‘I see,’ I said, in the tone of one who doesn’t see anything clearly at all. ‘But what …?’
‘I want you to understand the background because you’ll need to call there and you’ll find Stonemoor confusing if you don’t know what it’s all about. We’ve taken the household there seriously enough to discuss it in council. It is known that on the Continent there are seminaries where Jesuit priests are being prepared for a kind of secret invasion of England, to raise money for Mary Stuart from her sympathizers, and seek converts, all of which makes Walsingham nervous, not to mention angry and very suspicious of any house where the Catholic religion is openly practised, but the ladies of Stonemoor seem innocent enough, and the council agreed with that.’
‘But how in the world was Walsingham persuaded to put up with them?’ I was surprised. ‘He’d surely want them suppressed on principle!’
‘The council talked him out of that,’ said Cecil. ‘Even Sir Francis Walsingham didn’t really care for the idea of turning a whole lot of middle-aged women out on to the moors with no means of support and no roof to call their own. Philippa’s father might rescue her and his other daughter but he can hardly take in fourteen other indigent ladies as well! As I said, the ladies do keep the law of the land, more or less, and they aren’t genuine nuns. Walsingham growls about them but so far he has left them alone.’
‘I wonder how long that will last,’ I said.
‘I wonder, too. I know Walsingham. Though lately, I’ve wondered if, now, he is leaving Stonemoor alone for some devious purpose of his own. Well, there the ladies of Stonemoor are, dubious but tolerated, and they have something that Doctor Dee wants. It’s a book. It was written by one John of Evesham, back in the reign of Henry the Second. John of Evesham sounds like a thoroughly English name, doesn’t it? In fact, he was born in Italy to a Jewish family, but converted to Christianity and came to England as a young man. He settled in Evesham, in Worcestershire, and was a successful physician, in fact, so successful that once, when King Henry fell ill while he was travelling in Worcestershire, the king consulted him.’
‘Didn’t the king travel with his own physicians?’ I asked, surprised.
‘The story goes that King Henry, who was always in a hurry, had outdistanced his entourage and his own physicians, and then, finding himself unwell, broke his journey at Evesham Abbey and demanded the services of the best physician they knew. They called John, who apparently gave good advice and was well paid for it. Later, when he had completed his book, he sent King Henry a copy. Made by himself, so the story says, as the monks of Evesham disapproved of it and were not prepared to have it copied by their scribes. I imagine John’s own efforts were just text and charts, without decoration.’
‘The book was heretical?’ I asked.
‘Yes, it was! John of Evesham was interested in astronomy and related subjects and had done some travelling on that account. Also, before he left Italy, he had met and talked with Arab scholars. Among other things, his book – it’s called Observations of the Heavens by John of Evesham – puts forward the theory that the Earth circles the Sun and not the other way about. You have heard of the theory, I expect?’
‘Nicolaus Copernicus,’ I said. ‘Yes. Hugh was interested in that theory. He thought it made sense. But yes, the Catholic Church would call it a heretical creed.’
‘The theory does make sense,’ Cecil remarked. ‘It makes the movements of the planets much more comprehensible. I understand that the book also contains details of various astronomical events – comets, conjunctions of planets, and so forth – and relates them to events in the history of the Christian nations. For instance, there was a comet in the sky at about the time of the Norman Conquest. There are calculations about when certain celestial occasions, such as eclipses or unusual conjunctions of the planets, are likely to occur and links them to possible future happenings, makes prophecies, in fact. It’s all backed up by complex mathematical tables about the movements of stars and planets in time and space, set out in Arabic numerals. In fact, wherever numbers are mentioned, they’re in the Arabic style. John of Evesham was clearly at home with that. Some of the occasions he foretold have come and gone since he wrote the book, of course. According to Doctor Dee, who once saw a copy, John was quite good at forecasting the appearance of conjunctions and comets, though the events he thought would go with them mostly didn’t happen …’
‘Did he foretell the end of the world?’ I asked mischievously.
‘Yes, but the world hasn’t reached that point yet. The date he gave was the year 2000. Let me continue. There is one more thing of interest about that book. It is said to contain an amusing drawing that makes fun of the Pope for resisting the heliocentric theory. Another reason for regarding it as heretical! King Henry, though, was interested in the book and its theories. He received it, it seems, in the year 1175, which was after the killing of Thomas Becket and Henry’s subsequent penance at the hands of the Canterbury monks. Henry the Second,’ said Cecil thoughtfully, ‘is supposed to have had a violent temper. Outwardly, he is said to have accepted that he was guilty of Becket’s murder and to have accepted the flogging that he received from the monks, but his private feelings may have been quite different. A man like Henry might well have been very angry.
‘At any rate, he evidently didn’t object to the book’s contents. He ordered illuminated copies to be made. No one knows who made them. It wasn’t the scribes at Evesham, who refused. Virtually all scribes capable of producing illuminated manuscript books were monks, so the king must have found a complaisant monastery somewhere, probably just by paying well for the work. Monasteries never were immune to venality! Also twelfth-century monks might not have been as shocked as you would expect. The Catholic Church of today regards the theory of the Earth going round the Sun as extremely heretical, but back then, things were less rigid, at least in England. And it’s possible that the drawing which is said to be so scandalous might only amuse unsophisticated men. At any rate, somewhere, King Henry found scribes who were willing to undertake the work and four copies were made. One was for King Henry. That one vanished long ago but the other three were made for John of Evesham, and survived.’
‘And?’
‘Doctor Dee has seen one of them. He came across it when he was travelling abroad years ago. I believe he stayed in the house of its owner, whoever that was. Dee is a great collector of books. He has an immense library and after seeing that copy he began to want one of his own. I understand that he did find another last year but it was in bad condition, with pages missing and a binding that was coming to pieces.’
‘But the ladies of Stonemoor House have the third one and it’s in good condition?’ I hazarded.
‘Yes. They got it from a Gloucestershire woman whose family had a copy. It must have been handed down through centuries. One of Dee’s friends is the lawyer who was the executor for the will of the last but one member of the family – a man called Ralph Overton. When he died, his unmarried daughter, Eleanor Overton, aged about fifty, was the only surviving Overton. The family were of the Catholic faith, and this woman decided to join the Stonemoor community. According to the executor, she took the book with her.’
‘As a kind of entrance fee?’
‘Yes, precisely. It really is valuable. The executor had seen it and described it to Doctor Dee. It’s bound in white leather, with the title and the name of the author on the front in gold leaf, and a gold-leaf pattern of some kind as well. Eleanor Overton presented it to the community and Philippa Gould is willing to sell it – for a high price. I think the ladies of Stonemoor are short of money. Philippa’s father gives them a small income but he probably can’t afford much more and he’s known to be a warm man, anyway. He probably chose Stonemoor House for his daughters as it was cheap, no doubt because it’s so isolated. Apart from Thorby village, which really is very small, there’s nothing else for miles, except for one tumbledown cottage about two miles away, where there’s a man who keeps sheep and makes
his living from them. He’s practically a hermit except that he goes to York once a year to sell wool. Doesn’t like his fellow creatures.’
‘Do the ladies just rely on an allowance from Master Gould?’ I broke in. ‘Didn’t you mention a farm?’
‘Yes, though not a big one. There are smallholdings dotted round the outskirts of the village – most of the villagers have a little bit of land; some are craftsmen but they don’t have enough customers to live by their crafts alone. The one fair-sized farm goes with Stonemoor. It gives employment to some of the villagers and helps the ladies to maintain themselves. Village and house and the surrounding cultivation amount to just a little dot in a vast expanse of uninhabited moorland. Thorby and Stonemoor are maybe among the loneliest places in England and that’s probably what gave the ladies the idea that they could get away with pretending to be nuns. In accordance with Benedictine tradition, however, the ladies don’t travel, so the book must be collected.’
‘And you wish me to collect it.’
‘Yes. Both Hardwicke and Spelton were asked to call at Stonemoor on their way to Scotland, pay for it, and take it with them. It seems that neither of them ever got to Stonemoor any more than they got to Scotland. Sheriffs’ officers from York have called at Stonemoor twice, making enquiries, but the ladies hadn’t seen either of the missing men and the book is still there, awaiting payment and collection. That has helped us to concentrate our search a little, by the way. We do know one thing about the journeys made by the two missing men. We know that they both passed through York because they changed horses at the remount stable there, as I told you. So they were presumably stopped between York and Thorby, a distance of around twenty-five miles. But we haven’t been able to narrow it down any further than that. Well, Ursula, that’s it. I will provide you with the necessary money and perhaps you could pick the book up, either on the way to Scotland or on the way back. You are not required to do anything more. The ladies accept guests and will take you all in for an overnight stay.’
‘But if I discover a golden chestnut horse with a white mane and tail in the Stonemoor stables, I report to you. Yes, I see.’
‘Well, there is that. Look, Ursula, I’m sure you can deliver the letter to James Douglas in complete safety. If by any chance he is not at Holyrood Palace, I fancy someone will be there to whom you can legitimately pass it, as long as you do so in the presence of witnesses – bear that in mind. I don’t want you to step outside the protection of being on an innocent family visit. And there’s no risk at all attached to calling at Stonemoor House.’
He paused and then added: ‘I mean it when I say I don’t want you taking risks. I have come to value you highly and I now regret the dangers I have sent you into in the past. I tremble when I think of the peril you ran into last year, when you were trying to get to France to warn Christopher Spelton that he was in danger.’
‘I tremble, too,’ I said. ‘I and my companions were lucky to escape. But for that good luck we might all now be slaves in North Africa or Turkey, forced to work against our will and compelled to worship Allah or die.’
‘I trust,’ said Cecil drily, ‘that you would have had the good sense not to become a martyr but to pretend and await a chance of getting away.’
‘You would advise that?’
‘I did it myself, more or less, during the reign of the late Queen Mary,’ said Cecil. ‘I adopted her Catholic faith, kept my head down and hoped that one day Elizabeth would replace her, which is what happened. But it has been on my conscience that you were in that appalling danger and ran into it because the queen asked you to do something for her, and things went amiss. The queen was angry when she heard of it, believe me. No one wants you to take any chances now. I don’t think you can possibly be in danger because of carrying that letter. No one will suspect that you have it. Nor is there any danger in going to Stonemoor to buy a book! The queen would not wish you to undertake either errand, if she had any fears for you. I assure you.’
‘I believe that assurance,’ I said, pushing the words out, though my heart was heavy. But I could not refuse because, as ever, I wished to please the queen. Even though she had been angry when I had run into such peril in the previous year, it was also true that on that occasion I failed to do something she wanted. The failure had been a relief to me, but not, I thought, to her.
I was, however, making a decision. Too often I had stumbled headlong into disaster when undertaking what should have been harmless tasks.
Therefore, I would take what precautions I could. It was hard to think of many, but I could change the pattern set by my ill-fated predecessors. I would not do things in the order that they had chosen. I would call for the book on the way back from Scotland rather than on the way to it. Christopher and Bernard Hardwicke had apparently gone about things the other way round, but as the letter was the more important task of the two, I would put that first. I would get it into James Douglas’ hands as quickly as possible.
FOUR
The Raven’s Prophecy
We stayed in the study for some time. Cecil had a few extra things to impart. Having assured me all over again that I was not expected to look for Bernard Hardwicke or Christopher Spelton, he then proceeded to tell me that if I did by chance cross the spoor of one or other of the missing men, I would have a better chance of realizing it if I knew this or that detail. If such a thing should happen, I must report at once to the sheriff in York. Then he enlarged upon the details he had mentioned.
‘You know what Spelton looks like. You may as well know what Hardwicke looks like, too.’
Quite right. I had never heard of Hardwicke before, let alone seen him. I looked at Cecil enquiringly.
‘Unfortunately,’ said Cecil, ‘he doesn’t stand out. He looks like ten thousand other men. Nearing middle age, of middle height, nondescript hair beginning to thin. Eyes of no special colour. You’d never pick him out of a crowd.’
‘That’s not very helpful!’ I said.
‘Well, never mind. But there’s one extra thing you should know about Spelton. Hardwicke is – or was – simply a Queen’s Messenger but as you know, Spelton also doubled as an agent. He has a way of leaving traces of himself if he wants to – if he feels he is in danger and might disappear, or wishes to warn someone else that there’s danger about. He would want any friends who search for him to have a chance of finding him or at least a chance of finding out what has happened to him. He has used the sign to good effect at least twice to my knowledge. Once, it helped a friend to trace him and assist him out of trouble; once, it warned another agent that a so-called safe house wasn’t safe at all. This is the mark.’
Cecil reached inside his doublet and pulled out a piece of folded paper, which he opened and handed to me. ‘If you come across that anywhere, Christopher Spelton has been there.’
‘I knew nothing about this!’ I said, looking at the paper. On it was a red circle, about four inches across, quartered by a cross. ‘If I find this anywhere, done in red chalk, then Christopher Spelton must have left it?’
‘Yes, but be careful, for the love of heaven. Don’t get caught out, peeping and peering!’
‘I won’t,’ I promised.
‘Enough of that,’ said Cecil. ‘Now, more to the point, you will need to know how to get to Stonemoor House. If I remember rightly, Hugh Stannard had maps here. Do you have them still?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Those scrolls there on the end of the bookshelf.’ I got up and fetched them. Cecil went rapidly through them, picked out two and compared them. He unrolled one on the desk, weighing it down at the corners with two paperweights and the sander and inkstand from the writing set. ‘This will do. It’s more detailed than the other.’
The map he had chosen showed a good deal of eastern Yorkshire. Rivers, tracks, and villages were marked, including Thorby. After a moment’s thought, Cecil put a cross to show exactly where Stonemoor House was. Just behind the house, he said, on the upper part of the slope on which it stood, there w
ere numerous stone outcroppings. They had given the house its name and probably contributed to the stone the builders had used. At any rate, the house was a noticeable place. ‘Once you’re actually within sight of it, that is,’ he added drily.
Eventually, because I wanted to compare the two maps at leisure, he left me to it. When I had finished, I put the maps away and came out into the vestibule. To be confronted at once by three worried-looking members of my household: my manservant Roger Brockley, his wife Fran, who was my personal tirewoman (though Sybil shared her services), and was still usually known by her maiden name of Dale, and an aged hanger-on of mine called Gladys Morgan. The sound of dance tunes and prancing feet still continued in the hall, but this trio had abandoned the merriment to lie in wait for me.
Roger Brockley was well into middle age now, though he had excellent health. He had a high forehead, dusted with pale gold freckles, light brown hair in which a good deal of grey was now mixed, very steady blue-grey eyes, and he did not approve of my secret calling at all, though time and again, when we were in the midst of an assignment, a latent adventurousness had appeared in him and proved immensely valuable.
Dale, a few years younger than he was, hated my assignments too, because they were dangerous. Dale didn’t like danger and had no latent adventurousness whatsoever. When she was frightened, which was often, her blue eyes would bulge and the marks of childhood smallpox would become noticeable. She had suffered a good deal in my service, mainly because when I went off on a secret errand, I always took Brockley with me and Dale didn’t like him to be alone with me. There had been a time, long ago now, when Brockley and I almost became more than lady and manservant; when we slid near to becoming lovers. It hadn’t actually happened, but the feeling was still there, quivering now and then in the air between us, there in the private jokes we still, sometimes, exchanged, in the way we sometimes read each other’s minds, and Dale knew it.
The Heretic’s Creed Page 4