D. Wilson - The First Horseman

Moments later Bart strode in, pushing the door wide. ‘There you are,’ he said, pointing to the recumbent form. His companion hurried across the room, his eyes fixed on what he supposed was my lifeless body. Instantly, Ben slammed the door. He and I grabbed Incent by the arms and forced him to a stool. Jed threw aside the sheet and jumped up with a coil of rope he had ready and, while the priest struggled and shouted, he tied our prisoner’s hands securely behind him.

‘You may save your breath, Sir John,’ I said. ‘No one can hear you here and if they could they would know better than to interfere.’

Incent’s first reaction was bluster. ‘What do you mean by this outrage? How dare you lay profane hands on me! You’ll regret this — all of you. I’ll see you on a gallows for it.’

I let him rant. When he had subsided into surly silence, I said, ‘Sir John, no ill will befall you at our hands. We are not thieves or murderers. We have brought you here for one purpose and one only.’ I produced a paper from inside my doublet. ‘Before you leave, you will sign this short document.’

‘I’ll do no such thing,’ Incent snorted. ‘What is it, anyway?’

‘A confession of your implication in the foul murder of Master Robert Packington.’

‘Pfah!’ Our guest made a sound like a suddenly deflated pig’s bladder. ‘What nonsense! Master Treviot, I’m surprised at you getting involved with this bunch of knaves in order to play such foolish tricks.’ Incent seemed to have recovered his composure slightly. I wondered whether perhaps it had been poor tactics to play my trump card straightway. If I was to shake the truth from the priest, I would have to build up my case stone by stone until he realised there was no escape. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘we’ll leave that matter for the moment. Let us consider first something that happened a mere two days ago. That was when you engaged my friend here to murder me for a fee of three sovereigns. It would be futile for you to deny that.’

Incent sneered. ‘You are not going to take the word of this churl over that of a respected priest.’

‘Your presence here gives the lie to your denial, Sir John. Why are you come, save in the hope of beholding my corpse?’

‘I was tricked,’ Incent snorted. ‘It was a plot to get money out of me.’

‘A plot that could only succeed if you wanted to see me dead,’ I responded, ‘and why would you desire that?’

Our prisoner’s only reaction was to glower at us and wriggle in a vain attempt to escape his bonds.

‘Let’s leave that on one side also,’ I suggested. ‘We will go instead to the afternoon of 20 November. That was when you made an unannounced visit to my home and persuaded my assistant John Fink to reveal my whereabouts to you. Having discovered that information, you arranged for me to be waylaid on Hampstead Heath.’

Incent shook his head violently but cracks were beginning to appear in the cladding of his choleric indignation. ‘That was a pastoral visit,’ he whined. ‘Nothing more.’

‘Then why,’ I demanded, ‘did you hasten to tell your nephew, Hugh Seagrave, all about it and why did he, with equal haste, ride out to Hampstead to lie in wait for me?’

The priest was thoughtfully silent for several moments, calculating carefully.

‘Master Treviot, if the Seagraves have some quarrel with you, it is none of my doing.’

‘So you say.’ I pulled up a stool, placed it in front of the prisoner and sat down, our eyes on a level. ‘But, again, let us leave that hanging in the air and come to other matters. The attempt on my life failed. Three days later, I was arrested at your instigation and clapped into the Lollards’ Tower.’

‘That was nothing to do with me,’ Incent asserted, gazing straight at me. ‘If My Lord bishop had you arrested, he undoubtedly had good cause to do so.’

I glanced around at my friends. They were looking distinctly uncomfortable. I decided on a change of tactics.

‘Have you ever been inside that dismal prison?’ I asked. ‘That place where men are shut up for presuming to believe things other than you ordain? ’Tis a fearful place. If you set your ear to the stone, you can still hear the screams of Richard Hunne, brutally murdered by your predecessors.’

A sudden defiance flashed in Incent’s eyes. ‘Hunne was a heretic who hanged himself in a fit of remorse.’

It was Ben who responded. ‘All the world knows that for a lie!’

‘Indeed,’ I said, ‘but what does a lie matter if it rids the world of one heretic? That is your philosophy. You hate heretics, do you not, Sir John? Any crime, any bestiality, any sin that leads to their extermination is justifiable. Isn’t that an article of your creed?’

Incent mumbled something.

‘Speak up, man,’ I said sharply. ‘We did not hear your reply.’

He raised his eyes and again there was a touch of defiance. ‘I am a priest. It is my responsibility to protect the Church from error. There can be no so-called “New Learning” if it does not come from our doctors and is not sanctioned by the pope.’

‘Fortunately,’ I continued, ‘I was rescued from your evil designs by Lord Cromwell.’

‘Cromwell!’ Incent’s sharp, raucous laugh took me by surprise. ‘You young simpleton! You should choose your protectors more carefully. Do you really think His Lordship is interested in you? He cares only for his own power. He would betray you tomorrow if that would serve his purposes, just as he did Queen Anne and that deluded ninny, Tyndale.’

Our duel had reached the point when only a strong thrust would break through the man’s stubborn defence. ‘That is no matter,’ I said. ‘We must take one more step back in time to discover why you should want to destroy me. I am no heretic. There was no reason why I should figure on your list of “New Learners” to be exterminated — until you discovered that, like you, I was on a crusade. You learned that I was determined to discover the murderer of Master Robert Packington. That alarmed you.’ I thrust my face close to Incent’s and almost spat the words at him. ‘Because you were the man who paid for his assassination!’

If I had hoped for a gasp of guilt unmasked or a gibbering denial, I was disappointed. Staring straight into the prisoner’s eyes, I read surprise. I sat back to continue my interrogation. ‘You are a self-appointed heresy-hunter and what worse heresy can there be than distributing the English New Testaments by that “ninny”, William Tyndale. You knew Master Packington was a leading figure in that business. You knew that he was far too circumspect and too well connected for you ever to be able to bring a successful charge against him so you did what your predecessors had done to Richard Hunne years ago: you hired someone to murder him.’

‘This is nonsense!’ Incent shouted.

I stood up and towered over the trembling figure in the chair. ‘No,’ I said, ‘not nonsense. The simple, naked truth.’ I was forced to bluff. ‘The Italian mercenary you paid has been apprehended and he has confessed all. The case against you is complete for all these crimes.’

At last the red-headed priest’s composure was broken. He began gibbering about ‘lies’ and ‘conspiracy’. In the commotion I did not hear the door open behind me. As I brandished the prepared confession in Incent’s face, I felt someone clutch my arm. Turning, I was astonished to see Lizzie.

‘Thomas, we must talk!’ she said urgently.

‘Not now,’ I said, shaking off her hand.

‘Yes now!’ she insisted. ‘Come with me.’

‘Lizzie, I cannot! This is not the time.’

She refused to let go. ‘It is the only time, if you value all our lives.’

Reluctantly I followed her out of the room and up the stairs until we came to what I recognised as her old chamber.