Old Saxon Blood

by Leonard Tourney

  But when they were led into the Privy Chamber they found the Queen not on the floor cushions as reported but seated at the virginals, which she continued to play with considerable skill, Joan thought, for several minutes, until she became aware of Cecil’s presence. “Ah, Robin,” she said. “And these with you, we trust—”

  “Matthew Stock and his wife, Joan; Master Thomas Cooke and Mistress Frances Cooke, whom you will remember as Mistress Frances Challoner; and Edward Bastian, Master Cooke’s manservant.”

  The old Queen’s face brightened as she recognized Mistress Frances, and Joan thought she saw a tear of happiness glisten in her eye. Then, aided by a gentleman who upon later introduction turned out to be Sir John Harington, the Queen’s godson, the Queen went up to Mistress Frances and kissed her, saying, “God save you, Frances, whom we must henceforth call Mistress Cooke, and right welcome home again to London.”

  Juan noticed that the Queen limped and used a cane and seemed to be in great physical discomfort all the while. She was helped down upon the large floor cushions of which Cecil had spoken and sat very erect and cast her gaze about each one of them as though trying to fix in her memory who each was. Then suddenly it all seemed to come to her again. She asked her godson to bring her something from a desk standing in the corner.

  She was given a letter, which turned out to have been written from Thorncombe by Cecil on the day following the wedding. She looked over the page and said,

  “Oh yes, so Master Stock, you have done your duty, as it says here. Mistress Frances’ life endangered—but saved by the hostler of the castle—

  “Edward Bastian, Majesty,” Cecil said, indicating where Edward stood in the rear of the room. Joan thought Edward looked very handsome for the occasion. The Cookes had provided him with a new suit of clothes and he could almost have been taken for a gentleman.

  The Queen asked that Edward be brought closer so she could have a good look at him. Edward approached, knelt, and was told to rise.

  The Queen continued to comment on the letter.

  “And the dead body of your late father, Arthur Challoner, discovered in a cave, and presumably murdered by your uncle. A crime most horrible and damnable too,” she said, adjusting her red wig and scowling in general disapproval of homicide in all its forms. “The murderer, I take it, of Sir John, the same murderer being this fellow yonder’s father, once a servant of the house?”

  She peered suspiciously at Edward.

  Cecil said, “But young Edward here was faithful, unlike his father. ”

  “If it please, Your Majesty,” Mistress Frances interjected. “Edward Bastian saved my life, stood between my death and his fathers vengeance.”

  “Did he so?” the Queen said, subjecting Edward to another searching gaze. “Then he shall have our thanks for that as well as yours, for we told Sir Robert when you were gone unto Derbyshire that we would rather have lost an arm than see you come to harm.”

  Now the Queen turned her attention to Matthew.

  “Master Stock, you have pleased us well in this matter and confirmed our better opinion of your qualifications. According to this report—”

  “Which must be revised, Your Majesty,” Matthew said.

  “Revised?”

  Matthew looked over at Cecil, whom he had informed earlier of Joans new understanding of the case and who had given his permission that it be withheld until this moment. “The intelligence that Your Majesty has by way of Sir Roberts letter represents the best of our knowledge at the time it was written. Since then, new information has come to light—particularly as it regards the death of Sir John Challoner.”

  “Do you wish to say, Master Stock,” the Queen exclaimed, ''that this mans father was not the murderer of three persons and the attempted murderer of Mistress Frances?”

  “l'faith, Your Majesty,” Matthew said. “Hugh Bastian was in truth the perpetrator of the deaths of the two servants. He it was who also attempted the life of Mistress Frances, now Mistress Cooke, for in each case the same instrument was used and the same wounds inflicted. Yet until this hour we knew not why Hugh Bastian killed, but thought it ancient grievance come to boil or motiveless malignity, such as possess madmen. Now we understand there was cause more immediate. We also understand that Hugh Bastian did not drown Sir John but desired to protect him who did.”

  At this assertion there was a murmur in the room of interest and surprise. Joan looked at Mistress Frances, who looked at her husband, then at Edward, who stood very stiff and expressionless, although he had still not recovered from amazement at being where he was and in such great presence.

  “Have you an accusation to make, Master Stock?” asked the Queen.

  “I do.”

  “Make it, and pray God its just, for there have been many false conclusions to this matter and I am more than ready to have the whole truth at last.”

  Matthew turned to Edward Bastian and pointed his finger at the young man’s chest. “I accuse you, Edward Bastian, of murdering your lawful lord, Sir John Challoner, on the sixteenth day of the month of August, year of grace, 1601, and of designing to conceal your crime and shift the blame to another, namely your own father.”

  There was an awful stillness in the chamber when Matthew had finished and all eyes were turned to the accused man. During Matthews words, Edward had continued to stand like a sentry on guard; now, Joan could see, his breathing was heavy, his shoulders had slumped. Slowly he sank into a kneeling position, with his head bowed as though he were already prepared for the headsman s ax.

  “Is there ample evidence to support such a charge?” the Queen asked.

  “We believe there is,” Matthew answered. “Upon Sir Roberts recommendation we chose this moment to bring it forth, that Your Majesty might be judge of its merits and the degree of guilt of the accused."

  “Then present the evidence straightway,” the Queen said, “for I have little tolerance for more surprises or delays.”

  Matthew said, “Since this evidence was largely compiled by my wife, I let her speak.”

  The Queen turned to Joan and motioned for her to proceed.

  Joan said, “The evidence is an empty chest found by me at the lake; Edward Bastian’s own child, by adoption rather than nature, or so we now believe; and a likeness of Sir John Challoner, revealed to me only yesterday. By these facts we hope to show the true circumstances of Sir John’s death as well as the depth of his depravity and to have these things confessed by him who executed the decree of justice upon the offender.”

  Now Cecil stepped forward and said to Edward, “Speak, Edward Bastian, speak truly, as you have not done in full until this present hour. You stand before your Queen, and God, too, is a witness to these proceedings. Save in Him, you will never find a more just judge of your inequities or a royal heart sooner to pardon. Now therefore speak the truth and the whole truth, so God help you.”

  Edward made no answer. Joan could see his mouth was firmly set in defiance; he would submit to punishment but would not speak.

  “Speak, sirrah,” the Queen commanded. “If you have aught to respond to these charges, speak now, or I will order guards to bear you straightway to a more suitable place for your confession.”

  Joan heard the accused hostler emit a low groan, as though he were in terrible agony. He ran his fingers through his hair in a distracted manner and looked up at the Queen. Yet still he would not speak.

  Joan said, “Edward, you trusted God to preserve you from a fall from the castle roof; trust God now. Make peace with Him and your conscience, that all wrongs may be known and set aright.”

  Another silence followed. At last Edward said, slowly and in an anguished voice,

  “The day Sir John came home from Ireland, he came to my

  father's cottage where I lived with Brigid. He wanted to take up where he left off with her.”

  Joan said, 'The child was his, wasn’t it?—Sir John’s bastard child, bearing the same deformity as he.”

  "It was,”
Edward said. "The devil was his father. Brigid had been a servant in the castle and the mating of the two was a rape, the lord of the manor taking his due, as he put it. But a child was conceived as a result of it. A child bearing his own curse so that all and sundry who saw it would know.”

  "That’s why you tried to conceal the child’s existence,” Matthew said.

  "Aye, I thought that it was better that no one knew about the child. Brigid loved it, loved it despite its father. And I loved her and the child, because it was a child of her body. But I hated him for his ruthlessness and his lust.”

  "For which you killed him,” Cecil said.

  Edward looked at the knight. He said, "I didn’t intend it, Sir Robert, I swear before God. When Sir John came to the cottage he demanded to see the child, and when he saw it he swore vilely, first at the child and then at Brigid, whom he blamed for having borne it, and then for having let it live. He ordered her back to the castle. He wanted her to be a servant again, for such purposes as I leave to your imagination, knowing his nature. He thought it was his right.” "But she refused,” Joan prompted.

  "Aye. She refused, as any decent woman would.”

  "What did Sir John do then?” the Queen asked.

  "Why, he seized the child, told Brigid she should have it when he had her and not before. He threatened to drown it in the lake like an unwanted puppy.”

  "And so the chest was secured,” Joan said.

  "He put the child in it. He had brought it with him to the cottage, as though the damned creature knew that Brigid would have none of him and he would take the child away.

  "1 followed him back to the castle, begging him to let me have the child to give to its mother again. He laughed in my face. He told me to go and shut my mouth about the child, and I told him if he would give it to me I would take the mother and the three of us

  would leave Derbyshire and he would never hear aught of us again/’

  '‘And he made what answer?” asked the Queen.

  “Why, Your Majesty, he told me roundly he could not abide a puling, whining servant, no more than a misbegotten bastard. He called me churl and varlet and worse names I forbear to mention in this company.”

  “And for these provocations you killed your master?”

  “For these things, Your Majesty, and as God is my witness, I would do it over again did the opportunity present itself. It happened this way. The rain had begun to fall, a filthy drizzle. He was by the lake, ready to push off in his shallop with the child confined in the chest and mewling, ignorant of his doom. I knew the price Sir John demanded for the child’s salvation, and he knew 1 was not willing to pay it—nor was Brigid. I begged him not to be so cruel. I reminded him that the child was his own flesh and blood. But he confessed his was cursed blood indeed and challenged me to dispute with him that his face did not give ready evidence of the curse. I furnished him with a dozen reasons why what he undertook was an offense to God as well as man. He laughed the more, pushed off, commending me to the devil. Whereupon, full of fury, I dashed into the water and seized the gunwale, swung the shallop round, and he, being caught unawares, lost his balance and fell overboard.”

  “It was then you drowned him,” said the Queen.

  “I saved the child, Your Majesty,” Edward declared in a cold, steady voice of one no longer caring for his life. “I took the chest and carried the precious burden to shore, maugre his hail of curses and threats. The water where he fell was only shoulder-deep, you see. He was struggling to come to shore. Then his curses stopped. I turned to look. He had disappeared, gone under.

  “I knew what had happened. It was one of those damnable holes and he had fallen into it. I confess I was tempted to let him drown and go to hell forthwith, thinking it was a fully satisfying judgment of God that he should have stepped into a hole in the middle of a good round curse, blaspheming God and Christ. But I couldn’t do it, though I hated him. I put the child down on the shore and went back.”

  “To murder him,” the Queen said.

  “I had no murder in my heart, I swear it. Only a desire to save the child, to protect my wife, which having done, I was content to be on my way. But I went back, curse my fate, groped around in the dark water until I got a fistful of hair, and pulled him up half-drowned and choking. He had lost a leg in Ireland to the surgeon's knife and he wasn't the man he had been and knew it. That made him all the angrier, having had what he deemed his—the child, I mean—taken by such a one as I.

  “I got him into the shallop again and pushed it toward the shore. The thought ran through my mind that he might give me thanks for saving his life, which showed the fool I was, for he no sooner came to himself but started another volley of curses and threats. Would to God he had drowned the first time. Would to God I had left him where I set my foot upon the shore with the child in my arms and my mind set on returning to Brigid. Let God judge me, I didn't go down into the lake to murder my master, but to save Brigid's child. Up to then Sir John had always done well by me, although he had ill-used my father. But his lust possessed him and drove him forward in evil. It was he who was bent on murder, not I. But I could not let him have the child; no, not if it meant my death.

  “I realized that after what I had already done, I would be beaten at least, hanged at worst. What would have happened to Brigid then? Why, the devil would have been at her as before, that's what! I was done for, bereft of a decent choice. I had lifted my hand against my master, defied his will, caused him grave injury, committed a battery upon his person, as he worded it. I was completely in his power now, for such was the law. Gallows fodder for sure, he said, and I knew the child would be drowned all the same, for he was determined to do it. He hated the child because it was like him—that's the cruel sum.”

  “How exactly did Sir John die, then, if you saved him from drowning as you say?” the Queen asked.

  “He died by my hand, Your Majesty. I don't deny that. He was sitting in his shallop, head down, still coughing and cursing, for he said he had swallowed half the lake and had been poisoned thereby. I took the blanket the child was wrapped in, soaked it twice its weight, and, making my way to where he was, pressed it over Sir John's face before he guessed at my intent. I held it there with all my strength. It took very little, to say true. Sir John wasn't the man he'd been. He struggled slightly. Then he sat very still, slumped over like a drowsing fisherman, the rain falling with such fury one could have believed the second deluge had come."

  "At least you saved the child's life," Joan remarked when Edward paused in his account.

  "I cast the empty chest out upon the water as far as I could throw and left Sir John where he sat, not caring what anyone might make of his death. I returned to the cottage with the child, told Brigid what necessity had driven me to perform, wept many a tear with her of regret, and then returned to the castle, where no one took my wet clothes amiss since all who had been out of doors were in such a state. When Cuth Fludd went in search of the master I went as his companion, feigned surprise when we found him dead, and grief, too, keeping silent about the rest. There was enough water in his belly that all thought he had drowned."

  At this point several comments were made by those present, including the Queen’s godson, Sir John Harington, who swore it was the most piteous tale he had ever heard, and that if Master Shakespeare had been so fortunate to have been present, he would have at once made a fine tragedy thereof to rival Titus Andronicus or Romeo and Juliet.

  But while these remarks were being made, Joan considered the justness of Edward's actions. She well understood the hostlers predicament, for had the facts of Sir John's death been known, Edward's claim of self-defense would have given him but a tenuous purchase on life. How much less secure would he have been with the truth as he had told it. The law could not forgive a servant’s murder of his master. There had been no witnesses to Sir John’s abduction of the child, the rape of the mother, his threats against them both and against Edward. Edward’s confession would have been his
death warrant, the jury's verdict a foregone conclusion. Edward had been right about having no choice—at least not a choice a decent man could make. He had been the victim of cruel circumstances—a figure of tragedy, as Sir John Harington had wittily said. Had Edward only been a prince rather than a lowly hostler.

  But there was still more to be revealed, and it was the Queen who opened the door to it. 'Tell me,” she said. "Did your father know what you had done?”

  "I never told him directly, Your Majesty,” Edward answered. "But he must have overheard me tell Brigid. And it was thus Aileen Mogaill’s murder became a part of my misery. She had seen me quarreling with the master on the shore. Later she reckoned what it had meant, for when questioned by the coroner’s jury, I claimed to have been at the stable and not set eyes on Sir John all the afternoon. She came to suspect that I had killed the master and she told me she would tell unless I gave her money, which I did for nearly a year for her silences sake. My father must have learned about that, too, must have heard me tell Brigid what I had done, for I kept nothing from her. You must understand how my father hated Sir John, hated him for old wrongs and even unto madness for new ones. But he loved me out of his great, ailing heart and perplexed brain, and that, too, was a cause of these misfortunes, for he went about by stealth, whilst Brigid and I were unawares, righting wrongs done to us in a god-forbidden way. I didn’t understand this at the time it was done. It was for me he killed Aileen. It was for me he killed Conroy, as he feared the Irishman sought my life or meant to take up where Aileen Mogaill left off in extracting money for his silence.”

  "And Mistress Frances,” the Queen asked. "What had your father against her other than she was her uncle’s heir?”

  To this Edward had no answer, whereupon Cecil conjectured, "Perhaps at that point in his madness he was persuaded that because she was her uncle’s heir she would wreak vengeance on his murderer.”

  The Queen said she thought Cecil’s suggestion not implausible, and thereafter the Queen, Cecil, and her godson discussed for a very long time the circumstances of the case, related principles of law, and how justice might be served. To Joan the learned conversation, including many Latin words and phrases beyond her ken, was all very edifying, but how she wished the Queen’s verdict would come. They had been over an hour in the Privy Chamber, and standing all the while, except for Edward, who remained on his knees, and Joan was exhausted. She had wept much during