Bruce Holsinger - A Burnable Book

Finally Hawkwood leaned back, sighed, and put a hand on Scarlett’s arm. ‘Desilio has broken the final cipher,’ he said, a note of longing in his voice.

Scarlett felt a leap of hope, though Hawkwood quickly dashed it. The condottiero lifted the topmost paper and read, his gravelled voice weighing the deciphered message with a heavy finality.

My Lord, know by this that our earlier suspicions are confirmed. John Hawkwood, false knight and traitor to the crown, plots against His Highness’s rule. His brigades will sail from Spezia no later than the Feast of St Edmund, to join the French fleet off Sluys. Five thousand spears, with a thousand from Hawkwood, four from France. The coastal garrisons must be reinforced, the forts heavily manned, the artillery strengthened, and with all deliberate speed.

As Hawkwood recited the missive Scarlett felt his shoulders sink, all his fears realized. ‘We are done, then. Betrayed, and by that snivelling runt.’

‘So it seems,’ said Hawkwood, patting Scarlett’s arm. Scarlett grasped his master’s hand, feeling the surge of disappointment through the rough skin.

They finished their meal in silence, the air heavy with regret and stifled ambition. When the service was cleared Hawkwood took a final swallow of wine, wiped his lips, and handed the goblet to Scarlett, who sipped once, then again — and his hand stopped in midair as three of Hawkwood’s roughest men entered the hall from the direction of the main gallery. They positioned themselves in a shallow triangle around Scarlett’s chair and stood, silent, as Hawkwood brought out his cards.

‘My lord?’ Scarlett said, hating the sudden fear in his voice.

‘I’m learning, you know,’ said the mercenary, placing down a first card. ‘I’ve got my own set of signals now. “When I wipe my lips, enter the hall and surround the disloyal sack of shit.” Not as sophisticated as Il Critto, perhaps, but it seems to work. And no need for a cipher.’

Scarlett said nothing, though his breathing grew shallower with each card Hawkwood arrayed on the table.

‘Desilio came to me yesterday.’ Another card. ‘His face was pale, his hand shaking as he talked me through every step of the final code.’ Four more cards, all face up. ‘I was impatient at first, but he insisted that I work out the solution myself.’ The third row complete. ‘And he was right, for I would never have believed what I read had I not sifted through those pages myself, transcribed every letter in my own hand at his instruction. It wasn’t difficult, really.’ The last two cards, face up before Scarlett’s hands.

From a bag at his side Hawkwood took out the scorched quire and went on, as if instructing a schoolboy in grammar. ‘Each grouping of cards is a letter, you see. Start at the end and the beginning of the deck, excluding the trumps and taking the first and last cards as the letter A .’ He pointed to the first pair he’d arranged. ‘The second and the penultimate are B , the third and the antepenultimate C , and so on until you’ve exhausted the cards and the alphabet. Then you start over, with the second and the penultimate cards standing for A this time, the third and the antepenultimate for B — I won’t go on. The suits must be ranked, of course, and it can get quite confusing if you forget which sequence you’re on. There are as many as five different pairs standing for the letter S in this message alone. But Desilio took me through it, and eventually I was able to work out the message I’ve just read you.’

‘I see,’ said Scarlett, his uneasiness growing.

‘What I didn’t read you, though, was the last little bit. Do you mind if I do so now?’

‘As you wish, Sir John,’ said Scarlett stiffly, dreading to hear what came next. One of the dogs moved at his feet, nosing for a hand.

Hawkwood read.

To ensure its delivery to your hands, and to guard against the seizure of a messenger, we have sent this same information by land and by sea. Trust you in the truth of this, for Hawkwood himself has revealed all. Written at San Donato a Torre, by Firenze, the feast of Sts Perpetua and Felicitas, by your humble servant Adam Scarlett.

At the final words Hawkwood nodded up at his men, who descended on Scarlett as he sat frozen in his chair. He hardly noticed as his arms were thrust across the table, his wrists pinned in place by much stronger hands, his thumbs splayed to the sides as his palms were pressed against the wood’s cool surface.

Hawkwood stood, took a heavy knife from one of the men, and brought it down on Scarlett’s right thumb. Scarlett screamed, his legs quivering beneath him.

Yet even as his hand sang with an almost exquisite pain, his continuing screams now muffled by an oily cloth clamped over his mouth, he heard a sound that transcended agony. The crunch of bone, his bone, in the mouth of a dog.

At Hawkwood’s signal the man behind him forced his head to the side, his eyes widening in terror as he watched the hound chew and spit, chew and spit, lick, then lip, then chew and spit again, the shards of his thumb now a moist bolus on the floor. Another flash of Hawkwood’s knife, and the second dog had his treat. The men pressed vinegared cloths on Scarlett’s fresh stubs, strumming his nerves even as they stanched the blood and kept him from passing out.

‘Every lying finger, Adam,’ said Hawkwood, his voice a calm promise of misery to come. ‘Then every false toe. Then each treasonous ball, then your traitorous cock. After that — well, after that we’ll heal you up and get to work on your face.’

Scarlett closed his eyes, knowing it was useless to protest his loyalty to this man he would never have thought to betray. He was on the north downs, on Detling Hill after a walk from Maidstone. He had promised himself he would return there once back in England, and that his death, when it came, would not be in vain. So much for promises, and salvation.

‘We’ll keep you alive as long as we can, Adam Scarlett,’ said Hawkwood. ‘I wouldn’t want you to miss a moment of the feast.’

St Paul’s

On St Boniface’s day, the fifth of June, I arranged an appointment at St Paul’s with the bailiff of the Aldermen’s Court. Nothing important, merely a glimpse at a recent deposition I had been wanting to see. But I suspected the chancellor would be at the cathedral that morning, and that he would be summoning me sooner or later in any case. While speaking with the bailiff I stood at a spot in the north transept by the passage to Minor Canons, where the baron would see me as he passed.

It did not take long. Once the bailiff had left I leaned on the doorway, composing a pair of couplets in my mind, until I felt a presence behind me.

‘How did you do it, Gower?’ I turned to see the baron, framed against the crossing. I bowed. ‘How did you know?’

‘They were speaking in Italian, my lord,’ I said as we walked toward the less crowded south transept, our voices low. ‘That night on the Moorfields. Weldon was interrogating her in Italian. That was the first clue.’

‘So …?’

‘So London had nothing to do with the “city’s blade”. The girl was being questioned about the book, but she knew more. And that’s what she revealed with her final words — in English, so that the maudlyn, Agnes Fonteyn, would understand and remember them. Weldon spent years with Hawkwood, and his Italian was as good as Chaucer’s. He knew what he was doing. Recovering the book was crucial to keeping everyone focused on these elaborate prophecies and ignorant of Hawkwood’s more direct plot against the king. The Trinity plot, like the book, originated with him.’