[Damian Seeker 05] - The House of Lamentations

by S. G. MacLean

  An uncomfortable thought had begun to niggle at Daunt since he had hastily escorted the King to the Zeven Torens for his own safety. When Thomas had reached the head of the stairs in De Garre as Daunt had been returning from the jakes, he had suddenly roared something about Damian Seeker. Daunt had heard of this Seeker from many an exile but never met him and never wished to. He’d had no time to enquire of Glenroe or Faithly what they were about, for he’d been near enough knocked over by a fellow who’d just jumped down from the tavern’s gallery when Faithly and Glenroe had gone hurtling out of De Garre after the man. He’d had little enough time to look but Daunt had a horrible feeling that the man his friends had been pursuing was the English carpenter he had come across, in that special upper chamber, in the Bouchoute House.

  The King groaned and Daunt saw how weary Charles actually was. Where was their dashing hero prince, their Cavalier king, who had escaped Parliament’s clutches time and again, who had begged Spain to let him lead his own troops, and been forced to see his brother, the Duke of York, garner the glory instead – where was he now? Daunt had more than once drawn his sword to teach a lesson to fools who’d dared claim, in his hearing, that the King was becoming a gambling, womanising sot for lack of any other purpose. Did they know what he had lost? Did they truly know what he had suffered, of the privations he had faced and still faced, the humiliations? Looking at his dejected, abandoned King, Daunt had seldom felt such rage.

  ‘They’ll pay, Majesty. One day, all those who have betrayed you, they will pay, if I have to send every one of them to Hades myself.’

  Charles looked up and there at last was the smile, the glint in the eye. ‘And you would too, wouldn’t you?’ He slapped his own leg. ‘Devil take them all, Dunt! As long as I have such as you by my side, England will be ours again. Now, there should be some brandy left in that cabinet there. First pull off these blessed boots of mine, and then we’ll drink to it.’

  Daunt felt tears pricking his eyes and feared he would disgrace himself. ‘Your Majesty,’ he said, getting down in front of the King to begin the process of pulling off the boots, ‘it has been the greatest honour of my life—’

  But Charles merely waved a hand at him. ‘Indeed. Indeed. But you’ll take a drink with me, old friend, and then you can tell me about this carpenter that has Thomas Faithly jumping over banisters.’

  *

  Faithly and Glenroe mounted their horses after leaving Seeker’s lodgings.

  ‘But how is it you never saw the fellow before? He was always working about the town somewhere – the House of Lamentations, the Engels Klooster, even our own house, Dunt tells me.’

  ‘What?’ said Sir Thomas, turning to Glenroe in astonishment. ‘Damian Seeker was in the Bouchoute House?’

  Glenroe threw up a hand. ‘Dunt mentioned it the other day. I had no notion then that this English carpenter was Damian Seeker – if indeed he is Seeker.’

  ‘Oh, it’s Seeker, all right. If anyone can come back from the dead, it’s him. And he’s been in the Bouchoute House?’

  ‘Yes, Dunt found him last week, claiming to be mending window frames.’

  Sir Thomas began to experience a horrible sensation of dread. ‘Where, Evan? Where did Dunt find him?’

  There was a pause, then Glenroe groaned. ‘In the room on the upper floor where . . .’

  ‘Where Lady Hildred’s money was hidden.’

  Glenroe nodded. ‘God curse him. Dunt said he checked that the box was still there.’

  ‘And it was?’

  ‘Aye, but he didn’t check inside.’

  Thomas Faithly cursed. ‘It wasn’t Ellis that took it then, it was Damian Seeker.’

  ‘We don’t know that,’ said Glenroe.

  ‘Oh, I know it,’ said Thomas, through gritted teeth. ‘You may have avoided dealings with Damian Seeker until now – for which you should thank God – but I haven’t. If he was in that room, he’s got that money, and he probably knows what’s become of Ellis too.’

  They’d lost him in the chase through town, they’d gone back to the tavern and eventually, after much asking around, had discovered that the English carpenter lodged in the stable loft above the yard of this inn in Sint-Gillis.

  The innkeeper had been able to tell them that John Carpenter had woken him from his sleep less than half an hour ago and on the spot had bought two horses at a price that would allow the innkeeper to replace them with four.

  ‘Not much more than nags – the Spaniards took all the decent horses – but he gave me a prince’s ransom for them,’ he said.

  ‘You speak the truth, friend. A prince’s ransom it was,’ Glenroe had remarked. ‘But why two horses?’

  ‘One for himself, and one for the woman,’ the man said.

  ‘What woman?’

  The innkeeper shrugged. ‘Never saw her before, and I never saw him with any woman at all before.’

  ‘What did she look like?’

  The innkeeper sighed. ‘How should I know? It was dark.’ He called over his shoulder to his wife who was standing a few feet behind him, wielding a broom against their second intruders of the night. ‘Jennike, the woman with John Carpenter, what was she like?’

  ‘Tall, well made. Walked like a lady.’

  Now the innkeeper nodded. ‘That’s true, now you say it. Sat a horse like she knew what she was doing.’

  ‘And where were they going?’

  Again the man shrugged. ‘They didn’t say. But he paid well over the mark for those horses and cleared all his things out of my loft. I checked. Plain enough to me John Carpenter has no plans to be back.’

  They were almost at the Speye Poort, having had no luck enquiring after Seeker and his companion from the guards at Kruispoort, when Glenroe suddenly pulled up. ‘You don’t think this “woman” he is apparently travelling with might be Ellis in disguise?’

  ‘Seeker is back from the dead,’ said Sir Thomas, ‘I would believe anything of him.’

  The guards at the Speye Poort were no happier to open up to them than the innkeeper had been, and enquired whether any other Englishmen were bent on Damme before dawn, for they were the third such to disturb them that night.

  ‘Third?’

  ‘Aye, John Carpenter and his woman, but before them there was the red-haired fellow. Tremendous hurry he was in.’

  ‘George Barton,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘He must have heard of our search and gone after Seeker himself.’

  ‘No,’ the gatekeeper said. ‘Not Barton. Beaumont. He was very particular that I should make that point to anyone who came looking for him. That his name was George Beaumont.’

  *

  Ruth Jones’s wrists were bound so tight behind her that she thought the blood must soon burst out of her veins. Her upper arms, too, burned with discomfort.

  ‘You mustn’t fidget so, my dear. It is most unbecoming.’

  Ruth was in terror, but she had been in terror before George many times, and the only defence that came to her was to slip into the deference that had allowed her to survive his rages up until now.

  ‘I’m sorry, George,’ she said.

  He smiled. ‘I’m sorry too, Ruth. I’m very disappointed. Are these the actions of a loving wife?’

  Ruth tried to answer, but could not find the words, and then it was too late: his face was inches from hers, the spittle from his snarling mouth hitting her chin. ‘Well? Are they? Answer me, slut!’ The last words were accompanied by a heavy slap across her left cheek. Without her hands to balance her, Ruth fell over sideways, her temple hitting the hard flagstone floor.

  ‘Sit up, slut!’ he ordered.

  Ruth managed at last to manoeuvre herself up.

  George surveyed her, his lips curling in disgust. ‘What a despicable, filthy sight you are. To think that I ever thought to make you mistress of Beaumont Manor. But tell me, you did not te
ll my mother you were my wife?’

  ‘No, George,’ she managed, her words barely audible.

  ‘I can’t hear you!’ he shouted, bringing his left hand this time across the right side of her face, splitting her lip and sending her keeling over once again.

  Gathering more strength than she thought she had left, Ruth forced herself upright again. ‘No, George,’ she repeated loudly.

  George grunted. ‘Well, that is a blessing at least. What pleasure it would have given the old harridan to think I had saddled myself with such a worthless specimen for a wife. Her satisfaction would have been insufferable.’ He reached into his satchel and brought out a flask which, by the smell as he took a drink from it, was filled with brandy. He gave a sound of satisfaction and got down on his haunches against the wall, alongside Ruth. He leaned into her almost affectionately.

  ‘And tell me, slut, did my dear mother speak of me at all, in her dying hours?’

  Ruth swallowed. The blood in her own mouth almost made her gag, but she knew it would anger him if she did so. ‘Yes,’ she said, praying inside that this was the right answer, for it was the truth.

  ‘You’re not lying to me, slut?’ he said.

  ‘No, George,’ she said desperately. ‘I promise. She kept asking for you.’

  ‘Did she now?’ The thought seemed to please him.

  Ruth sniffed and nodded. ‘She was asking for you, and for a locket. She became very agitated when it couldn’t be found. “My locket, my Guy and my George,” she kept saying. I went through the jewels she had with her, but I couldn’t find it.’

  ‘No, because that old bitch nun stole it.’

  Ruth’s mind was scrambling to follow him. ‘Sister Janet?’

  ‘Yes. Sister Janet. Janet who thought my father was going to marry her. Can you imagine? A dumpling of a woman like that? The thought turns my stomach.’ He set down the flask and rifled once more in his bag. The only light was that coming from the two candles she had left burning in the kitchen, before the nightmare of this evening had begun, yet Ruth saw something glisten as he pulled it from the bag. He held it up closer to her and tilted his head – she wasn’t sure whether it was the better to observe her reaction or to look more closely at the thing himself. The chain was old and heavy, and the casing of the locket somewhat worn, but inside, the miniature portraits looked almost as bright and fresh as if they had been painted only yesterday. The portrait on the left was of a man of about George’s age, with dark brown hair and kind eyes. His clothes were old-fashioned, and he looked nothing like George. That on the right was of a boy on the brink of manhood. It must have been painted years ago but it was indubitably of George.

  George snapped the case shut and tossed the locket back into his satchel. ‘People can be so dishonest. I knew some of my mother’s belongings were still at the convent and the woman Winter told me she was certain Sister Janet had been through them.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Ruth before she could stop herself.

  ‘Winter. Anne Winter. The one who swapped place with you in my mother’s carriage. It was her, you know, who told me where I could find you. It was an unexpected bonus, meeting Lady Anne. I mean, it had taken me long enough in the first place to track you down to Bruges, but the right sort of persuasion, shall we say, amongst your acquaintances in Dunkirk got me there in the end. That Anne Winter was so ready to tell me where you were really was quite a boost. Oh – don’t look so hopeful – she’ll be dead by now too.’

  ‘She too,’ Ruth repeated. ‘How?’

  ‘I left her on her own to deal with a spy, a double agent. Marchmont Ellis – did you know him at all?’

  Ruth shook her head.

  ‘Oh, well. I suspect he’ll have killed her. So she won’t be coming looking for you now, will she? And no one else knows where you are. You won’t be missed, I’m afraid. Anyhow, where was I? Oh, yes. Sister Janet and my mother’s locket. Well, I went to Sister Janet’s cell and had a look around – all the nuns were busy in the garden, you see. I made sure some of them saw me leave by the back gate, and simply didn’t close it properly, so that I could just slip back in before they all went to terce or sext or whatever other nonsense they get up to in their chapel. Anyway, sure enough, there in her cell, beneath her pillow was my mother’s locket. So I took it.’

  ‘It was you who killed her,’ said Ruth, her voice a husk.

  ‘Well, yes, of course.’ His tone was the height of reasonableness. ‘She’d had the locket, you see, and was bound to have looked in it. She would have recognised me. There would have been quite a row. So, I went back to the convent at night and paid her a visit.’ He smiled. ‘I’d taken the precaution of opening a window onto the street when I’d been there earlier, and do you know? No one thought to close it. The convent all shut up for the night and that one window giving out from a back stairway – left open. You would have known to close it, wouldn’t you, slut?’

  Ruth nodded, but said nothing. George didn’t like to be interrupted when he was in the middle of a story. Satisfied, he continued.

  ‘She woke up, of course. And she did recognise me. Her hand went under the pillow straight away, as if to check I was safely there, shut inside the locket, and not standing in her cell with a crossbow in my hand. But I shall give this to my wife, of course.’

  ‘Your wife?’

  ‘Of course. When I return to England I shall find myself a suitable wife.’

  Ruth could barely muster more than a whisper. ‘But I am your wife, George.’

  He looked at her and shook his head. ‘Oh, dear, slut, it is too late now to make protestations of love, of duty. After your shameful behaviour? Your ingratitude? Oh, no. I’m afraid it’s much too late for you to mend your ways. Then there’s the misfortune of your face, those scars from when you fell on that shovel. Can you imagine that looking down from a frame in the Great Hall on generations of Beaumonts yet to come? And yet,’ he sighed and put his hand up to touch her cheek – she tried not to flinch, ‘you are still rather pretty, after all.’

  He leaned closer to her and forced his mouth onto hers. Without thinking, she turned her face away in disgust. And then she knew, suddenly, but too late, that it was over. George roared and pushed her to the ground.

  ‘Whore!’ he shouted, kicking her in the stomach whilst struggling with the leather belt of his coat, the belt whose burning lash she knew all too well. He had already opened up her face again, and she thought of the weals on her back recently healed under the tender administrations of Sister Janet and the apothecary of the Engels Klooster. Even after her flight to the House of Lamentations, Janet had made sure pots of soothing balm had reached her. Beatte had helped her apply it, with the greatest of care and gentleness. Ruth missed Beatte. She would never see her again. She would never see anyone again. At last George had managed to remove his belt. She buried her bloodied face in the floor, and waited for the first blow, which came soon enough, almost slashing the backs of her wrists where they were tied at the small of her back. The one mercy was that it would not take a great deal of time. Such was his fury, she would surely be dead soon.

  Thinking she would see her brother’s face again before too long, Ruth steeled herself for the second blow, silently praying that she might be taken quickly. But the second blow didn’t come. Instead, there was an almighty roar, someone shouting George’s name, a clash of metal on stone, and the belt landing, limp, on the floor beside her. There were the sounds of a tremendous struggle behind her, and then next to her there was the face of the maid, the kind woman who had exchanged clothing with her in Lady Hildred’s coach, telling her that all would be well.

  Twenty-Seven

  Reckoning

  Thomas Faithly felt as if his stomach had been filled with lead. He almost wished it had been – stomach, heart, head. So many battles he’d fought, fights he’d been in, and almost negligible scars apart, he had come away unscathed,
and for what? For this, for a beggar’s life in the service of a stateless prince whose best years now began to slip unnoticed behind him, whose family had all but abandoned him, and who had begun to fear that his own brother, James, already a better soldier, might make a better King. Thomas had come to realise, moreover, that amongst his companions in this destitute existence were men who would betray their friends and their families for the sake of a few coins or to save their own necks. Marchmont Ellis: a traitor and a spy; George Barton: a spy; and now Evan Glenroe – what? What was Evan Glenroe? As they had left Bruges in pursuit of Seeker, Glenroe had finally unburdened himself of the secret he was sure Damian Seeker had discovered he carried with him. Glenroe was an agent of the Jesuits, who had spent his time in the city arranging for his friends to be caught in such compromise that they would put their families at home in jeopardy in order to save their own face and name. But Glenroe, at least, believed in the justice of his cause.

  ‘You didn’t see it, Thomas, what I saw, when Cromwell came to Ireland. Drogheda. Wexford. You didn’t see the slaughter – men, women, children, priests – it didn’t matter. And for what? Do you know what he said when he came to Ireland with his white flag of peace to bring us “the Protection of the Parliament of England”?’

  Thomas knew, because he’d heard it from Glenroe, in his cups, many times before. But he’d heard it from others too, who’d been there.

  Glenroe answered his own question. ‘“For the propagation of the Gospel of Christ, the establishing of truth and peace and restoring that bleeding nation to its former happiness and tranquillity.” For the Gospel of Christ, he slaughtered my father, my brother, my nephew, the priest who first taught me my letters as a boy.’

  Thomas would not defend it. ‘I know it, Evan. But that was Cromwell. It is our own and not Cromwell’s people that you target in this scheme of the Jesuits. Our own, the King’s own, whom you entrap in their web, force to endanger their families.’

  ‘To a greater end,’ insisted Glenroe. ‘Do you think if I could get some of Cromwell’s men into a brothel in Bruges I wouldn’t serve them the same? But that is hardly to be done, is it? I was just a foot soldier, Thomas. Felipe and Sister Janet had their campaign going a good long time before I ever got here. Janet never forgot the persecution of our faith that her own family suffered. And why should she? I was just helping her out. Anyway, they’ll have their reward, the families we persuaded to take in the priests, when our time comes.’