‘Five florins, eh?’ Makepeace had waited at the door, received the flagon that was hastily shoved in. He went to pour it into Jean’s goblet and his gaze flicked to the bed beside him.
‘Rombaud’s sword,’ he said. ‘May I?’ Putting down the flagon, he picked the weapon up, unsheathed it. ‘Still a beauty, isn’t it? Feel that weight.’ He made a cut through the air, whistled. ‘And the shame is that in this whole kingdom there’s probably only you and me that knows how to use it. No call for such quality these days.’ He made another cut just above Jean’s head, who tried not to flinch. ‘Do you know, miss, your father traded me this weapon once for that knife you mentioned, oh, nigh on twenty years ago now. Then a Turk, a janissary, bought it back off me. And somehow it got back to you again.’ He made another cut. ‘I regretted selling, later. Money’s money, but this … I always thought how good it would look on the wall of my inn.’
‘Take it.’
‘Father!’
‘No, child.’ Jean turned to her. ‘This sword led me to the Tower once, and now it leads me back. Both times have meant sorrow for me and for those I love. I have had enough of sorrow.’ He turned back to Uriah. ‘I will not use it again. Take it.’
Makepeace sheathed the sword, spat in his hand, held it out. Jean spat, clasped. They shook.
‘A compact made! And I’m off to the Tower tonight, where I supply a dinner on the eve of this execution. I’ll find out if your son is indeed within and if he is, we’ll get you in tomorrow for the burnin’. Who knows? Under the cover of all that smoke, you should be able to smuggle him out. You stole an ’and from there once, the most famous in the kingdom. You should be able to steal a boy.’
Jean looked down, to where their own hands met. His thumb curled over the back of the other, reaching down into the letter there, into the heart of the ‘M’.
Holding the murderer’s right hand, he looked to the man’s left one, still waving the square-headed sword through the air. He had seen it rise and fall a thousand times. Now he prayed he never would again.
TWELVE
INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
Gianni Rombaud pushed the unidentifiable lump of meat around his plate, making cruciform shapes in the grease-rich gravy. He tried to use the images created to stimulate prayer, to narrow his mind down to the comfort of familiar Latin phrases, but his concentration was broken each time by that intrusive nasal voice.
Simon Renard! How could this man be the main pillar of the Church in London? A braggart, testifying to nothing but his own genius. And what did this Defender of the Faith want to know most from Gianni? Not his desire to root out heresy, not his dreams of martyrdom. No! All he’d wanted was the story of the six-fingered hand. He’d been as eager as any court gossip, especially desirous to know of Jean Rombaud’s role, Jean Rombaud’s actions, Jean Rombaud’s sins. It was only when Gianni’s replies became terse to the point of rudeness that the Ambassador grew bored, turned to the only other diner, Thomas Lawley.
As a servant loomed over him to take his barely touched food, a bell tolled midnight from a nearby tower. It was the hour Gianni had appointed as the limit of his politeness. He stood.
‘If you’ll excuse me …’
‘Young men need their sleep, I suppose.’
‘I have two hours of prayer ahead of me, my lord Renard. Then I must be awake with the dawn. The chaplain has asked me to seek the condemned’s repentance one last time.’
‘Ah yes.’ Renard turned to Thomas. ‘I hear you succeeded in bringing one of these unfortunate Protestants back to the light. Do you join our enthusiastic young friend again in that good work?’
The Jesuit murmured, ‘I do not. The boy was young, suggestible. The others are too locked in their faith.’
Gianni glared down at him. ‘Their heresy. Faith is what we have, remember?’
Thomas raised his calm face to the boy’s angry one. ‘Of course. I merely meant that they will not bend. All I can do now is pray for their souls.’
But that is not all I can do, Gianni thought excitedly, as he bowed and moved away. He would pray first and then he would sleep. He wanted to be well-rested for the morning’s ceremony. For he had been promised a special role.
As the door closed behind him, Renard said, ‘I heard that you wept when the sinner repented, Thomas. You displayed an emotion. Can this miracle be true?’
‘A soul was saved as well as a young man’s life. Yes, I found it moving.’ Thomas smiled. ‘And it is said in Rome that our beloved founder, Ignatius Loyola, weeps three times a day. He calls it “the gift of tears”. Should I disdain his example?’
‘It is also said in Rome that Jesuit weakness is due to its Spanish roots. Doesn’t Cardinal Carafa call Spain “a mongrel nation of Jews mixed with Moors”?’
The calm tone of voice belied the light in the Ambassador’s eyes, made up of both challenge and wine.
Thomas would certainly show no emotion to the Fox. ‘I am English born and bred, my lord. And do you not yourself serve the King of Spain?’
‘So the Jesuit can find a mark? At last we have a game. Excellent!’
Renard leaned forward to fill Thomas’s cup with wine. A hand prevented him.
‘But you have barely drunk tonight, Thomas. Neither you nor our young friend.’ Renard emptied the flagon into his own goblet, drank deeply.
‘Maybe, like me, he fears a loosening of his tongue, my lord.’
The words were accompanied by a little glance around the room, at the servants who moved about, attending to plates, wine, fire.
‘Is that … criticism I hear in your voice – Jesuit!’ Renard spat out the last word, his voice suddenly sharp. Raising his goblet, he added, ‘Do you imply that this makes me careless?’
‘I would not presume to criticize you, my lord.’
‘Of course you wouldn’t! Direct attack is not your way. You sit back with your observation, your judgements, your unfocused stare …’ He thrust his heated face close to Thomas’s. ‘I let my tongue loosen only when it is safe to do so. You think any of these peasants’ – he waved at the servants – ‘can speak even one word of the French or Italian we have been using? You have forgotten your countrymen’s inordinate capacity for ignorance. These animals can barely speak their own language.’
He turned to the table’s end, where one of the servants was stacking platters. ‘You see that one! The big one, too stupid to have removed his fat face from some beast only slightly dumber than himself. Heh, you, Ox!’ he called down the table. ‘Do you know of anything beyond the sewer, the filth of your daily life? Eh?’
The servant finally raised his head at the end of the torrent of French, realizing it was aimed at him, incomprehension on his face. He muttered, in English. ‘More wine, sir?’
Renard smiled, replied in the same language. ‘Yes, why not? More wine. My tongue needs loosening.’
He looked at Thomas, who bowed his head slightly, as he was required to do. Victory achieved, Renard’s face folded once more into its customary lines of calm disdain.
‘Now, where were we? Ah yes – the similarity in my two servants. A desire for a clear head, a rigid tongue.’
‘It may be the only trait we share, my lord.’
‘Criticism again, Thomas?
‘A comment, merely.’
‘But you disapprove of this Italian? Why? He seems as devout even as yourself.’
‘I am certain he is. But his devotion is dark. It seems founded on …’ Thomas hesitated, then said, ‘hate.’
‘And yours is based on … what, love? Was it love, then, that saved that young heretic today?’
‘I believe so, yes. But not mine. I am a mere conduit for Our Saviour’s love.’
‘And the burnings tomorrow? You disapprove?’
‘No … my lord. I can’t … disapprove. It is unfortunate, but … sometimes the sword is necessary. And the flame.’
‘And this boy, this Gianni, he is sharp, an unsheathed sword, eh? While you, Thom
as, you are a blade veiled in velvet.’ Renard laughed, leaned back, letting the servant who’d returned with the wine, fill his cup. ‘Gianni … Rombaud. Did you see how reluctant he was to talk of his father?’
‘I saw how interested you were in that subject, my lord.’
‘Oh yes, I am interested in this executioner. I am always interested in puzzles. When small men interfere in great events. This brute of a man took the Queen’s hand – more than a queen and more than a hand, by all reports – took it and buried it at a crossroads in France! Why? Are you not consumed by the mystery of that? And that was not the whole of the story, not close to it, even our monosyllabic friend implied there was much more to it. No, any knowledge I can gain of that tale can only help me in my … my game with the Princess Elizabeth.’
His slender fingers ran up and down the fine bones of his sharp face. The Fox’s dark eyes gazed into the fire, its light reflected in their depths.
‘Oh yes. I would give much to meet Anne Boleyn’s executioner.’
How much? Uriah Makepeace thought, as he followed the Imperial Ambassador along the inner wall of the fortress. Despite his size, he moved delicately, flush to the wall, in contrast to the man ahead whose high-heeled shoes, tipped in metal, clicked off the cobblestones in the very centre of the way. Feeling no need for silence, Renard was even humming some Spanish ballad as he walked. For what harm could befall him here, in the stony heart of the kingdom?
Uriah knew his destination, indeed, knew every lodging of each ‘guest’, willing or unwilling in the fortress. Until recently, he had supplied provisions to them all. He knew where Renard kept his rooms, and that, as one of the Queen’s chief advisers, the Fox’s attendance was often required at council meetings in the upper level of the White Tower, at torturings in the same tower’s depths, at executions before it on the Green, like the one on the morrow.
Uriah looked up to the roof of the Garden Tower, where three cloaked figures huddled beside a brazier. He raised a hand, received an acknowledgement – he was a familiar sight within these walls. But the guards’ presence confirmed his plans. Best not to approach Renard beneath their gaze, but wait for him to reach the Salt Tower. Uriah knew a secret stair that would take him, unseen, right to the Ambassador’s bedroom door.
His plan was quickly jettisoned when he looked back along the shadowed cobbles. For his quarry had vanished in the moment he’d taken to look up and wave. Moving swiftly, Uriah paused at the edge of the Wakefield Tower. He could hear the gurgling of the Thames as it surged through Traitor’s Gate and was about to move on, when two other sounds reached him. The first brought relief, the second made him smile. Peering around the corner of the wall, sight confirmed sound. The singing Ambassador, whose cup Uriah had kept full all night, was standing at the top of the stone staircase, relieving himself into the incoming tide.
‘And a fine night for it, is it not, my lord?’ Uriah said, stepping away from the wall.
‘Son of a whore!’ Renard spluttered, one hand reaching for his sword, the other trying to put himself away though it was clear he was not yet finished. ‘Who’s there? I will call the guard!’
‘No need for alarm, my lord. ’Tis only I, Uriah Makepeace. Excuse the interruption.’
And he stepped forward again, raising the lantern he’d kept hidden till that moment under his cloak, holding it up to his face.
Renard, having partially succeeded with his buttons, now withdrew his sword, levelling it before him. He squinted over the blade.
‘Do I know you, fellow?’
‘I hope so, sir. I served you wine all night.’
Uriah could not decide if the Ambassador’s expression was more comical now than it had been a few moments before.
‘But you speak French!’
‘And some Italian, though that’s gone a little rusty. German too. Useful for a mercenary to speak a few tongues other than his own.’
Renard had regained some of his calm. ‘So you were a mercenary and now you are a spy. And what’s this?’ The sword flicked to Uriah’s hand that held the lantern. Its point nicked, drawing blood from the centre of the branded ‘M’. ‘A murderer too! I think I will call for those guards.’
Uriah sucked at his hand. ‘If I spy, my lord, it is only to do you service.’
‘Indeed!’ Renard took a step forward, the sword steady, forcing Uriah to give ground. ‘And what was this service you were thinking of rendering me?’
‘Your Excellency expressed a desire at supper to meet a certain Queen’s executioner.’
‘Yes?’ Another step taken forward, another one back.
‘He’s a friend of mine.’
‘Really? How good a friend?’
The blade reached out to rest on Uriah’s doublet. He didn’t even look at it.
‘Well, not one beyond price, my lord. Certainly not beyond price.’
Though it was less than an hour after sunrise, London Bridge was already crowded. Yet it was not the impediment of jostling, shouting humanity that slowed Jean’s feet, nor was it the weight of the cart he pushed, piled high with barrels of Uriah’s ale, that caused his breath to come short. It was the barest glimpse through a gap between buildings. He’d looked away again as swiftly, too late. The Tower’s battlements now loomed in his memory as they loomed over the river, grim and grey, and he struggled to move forward, flushing cold despite his efforts. Finally, it was a sudden, terrible thought that had him lowering the cart’s end to the ground.
‘What day is this?’
His raspy voice carried to the black-browed man ahead, the Ram’s Irish landlord and Uriah’s lieutenant, Magonnagal.
‘Eh?’ he grunted. ‘Some saint, isn’t it? Always some bloody saint. Clear the way there!’ he bellowed ahead, then, turning back, he added, ‘Saint Experious, patron of the plough and bloody planting. Nineteenth of May.’
He’d known. Of course he’d known. But something inside him had tried to force that knowledge away.
‘Father! What is it?’
The concern on Anne’s face showed him the anguish that must be on his.
‘Nothing, child, it’s nothing. Help him push. I’ll catch up.’
The nineteenth of May! The day itself? How was that possible?
Nineteen years to the very day when last he’d been in the fortress he approached now. Nineteen years since he’d taken Anne Boleyn’s head, more, sworn a vow, taken her fabled hand, begun that journey. How many lives had that vow affected, how many deaths had it brought? As well as the birth of the girl now looking back anxiously along the bridge and of the boy Uriah had told them awaited ahead. Nineteen years and the circle complete, the journey back at its beginning, the hand returned. All that suffering – in vain.
Frozen there, as the crowds cursed and surged around him, his whole life suddenly seemed to him mere mockery, a hideous masque performed for random and capricious gods. He was their puppet, a plaything. And of this, above all else, he was suddenly certain – the masque approached its climax. He had been summoned back to this stage to die.
Jostled and knocked, he lurched forward, took one step and then another. The cart had been held in a duel for the roadspace, Jean catching up as Magonnagal threatened another carter with a whip. The man conceded the way to the huge Irishman, and they moved on.
Anne touched her father’s arm. ‘Are you all right? Should we rest, go back?’ The greyness of his face frightened her. ‘Maybe we should return another day?’
‘This is the day, child. The only day.’
She turned away, couldn’t look at him any longer. Not when she couldn’t separate his fears of what lay ahead from her own.
As they left the bridge, the crowds got denser, as ways merged, and all headed to the fortress. Uriah had told them that there had been disturbances when burnings were held the week before on the hill outside the Tower’s walls. Sympathizers had almost freed the heretics, so the authorities had decided not to take that chance again.
‘So they’ll burn ??
?em inside, before an invited audience,’ the Englishman had said. ‘Which is better for me. Outside, it’s like a fairground, anyone can set up a food stall. Within the walls, that’s my little manor, with a richer crowd who will pay well for their pleasures. Know the funny thing?’ His smile grew. ‘I have to cater to different tastes each time. At a beheading, they want pastries, sweetmeats, all manner of sugared goods. At a burning, now, all they crave is roasted meat! The blacker the better. Must be the savour in the air, eh?’
Anne hadn’t liked the man, was glad when he went ahead long before the dawn ‘to get the spits turning’. Still, they had no choice but to trust him. Her father was determined that it must end now, this day, that they had to get to Gianni, get the hand if possible, flee again. It was as if he sensed the limits of what he could do and knew they fast approached.
The crowd was thickest at the first gate, where warders turned many away. Magonnagal showed them the barrels on the cart, passed one over and they were admitted, following others of the privileged across a small drawbridge to another gateway. Beyond this, a larger drawbridge led to a much larger Tower.
‘The Byward,’ Magonnagal muttered. ‘Through that, and we’re a short push to the Green. Then I can rest my bloody shoulders.’
While most of the crowd surged forward, parallel with the river, the Irishman led them left, bringing the cart to a small wooden door set in the wall beside a large rectangular tower.
‘The Beauchamp,’ he said, rapping three times on the wood. ‘Brings us out beside the Green and we don’t have to shove through the bloody crowd.’
Bolts slid within, two of Uriah’s men appeared and immediately began rolling the barrels into the darkness ahead. Jean, who’d paused in the doorway at Magonnagal’s words, now grabbed a barrel and followed the men into the tower.
‘Too many ghosts,’ he muttered as he entered. ‘I can’t stop and acknowledge every one!’ Nevertheless, as he followed the men down the flagstoned corridor, he could not help but remember. Anne Boleyn had spent her last night in the Beauchamp. He had sworn his vow to her within these flagstone walls.