Ormond House - The Bones of Avalon

Our royal ancestor, the Queen had said. With a smile.

‘…had it not been for that regrettable business twenty years ago,’ Cecil was saying.

‘Beg mercy?’

‘Over the Abbot of Glastonbury. It’s all most of us know of the ghastly place.’

‘Mmm. Yes.’

At the time of the Dissolution, the last Abbot of Glastonbury had been dragged through the town on a hurdle and then hanged, drawn and quartered. Tortured first, it was said, slowly and extensively.

This on the orders of Thomas Cromwell, acting for King Henry VIII. The Abbot having been treacherous and uncooperative.

‘All rather unnecessary,’ Cecil said, ‘given hindsight.’

I said nothing. The Dissolution of the monasteries still pained me, whenever I thought of it. Although I understood full well the need to be free of an oft-corrupt papacy, the destruction of such beauty and the loss of the centuries of knowledge it represented was near unbearable to me. All those books torn up and burned. Many of the rescued volumes in my library had, so to speak, scorched pages.

‘They say the place has never recovered,’ Cecil said.

‘As with other abbey towns. Was not this one the oldest religious house in England, in its foundation?’

It seemed more than likely that Cecil had been to Glastonbury himself, on one of his visits to his late friend Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset. But he said nothing.

‘Obviously an important place of pilgrimage, in its day,’ I said. ‘Given the legend of its foundation…’

As the Queen had reminded me, it was said that the wealthy merchant who had provided a tomb for his Saviour, had travelled to these islands, to trade, landing in the extreme west of England. And that Jesus, said by some sources to be his nephew, had journeyed with him as a boy, and had thus set foot both in Cornwall and Somersetshire.

Indeed, it was further said that Jesus had returned as a man, to train in the spiritual disciplines under the Druids. A thrilling legend which seemed unlikely ever to be proved. However, it was more widely believed that, after the crucifixion, Joseph had also returned, bringing with him the holy cup of the Last Supper which had later caught drops of the holy blood from the cross, and that this cup, the Holy Grail, remained, hidden somewhere.

The most precious, powerful and inspirational vessel in Christendom. The purest of King Arthur’s knights were said to have gone in quest of the Grail, thus bringing together the two great legends of Glastonbury. A holy legacy indeed, and out of all this had grown a huge and wealthy monastic establishment, said to have been founded by Joseph of Arimathea himself.

And then King Henry, the Great Furnace, had ordered its destruction.

‘Never been there yourself?’ Cecil said.

‘No.’

‘Odd. I mean… given your noted fascination with the great spiritual mysteries.’

I grew cautious.

‘It’s a question of time, Sir William.’

‘Time.’ He smiled. ‘We can always make time. And you could be there… oh, well within a week, I’m assured.’

He looked at me, placidly. There was never any reading of his eyes.

‘Why?’ I said.

‘For the stability of the realm of course.’ Parting his fingers, Cecil sat up in his chair and stretched his spine. ‘Why else do I exist?’

I’d wondered why he’d summoned me here, to his private home, his cottage. Had to be for reasons of secrecy.

Something sensitive. Something unofficial.

Therefore something heavy with risk.

I looked out of the window and now beheld the collected spires as something like to a bed of nails. With the twisted briars of religion and the gathering threats from abroad – the Queen of Scots fresh-married to the boy king of France – did Cecil not have enough tough meat on his plate without concerning himself with spiritual mysteries?

‘Are you quite sure I’m the man for this?’ I said.

V

Bones

OUTSIDE, the rain had ceased and the winter sun hung in the central window, looking heavy as a new coin. It lit the spines of the books on Cecil’s few finished shelves. Books dealing with politics, law and property, but nothing, I’d guess, on the spiritual mysteries.

I told Cecil about the pamphlet-seller, but not about my incautious attempt to take him on, nor how I’d been saved from what might have been a severe beating, or worse.

All the time was wondering if he knew full well what had occurred. This man had eyes all over the city, and beyond.

He lifted an eyebrow, reached for his wineglass then abruptly pushed it away.

‘There are scum out there who’ve been putting it around London that I maintain four mistresses and consume a gallon of wine nightly, before horsewhipping my children. Face it, you’re a public figure, now. Or at least, a public name. ’

‘But my mother’s not. And she’d be alone at Mortlake, where it seems I’m hated and feared by all the new puritans lest I raid their family’s graves.’

‘Then we’ll protect her.’ His hands emerging from his robe like puppets. ‘I’ll have armed guards put into Mortlake for as long as you’re away. I’ll even have a guard mounted on your blessed library. How does that sound?’

‘Well, I don’t think there’s need for-’

‘Good. Settled, then.’

‘There’s also the matter of my work. I’m already seriously behind in my work.’

Cecil was gathering up the letters. He did not even look at me.

‘ This,’ he said, ‘is your work.’

The stories of the four mistresses and the horsewhipping of children had obviously been plucked from the air to make a point. But there was gossip about Sir William Cecil, most of it related to his ancestry. The son of an innkeeper, it was oft-times said, in the same way that it was oft said of me that I was the son of a meat-slicer.

But is it such a bad thing that we are now living in an age where ability may, on occasion, be recognised above breeding?

I think not, and yet I believe ancestry to be important in ways that we have not yet fathomed. For my father, it was simple: he was a Welshman and, now that the Tudors of Wales had secured the English crown, this Welshness was an asset of no small proportion. I am Rowland Dee and I am a man of Wales! my tad would declare, with one hand on his heart, the other extended before him, and a comical deepening of his accent.

Sometimes he’d even repeat it in Welsh. Which, I would imagine, cut no ice at all with the Great Furnace, who gave not a shit for Wales, most of the time. It had been different, however, for his own father, the first Tudor king, who’d landed from France in the west of Wales and rode from there with a gathering army and a weight of tradition.

This tradition being King Arthur. According to the legends, Arthur had not died but was only sleeping and would return when his nation had need of him.

And so, within Henry Tudor, was Arthur risen again, and the sense of an older and more united Britain. Henry had married Elizabeth of York, thus meeting the red rose with the white. To seal the family’s royal destiny, he’d even given their first-born son, his heir, the name of Arthur and had him born at Winchester, which Malory claimed had once been Camelot.

A masterstroke. I knew the new Queen was much taken with this story of her family’s tradition and doubtless recognised its emotive power. King Arthur. Our royal ancestor, she’d said to me. And would have said more had not Blanche Parry appeared, the watchful owl amid the winter apple trees. Blanche having been given brief, I’d guessed, by this man, William Cecil, who at all times protected the Queen.

Sometimes, it seemed, from herself.

‘She’s a young woman,’ he said now. ‘She’s clever, well read, and already carries a weight of experience. And, given the parlous state of the exchequer, she is commendably cautious. But, as a young woman, she’s ever prey to the allure of a great romance. And the problems it might pose. For her.’