by Alex Dylan
Cecil coloured and drew himself to his full short height. Mark A’Court cleared his throat with a warning growl but the king was smiling merrily. He glanced away to the distant corner of the room before flicking his attention back to the hapless Cecil.
“Nay, my lord, stand up. Must your king command you twice?” he said teasingly.
Cecil glowered at Mark A’Court, who replied with a look of knowing wariness. Cecil swallowed and tried again.
“Twice the number of Court Gentlemen will mean an increase strain on the Privy purse, Your Majesty. I must have a care for Your Majesty’s well-being…”
James cut him off, “My Lord Cecil, if I were twice as well looked after, it would be no more than the half of what I deserve. It is only right and proper that you continue to concern yourself with my well-being.”
Cecil looked at Mark A’Court with pleading desperation. Mark took pity on him and tried to intervene.
“Your Highness,” he began, “I think what my Lord Cecil is trying to communicate is that you have doubled your staff and doubled his workload, so he is now twice as busy.”
The king chuckled to himself and announced to the assembly, “It is well my Lord Cecil is twice as busy as any other man for he has only half the legs.”
There was a ripple of polite laughter around the room at the king’s joke. Cecil smarted under the king’s rebuke but was powerless to do anything other than submit graciously and withdraw. Mark followed him to a discrete corner.
Cecil was tight-lipped in his anger. “I am not some capering idiot to provoke merriment.”
“His Majesty enjoys a playful jest, my lord,” Mark appeased. “That does not make you his fool.”
“He has no need. He is himself the wisest fool in Christendom,” Cecil snorted and stalked away.
Mark turned the rings on his fingers thoughtfully and skirted the edges of the room in solitary contemplation until he managed to corner James alone.
“Highness,” he began, folding down from his height with an elegant court flourish.
The King hiccoughed and laughed, slurping more wine from an overflowing cup. Courtesy of the mermaids and Robin Kerr, no doubt, thought Mark.
“Majesty, Mark, call me ‘Majesty’. We are in England now. York is fine, isn’t it, Mark? The further we gi’ frae Scotland, the better I feel. Should’ve come south o’ the border years ago. Cannae see mysel’ gan back any time soon.”
Mark knew it wasn’t polite to comment to your liege lord that they were fox-drunk but he was sorely tempted. He contented himself with reminding the king of his Edinburgh speech made less than a month before.
“Your Majesty promised the people to return to Scotland at least once every three years,” he began gently.
“Aye, weel there’s nae hurry, is there, then?” said the king, as though they were in perfect accord.
Mark tried again, “A king must be seen to keep his promises.”
James beamed. "Aye, aye, I can tek a hint, Mark. I’m nae so far in ma cups as to be incapacitated.
“I’m in a gud humour after such a fine meal, so ’tis time to honour our hosts. Fetch me my sword Mark and round up the guests.”
With the dignitaries duly gathered, James kept good Mark A’Court’s promises to Alderman Askwith and others. If they were irked at having to pay for the privilege, they gave no sign of it, accepting their honours with dignity and delight. The king was very merry but he held his drink well. No one except Mark suspected the degree of his inebriation, until the point where he called for the beef.
“The beef, Majesty?” queried Mark, thinking he had misheard.
“Aye,” said James expansively, “the good roast beast I ate today.”
Mark signalled to the pages and had them bring in a haunch of roast oxen, carrying the meat on a large platter that took two of them to lift it. The king rose to a standing position, everyone else duly knelt, including the pages, still holding the platter.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “as fond as I am of all of you, yet I have a still greater favourite.” Mark smiled secretly and braced himself in anticipation.
“The loin of a good beef,” said the king. “Therefore, good beast, I knight thee ‘Sir Loin’.”
He unsteadily placed the sword on the haunch of meat, much to the amusement of the pages, who tittered under their breath as much as they dared.
“Majesty,” hissed Mark warningly from the side of his mouth, trying to catch his eye. James heard him and stooped down with his head to one side like an inquisitive cockerel. “Yes, yes, I remember,” he said testily, approaching the kneeling Mark.
“I create thee, Mark A’Court, Constable of the Realm. Arise.”
A confused Mark got slowly to his feet and caught the tipsy king by his elbow as he started to fall. The two men appeared to embrace one another and the gathered assembly erupted into gallant applause.
* * *
The man beside her was naked. He slept soundly. He had given her three gold coins, a payment she hadn’t expected. Melisande smoothed his hair from his face, stroked his shoulders and thought of another, her thoughts slipping to Heughan.
Nine of Swords. Suspicion, fear and doubt. That meant danger.
Two of Cups. Powerful sexual attraction. That meant danger too.
Death.
This man’s skin felt cold beneath her hands. Regretfully, he would never wake again. She picked up her knife and slit his throat.
Chapter 15: Ghosts from the Past
Carlisle City
Willie sat on the wooden box settle in the hallway, turning his hat between his hands and swinging his legs. Heughan had arrived back in a flurry of sweating horseflesh and rushed them both to Rodrigues, but then he had left him kicking his heels while he went to speak to the Spaniard alone. Eleanor took pity on him and fetched him a cup of ale. Aye, she’s a gud wumman, thought Willie appreciatively.
Heughan was pacing. Rodrigues was waiting. Heughan was exhausted from a desperate ride back from York but the energy bristled within him as static in storm clouds. His face was bright with trouble. He had told his tale to Rodrigues, had heard about the rout and now was trying to marshal his thoughts. Rodrigues waited but had nothing to contribute.
Eventually, Heughan summarised the situation, “So most of the lads are locked up, barring the ones who were with me chasing shadows, Ross and that bastard Mark A’Court have murdered the others, and Hamish is still missing. Were we betrayed, Roddy?”
Rodrigues pulled at his moustaches, “Don’t be hasty, lad. You are leaping to conclusions. Perhaps you don’t yet have all the pieces of the puzzle.”
“Puzzle, yes,” said Heughan. “Roddy, I need your advice.” He pulled the paper John Johnson had given him from out of his jack and spread it on the table in front of him. “Look at this. His ‘recipe’ he said.”
Together they pored over the document. It was inked with diagrams and neat annotations in small, precise handwriting. Rounded pomegranates sat in the middle of numbers and symbols, the careful machinations of John Johnson, engineer.
“This looks to me like it’s to do with ordnance and your Spanish wine. What does he intend, I wonder? Shall I ask Willie to fetch the boys?”
“No. Not just yet. I want to ask you something first.”
“I felt it coming; it’s about Melisande, isn’t it?”
“Yes, you old witch; it is, but how did you know?”
Rodrigues twitched the smile on his lips. “An old broom knows the dirty corners best. Why else would you ask to see me without Willie?”
“These symbols, I’ve seen them before. Are they to do with alchemy?”
“Perhaps,” said Rodrigues, continuing to twiddle with his moustaches. “Where did you say you’d seen them?”
“Melisande. But that’s not all. The night of the banquet, La’l Un had a good snoop. He described this…” he broke off to jab a finger at one of the diagrams on the paper.
“Hmmm, interesting,” mused Rodrigues noncommittally.
“An alembic, a retort, the process of sublimation perhaps…”
“Willie found gold.”
“Did he now? I suppose you’ll want to ask me next if it’s faerie gold.”
Eleanor brought bread and some cold meat for Rodrigues. She offered Heughan the same but he waved her away.
“Eat lad, you need to eat,” said Rodrigues. “Ellie, give the lad some food.”
Heughan took off his jack and sat down on a bench opposite the older man, tearing the bread apart and hacking at the meat animatedly.
Rodrigues let him swallow a few mouthfuls before he asked smoothly. “Did Willie find anything else? Did you perhaps see anything interesting, say a book, at any time when were with her?”
Heughan nodded quickly, mumbling through a mouth crammed with food. “Melisande? Mmm… she keeps a journal. There was other stuff, Willie said.”
“She let you see it?” Rodrigues rubbed the inside of his wrist, feeling the old scar itch beneath the fine linen of his shirt.
"Yes. No. Not really. I can’t understand her, Roddy…’ Heughan began. He thought of their night spent together. He thought of everything that had happened since. He started to put food into his mouth and stopped, dropping it back onto the platter to look directly at Rodrigues.
“She is the woman I desire the most, I’ve never felt a need like it; yet I’m not sure it is love,” he hesitated.
Heughan banged the table with his fist. “She also maddens me, embarrasses me, makes a fool of me and yet I am amazed by her. I can’t stop wanting her and it’s not simply lust, not this time.”
He exhaled softly, “She has a hold on me for no reason I can fathom. Is she really a witch?”
Rodrigues smiled; he wasn’t afraid of the word or the woman. He stroked his moustaches and constructed his answer carefully.
“Well, her father was a truly special person; different in a way that frightened others. They thought he was from the devil, if not the devil himself. I knew him to be a wise and brilliant man. She’s not a witch. No, I don’t think so. It’s worse than that. She is that most terrible of creatures; an educated woman too familiar in dealing with the business of men.”
Heughan would not be deflected. “But she has more secrets?” He took hold of Rodrigues’s arm and looked him steadily in the eye, “What?”
“Secrets?” smiled Rodrigues. “It’s the secrets of knowledge she seeks. I told you of her father and the ‘Key of Solomon’?”
Heughan nodded, remembering.
“The ‘Key of Solomon’ is a book full of wisdom and intelligence, which is why it frightened the established order and which is why they were prepared to burn anyone they thought had it.”
“And what else?” Heughan asked. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Rodrigues shrugged indifferently. “It incites curiosity and doubt. And there are those who would have us believe that doubt creates holes in the mind for the devil to worm his way through.”
“Why would anyone be so afraid of a book? What’s in it? It’s a pact with the devil in exchange for secret treasure, is that what you’re saying?”
Rodrigues didn’t reply.
“You said it is a book. You think it still exists and Melisande has the ‘Key of Solomon’. You think that’s what Willie and I saw? Alchemy – the secret of how to turn base metal into gold?”
Rodrigues pulled a wry face. “No, as an answer to all of your questions. It was just a slip of my tongue. Melisande does not possess her father’s book. She was just a child when he died. What business would a young girl have with alchemy?”
“Melisande is no girl.”
Rodrigues smiled. “She will always be just that to me, lad.”
“You’re jealous, Roddy. And I’ll tell you something else, she does have a book and I’ve seen it.”
“What have you seen, Heughan? A woman’s scribblings? Recipes for love potions? Divination in the heavens to foretell the future?”
Heughan reddened. He knew Rodrigues was bluffing. Bloody Spaniard!
“Ah yes. Cupidity is always so much more slickly romantic under the night sky. We imagine the stars illuminating a certitude for us, mapping out a pathway. It’s much more comforting to believe in fate than free will. It avoids having to acknowledge the responsibilities of making one’s own choices. Did she tell you that your destinies were written together in the heavens? There’s nothing! She’s taken you for a fool!”
Heughan produced the blue mermaid jar full of poisonous berries, placing it on the table between them. “Do you want to try and convince me that this is nothing as well?”
Rodrigues lifted the jar’s stopper suspiciously and peered inside. His eyebrows shifted up a furrow. “It’s just Nightshade,” he said dismissively. “Women’s medicine is women’s business, Melisande’s business.”
“Poison is a woman’s weapon,” said Heughan.
Rodrigues snorted, “And also that of an assassin, I’ve heard say. That it might be but in my experience, most ladies just use dwayberry to widen their eyes and look pretty. You want me to be frightened by a woman’s love philtres?”
Heughan stayed silent. Rodrigues was taunting him and yet underneath his carefully placed jibes, he sensed the same shared unease that Melisande knew what she was about. He knew the Spaniard was holding something back from him and that he needed to pick his way through the caltrops of his insults carefully.
Rodrigues mistook his silence and relented.
“Ach, lad. I’m very fond of Melisande, you know that. Her instinct is not evil. She has the lore of plants and healing but not the wit to see how it endangers her. An enquiring mind is an evil affliction in a woman. It creates those dangerous doubts. Melisande has too vivid an imagination.”
Heughan looked at him, questioning. “Perhaps it’s not imagination but insight. Perhaps she just doesn’t trust you enough to let you share her secrets.”
“And she trusts you?” Rodrigues was jocund again. Heughan stared him down across the divide of the table.
Rodrigues sighed. “Perhaps she does, who’s to say? You have the knack for making people trust you. Must be your eyes.”
“What if she has more than one book, Roddy? What if she has the ‘Key of Solomon’, and she doesn’t even know it?”
Now it was Rodrigues’s turn to stay silent. He pulled at his beard, thinking through the implications. “Do you know what it looks like?” asked Heughan. "Or even what it contains? Come on, Roddy!
“Why won’t you tell me? Is it about power or gold or secrets of the dead? What’s meant to be in this dangerous book?”
“Lad, lad, so many questions all at once! I can’t recall. It was all so long ago. I did read some of it once, but I don’t believe it. Melisande’s father showed me. But that was before he went into the flames, before I left Melisande in the Languedoc, as her father asked me. If it could have given me powers, then I would have taken it and used it for my own protection, and to make me rich, of course.”
“Why don’t you believe it then?”
Rodrigues laughed hollowly, “Josef had no fortune in gold that I ever saw. He spent his time plotting the stars and the heavens. He might have had a wealth of knowledge maybe. Even so, that’s a cumbersome commodity to trade. Josef tried to offer proofs that the earth and other spheres revolved around the sun. Heliocentricity is a dangerous idea and a heresy in itself. As to a book giving you power, my answer is no. Would Josef have given up if he could have used the power to save himself? They threatened to burn Melisande too. What father wouldn’t use his power to save his daughter if he could?”
“They threatened to burn Melisande too?” repeated Heughan.
“Yes, but they didn’t find the book, just as she didn’t burn.” Rodrigues shook his head. “There was no power, no gold, no treasure. Just an old man with his books, maps, stories and crazy philosophy.”
“Sounds a bit like you,” Heughan said without smiling. “You can’t cover your bad conscience with the cloak of pretend ignoran
ce. I know there’s more to this. Maybe Josef didn’t want you, or anyone to know the secrets.”
“I told you once, the rumour was that Josef had entrusted the book and its secrets to an apprentice. The Inquisition was hungry for the necronomicon. It was death just to possess it. But in spite of their threats and their thirst, the trail went cold for the Hounds of God. It’s just an old story.”
“Aye, but there’s plenty still willing to believe in old tales. What if the story is true? What if Melisande had the book all along? What if she has it still? Would it continue to protect her, even if she didn’t know what she had?” Heughan persisted.
Rodrigues was mollified. “It might.”
“Can it protect others?”
“Only if they believe, my lad.”
“Do you believe, Roddy?”
“I believe in no one and nothing; no kings, queens, priests or devils. Or God,” he added.
“You’re lying and you’ll burn for that.”
“Burn me, try it,” said Rodrigues, leaning back in his chair.
A suspicion was beginning to form in Heughan’s mind. He wasn’t ready to share it yet. “So if we had the book, it would give us powers?”
Rodrigues sighed. “You can read words, Heughan, but I doubt you can read Melisande anymore than you could read a book like that; and even if you could read either, would you have the understanding of it?” he smiled gently. “You need a guide, and I’m not offering. Or a key, for the ‘Key of Solomon’, maybe. Perhaps, Melisande is the key, and she’s waiting for you to help unlock the secrets of the book? Is that what you want to think? At least you could have fun trying.”
He mimed inserting a key into a lock, a crude amusement that failed to reach his eyes.
Heughan didn’t respond. He was thinking about Melisande and the night they had spent together. He remembered the stars they had mapped together, the turn of the cards; he pulled himself up. That card, The Two of Swords. Painful choices.
He wondered if he should share his thoughts with Rodrigues. For the first time, he hesitated. I’ve let a woman come between us, Heughan thought and felt oddly ashamed. He prayed he’d never have to choose between them.