Ormond House - The Bones of Avalon

I said nothing. Dudley weakly raised his hands.

‘Forgive me, John, who am I to talk, weak as an infant born before time? God help me if I didn’t awake this morn with the sure knowledge that this whole adventure was no more than a scheme of Cecil’s to keep me out of Bess’s bedchamber long enough for him to talk sense into her.’

‘He’s alarmed by the gossip from France,’ I said. ‘That’s all.’

‘And who are the fucking French to lecture us on morals?’ Dudley’s head rolled back. ‘What’s this JP fellow say?’

‘Talks of devil-worship. But then, he’s a man who sees witchcraft and sorcery everywhere. He’s also thinking there are those with bitter memories of Leland’s list and its consequences for Glastonbury. Lives and livings brought to ruin by the destruction of the abbey. Maybe fears of another crackdown.’

‘And disembowel a man for that?’

‘I don’t-’

‘And are we next? Should we get out while we can? Am I the kind of man who’d run from some small-town malcontent with a butcher’s knife?’

He fell back, coughing like a sheep. I went to the bedside. ‘Things have changed. Death changes everything. Maybe it’s time for you to remember who you are. You only need lift a finger, send out a letter, and you’ll have two hundred men here by-’

‘No. We finish this.’

‘God damn it, Robbie, you’re Lord Dudley, the heir to-’

‘A pile of hatred. All England hates me for an arrogant cock.’ He turned his face to me, all smirched with dirt and sweat. ‘They should see me now, eh, John?’

I recalled him on the river, his talk of humility, of fasting for three days, vigils until dawn, riding out silently and stopping at each church to pray. I’d thought this jesting – only now remembering at how many churches we had stopped on the way here, how often he’d wandered off alone.

That a man who brings to his Queen such an irrefutable symbol of her royal heritage… something which bestows upon her monarchy’s most mystical aura. That man… he may expect his reward.

A quest for some manner of redemption? Could not think on this. Not now.

‘You’re a sick man,’ I said. ‘Get some sleep.’

‘It’s day.’

He ripped a hand irritably across his forehead, as if wiping off the dust of some battle he was being denied. I stood up.

‘Even you can’t fight sickness. Let it run its course. I’ll pull the curtains.’

‘Leave them.’

I was at the door when he called me back.

‘John.’ He rolled onto his side to face me. ‘Martin’s body…’

‘Yes, I… Should I find a carpenter to make a coffin? Will we take him back to London?’

Dudley’s eyes had closed. ‘His heart,’ he said. ‘We’ll take his heart home.’

At the foot of the stairs, I found Cowdray with a young man of about eighteen years who, he said, had ridden from Bristol, with a letter.

‘From London, sir,’ the young man said.

I recognised the seal at once, told Cowdray to give him a good breakfast and ale and charge it to Master Roberts.

‘I’ve also found Joe Monger for you,’ Cowdray said.

‘Forgive me… who?’

‘The farrier. You asked me last night?’

Last night: another age. ‘He’s out back now, Dr John. Summoned to trim the hooves of my old ass.’

‘Thank you. I should pay for that, too, then. Please… add it to our bill.’ I nodded to the messenger. ‘Thank you, also.’

‘No letter for return, Master?’

‘It’s possible. Go and eat. Take your time.’

My head was aching. Found my way through the ale-smelling passage to the rear door, a small cobwebbed window above it. Leaned my back against the door and broke the seal on the letter.

Blanche Parry. She must’ve written this not long after we’d left London, to get it here so soon. I unfolded the paper, held it up to the glass.

Odd. Written not with Blanche’s customary distant formality. Had an immediacy not of her usual character, and it addressed me in a familiar way I’d not known before from this severe and cautious woman.

Cousin,

All is not well with our good sister.

Her nights are tormented, and daytimes fraught.

This is what I have learned: our sister hath been informed of dire prophecies and is told she will have no peace from

Morgan le Fay until such time as her heroic forefather be entombed in glory. I therefore pray you speed to a resolution in this matter and send early word to me of your progress.

For obvious reasons of security, it was unsigned, but the references were clear.

…she will have no peace…

Mistress Blanche. Born not far from my own family in countryside ravaged by the Glyndwr wars, Wales against England, castles burning. And then the great war Lancaster against York, local families changing their allegiance one to the other, neighbour against neighbour.

Cautious like no others, these Border people, and would never show their hand until the direst peril loomed. But Blanche’s devotion to Elizabeth would smash all barriers before it.

I therefore pray you speed…

I read it twice more. The use of the word prophecies put me at once in mind of a man with peacock feathers in his hat shrieking, Know how the world will end.

Prophecy. Most of it is based upon empty air. It preys on the night-terrors of the subject and the desires of the prophet himself. Never, never confuse it with the ancient discipline of astrology, which charts the movements of the cosmos, from which estimates of probability may be drawn.

How wrong my neighbour, Jack Simm, had been when he suggested that all monarchs would grow skin like to a lizard’s. Royal skin, in truth, was pale and petal-thin and bruised if you blew on it, and the wind of a prophecy blew colder than blizzard snow.

Fear not prophecy, I would say, fear only prophets. Not least the ones who speak in such specifics as: until such time as her heroic forefather be entombed in glory.

The forefather: Arthur.

And Morgan le Fay?

The witch queen of Arthurian lore, leader of that dolorous sisterhood which, in legend, had conveyed Arthur by barge to the Isle of Avalon. There seemed little doubt that Blanche was here making reference to the Queen’s own mother. And my feeling was that this was not Blanche’s own coded reference – she had little imagination – but came from the orginal wording of the prophecy.

Anne Boleyn. Poor bloody Anne Boleyn, no more a witch than Mistress Borrow. Whose mother…

Oh God, what did I know? What did any of us know? Witchcraft – white witchcraft, at least – oft-times would be no more than a condition of belief, an approach to more or less the same spiritual ends we sought as Christians. And, to a Catholic, Anne Boleyn’s notorious Lutherism had been the worst kind of witchery. And not considered white.

So was this how it had begun, our quest for what remained of Arthur? Some ‘prophecy’ the Queen had read? She has a rare appetite for learning, but also a thirst for trivia and gossip and, as I’ve said, is ever prey to night fears and uncertainties, moving this way and that way and watching always for signs.

And under the new freedom, London teems as never before with false prophets and tricksters, men and women intent on weaving whole mystical tapestries to achieve ends far removed from the expansion of human knowledge.

Why had she not consulted me?

I stood with my back to the yard door, shadowed by a sense of isolation like the onset of night. Was there something I was missing, something so blindingly clear that everyone else had been laughing over it for years? Was I, in truth, trusted by no-one, respected by no-one? A man lauded abroad but in his own land either feared as a conjurer or scorned as a mere book-learner in this age of adventurers in golden doublets which shone like the sun. A poor clerk who charted starry patterns and made cautious estimates of probability. Not good enough. Little wonder that this man had been rewarded with neither land nor title.