Fire & Faith

by Steven Veerapen

  Danforth did not add that the finding of the note – something Martin need not know about – changed a great deal. In leaving it to be found, the killer had revealed himself as a strategist. If he had a plan, then that plan had a definite goal. Definite goals could always be found.

  ***

  Guthrie was not, as Diane had worried, dead. Instead he was propped up on a bed in the wine cellar under the royal apartments, attended on by a number of people and seemingly enjoying himself as they hung on his every word. One arm was in a sling, like Martin’s, and one foot was heavily bound. His face lit up further when Danforth entered the room. Dozens of candles gave him the appearance of a religious figure, surrounded by acolytes, and crosses and medals of various sizes were dotted around the bed and walls. He and Martin joined the throng. ‘Go out, all of you. On the queen dowager’s command,’ said Danforth.

  Dirty looks were thrown in his direction as the folk filed out. Guthrie sank back on the bed, disappointment flooding his ruddy features. ‘What happened to you?’ asked Martin.

  ‘I was assaulted,’ said Guthrie, ‘by an evil spirit.’ He paused as though letting the drama of the words sink in.

  ‘What happened,’ echoed Danforth without expression.

  ‘I was coming upstairs.’

  ‘Why were you downstairs?’

  ‘I was checking on the apartments above us,’ said Guthrie, frowning. ‘You can’t leave the royal rooms unattended, leastways I can’t, play or no play, not for long anyway. The young lasses will tempt the lads into all kinds. By the saints, some of the young lads will tempt some of the older ones. Devilry, I’ve told you. I’ve told everyone, and none listen. Anyway, I was coming back up, back to the great hall, and there it was, right in front of me. A demon all in blue. Right before me. I just saw little white shoes and the skirl of blue, well, you know they say that the devil dances mad jigs in hell, and before I could cry out it shoved me. Hard. Right back down the stairs. And I fainted away dead in fright. Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘You seem,’ said Martin, ‘well enough.’ Danforth was barely listening to the man’s rambling, his eyes turned to a stitched embroidery of the virgin nailed up on the wall.

  ‘You reckon? That demon near broke my arm and my ankle. But the physician says they’re sprained, so I can be up and helping you fellows fight the devil as soon as I can put weight on my foot.’ He raised his sling proudly, before his features darkened. ‘Touched me, it did, and I’ve been all day trying to ward off the evils of it. And the scare of it, the terror, you know thon way? I’ve had some claret from over there, though. Fair revived me. Heh. One good thing about being forced to dwell in this pit. Tell me is it true that someone was killed?’

  ‘Mathieu,’ said Martin, putting a hand to his forehead. ‘The queen’s page.’

  ‘No.’ Guthrie sank even further into his cushions. ‘No. It must have been an accident.’

  ‘No accident,’ said Danforth. ‘The boy was pushed into the fire. In the kitchen. And it was not a devil, not a ghost, but a man that did it.’

  At this, Guthrie turned white. And then tears formed in his eyes. ‘You mean the creature who attacked me was the murderer? The possessed creature who killed your friend? Oh, Jesus Christ preserve us. Mr Danforth, Mr Martin, I … that poor boy. He was a good boy. You see what’s happening?’ Hysteria tinged his voice. ‘You see? You need to get your master to reinstate the mass. This whole country is going to the devil, snatching folk up in his claws!’

  ‘Hold your peace,’ said Martin. ‘He was a good boy, that’s right enough. And I’ll be revenged on him.’

  ‘Not,’ said Guthrie, ‘if I’m first. This bastard has thrust now not just at your household, but at mine. That bairn was one of mine, one of ours in her Highness’ care.’

  ‘How do you propose on doing that?’ asked Danforth.

  ‘Oh, I have my ways,’ said Guthrie. He had grasped his crucifix. Alongside it he had hung wooden rosary beads. With his other hand he gestured around the dank room at the candles and charms. ‘When the devil comes into a place, he must be fought. If I lay hands on this possessed creature, I’ll flay Satan out of him. With this, and these.’

  A thought had struck Danforth, though. ‘Do you recall, Mr Guthrie, when I was speeding from the dowager’s chamber yesterday? You said you wished a word with me.’ He had forgotten his own golden rule: that tiresome gossips had big mouths but bigger ears. ‘What was that about, sir?’

  Guthrie’s brow knitted. ‘Oh aye! I was going to ask if you’d read today, at the close of the interlude, you know, after the play had finished. Doesn’t seem important now, I guess, not with this madman running loose, killing and bringing terror. Have you spoken with the dowager yet, gentlemen? What is she saying to it?’

  Shaking his head in frustration, Danforth left the man, Martin following. Into the vacuum, the waiting curiosity-seekers flocked back.

  ***

  Queen Marie did not offer either Danforth or Martin cushions. Instead, she paced her chamber, muttering in French, before addressing them. Her eyes, Danforth noticed, were red-rimmed, but the tears had been staunched. ‘It must be that it was some accident. Oui, I shall write his parents in France, poor souls, that he has met with an accident. And pray that they do not wish to come here to this madness, this realm of spirits and devils. That is what you must say, it is what we must frame ourselves to. If it is known what goes on … my child will be taken from me by force, for her protection. And,’ she added, ‘I wonder now if that might not be best!’

  ‘Your Highness,’ chanced Danforth, ‘we know the weapon used on Mr Fraser. We know that the boy was slain in the fire, the murderer fleeing downstairs.’

  ‘And out,’ she cried, ‘out into the great blue sky! Mr Forrest tells me that no one saw him enter the courtyard. He fled downstairs and disappeared, like a ghost indeed! This spirit kills my page and assaults my usher and no one sees anything. It may be that it passes through walls, passes up to where my child sleeps.’

  Danforth cleared his throat. ‘No one confesses to having seen where he went, madam. Men and women went downstairs and upstairs to find places to kiss and … lord knows what else.’

  ‘Ha! You sound like Forrest. Passions inflamed by all that lewd bawdry, he said. No man or woman willing to admit what they have seen lest they be caught in some tryst.’ He kept his head down, determined to endure the royal displeasure with equanimity. He had no choice. ‘And my boy, my boy … if one is struck belonging to my household, then all is lost. None safe.’

  ‘There was a message, my lady,’ Danforth half-whispered. ‘I … it warned of the dangers of Edinburgh. It spoke of Lady Glamis. Burned to death back in the year–’

  ‘1537,’ she snapped. ‘The year before I was wed. And so my daughter and I pay for the misdeeds of my husband.’ She sat down, making a fist and putting her forehead to it. ‘A Douglas plot, perhaps?’

  ‘Madam, I think not,’ said Danforth.

  She looked up sharply. ‘Why not? The message is clear enough.’

  ‘Too clear, I think. It might be that it was to make us think that the Douglas men – or even their friends the Hamilton men – were behind this.’

  ‘If not, then who? Either the devil himself or one he has taken in thrall. Who?’

  ‘I cannot say. Not yet.’

  ‘You can never say.’ She threw her head back. ‘I have charged you with bringing this man to good Christian justice, and you have failed to deliver him. You have been – what have you been doing – whilst this monster of nature stalks my halls and kills my people, frightens and bedevils them?’

  ‘We have been,’ started Martin, but she cut him off.

  ‘You have been eating from my table and finding his bloody footprints. Still you cannot tell me who he is or why he acts!’

  ‘We shall,’ said Danforth, looking up, his face shining. ‘His bloody footprints cannot last. They shall lead to him We shall find him.’

  ‘And then,’ Martin added, ‘I shal
l kill him.’

  A knock at the door made them all start. Forrest entered, dragging a half-dressed priest. ‘Found him, your Highness. He didn’t want to come.’

  ‘Good day, father,’ she said. The emotional outpour had ceased, and her voice had taken on a light, almost serene sound. ‘I thank you for coming.’ The priest dropped to his knees, mumbling obeisance. ‘We have,’ she went on, ‘had a most unfortunate accident in this place. One of our most beloved servants has been taken to God. We would have him buried straightaway, with all proper honours.’

  At this, the priest looked up, and drew air through his teeth. ‘Cannae, yer Highness. Cannae be daein that. No services until the cardinal’s at liberty. We’ve the ordnances fae Rome, and we–’

  ‘Listen to me, father,’ said Marie. The serenity had been replaced with a thin blade of steel. ‘Our boy – my boy – was a good and faithful Christian. He died … he died a good and faithful Catholic child. Whether Rome, or these men’s master’, she gestured towards Danforth and Martin, ‘says otherwise, I will have my boy laid to his eternal rest with the full honours and glory of God. Do you understand me? I advise you to understand it well, father. Or else you will repent of it.’

  The priest’s mouth fell open. He looked towards Martin and Danforth for support, but they kept their heads bent. ‘There,’ she said. ‘You see? The lord cardinal’s men have no objection. You will say mass for my boy’s soul. You will speed him on his way with all godliness. Now go and prepare. I wish him at his rest forthwith. Go!’

  He fled, nodding and mumbling again. If a little of the gilding of the royal presence had been tarnished by the dowager’s displeasure, she restored it with her show of steel. If there was one thing that Frenchwomen could not be faulted for, thought Danforth, it was their mastery of elegant, imperious anger.

  ‘Now, gentlemen,’ said Marie. ‘My little Mathieu shall be put to bed forever on the morrow. And on the morrow I shall decide what is to be done. Come to me again tomorrow evening. I shall give you no longer before I act. Use the time well. You have my leave.’

  They left her presence. Martin’s face was shining with determination. Danforth was wondering exactly what the dowager had meant by ‘deciding what is to be done’.

  21

  They sat inside St Michael’s church, listening to the harsh bark of Latin from the unwilling priest. A fresh grave had been dug outside, the sexton presumably working throughout the cold night. After their meeting with Queen Marie the previous evening, Martin had been eager to be out, to spend the evening hunting their prey, to be searching. Danforth, however, had refused him. He insisted that Martin must rest his injured arm, despite the time limit given them. His friend had refused, and eventually went off to join the dirge in the dowager’s rooms, that grotesque outpouring of grief that presaged the requiem mass. That worked for Danforth too. Privately, he had needed time to think.

  He had counted the bodies that had thus far piled up. Fraser, killed in approximation of the deaths of Margaret of Denmark and Sir James Hamilton of Finnart, victims of James III and James V. Mathieu, killed in approximation of Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis, victim of James V. Though they had survived, Martin and Geordie Simms, wounded in approximation of James IV, whom many said was the victim of his own great folly, his desire to be at the foremost of any fighting.

  And the perpetrator. What was known about him? He favoured stalking and killing in the garb of a well-known spirit of the palace. He clearly knew his history. He was motivated by some vengeance against the Stewart family, and directly threatened the life of the baby queen. He had just proven that he would kill a child. Their man liked spectacle, he liked show. If only he would show himself.

  Something in this case was different from every other that he had seen. Even living in London, working under the coroner, the bodies had been beaten, stabbed, strangled – but ultimately they had been either hidden or left where they fell. In Scotland, too, killers would either seek to hide their victims or leave them where they dropped, hiding themselves instead. Here, though, this creature wanted the poor, slain folk seen. He advertised. There was something in that. For the first time, Danforth let the possibility of devilry enter his mind. He did not doubt for a moment that the devil existed. In fact, he had long contemplated writing a treatise on the existence of evil, theorising that the world was a great tapestry spun by God, stretching into eternity. Devils were outside that tapestry, outside God, but they could pull and tear at the men and women stitched into it. If the devil did have a role to play in this, and he must, as surely as God must direct them in solving it, he was twitching at someone’s string, making them dance to his wicked tune.

  As he had lain in his hammock, thinking, he had watched the candle in his and Martin’s chamber burn down. The darkness, when it came, was absolute.

  The dark thought brought him back to the church. How bare it looked, in the wintry morning light. Stark. To think he had been desperate to see inside, to cast his eyes over the famed twenty-four altars. But not like this. He chanced a glimpse over to the wall, where was painted a vivid image of sinners being tormented in hell flames, their eyes rolled back in their heads, the demons at their feet grinning. Yes, he thought, listening to the words of the requiem. Satan was somewhere out there. The priest droned on.

  Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine,

  cum sanctis tuis in aeternum,

  quia pius es.

  Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine,

  et lux perpetua luceat eis,

  quia pius es.

  The words sunk in like healing water, as though he was bathing. Yet they could not wash away the feeling of dread. Since coming to Linlithgow, the whole matter had seemed a jape, a grand puzzle. A political murder of a man he detested. Even Martin’s shooting, whilst making things more dangerous, had turned out to be of little consequence. The infected man was vile, an affront, but it was never likely to have been successful – it was a stunt. But, hearing the words of death intoned over a child’s corpse: this was too dark. He let his gaze slide towards Martin, sitting stiffly at his side. What is it he had said at the masque? We need a tragedy. Well, he had one. He wondered at what the words were doing to his friend. Martin, he knew, had a soft spot for the young. In other circumstances it was almost endearing, but in the present, it might lead to a lapse in judgement. Hopefully his mind was not truly turned to vengeance; he had cured him of that vice in Stirling.

  If Martin was focused on violent retribution, well … sensing that, a devil might pull his thread yet.

  ***

  Martin, for his part, had stopped listening to the words of the mass midway through the Dies Irae. There, his mind had leapt on the words, translated rapidly, as ‘when the judge takes his seat

  all that is hidden shall appear. Nothing will remain unavenged’. There was a beautiful, deadly assuredness about them. He had no doubt now that Danforth would find the killer. He had always done so before. This time, though, he would not balk at the idea of the murderer being slain. This was different. The little boy’s death had changed everything.

  The night before, as he had stood in the dowager’s inner chamber, amidst a sea of crying men and women, he had sensed it. Certainly, he thought, some of their grief was feigned. What did they care for a royal servant, a faceless page? But his own was not. Mathieu had been an innocent. He had hoped to be a soldier, much as Martin himself had once done. The murderer had taken that away from him, robbed a family, still ignorant of the fact, of their boy. There could be no forgiveness this time, nor even a turning away whilst proper justice was done. When Danforth pulled off the blue cloak, he was going to be there with his dagger. As he had walked away from the dirge, back through the silent halls of the palace, down the dark stairs, each step had brought fewer angry tears and more determination. He had been almost willing the murderer to appear with his gun, to grapple with him. It was no longer time for tears – the dirge had done its work and released them.

  The priest had reached his
crescendo. He had, Martin noticed, finally begun to inject some vibrance into the Latin, as he intoned, ‘let everlasting light shine upon them, Lord, with Thy saints for ever, for Thou art merciful. Grant them eternal rest, Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them,

  for Thou art merciful.’

  But there could be no mercy. Not after this. At the dirge, dozens of voices had cried out against mercy. They had cried out for retribution. Because this time, the enemy was not some corrupted doctor, not a mad person, not a shiftless criminal.

  This time, it was the devil.

  ***

  There had been no time for the carpenters to fashion a coffin for the child, not with the dowager’s insistence that he be put to the ground honourably and immediately. Thus it was that Mathieu’s corpse had been forced into an old chest, one that had been used for storing cloth for the masque. There was something obscene about the cheap little wooden crate. There was something obscene about life in the palace going on without the boy. But it must. To Danforth, it seemed impossible that that had only taken place the day before; less than twenty-four hours ago, he had danced with Rowan Allen, watched a couple of boys not much younger than Mathieu caper around a stage.

  The dowager did not stay for the burial but was escorted back into the palace after the requiem mass, a towering figure veiled from head to foot in black. Danforth and Martin, however, remained to watch the tiny makeshift casket be lowered into the grave. The digging had brought up the rich, wet scent of earth. Nearby some bluebells were shooting out, despite the odd clump of hard frozen snow that had clung on in the shade of the trees. Spring really was making its presence known. When it truly flowered, Mathieu would not be there to see it. He would be just a memory of the people for whom he had run around, each year dumping a greater weight of forgetting on his grave.