The Elizabethan Secret (Lang Reilly Series Book 9) (2 page)

              “Something more, Majesty.”

              Her brow wrinkled. “Why might that be?”

              “For navigation in areas where there is but one direction.”

              She turned it over in her hand. “Explain.”

              He did, finishing with, “I have made several and am prepared to share

the knowledge with the master of Your Majesty’s ships.”  

2.

Saint Mary the Virgin Anglican Church

Mortlake High Street

Mortlake, Borough of Richmond, London

June, 2013

              The Rev. Megan Pierce stood at the single window of her small office. She didn’t see the slope down to the river nor the four women in the colors of Mortlake Anglican and Alpha Boat Club sculling their way downstream. The pile of raw earth just this side of the water, which marked the place where a hole gaped like a wound in the swath of green, filled both her vision and her mind.

              It had started simply enough: The parish hall needed expansion. An architect had been retained to add one more addition to the original Tudor architecture of 1543. Ground had been broken.

              And then the troubles began.

              The earth mover had not been on site an hour before what appeared to be the remains of a wooden chest or trunk were unearthed and Rector Pierce called straight away from working on Sunday’s sermon.

              A glance at the brass fittings suggested the chest was an antiquity. Disturbing it or the immediately surrounding acreage could result not only in heavy fines levied against the parish by the Ancient Monuments Board but some very ugly publicity as well. The English took heritage conservation extremely seriously.

              The next day, two representatives from the National Trust supervised excavation of the chest and spent an hour walking the grounds with metal detectors. A quick chat by phone with Emmet Burl, the parish solicitor, informed her that absent a certain gold or silver content, the objects in the chest were not Treasure Trove, subject to what amounted to confiscation by the British Museum who would then reward the finder, presumably the operator of the earth mover. The law of Treasure Trove provided the land owner was entitled to nothing. That latter part seemed extremely unfair to the rector until the solicitor explained that the rule had evolved in the common law to discourage people from concealing their wealth and thereby avoiding taxes.

              And the law was inapplicable as stated anyway.

              The parish, it would seem, had come by a number of objects, mostly brass with a patina of oxidation, that led one of the National Trust people to estimate the objects had been in the ground for centuries, although they couldn’t say how many.

              The reverend spent only a few minutes on the computer before she discovered she was sitting only yards from the site of the home John Dee had inherited from his mother in 1579 and in which he had lived until his death in 1610. She knew Dee had roots here in Mortlake. She had not known his home was in such proximity.

              She was not entirely comfortable with Mr. Dee, a necromancer who had professed to consult with spirits and angels, a magician and astrologer, all pastimes condemned by the Church. But who was she to judge? The man was certainly Mortlake’s most famous resident. In fact, the church was scheduled to erect a plaque to him later in the year, his supernatural endeavors notwithstanding.

              Her thoughts were interrupted by the beeping of her iPhone. A glance at the screen told her Mr. Burl, the solicitor, was calling.

              “Good morning, Mr. Burl.”

              “And to you.”

              He sounded as though he were panting after a sprint. Not Unusual. Solicitor Burl always sounded that way. It was as if he was in a hurry to be done with parish business as quickly as possible. Considering he conducted most of it free of charge, his haste was understandable.

              “Good news,” Burl hurried on. “I have the letter from the Ancient Monuments Board, agreeing no Treasure Trove is involved. They would, of course, like Saint Mary the Virgin to donate the items to the British Museum.”

              “I will take the matter up at the next meeting of the vestry.”

              “Ah, one more thing: You are under no obligation to donate anything. You might want to have some or all of the items appraised.”

              “If we are going to give them away, why would we go to the expense?”

              Part, a large part, of the rector’s job was watching finances.

              “Some of the items might bring a fair sum on the open market. Saint Mary the Virgin could use the money.”

              That was hardly news.

              “Thank you, Mr. Burl. I shall take that up with the vestry also.”

              Perhaps she imagined the sigh of relief with which the solicitor wished her a good day.

3.

Shropshire, England

Near the Welch Border

March, 2014

              Having a creature inches from his face that could bite his nose off in a nanosecond made Lang Reilly nervous. Victoria, the Harris hawk perched on the thick leather glove covering his left hand and wrist, could well be contemplating just such a move. Cruelly hooked talons fidgeted as amber eyes seemed to radiate a fury Lang dearly hoped was not aimed at him.

              “Gentle as a kitten,” Llywen had described her.

              Lang had his doubts as the bird strained against the short field jesses (as opposed to the longer, heavier mews jesses), those pitifully thin leather straps that enabled Lang’s fingers to hold the bird’s feet on his wrist.

              But then, he’d had his doubts the hawk would work with a natural predator, Daisy the Brittany spaniel, and natural prey, Elmer the silver ferret. He wasn’t totally sure of the unnatural alliance now, particularly when Victoria spread her wings and squawked loudly at any dog that wasn’t a Brittany. As for the diminutive Elmer . . . Well, best he stay out of sight in the pouch Llywen wore at his side.

              Lang harbored doubts about the drill in general. Yes, it had been the ancient sport of royalty from China to Arabia to Europe until gunpowder provided a quicker and more efficient way to put birds and small game on regal tables.

Then chain grocery stores come along.

              Now, back to the old ways. Yes, trekking about the wild Shropshire countryside provided time outdoors and exercise he had been forced to forego during protracted negotiations with members of the ever cantankerous Scottish Parliament.

              Since 1999 the body at Holyrood in Edinburgh had had the power to decide matters of purely local interest. It was Scottish nature to be suspicious of anything free and a children’s clinic built and maintained by the Janet & Jeff Holt Foundation in the sparsely populated and therefore poorly served Northern Isles made anything but economic sense. Scots were leery of any institution or person who gave money away and providing free medical care equal to that available to Scots who could afford private rather than National Health Service-Scotland without profit amounted to giving away lots of it.

              The average wait for medical care under NHS-Scotland ran into months and was administered by bureaucrats who parceled out health care as a rationed commodity as indeed it was. The proposed wait at the clinic would be less than a week and treatment would be on a first-come, first-served basis. No wonder the politicians were skeptical.

              Not to mention said bureaucrats who, by nature, would oppose anything that might diminish their realm.

              Tired of the wrangling and repeated questions, Lang had retreated to one of England’s less-populated counties to visit an old acquaintance, Llywen Conant. From an old Welsh family, Llywen had served with MI6, the British equivalent of America’s CIA. The two had met in Frankfurt a couple of years before the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

              Lang had joined the Agency fresh out of college, uncertain of career choices. The prospect of a James Bond-like life was more than appealing to the twenty-two year old liberal arts graduate. Instead of world travel, he was stationed in a grimy building cross the street from the rail station. He was issued a code book instead of a Walther. Rather than tracking down enemies of his country, he received crash courses in German and Russian. In place of high-tech surveillance, he read newspapers and watched television from the other side of the Iron Curtain, a less-than-thrilling experience where the governments not only controlled the media but
were
the media.           

              Llywen had been ostensibly the assistant commercial attaché at Frankfurt’s British consulate while MI6 had him make a number of crossings into the German Democratic Republic, as communist East Germany called itself. Why the names of repressive regimes always included words like “democratic” was one of the mysteries of life, which Lang discussed with Llywen as their friendship began. Their agreement on the subject was strengthened by unnumbered overflowing liter steins of Henninger followed by an overabundance of schnapps.

              With the end of the Evil Empire, Lang had sensed that chances for adventure or advancement for mere Intel (as opposed to Ops) agents were dwindling from unlikely to nil. He resigned from the Agency, got married, and went to law school.

              At that point, contact with Llywen became sporadic. He retired to Shropshire. Why he had not gone a few miles west to his native Wales was unclear. What was certain were Christmas cards (the only thing resembling regular communications) consistently extended an invitation, an invitation Lang had finally accepted.

              A few years Lang’s senior, Llywen’s snow white beard and weathered face were those of a much older man. The Indiana Jones hat, much patched anorak and Wellingtons added to the impression of a man who spent a lot of time outdoors.

              Llywen lived alone in a small cottage, the starkness of which suggested that if there had been a woman in his life, she had long departed. Lang didn’t ask.

              Daisy’s joyful barks interrupted a silence previously broken only by the sigh of a fitful breeze among the rocks of a mountainous cairn, a pile of rocks Llywen had claimed was a remnant of one of the last Celtic forts to fall to Rome’s might. Celt, Saxon, Norman: a number of conquerors and defenders had passed this way in millennia past.

              Daisy was indifferent to all of them.

              She was digging, scratching really, in a futile effort to get her head into a small hole.

              “Ready, lad?” Llywen asked, the first words he had spoken in over an hour.

              Sensing what was about to happen, Victoria was virtually dancing along the limits of her jesses.

              Llywen’s hand emerged from his pouch and touched the ground. A silver streak that was Elmer disappeared into the hole.

              “Hare’s got more ways out’n that burrow ‘n you can count,” Llywen said. “Keep a sharp eye out.”

              The warning was hardly complete when a brown ball of fur blurred down the cairn.

              Lang let go of the jesses and Victoria became airborne on silent wings.

              The contest was hardly fair but heart-stopping nonetheless.

              A brown feathered, winged missile, wings spread, almost lazily coasting down the cairn. A brown streak raggedly dodging with a skill that would put a NFL punt returner to shame.

              Lang imagined he could hear the impact of talons in flesh.

              Victoria rose in a lazy, tightening spiral, a struggling lump of fur in her claws.

              “Now, lad, ‘ere’s where the real talent is. You’ve got to convince her what you ‘ave is better than what she ‘as.”

              As instructed, Lang reached into his jacket’s pouch, producing a hunk of raw meat. He held in over his gauntleted arm, hoping the damn bird wasn’t too hungry. Otherwise, she would devour her prey before returning.

              Not likely an experienced falconer would under feed his bird.

              Victoria seemed to halt in mid circle and fluttered to Lang’s glove. In a single movement, she dropped the hare and snatched the meat he tossed to her.

              No chance he would risk fingers by feeding it to the bird.

              The sound of hands clapping came from behind him. “Well done, lad!”

              Lang was fixated on the still brown form the hawk had dropped. He had never been a hunter, not because he disapproved. Only a vegetarian could morally oppose the killing of game with intellectual honesty. The hollow argument about killing “innocent” animals was less than persuasive--was this rabbit more “innocent” than a cow lead to slaughter? No, his reservations, if there were any, had little to do with what others might think.

              He had killed men without a scintilla of regret, almost all in self-defense or at least presenting an immediate danger. But this rabbit had been fleeing for its life.   

              Llywen smacked him on the back, scattering Lang’s uncertain feelings, before stooping to snatch the hare out of reach of Daisy’s exuberant jumps. “Down girl!”

              The Brittany reluctantly obeyed, wiggling and whining with excitement.

              Llywen rolled the inert creature over in his gloved hands. Lang was surprised at how little blood flecked the soft pelt. “Not the biggest but enough for a rabbit pie.”

              Lang had only heard of the English concoction: chopped meat cooked in cider with apples, onions and bacon before being baked in a flour dough covered pie tin. Already dubious of English cuisine, he was unsure how he felt about eating something he had participated in killing.

              “I’ll show you how to skin and gut it.”

              Definitely less than enthusiastic.

              Beatrix Potter would be appalled.