Christie Dickason - The Lady Tree

He knew he would be judged guilty, because it was the truth. He had killed Francis Malise, in rage.

He knew that men had the right to punish him under temporal law, but he had expected to suffer in spirit as well. On the contrary, he was still glad he had done it. This realization shook him profoundly. At fourteen, he began to suspect that Good and Evil, the works of God and the works of Satan, were not separated after all by a boundary as clearly marked as a river bank. As a child, you were good or you were bad. Usually you knew the difference, and if caught you were punished. If you didn’t know the difference, you had merely failed to understand God’s Will.

Now, at a time when he most needed his childish faith, he was most filled with wretched doubt. He called on God to explain the ambiguity that surrounded His Commandments. ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ If John felt unrepenting triumph, what about soldiers fighting in the King’s name? And what about the soldiers fighting on the other side? There were long hours of opportunity, as John waited in his prison cell, for a Divine reply. The Lord did not seize the chance.

Is this one of the adult secrets, John wondered. That we walk as uncertainly as blind men? That to believe is merely to prescribe and to hope?

His uncle had bought John lodging in a room among the debtors of the Fleet Prison instead of a cell below ground. He also dropped the coins of his own suspicion into the pockets of gossip and influence. Sir James Balkwell had not been alone in feeling that John’s accusation might be true. He and the others were easier in their minds when there seemed to be no hurry to bring the boy to trial.

‘Bogus Englishmen as well as murderers,’ George Beester said of the Malises wherever an ear would listen. ‘Catholics…French name. Whipped off to the Netherlands in King Henry’s time and now they’re slinking back again, encouraged by the marvel of a French Catholic queen on the throne of England and protected by her papist cronies.’

A successful, self-made man, Beester understood the close connection between principles and pockets and had the means to make this connection work for his nephew’s cause. Even so, though he found many sympathetic ears, his efforts were not enough.

He visited the prison six weeks after John’s arrest. John scrambled up from his cot.

‘They’re going to try you next week,’ said Beester. The majority of those honourable men who witnessed Francis Malise’s death have agreed, however reluctantly, that you intended harm. The plea of accident has been rejected. And Edward Malise is pressing his case among the Catholic faction that has the Queen’s ear. It’s her word against the other side’s reluctance to act.’

Beester settled on a little stool and spread his legs wide to balance his bulk. ‘I don’t think I can save you in court unless we can find a strong enough case ourselves to bring against Malise. One last time – try to remember more! Even one detail…a name called out…livery.’

John shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been trying…Uncle, did the Malises have any right on their side?’

‘Has the Devil been pissing in your brain?’ George Beester flushed. ‘You ignorant, evil young …’ He stopped himself. ‘I’m sorry. It’s a fair question for a boy in your position.’ He studied his sturdy knees. ‘They had no right, only what they pretended was a reason. And Malise was canny enough to admit that straight off. His grandfather chose the wrong side, against King Henry while your own grandfather did not. The Malises tried every means to win their lands back. Your father had won a final lawsuit four months before he died.’

‘Lands,’ said John in wonder. ‘My parents’ lives for lands?’

‘The Malises claimed injustice and persecution.’

‘In a way, they were right.’

‘Don’t be a fool. The courts ruled that they were not. And that is the truth, as it stands, on this earth. The Malises are murderers. No law, Divine or temporal, gave them the right to play executioner.’

‘I killed Francis Malise.’

‘But with more right. And I still say it was an accident. And I have support on both counts. That’s why you must not come to trial! Morally, your guilt is still a little slippery. All those official words and papers will set events rock solid. The logical sentence will be required. I must do something before then.’

‘I did kill him.’

Beester leaned forward. ‘Swear to me again that you saw Edward Malise beside my sister’s coach!’

‘I swear,’ said John. ‘By anything you like.’

His uncle studied the boy’s eyes. Then he grunted. ‘All right. There’s no more to say. They won’t have you as well.’ He stood and rearranged the layers of his clothing for leavetaking. Beester saw no point yet in telling the boy that all four Nightingale estates, including Tarleton Court, had been confiscated by Crown agents to be held pending the verdict.

‘If those two were guilty,’ said Beester, ‘then it may yet be proved. And what a shame, then, if you were already dead.’

He crossed to the unlocked door. ‘Do you still keep handy that knife I gave you?’

John nodded.

‘If rumour gets out that I’m trying to delay your trial, Malise or a helpful crony might just see fit to play God’s role again. There aren’t enough guards here. Take care.’

The heavy wooden door of the cell scraped across the floor. John woke. He listened. Heard the tiny barking of a far-away dog. Inside the cell, cloth rasped on cloth. The darkness was tight with the silence of held breath. John felt rather than saw the change in the darkness where the door would be. Someone had opened his door. He slid his right hand under the cotton bolster onto the handle of his uncle’s dagger.

He waited, straining to hear over the clamour of his body.

Cloth scratched across cloth again, in the darkness near the door. Agile as an adder, John slid sideways off the bed. On the ice-cold floor, he listened again. Over the thumping of his heart, he heard a roughly drawn breath, and another. The intruder needed air badly and could keep quiet no longer.

How many were there?

Silently, John coiled himself near the foot of the bed. If he attacked now, he would have the brief advantage of surprise. He shifted his grip on the handle of the knife. The sound of breathing had not moved away from the door.

‘John?’ His name felt its way through the darkness on an urgent breath. ‘Nephew John, it’s Mistress Beester.’

Now he imagined a thicker darkness near the door.

‘Your aunt…Uncle George’s wife.’

His hand clamped even tighter onto the knife.

‘John, are you there?’

The thicker darkness stirred. It seemed to retreat a step.

‘Aunt Jane?’

‘It was the right door! Thank God! Come at once!’ The whisper was impatient and frightened. ‘Come quickly. Your uncle is waiting in the street…Come!’

John stood with a surge of joy. He took a step and bumped into the table. He hesitated in the darkness. What if she weren’t really there? It would be too terrible if she were a demon testing his soul’s strength. She would vanish, and he would have to rebuild his courage again from scratch.

‘Sweet Heaven, come now!’ Fabric rustled. A cold but solid hand brushed his wrist, fumbled, gripped on.

John dived through the darkness after the hand.

‘Close the door!’ she whispered.

They cut diagonally across a short corridor to a second smaller wooden door. His aunt opened it and ducked into the shaft of a narrow stone staircase with John behind her. Steps spun down, down, down around a pole of stone into a well of darkness. John followed the hissing of his aunt’s hems down the stone treads, his knees jerking in the rhythm of his descent. Slap, slap, shouted his feet. He tried to step more lightly as he followed his aunt’s rustling shadow down into the well. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. The truth began to shake his numbness. Tap, tap. He kept one hand on the spiralling wall to steady himself. The pitted stone bit at his fingertips. The cold damp air had the rotting leather smell of bats. He was escaping. Alive.