[Damian Seeker 05] - The House of Lamentations

by S. G. MacLean

  Her maid, astonished already at the tone of the conversation between the two women, knew this was true, for she herself had watched as Beaumont House and its policies had been cleared of every moveable object – whether stick of furniture, piece of plate, carpet, drape, painting, horse or dog – and the proceeds converted into coin, to be carried to the Spanish Netherlands and laid at the feet of Charles II. Lady Hildred had left the place a shell, and if she could have dismantled the house itself, and sold it too, stone by stone, she would have done. But she hadn’t been able to sell Beaumont House, because Beaumont House wasn’t hers to sell.

  ‘But your son . . .’ began Sister Janet.

  ‘I have no son.’

  Janet’s hand went to her heart. ‘Forgive me, Hildred. I had not heard he was dead.’

  Lady Hildred’s face set like stone. ‘He died to me sixteen years ago, when he defied his father and abandoned the King’s cause to take up arms with the rebels. He has not been welcome across my door since.’

  *

  An hour later, as she lay down on a pallet at the foot of the bed in which her mistress slept, Lady Hildred’s maid thought over the exchange she herself had had with the nun when Sister Janet had shown her out to the well in the yard, where she might draw water for the morning.

  For the sake of conversation with the prickly old woman she had ventured, ‘Lady Hildred had not told me that she was coming here to an old friend.’

  ‘She wasn’t.’

  ‘She didn’t know she would find you here?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve no doubt she did, for I have been nowhere else these last thirty years, and Hildred makes it her business to know what she needs to, but she was never my friend, nor I hers.’

  So astonished had she been by this declaration that the maid had been unable to think of anything further to say. This seemed to be as the other woman wished, but after the bucket was filled and they were making their careful way back inside, the nun suddenly grabbed her right hand to examine it. ‘Soft hands,’ she said, looking the maid right in the eye. ‘Just as I thought.’

  A bright moon in a cloudless sky meant that the cell allotted to Lady Hildred was never truly dark, all the whole night through. Despite her exhaustion from travelling, the maid lay awake a long time, gazing at the night blue whiteness of the walls. The crucifix above the bed troubled her, but Lady Hildred’s only comment had been that she supposed it might please her son well enough to see her in a nunnery. The maid had murmured an appropriate response, which was all that was required. For a woman who for sixteen years had been declaring him dead to her, Lady Hildred spent a great deal of time talking about her son. The maid glanced over to the small side table on which Lady Hildred had laid out her travelling jewels and the red leather box, engraved with the Beaumont crest, that accompanied her everywhere she went. Inside was a large silver locket. Nan had only seen into the locket once, a brief glimpse. On one side, as she might have expected, was a miniature portrait, not well executed, of Sir Guy, who had died at Marston Moor. On the other side was a much finer portrait of his son, who had not. George Beaumont, though legal heir to his father’s estate, as ratified by Parliament, had respected his mother’s wishes and never returned home after the battle which had killed his father – the battle in which he’d fought on the other side. He’d made his home with the army, and left her to see out her days in the house to which she was no longer entitled. It was widely believed that only George Beaumont’s high standing with the Protector had kept his ardently vocal Royalist mother out of gaol. Lady Hildred claimed to have kept his portrait only because it had been her husband’s last gift to her, but her maid suspected otherwise. She wondered what that handsome young boy of nineteen, who would now be a battle-weary soldier of thirty-six, might look like now, and whether his mother would ever set eyes on him again. As if she had uttered her thoughts aloud, her mistress’s voice came clear to her across the stillness of the small room. ‘Go to sleep, Nan. There is much to be done in the morning.’

  Three

  Bartlett Jones

  The bells of the English Convent – Engels Klooster – rang as Seeker made his way to the Kruispoort. Everywhere, across this city, cowled or veiled figures, arms encased in wide, overflowing sleeves, shuffled, heads down, to prayer. Benedictines, Carthusians, Dominicans, Capuchins, Carmelites and others he hardly knew names for – there was no end to the religious in Bruges. Sometimes Seeker fancied he could hardly sleep at night for their murmuring. And then, of course, there were the Jesuits, that priestly cohort sent out by Rome to penetrate the society and infiltrate the governments of nations that had got out from under her dominion.

  A line of Benedictine nuns flowed past Seeker – their eyes firmly averted from his, their faces so encased in white linen wimples and shrouded by their black veils that their own fathers would not have known them. His first thought had been that the she-intelligencer sent by the Royalists in England to track down Thurloe’s double agent would be a person of rank and wealth. His years in Cromwell’s service had taught him that Royalists were drawn to espionage for the love of the cause. For those on the other side, however, it was different. Thurloe had a knack for finding persons too poor, or compromised, or disappointed to turn him down. But now Seeker realised that the woman he had been warned about might be anyone. She might be concealed beneath layers of cloth and whispered prayers, one amongst ten, twenty, a hundred women, all dressed the same, going anonymous and unnoticed in a town full of women who looked almost exactly as she did.

  He had been here too long. Something in the air of the place had begun to seep into him. The flatness of the polder, the plaintive calls of the geese overhead, the dark canals, the constant ringing of bells, and the lavish palaces and churches that told of a glory that was past – all spoke to him of a powerlessness to change, of the futility of trying to act upon the world. It was a city fading into itself, like a painting fading on its canvas. Anyone who stayed here too long would risk fading away with it.

  Bruges was not London. London was constantly growing, changing, moving, building layer upon layer on top of its old self, layers he knew how to peel back, to push aside, to find what he knew was hidden beneath. Here, he was always watching for what was in plain sight – Royalists turning up where they weren’t supposed to be, English travellers making arrangements to go somewhere it did not suit the Protectorate that they should go, talking to people they should not be talking to, and the endless flow of the hopeful or desperate to the court of Charles Stuart. He listened in inns and taverns, befriended ostlers and stable lads and boatmen, the English carpenter who’d come as a journeyman to Bruges. The city was a scene for him to observe, a tableau on which he could cast his eye, ready to spy any movement, any change of shade. Seeker flexed his shoulders and strode past the file of Benedictine women who had just overtaken him. A man who could trace traitors and murderers on the ever-shifting streets of London could surely find one Englishwoman in Bruges.

  He’d start at the Kruispoort and make his way from the north-east of the city down its western side, gateway by gateway, getting into conversation with the gatekeepers, making casual enquiries about any work that might be needing done, complaining about the Spaniards, not needing to ask about visitors newly arrived from England because the gatemen always told him about them anyway. In the last few weeks, since the victory of France and the Protectorate at the Dunes, far fewer English travellers had ventured from the coast to Bruges. The Protectorate navy had virtually cut off Ostend, and the French handed Dunkirk to Oliver’s commanders. Only the desperate would now find a way through their lines and across the polder.

  It was at the Donkey Gate – Ezelpoort – that he struck lucky. ‘Poor Jakob had one of yours last night. A real old tartar. There’ll be work for you there in a few days, you may rely upon it. Rich old Englishwoman come to settle in Bruges. The sort that nothing pleases. She’ll be bound to be looking for a carpenter to change w
hatever she finds here.’

  Seeker laughed and thanked the gateman, of whom he’d made a friend. ‘Where would I be without bad-tempered old women who don’t like foreigners, Theo? I’ll have a sniff about in a day or two – who should I ask for?’

  Theo called to his companion to bring him the ledger. ‘Beaumont,’ he said, carefully enunciating each syllable. ‘Lady Hildred Beaumont. On her way to the Engels Klooster.’

  Beaumont. The name rang a bell in Seeker’s head somewhere, and he was in the course of tracking it down when his attention was taken by Theo breaking into English. He and the gatekeeper always conversed in Flemish, but Theo could pass himself off in several languages when his duties so demanded. Seeker moved further around the curve of the western gate tower and listened as the gateman, in his heavily accented English, questioned a newcomer.

  ‘Your purpose in the town?’

  ‘To find my sister.’

  ‘You will stay with your sister?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long do you intend to stay in Bruges?’

  There was some hesitation in the voice before the young man made his response. ‘Ten days.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Bartlett Jones.’

  ‘Your sister?’

  ‘Ruth. Ruth Jones.’

  ‘And where does Ruth Jones reside?’

  Again there was some hesitation before the young man, picking unfamiliar words as if from the air said, ‘Engels Klooster.’

  ‘Ah, of course,’ said Theo, handing Bartlett Jones a pass to be in the city for ten days. ‘The English Convent.’

  The young man, travel-worn and weary-looking, slipped his pass inside a dusty but serviceable buff coat. ‘How do I get there?’ he asked.

  Theo looked beyond him to where Seeker had just stepped out of the shadow of the gatehouse. ‘Perhaps my friend there will show you.’

  Bartlett Jones shifted his gaze to Seeker. ‘And who are you?’ he asked.

  Seeker turned away to walk again down the Ezelstraat. ‘They call me John Carpenter.’

  *

  Like a barn door, thought Bartlett as he picked up his pack and began to follow the Englishman. Bartlett, who was two or three inches shy of six foot, would have fancied his chances with most folk in a fight. Not this one though: Bartlett’s stocky strength would avail him nothing against this fellow, should things turn awkward. He’d needed his wits about him to get this far – and more than half the money he’d brought with him when he’d left home, too. Now that he was finally in Bruges he’d have to be even more careful. Carpenter. Maybe that was this man’s real name, maybe it wasn’t. There were probably a good few Englishmen had crossed the sea to France or the Low Countries and taken themselves a new name when they’d landed. Bartlett had no interest in them. He was only here for Ruth. He wondered though, what name Ruth might be going by now.

  As if reading his thoughts, the man in front of him threw over his shoulder, ‘So, your sister’s in Bruges.’

  ‘I said so, didn’t I?’

  ‘Nun, is she?’

  ‘That’s my business,’ said Bartlett.

  The man shrugged. ‘Fair enough.’ The rest of their journey continued in silence. The further into the town they got, the fewer were the gardens and spaces between buildings, the higher and grander the walls. There were spires almost everywhere. They followed a canal in one direction for a while before crossing an old stone bridge and soon finding themselves following another. Halfway along the second canal, the big man in front of him stopped outside the door of an inn and turned to look him up and down. ‘When did you last eat?’

  Bartlett swallowed and tried to remember. ‘Last night,’ he lied.

  ‘Right, then,’ said the man. ‘You’ll be needing some breakfast. The good sisters up at the Engels Klooster’ll still be at their morning mutterings just now at any rate. Come on.’

  Carpenter stooped as he went through the door, and Bartlett had little option but to follow him. The place was cooler inside than out, where the heat was already building, despite the early hour. Bartlett summoned the grace to mumble his thanks when a large jug of beer was put down in front of him and didn’t argue when it was followed a few minutes later by bread and a dish of herrings. He looked uncertainly at the fish.

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ Carpenter said, downing one whole.

  The late-morning murmur of voices around them was mostly in the guttural-sounding Flemish Bartlett was becoming accustomed too, but some he recognised as Spanish, and one or two were English. He glanced in the direction of the English voices, but they were paying no attention to him.

  Suddenly, the carpenter, who he’d noticed observing him from time to time said, ‘You’ll not be able to stay with her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your sister. If she is a nun at the English convent. You’ll not be able to stay with her, not there.’

  ‘I don’t plan on staying,’ said Bartlett, looking the man very clearly in the eye.

  ‘You don’t know if she’s there at all, do you?’

  Bartlett swallowed down the last of his ale and stood up. ‘My business is none of yours,’ he said. He threw down some coins he could not spare on the table. ‘I’ll find my own way from here.’

  He made to walk away but the carpenter placed a heavy hand on his wrist so that couldn’t move it even if he’d wanted to. The man was looking very closely at him.

  ‘If you find yourself in trouble – you or your sister – ask for me, the English carpenter. You’ll find me over by Sint-Gilliskerk.’

  When the hand lifted, Bartlett swept his own away. ‘I don’t need your help, Mr Carpenter, and neither does she.’

  Bartlett could feel his cheeks flaming by the time he was back out on the canal-side. He looked all about him for some sign of where the English convent might be, but it was hopeless. On their journey in from the city gates, they’d passed countless churches, and he didn’t know what any of them were. He was still deciding which way to set off when a man, somewhat unkempt and looking as if he had slept in his clothes, swaggered towards him and addressed him in English.

  ‘You’ve the look of one that’s lost, friend,’ he said, the words in English but the voice thick and Irish.

  Bartlett wondered whether a man might walk two yards in this city without being accosted by some wanderer from the British Isles. He had hoped they would all be gone from Bruges by now. This latest one at least looked friendly, and Bartlett knew he’d never find his way to the convent without help.

  ‘I’m looking for the Engels Klooster.’

  The man made a play of being alarmed. ‘Nuns, is it?’ Then he laughed and threw an arm across Bartlett’s shoulders, enveloping him in smells of stale wine and tobacco smoke. ‘Well, aren’t you in luck then, for I’m just going that way myself.’

  *

  Seeker watched through the window of the inn as the Irishman propelled Bartlett Jones up the Spiegelrei. This was not a good start to Seeker’s day. His interest was in the woman who had arrived in Bruges last night and made straight for the Engels Klooster, but seeing this young newcomer with a rogue like Glenroe did nothing to assuage Seeker’s suspicions that Bartlett Jones’s visit to the same place was not quite for the reasons he would have people believe. Seeker downed the rest of his own ale, swallowed another herring, and pocketed what was left of the bread. Bartlett Jones was a person of interest to him now, whether the young man liked it or not.

  By the time Seeker was back out on the canal-side, Jones and Glenroe had already crossed over the bridge into Sint-Anna and were heading up Carmersstraat towards the Engels Klooster. The Irishman still had his arm around the other’s shoulder, and even at this distance, Seeker could see that he was hardly drawing breath. It would be one story after another: Glenroe was a good old boy, asked for nothing more than a drink and a song and
a fight with his friends now and again. A good old boy who would cut your throat as soon as look at you. As for Jones, his hair black as coal and sticking out in all directions in straight, unruly spikes with not a curl in it, broad shoulders, sturdy legs and a face that looked ready to take offence wherever there was a chance it might be given – he’d blend in to Bruges as easily as Seeker might into a lacemaker’s window. If Bartlett Jones had been hoping to go through Bruges unnoticed, he’d picked for himself the wrong companion.

  Seeker took a slightly different route to the pair he was following, to take up position opposite the corner of the Engels Klooster. Glenroe and the young Englishman had almost reached the convent’s main doorway when a Jesuit priest carrying the host and attended by a gaggle of altar boys crossed their path. It was the Spaniard, Father Felipe, whom Seeker knew to be suspected of having made clandestine visits to England. Whilst the Irishman stopped and genuflected, Jones merely stood scowling at the inconvenience he had been put to, not a trace of reverence showing on his face.

  ‘Not a Papist, then,’ said Seeker to himself. ‘So what’s your sister doing in an English convent in Bruges, Bartlett Jones?’

  Once the priestly party had passed, Jones was about to cross to the door of the convent when his companion put a hand on his arm, and with a disappointed gesture indicated that he himself would need to be on his way. To his credit, in Seeker’s mind, Jones looked happy to see the back of the Irishman. Glenroe dispensed with, the young man approached the solid doorway set into the convent wall and rapped three times, hard, with the brass knocker. After a moment or two a small panel, a little lower than Bartlett’s eye-level, slid open. Bartlett leaned in towards it and spoke. He could hardly have had time to give much more than his sister’s name before Seeker saw his shoulders sag and heard the door panel slide firmly shut again. That confirmed what Seeker had already suspected. Bartlett Jones had spoken not of visiting his sister, but of finding her. This young, angry man who had come to Bruges looking for an Englishwoman called Ruth Jones really had no idea where that woman was.