of a nimble wit. I suppose there is nothing for it but to get aboard without him.” With a wry imitation of sorrow he added, “Ah, the pity of it.”

  “Has he left us because we go back to England instead of on to Rome?”

  “I know not.” Burr stood there impassively for a time before adding, “But now I bethink me, I might have neglected to tell him we sail for England, directing him to a Rome-bound ship instead.”

  “Ha! By God’s bodikins, I would fain board without him, but the man carries our purse.”

  “Oh, you need not trouble yourself on that account.” Burr produced a leather pouch. “Knowing it was appointed you to distribute his monies as you saw fit, I thought it best to collect the unused portion of our four hundred pounds. Something more than three hundred sixty, I believe.” He extended the purse to Jack.

  “Tim! Does Chute know you have done this?”

  Burr considered the matter. “I thought it best not to burden him with the information.”

  “Well. I could kiss you, Tim.”

  “That will not prove necessary.”

  Jack smiled. “We are well rid of the spying knave.” Taking care to keep his tone light, he added, “Yet for aught I know, you might be a spy as well.”

  Jack watched closely, but Burr betrayed no sign of surprise at the remark. Instead, the old man replied, “And for aught I know, you might be one, too.”

  “Even so. But if I am, I am a spy that is glad you nicked the money. Yet why did you not tell me of this sooner?”

  Burr shrugged slightly. “You might have gone to find him, Master Jack. You were ever plagued with an over-precise conscience.”

  Jack put his arm across Burr’s shoulder as they began to walk toward the ship. “Well,” he said, “for this once I am glad you are free of one. Still, I almost feel sorry for the man. Where will he find money?”

  “Sir Walter carries funds of his own: hidden, as he supposes, from the world. He shall fare well enough.”

  The seas remained calm on the Channel passage. Bound for Edinburgh, the ship put in briefly at Great Yarmouth, where Jack and Burr disembarked and bought two good horses—a big bay mare for Jack and a chestnut gelding for Burr—to ride on their travels to Warwickshire and beyond. With saddles and gear the sum came to almost seventy pounds, but their wanderings were like to be extensive, and hiring horses for each leg of the journey would not be cheap. Later, if need be, they could always sell the animals. And for now, at least, Jack wanted a smooth-gaited horse: the less jostling of the head of Thomas More, the better. Jack had carefully wrapped the skull in a blanket, discarding the box.

  On their way to Warwickshire they passed from Norwich to Peterborough, making dozens of fruitless inquiries about Guido along the way. Nor was their luck any better in Rugby, Coventry, or Kenilworth. Not only did no one in the Midlands seem to know where Guido was stay
ing, no one claimed to know any man by that name—or so they heard from everyone they asked. Jack was beginning to think Anne must be wrong, and he worried that someone must have lied to her. The information about Guido came “on the highest authority,” her letter had said. Conceivably she meant King James himself. But how could she have met the King, and why would he have lied to a good Protestant about an enemy of the state? Surely Anne was not taking the huge risk of posing as a Catholic, especially in an encounter with King James. For the same reason—and, God knew, for others—she could hardly have sought out Cecil. More likely he had sought her out, had directed her to write to her husband with the supposed news of Guido’s whereabouts. Maybe Guido was nowhere near Warwickshire, and Cecil wanted Jack back in England to lure him into some trap. Sir William Stanley, after all, had seemed sure Guido had gone to Rome. But Jack did not much trust Stanley, did not like the look of those pale blue eyes. Or maybe the “highest authority” was not the King but the King’s wife. Queen Anna was Catholic and might find news of Guido easily enough, but as far as Jack knew, the Queen did not ply herself in affairs of state. And how could Anne have arranged to see her? The whole business was strange.

  As the two men saddled their horses to leave Kenilworth, Burr seemed unusually pensive. “What cheer, Tim? I thought you were glad to breathe the English air, wheresoever we went.”

  Burr came out of his reverie long enough to mutter, “English air. Yes.”

  “What is it, Tim? Tell me what is on your mind.”

  “Nothing. Probably nothing. A dream.” The old man tugged the cinch-strap tight, and his gelding tossed his head.

  “What manner of dream?”

  Burr laid a hand on the horse’s neck. “We were at Warwick, I think. At least, there was a castle, and not like the one here. At an inn a man without a hair on his body, neither pate nor beard nor brow, said he knew where Guido lay. But when he opened his mouth to tell me, I saw that we stood in water. He sank before he could speak. Then I woke.”