The King's Diamond

by Will Whitaker

  I could hardly ask: ‘And the Cage family?’

  ‘They too: of course. But Mrs Grace: sadly, her wits … She cannot carry a message such as this. That is why I need you. You have nothing of value?’

  ‘A few tokens,’ I said, ‘to offer as gifts to my King.’

  He nodded. ‘Your goods will be respected. You will leave tomorrow. And I trust you will take the quickest road you can to England.’

  I knelt before him. In true gratitude and relief I said, ‘Holy Father, I swear it.’ He made the sign of the cross over my head and murmured a blessing. I kissed his feet again, rose and withdrew.

  I came out into the courtyard in a daze of victory. I hurried to the Cages’ chamber, bursting to tell. I imagined Hannah’s bright eyes turned up towards me in gratitude as she foresaw the many days of our journey together: yes, and the many nights. I rushed in, and there, sitting on one of the low box beds with the three Cages round him, was John. Hannah turned from him, her face wearing that look of animation which I, by rights, should have been the one to summon.

  ‘Is the news not marvellous?’ Hannah exclaimed. ‘We are free to go!’

  I glanced at John, and my face must have shown how stung I was to have had my triumph taken away. He waved a hand in modesty and said, ‘So you have found out too? Yes, I saw the whole thing when they were drawing it up. In fact, I am the one you should thank for it. I found out yesterday that a new Imperial army is on its way from Naples, and if the Pope did not sign now, the Castle would very soon fall.’ He glanced round at the ladies. ‘But today it is no longer a secret. Today everybody knows. Three bands of Imperials to escort us beyond the walls, and the Prince of Orange present to make sure no outrages are committed against us. After that, we all go wherever we please. His Holiness is to hand over Ostia, Modena, Parma and God knows where else. Some hundreds of thousands of gold to be paid, and all excommunications lifted. But the Imperials are poor simpletons if they expect Pope Clement to keep his promises.’

  He folded his arms and smiled. I felt a stab of resentment: foolish, for I ought finally to feel secure in Hannah’s love.

  I said to John, ‘You are leaving too?’

  ‘Of course.’ He glanced at Mrs Grace. ‘We were discussing, as you came in, the chances of finding a ship at Ostia. We are determined to try. You are coming with us?’

  Hannah’s smile danced from John to myself, then back to John. My old friend’s expression was mild, honest, open. He waited, eyebrows raised, for me to reply. I forced aside my annoyance, turned to Hannah and said, ‘Then we shall all leave together. I will meet you tomorrow, early, in the courtyard. By the armoury.’

  Her smile spread, showing her teeth, and her eyes glinted with the knowledge of our shared wickedness. She said, ‘Tomorrow. By the armoury.’

  I turned away. I was angry: with John and with myself. But there was no time to indulge my feelings. Before tomorrow Benvenuto and I had a pair of rings to finish. When I got back up to the Angel, Cellini was already at work on the emerald. He had cut the table, and was holding it over the wheel to polish its sides. He too had heard the news. ‘Tomorrow we go our ways,’ he said. ‘But never let it be said Benvenuto left a job undone.’ I watched as the stone gradually shed its mysteries and unfolded like a tight bud into a brilliant summer green. But even when it was cut it kept a dark heart, a place from which shafts of forest light sprang suddenly and then crept back into shadow. It was deep night when Cellini bent the clasps round it that would set it fast in the ring. I stretched, and took the wine Martin offered. Almost I wanted to release Cellini from finishing the last piece; but the fire was in his eyes, and he would stop for nothing. He lifted the flat, uncut ruby I had bought from da Crema.

  ‘Now for the passion.’

  Martin at my side leant forward. He was as avid for the glories of these stones as I was. I thought of when we first came to Venice, and the attempts he had made to deflect me and haul me back home to the Widow. His loyalty to her had slipped a good deal since then. I pictured my return to Thames Street, and my mother’s look when I laid before her my treasure. I could not expect her to be pleased. No, there was a battle there still remaining to be fought. And Thomas: I resolved at that moment that I would force him to give me his trust, and I would make him my ally.

  Outside the small window, over the terrace with its silent cannon, the light of dawn began to show. No guns fired, and across Rome not a bell rang and barely a bird made a sound. In the prisons the noblemen and ladies, priests and cardinals stirred in their chains. The soldiers, thousand upon thousand, waited for daybreak in expectation. Tomorrow all Rome would at last be theirs. Cellini held up the ruby.

  ‘What do you say to that?’

  It was alive. However you held it, the fire in it burned, and cast out streams of blood. It was a gem for a dark enchantress, a seducer of kings. I embraced Cellini. ‘If you could only come with me to England, and see King Henry.’ It was much for me to say: I needed his goldsmith-work, but I was jealous of it too, as a rival to my stones. I had always wished for my triumph to be alone. He shook his head.

  ‘No, I shall go to Florence. My father is there. I must see how he has weathered the wars. Perhaps after that I may go further. Wherever there is a love of beauty and of gold.’

  He sat down at the bench and began fitting the gem into the ring. I took out my casket. Not a loose stone remained. From beneath the packets that held the various pieces, the Ship, the Garden, the Cross and the Heart, I took out my roll of bills. I paid over to him seven hundred ducats: more by a bit than we had agreed, and it left me with little. But he had earned it. Martin nudged my arm. From the lower parts of the Castle there was already the murmuring of large assembling crowds. It was time for us to be gone. The three of us descended from the Angel for the last time.

  The courtyard was crammed with people. The men of the garrison were forming up, with their harquebuses and powder horns and sacks of food. Nobles, bishops, servants, poor men and women pushed among them, while Papal officials called out orders which no one could hear. I shoved through the crowd to the door of the armoury, where Hannah and I had lain among the powder casks. There was no sign of her, or of Grace or Susan either. ‘Martin!’ I commanded. ‘Wait here.’ I moved towards their lodgings, but at that moment I caught sight of John’s head above the crowd. We pushed towards each other. He looked displeased.

  ‘The Cages?’ I asked.

  ‘Already gone down. They are with Casale at the head of the column. Well, we shall catch them up later.’

  I glanced at him sidelong. The crowd was beginning to move. From far below we heard the beating of drums and the clank as the portcullis was raised. It was the seventh of June: a month since the Sack and the siege had begun. We pressed down the stairs and the long, winding ramp, walking several abreast through the heart of that ancient tomb. Torches burned in the darkness, lighting up the barrel vault above, glinting on the soldiers’ breastplates and their sombre faces. We were an army in defeat. A mere three hundred men at arms, but ten times that number of priests, merchants, women. We passed under the gate and across the bridge where the Cages and I had fled that misty dawn. The column stretched away ahead of us out of sight. As the last of us left, the Imperials streamed with wild shouts inside the Castle. They were not to enter the drum tower: there the Pope and his cardinals were safe, but prisoners.

  Beyond the bridge we entered the ruins of Rome. Houses were burnt out and windowless. Rubble and the stinking dead lay everywhere. The three weeks I had spent inside the Castle had seen the city reduced still further to an abomination, a wilderness where men turned into beasts, a terrible mark of the judgement of God upon man. Almost every door we passed had the plague-mark on it. Mobs of ragged soldiers watched us hungrily from the street corners. Somewhere ahead of us were the Cages; but my attempts to push ahead through the column came to nothing. The bands of lansquenets assigned to guard us through the city pressed us close on either side, and with the murderous stares of
the soldiers beyond them I was glad of it.

  Outside the Gate of Saint Paul, where I had first entered Rome five months earlier, the column divided. One portion turned east and then north, bound towards the hills. This was where Cellini was headed.

  As we clasped one another a last time, he said, ‘Greet King Henry for me.’

  I laughed. ‘And thank your father for letting his son become a goldsmith.’

  He embraced Martin too.

  ‘A good servant you have,’ he told me. ‘But what bad advice he gives. Think if you had never come to Rome!’

  I watched Benvenuto as he disappeared among the nodding helmets and feathered hats of the soldiers, winding north across the Campagna.

  ‘Master!’ Martin pointed: our column was on the move. We hurried on. After a few minutes we caught up with John.

  ‘They are still far ahead.’ His face showed rather too deep a concern.

  I growled, ‘I know very well you would like to have Hannah for yourself.’

  ‘My dear Richard! Mrs Hannah is yours. Of course she is.’ His eye twinkled. ‘If you can keep her.’

  I made a grab for him, but he darted ahead and looked back, laughing. ‘Come, Richard, you can never be angry with me.’

  I caught him up and we linked arms. ‘No. Because you are right: Hannah is mine.’

  Ahead over the marshes rose the castle of Ostia, and beside it the mast of the ship that would carry us home: home to a triumph more glorious than I could have imagined when I first set out from Broken Wharf those many months before; home to Hannah’s love and victory over my mother; home to where King Henry waited for the sight of his diamond.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to express my grateful thanks to my agent, Peter Robinson, whose tireless support, insightful ideas and penetrating comments have seen me through every stage of the conception and writing of this book. My warmest thanks also go to my editor, Clare Smith, for the enthusiastic way in which she embraced the book and her excellent judgement in suggesting ways to improve it; thanks also to everyone else at HarperPress who has worked on it. I would like to thank, finally, my wife Katie, for her unceasing encouragement, the many discussions we have had concerning the mapping of the story, jewels and Renaissance history generally, and for her skilled help in commenting on successive drafts.

  About the Author

  Will Whitaker has published three YA novels. This is his first historical novel.

  www.willwhitakerbooks.com

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  Credits

  Cover photography © Jeff Cottenden

  Copyright

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  First published in Great Britain by HarperPress in 2011

  THE KING’S DIAMOND. Copyright © Charles William Whitaker 2011. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Will Whitaker asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-0-00-741029-3

  EPub Edition © MAY 2011 ISBN: 978-0-00-741137-5

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