A Brood of Vipers (2 page)

Well, I laughed myself sick. On my return from London I discovered my little turd of a chaplain was terrified lest Josiah Blackwood might come to visit. Oh, the laughs! Oh, the merriment! Weeks passed before he realized he had been gulled. I raise my hand and look at his little, plump face and solemnly swear that he has my permission to marry. I will adorn the church. I will lay on a banquet. I promise not to reveal anything about his past to his bride, on one condition -he must wear a mask throughout the ceremony. 'Oh Tempora! Oh Mores!'

The little man rattles his quill on the table. I grow sober as memory taps on my soul. The door swings open, the ghosts beckon me back along the gallery of time, back to London when Henry and Wolsey had the kingdom in the grip of their avaricious fingers. Oh yes, back to subtle ploys and clever plans! To treason, murder and death by a thousand stings! Benjamin waits for me there. I hear the knocking, it grows incessant. I open the door and Murder, evil-faced and bloody-handed, stands waiting to greet me.

Chapter 1

In the spring of 1523, the fourteenth year of King Henry VIII's reign, my master and I were resting from our labours at our manor outside Ipswich. Benjamin was involved in his good works whilst I amply proved the dictum 'The devil finds work for idle hands'. I had attempted to open an apothecary's shop in the village. Benjamin stopped this when he realised I was buying supplies from a certain Doctor Quicksilver who lived in the shabby tenements opposite Whitefriars. Benjamin summoned me to his own chamber, his long, dark face showing both hurt and anger.

'Roger, Roger.' He wagged a bony finger at me. 'Since when has crushed frog been an aphrodisiac?'

'I didn't say it was,' I replied.

'You said as much to Hick the Haywain.'

'What can I do, Master? He's head over heels in love with that dairymaid.'

'Wasn't she the one you were tutoring in the long meadow down near the river?'

I softly cursed my master's retentive memory.

'I don't think so,' I muttered, refusing to meet his
eye.

'What about Vicar Doggerell?'

'What about him, Master?'

Benjamin eased himself into his chair behind the table.

"That paste you sold him to cure his baldness. I smelt it after Mass on Sunday.' I kept my face straight.

'Very much like cow dung,' Benjamin insisted.

'A secret remedy, Master. Crushed herbs and grass with a special elixir. Vicar Doggerell, if he wears it every night, will have as fine a head of hair as myself.'

Benjamin leaned forward. 'No, he won't, Roger. I want this stopped and whatever profits you have accepted placed in the church poor box.' Benjamin pushed the chair back. 'You have a fine brain, a quick eye and a good hand. How are the fencing lessons going?'

'Signor d'Amoral,' I replied, referring to the Portuguese whom Benjamin hired for both of us, 'says I have acquired great skill.'

Benjamin scratched his head and gazed moodily out of the window.

'Uncle will send for us soon,' he said softly.

My heart skipped a beat and my stomach lurched, but I schooled my features. Whenever old Fat Tom, Cardinal Legate, Archbishop of York, Henry VIII's first and only minister, sent for his 'beloved nephew' and my goodself it only meant one thing. Old Shallot was heading straight for cow dung a thousand times thicker and more dangerous than what old Vicar Doggercll plastered on his silly, bald pate.

'What makes you think that, Master?' I stuttered.

Benjamin went up to stare at the two shields over the fireplace. One depicted the armorial bearings of the Daunbey family, the other those of Shallot.

'Are you sure, Roger?' he asked absentmindedly.

'About what, Master?'

'That the Shallot arms have a red stag rampant?' Benjamin grinned lopsidedly at me. 'This one's very rampant.'

I shrugged. 'The Shallots are an ancient family,' I lied. 'They were once great and noble, until they fell on hard times. But, Master,' I insisted, 'what makes you think "dearest uncle" is sending for us?'

'Just a feeling, just a feeling.'

I quietly groaned and closed my eyes. Last winter "dear uncle' had 'sent for us'. Benjamin and I were despatched to the icy wastes of Somerset to deal with witchcraft, decapitated heads, Hands of Glory and murder at every turn between skating on freezing lakes.

'Roger, why are your eyes closed?'

I opened them and forced a smile. 'Just praying. Master, just praying that "dear uncle" is in the best of health.'

'Well, we can't waste time,' Benjamin declared, 'Do you know that old hill?'

'The one that overlooks the mill?'

'Yes, Roger, I believe it's an ancient hill fort.'

Once again I groaned quietly to myself. Master Benjamin, a true man of the new learning, had a kind heart and an enquiring mind. He had two great passions - alchemy and antiquities. (I should add a third - his mad, witless betrothed, Johanna. Seduced by a nobleman, she lost her mind and was sent to the nuns at Syon in London. Poor girl! She lived into her eighties. To the day she died she still thought the young nobleman was coming back. Of course he never could. Benjamin, a skilled swordsman, had killed him!)

Now, as I said, my master was a great scholar, a true lover of all things classical. And why not? He had even travelled to Wales to attend the Eisteddfod held at Caurawys and became friends with its foremost poet Tudor Aled. He bought John Fitzherbert's book on husbandry and ordered a copy of Hans

Sachs' work
The Wittenberg Nightingale,
a poem about Martin Luther. (The Wittenberg Nightingale! Luther was a constipated old fart! You know that, don't you? That's why many of his writings, including
Table Talk,
are full of references to bowels, stools and body fluids. There was nothing wrong with Luther a good purge wouldn't have cured. The same applies to his lover, the ex-nun {Catherine. I met both of them once; all I can say is that they were as ugly as sin and richly deserved each other.) Ah, the people I have met. I only wish Benjamin was here now. Will Shakespeare would have fascinated him. Last summer Will came to Burpham and staged his play
Twelfth Night.
I helped him with some of the lines, especially Malvolio's

Some men are born great,

Others achieve greatness,

And others have greatness thrust upon them.

I composed those lines myself. Old Will cocked his cheerful face and stared at me.

'And what about you, Roger Shallot?' he asked. 'Which one of these applies to you?'

'All three!' I retorted.

Shakespeare laughed in that pleasant, delicate way he has. I could tell from his clever eyes that he knew the truth, so I laughed with him. And what is the truth? Old Shallot's a liar. (My clerk taps his quill and looks over his shoulder disapprovingly at me. Do you know, his face has more lines than a wrinkled prune. The little tickle-brain. My juicy little mannikin! 'You digress!' he wails. 'You digress!')

Yes, I do, in a fashion. But everything I say has a bearing on my story. I am going to tell about murders to chill the marrow of your bones and send your heart thudding like a drum, about subtle, cruel men! However, we'll soon come to that. To cut a long story short, on that warm spring day my master had set his heart upon digging up the old hill that overlooked the mill. So the next morning, armed with a copy of Tacitus's
Life of Agricola,
as well as some picks, bows, hoes and shovels, we went out to dig.

At first I really moaned. I wailed that my old wounds sheeted my back in throbbing pain. Benjamin just laughed. I see him now, his hair gathered up in a knot behind him, dressed in black hose pushed into stout boots, his cambric shirt open at the collar, his sleeves rolled up. The sweat coursed down his face, turning his shirt grey with patches of damp. He gazed at me solemnly.

'I think you should dig, Roger. I believe there may be treasure hidden here.'

Believe me, I dug as if there was no tomorrow, until Benjamin had to restrain my enthusiasm. I found no treasure. At last I stopped, rested on my shovel and glared at him furiously.

'Why are we digging? Here, I mean? Why not further along?'

Benjamin pointed to the top of the hill.

'I believe a fort once stood there. This would have been the ditch or moat at the bottom of the hill, lying on either side of the entrance. The people who lived here would dump their refuse into the ditch. Moreover, according to Tacitus, when the Romans came, these hill forts were stormed and the dead were always buried here. So, dig on, Roger!'

I did, cursing and swearing. The soil became looser. I glimpsed something white.

'Master!' I called.

Roger hastened over. He scooped the soil out with his hands and we gazed down at the uncovered skeleton.

'What's this, Master?' I whispered. 'Oh, bloody hell!' I stepped back. 'I know what will happen. We will be blamed for this. What is it? Witchcraft? Someone buried alive?'

'Hush, Roger. This man has been dead for over a thousand years.'

We kept digging, unearthing more skeletons. Now and again we found artefacts - a ring, a sword, necklaces and leather sandals. Benjamin patiently explained that we had found a burial pit, pointing to the skulls of the skeletons, each with a perfect hole in the forehead, just above the nose.

'I suspect these were Celts,' Benjamin observed. 'Killed when the hill fort was taken.'

'Master Daunbey, you are right.'

We both whirled around. Murder was standing there -dressed as usual in black from head to toe. The face beneath the broad-brimmed hat was red and merry as any jovial monk's, clean-shaven and snub-nosed except for those strange, colourless eyes.

'Doctor Agrippa,' Benjamin breathed, throwing down the pick and wiping his hands on his shirt. He clasped the black, leather-gloved hand of Cardinal Wolsey's special emissary.

'Uncle wants us?'

Agrippa nodded and took off his hat. He stood, one leg slightly pushed forward, tapping the hat against his knee whilst staring down at the skeletons.

'I was here,' he said in a half-whisper.

'Here?'

Agrippa's eyes shifted to mine. 'It's good to see you, Roger.'

He walked a little closer. I caught the fragrance of his exotic perfume - sandalwood, I think, mixed with myrrh and frankincense. I stared at his face and tried to calm the chill of fear which ran along my sweaty neck. Agrippa's eyes had changed colour again, now they were light blue, innocent like a child's.

'Oh, yes, I was here,' he continued. 'A great hill fort once stood at the top of this hill. The Iceni owned it. Tall and blond-haired, they worshipped Epona the horse goddess and sacrificed prisoners by hanging them from oak trees.'

Benjamin had turned his back and was walking away to collect his cloak.

'The Romans killed them all,' Agrippa continued absent-mindedly. 'Slit their throats, men, women and children, and piled their bodies into a pyre. You could see the flames and smoke from miles around. Nothing changes,' he murmured. 'Nothing changes.'

What answer could I make? 1 have mentioned Agrippa before in my journals. He claims to have lived since the time of Christ. You know the story? A Roman officer, he insulted Christ on his way to trial, telling him to hurry. Jesus turned and said, 'Yes, I will hurry but you, you shall wait for me until my return.'

I don't know whether the story is true or not, but Agrippa was ageless. He was a lord of the mysteries and Grand Master of the Secret Order of the Templars as well as a prophet. He had whispered to me that fat Henry was the Mouldwarp, the Dark Prince prophesied by Merlin, who would lead the kingdom astray and drench its green grass in torrents of blood.

I know you don't believe me, yet Agrippa was a strange man. When old Henry died, rotten with syphilis, Agrippa pushed the dead king's fat belly into the coffin so tightly it burst. He left the English court and I never saw him again until many years later and, believe it or not, he hadn't aged a day. He dressed always in black. I never saw Agrippa sweat or heard him complain of the heat or the cold. My chaplain used to snigger at my stories. He doesn't laugh now. One day, quite recently, some seventy years after the events I've described, my clerk saw a man dressed all in black, staring up at the manor house. Oh, he became all excited. After all, my manor is closely guarded by retainers as well as great Irish wolfhounds. He came running along the gallery quivering with excitement. However, when I went to look, the man had gone. I asked my chaplain to describe him and, when he did, I recognized Doctor Agrippa.

Oh yes, I am closely guarded! The Sultan in Constantinople has threatened to send his 'gardeners' after me, silent mutes, skilled assassins. And why? All because old Shallot stole the juiciest plum from his grandfather's harem. The Luciferi of France have a debt to settle with me as do the Holy Inquisition in Toledo. (Holy! The most murderous, treacherous, black-hearted gang of thugs I ever had the pleasure to meet!) The 'Secretissimi' of Venice would like to collect my tongue and ears and, of course, there's the 'Eight' of Florence. Ah, I have said it again. Florence! I really must go back to my story.

On that brilliant spring day, Agrippa stood commenting on those skeletons whilst Benjamin and I collected our possessions and led him back to the manor house. We both knew the halycon days were over. Of course, Agrippa refused to be drawn. We were to be at Eltham Palace by the evening of the following day, our purses full, our saddlebags packed.

'Oh,' he grinned. 'And "dearest uncle" said you're to bring your swords and daggers.'