Fire & Faith

by Steven Veerapen

  ‘It cannot be. I know nothing of this,’ said Danforth, still contemplating the murder of a herald.

  ‘His Grace may answer to that himself, though naturally he denies it and pleads the Lords of the Council take notice of him. If he is proven to have been setting his rabid pet Englishmen on honest Englishmen with leave to enter our kingdom and safe conduct through it, it will be the worse for him.

  ‘Our army did not know the land. Around Solway it is bog, not fit even for feeding swine. On finding the ground unfriendly to our cause, they attempted to retreat, and it is said Lord Maxwell instigated a panic before defecting to the English. Hmph. More Englishman than Scotsman, that man. And we ought to fear that others will be content to court England in these dark days. King Henry will do all he can to ensure it. Our men’s hearts were not in battle yesterday, not in that place. Divers of them were drowned as they tried to cross the Esk; still others were set upon by the English who know the land, and by the wild men of Liddesdale, who would rob the shoes off a beggar and return for his teeth. Only twenty or so were granted an honourable death in arms on the field. Yet near a thousand true Scotsmen have been taken captive. Perhaps more. Two earls to be sure have been captured, and hundreds of gentlemen. Every one amongst them is now in the hands of King Henry, to be ravished by his promises and bribes and perchance returned to Scotland as his creatures and spies. This is your Cardinal’s fault, gentlemen. The whole realm speaks of it.’ Danforth slouched, trying to comprehend the defeat. The deaths at Mistress Caldwell’s hands had been horrific, malicious, but this was on a scale too grand and terrible to make sense. Only twenty granted the deaths of heroes, the rest slain as they tried to escape.

  ‘Then such slanders must be stifled,’ he said finally. ‘Your Grace, King Henry will press our king to overthrow the Church. It is well known that the English king hates our master above all others in Scotland. That must speak for his good faith.’

  ‘I have faith in the king,’ said Dunbar. ‘Even though he be surrounded by wicked counsellors.’ There was to be no support, no unity from Archbishop Dunbar. The man had taken the news in his own way. He blamed the Cardinal. Martin and Danforth looked at one another, the same question unspoken on each pair of lips: was this what the verdict of the kingdom?

  ‘More serious heads than your master’s,’ continued Dunbar, ‘called for a peaceful cessation to hostility, yet he cried out for glory against King Henry’s false Church. If the commons now rail against the folly of the enterprise, then who amongst us might blame them, eh?’

  ‘What,’ Danforth managed, ‘shall we tell his Grace about your commission? Shall we tell him that Glasgow has been plagued by Lutherans whom your Grace has now brought to heel?’

  ‘Glasgow’s people are my own affair, and none of the Cardinal’s,’ said Dunbar. ‘You may tell him what you list, but he shall have no authority here, and none of his men shall investigate that which is mine alone to interrogate. You might, however, tell him that he ought to have a greater care for his reputation. I think that some petty verses set upon market crosses shall be the least of his worries. You may go.’ He offered them the ring once more. ‘Shall you be leaving my lands, leaving Glasgow, at the present?’

  ‘It is likely, sir. We have no further business here. His Grace may have need of us as he ... as he labours in the service of the king.’

  ‘Then God be with you, gentlemen. And your master.’

  They closed the doors of the Archbishop’s privy chamber as they left it, and again met the eavesdropping secretary. As before, he backed away to his seat when he saw them emerging. Through his spectacles his large eyes glinted. ‘You see,’ he spat, ‘what your master has brought to this realm. Defeat. Death. Captivity.’

  ‘Hold your tongue,’ said Danforth. His voice was quite even as he strode around the desk, but his body was trembling. Martin fixed the secretary with a threatening glare, but made no move to touch him. Instead, as he walked past the desk, he threw his arm wildly across it, sending its neatly arranged tenants sailing across it and to the floor.

  ‘You idiot!’ squealed the mole. ‘You cumbrous clod!’ Then, ‘that was not an accident, sir!’

  ‘Oh, what a weak-minded blockhead am I,’ said Martin with a grin. ‘It has been my curse since birth.’ He bent to pick up the documents, smiling with relish the ink spilled on the carpet. He scrunched them up, tearing them as he did, and then threw them balled on the desk. ‘There, sir. Your former order has been restored. No, there is no need to thank me.’ Laughing, he trotted after Danforth leaving the fuming secretary to straighten his affairs.

  ‘Did you get pleasure of that?’ asked Danforth when Martin had reached him on the stairs.

  ‘A great deal, mon ami.’

  ‘As did I. Well played, sir.’

  ‘What shall we do now?’

  ‘The Cardinal desires knowledge of who has been defaming him. But let us not speak here.’ As they descended the stairs, they found a gaggle of servants cowering behind the screen, listening. Another messenger passed them as they left the castle. They took charge of their horses and rode out, whereupon Danforth called them to a halt.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘What did you make of this accusation, this claim that his Grace the Cardinal sent some of his English exile friends to murder a herald?’

  ‘I do not credit it.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Well, Mr Danforth ... if the Cardinal had sought one of his English friends to murder their former countrymen, he need have looked no further than yourself.’

  ‘Witty, sir,’ said Danforth. ‘But do not be light. By your truth do you not credit it?’

  ‘No, sir. The Cardinal’s a man of great policy, but a man of the Church.’

  ‘This is true. Ach, but I cannot bear the thought of a job only half done. Nor can I bear disappointing one who has put their faith in me.’

  ‘In us. We don’t need to leave Glasgow this moment,’ said Martin, a thoughtful look coming over his face. ‘Sir, might we lodge one more night at the Hunter inn?’

  ‘I think we might.’ Danforth’s interest was piqued. ‘You have devised some method that the Archbishop did not for catching our Cardinal’s slanderers? Perhaps a visit to the university to enquire ourselves of its students?’

  ‘Possible. Let us return to the inn and leave our things. Then I pledge to you, Mr Danforth, you shall know all.’

  ‘How is it that I could fail to see this?’ groaned Danforth, stung. He had had enough shocks, enough unpleasantness for one day. Little by little an edifice seemed to be crumbling, like the Abbey of Paisley’s patched-up choir, or the fading gatehouse at Glasgow’s Bishop’s Castle. Martin was looking at him with pity as well a measure of concealed excitement.

  ‘You could not see it for the best of reasons, Simon. You do not wish to acknowledge division within the Church. But there it is. This is a scandal. It is worse – it is a shame. The office of Chancellor, I think, shall soon lie vacant.’

  They were in Martin’s room at Hunter’s inn. It was more spacious than the Kennedys’ faded lodgings, and well provisioned with candles, desk and comfortable cot. On the desk were spread the Glasgow libels. Martin had begged them from Danforth as soon as they had entered and he had lit the candles. Beside them was a scrap of paper: the beginning of a letter. It read, ‘To my honor’d and truly worthy friend’.

  ‘You have played the role of master thief too well,’ said Danforth. Martin shuffled his feet and, to Danforth’s surprise, blushed. ‘It is not so very much, but I think it will serve our turn.’ As Danforth had produced and spread out the slanderous bills, Martin had taken from inside his doublet the scrap of letter. He had taken it, he said proudly, from the mess of papers he had knocked from the desk of the Archbishop’s secretary. The handwriting was identical, noticeable even from a few scant words, to that which had composed the scurrilous verses. The hand of the Archbishop’s mole-like secretary and that behind the defamation of Cardinal Beaton were the same. Th
e ‘r’s were unmistakeable, the top of the ‘d’ looping backwards over its little circle. Even the ‘n’s dropped low on the last stroke. Danforth resisted the urge to pick them all up, one by one, and hold them over the candle’s flame. The little scraps seemed to be mocking him. ‘You idiot,’ they giggled, ‘you could not see what lay in front of your eyes.’

  ‘It is weak evidence, but better than no evidence at all. Now we might prove that the Cardinal had enemies – the most powerful enemies – at work against him even before the battle was lost. Hell, before even it was fought.’

  ‘But how did you know, Arnaud? How could you have suspected this?’ Danforth was at a loss. It had not occurred to him that a servant of the true Church could turn on another, could write so violently against him. The notion was detestable. Somehow it was even more inconceivable than would have been a monk murdering a young girl and being protected by his Abbey’s Prior. Yet here was the proof of it. Disharmony and personal hatred were at work within the Roman Church.

  ‘I don’t see as you do, Simon. You try and see perfection and unity in our faith. Both are wanting. I’ve perceived from the beginning that these writings would not be investigated by the Archbishop with any ... well, any zeal. You’ve known him to be an enemy of our master, yet you’d not have credited him capable of coming to blows against him. The Archbishop must have known that few would credit the notion that he might be involved. He was the king’s tutor once, was he not? He is Lord Chancellor. He must think himself untouchable. A little king himself, of the Church.’

  ‘It is my fault; I have been blind, tempested in mind.’ Danforth bent forward over the desk, screwing his eyes shut. ‘It is this faction within the realm, it is such libelling that helped bring the old Rome to ruin.’

  ‘I am sorry, but it should come as no great surprise. You have seen for yourself how quickly neighbour can turn against neighbour, even when feigning friendship. Recall that old Clacher woman and her secret hatred of her friend Darroch, and Darroch’s for her. Recall Brother James speaking out against his Prior whilst living under his rule. It is no great error nor even a great shock that the Church should be so riven. Where there are men there is the chance of it. It is better, my friend, that you see this, for all its ugliness. But take heart, sir. With proof we might yet have the matter investigated. The Cardinal might bring this before the king, and the king might force reconciliation and friendship. This is the time for men of faith to stand firm, to stand beside one another and face the greater enemy.’

  Danforth said nothing. He was still dazed. He preferred to cling to the feeling rather than let it dissipate, for he knew it would be replaced with one of foolishness. He would have blamed the men of the university, he would have blamed anyone rather than a man of his own religion, and highly-placed in the Church at that. Archbishop Dunbar may as well have struck the Cardinal in public. If the world knew of this division, the Lutherans would rub their hands in glee. It must be handled with sensitivity. ‘You are a man of great cunning, Arnaud,’ he said. ‘You have clearer sight than I.’

  ‘And yet I would have had Prior Walker in chains in Paisley, Simon, so eager was I to see the faults in our Church. Or wee Brother James, even. We each have our strengths, as we each have our weaknesses. It is a good thing. It makes us stronger as friends.’ Danforth looked up at him.

  Friends. He had had them at university, fellow scholars and debaters. He had had them at his grammar school. Then had followed lust, love, marriage, a succession of deaths, the world turning upside down as he grieved, and his mad flight through England’s postern gate. Somewhere along the path of his life he had either been abandoned or chosen to walk alone. Quite simply he had fallen out of the common step of humanity. He was not keen to continue such a solitary march.

  ‘Great cunning, and as I have had cause to say before, newfound wisdom. I have misjudged of you, my young friend. I thought you a light fellow, inconstant and full of mirth. It is not so.’

  ‘Now, sir, I shouldn’t like to be empty of mirth. It’s my temperament to be as the air, sanguine and full of hope. But to be serious: a little lightness is no crime.’

  ‘No. I think it is not. Thank you, Arnaud. The Cardinal shall be thankful to you too. It is you have brought this thing into the light, and it is you should be rewarded for it.’ Martin shrugged.

  ‘I seek no rewards save my due and the right to see a little of the kingdom and the world when his Grace sees fit to show it me.’

  ‘I am afraid all we shall soon see is the road to Edinburgh.’

  ‘It is a good enough sight and a pleasant enough town.’ They sat for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. There was worry. What if the king was ill? What if the prince was born dead? But there was also hope. Whatever might happen in Scotland, they had done their duty and could do no more.

  Epilogue

  The whole of Scotland seemed to smell like bonfires, those cheerful signifiers of good news. Following his daughter’s birth – a princess, Mary – the king had taken to his bed in Falkland Palace, a building that rivalled only Stirling Castle for its beauty and the architectural efforts lavished upon it by two successive Scottish kings. Soaring towers and Corinthian columns stood at intervals along its straight, scrubbed walls and brightly painted heraldry stood above every portcullis and neatly glazed window. It was to this magnificent house that Danforth and Martin rode towards the at the end of December’s second week. Autumn had finally departed, taking with it the constant rains that had followed summer. In their place had come a cold, of the type that chills the bones in the morning, seeping in and refusing to let go until the body has been thoroughly racked by shivering. Even in furred riding cloaks, boots and gloves, Danforth felt his toes compressed into icy blocks and could feel, even if he could not see, the purplish-white of his fingers.

  The winter blast had frozen the grounds and parks around Falkland, the skinned trees wearing mantles of frost. The king’s tennis court had become a sheet of white, like a river frozen in mid flow, and the gardens, devoid of blossoms, had become mud banks dotted here and there with partially frozen pools of rainwater. Only some stout evergreens, imposing exiles from the surrounding woodlands, shook their piny locks saucily in the season’s face. Some might have found an austere beauty in nature’s approach to Christmas, but Danforth hungered for it to be gone. The festive season, when it came, should be one of warmth and peace, of reflection before the brightness of cheerful fires. For a moment he thought of the last royal residence he had been inside – the guesthouse at the Abbey of Paisley. There was a place that would be suited to Christmas, the Cluniacs’ chants filtering into it and the tapestries guarding the interior walls against the cold that assailed them from without.

  The Cardinal had proven elusive, darting about Scotland after the king. He had determined to rouse his sovereign from the melancholy that was the talk of Scotland, to bid him take heart, recover his spirits, and look forward to the upturn of fortune’s ever-spinning wheel.

  Yet Danforth and Martin noted, with sinking hearts, that the people of Edinburgh had begun to grumble against their sovereign. It was that, suspected Danforth, that was the true cause of his disillusion. Both secretaries agreed that they ought to entrust their proof to no other man, and so together they had decided to end the matter themselves, placing Dunbar’s letter in their master’s hands directly. Once accomplished, they might well be allowed freedom to enjoy the Yule period. The Cardinal would once more be in favour, his enemies shamed; and when the Cardinal was in favour, he was invariably magnanimous to his loyal servants.

  The pair entered the palace, which lay in a great ‘L’ shape of eastern and southern ranges, through a great gatehouse on the west of the latter. Housed within the gatehouse were the stables, were Woebegone and Coureur were left to lodge with horses of finer quality and higher rank. Guards stood everywhere, and it was only with some delay that they were shown into the servants’ quarters. Everywhere those in service lingered – not only the king’s royal
guards but men who, by their liveries, served and protected the Earls of Argyll and Rothes. King James, it seemed, was holding a small Council in the palace, and so the Cardinal’s men were left to wait until their master might have liberty to grant them an audience. ‘These guards are sombre fellows,’ remarked Martin. ‘No cheer in them. Are his Grace the king’s men always so stern? They ought to try governing his correspondence for their bed and board. But what a glorious place,’ he added, ‘it might have been lifted from the Loire and dropped here.’

  ‘You have been to the Loire?’ He struggled to get his tongue around the word.

  ‘I have not,’ said Martin. ‘But I have heard tell of its chateaux.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Danforth was unsure of Falkland. He had nothing against architectural ostentation – grand cathedrals and magnificent abbeys and priories delighted him. But delicate, finely-wrought places such as Falkland Palace lacked the grandeur, the air of ancient solidity. A great, thick chain of wrought gold, he fancied, would ever be preferable to a thin, pearl-studded necklace.

  They had only passed one night in Falkland Palace when a different messenger brought them an invitation to an audience with their master.

  Beaton sat behind a small desk – the room itself was an antechamber with a carved cot, its interior the polished wood that seemed to be the panelling of choice in Falkland. When Danforth and Martin were admitted he rose, a smile adding only a little warmth to a face that had grown thin with fatigue and worry. He was a slight man, slender and shrunken without his biretta. His height always shocked Danforth, for whom his master grew in stature and dignity whenever he spent significant time out of his presence. He noticed that one of the Cardinal’s hands trembled slightly, as though afflicted by a palsy. His clotted-blood robes danced with dark shadows in the firelight, burgundy and black smudges making odd shapes across the smooth red. He had always been younger in the face than his age – but no longer.