The Lost Prophecies (40 page)

Later, I asked myself why it meant so much to the Shaws (and to Gully) that a pair of wandering players should listen to their story of how a corrupt priest had tried to steal a black-bound volume and then resorted to violence to keep it in his hands. It was as if we were justices and jury. And then I realized that the Shaws were appearing not in front of Abel Glaze and Nick Revill but before the bar of their own consciences. It wasn’t we who had to acquit them. Only they could acquit themselves. Their extended confession took place while Finder and Keeper skittered about the room until, growing tired, they fell in heaps in a corner.

There were a couple more questions.

What had happened to the cross, the one that had inflicted the head-wound on Henry Gifford?

No longer sanctified, it had been thrown into the moat, where it promptly sank.

And the book, the black book?

The Shaws did not want to know what had happened to it. The book, whose contents were unknown to them, had brought trouble to Combe. It had, presumably, led to the murder of their kinsman Cloke and to the frantic avarice of Gifford to possess it. Whatever the book was, it was not a sacred thing to be consulted and revered. Good riddance if it was down in the mud and muck of the house drains. Not that they were even aware of its title, but the Armageddon Text could stay in the mire until doomsday. It was I who had asked the question about the book’s whereabouts and I reflected that, because of Gifford’s explanation, we two players probably knew more about it than anyone else in the room.

And that was that. William Shaw directed half a dozen of his burliest serving men to accompany us a few miles along the road. The parting that we had with the Shaws was a formal one, neither warm nor cold. We were privy to their secrets but, even had we been inclined to, there would be little purpose in alerting the authorities to the demise of the priest. In fact, by helping him to his death, the Shaws had shown themselves loyal Englishmen and Englishwomen. They wanted no part in the seditious talk and rumours of plots which were swilling around this part of the country. The body of the priest, which was presently being washed and laid out, would be decently buried with the appropriate obsequies.

‘Decently.’ That was William Shaw’s word, and I think it applied to the whole household. They were decent people, well-to-do, God-fearing, honest and honourable and law-abiding, except insofar as they observed the older religious practices.

Shaw gave Abel a couple of sovereigns not so much as a way of buying his silence as in gratitude to my friend for helping to fish Gifford out of the kitchen drain. Mary Shaw expressed the hope that my uncle would still be alive by the time I got to Shipston on Stour. (I confess I’d forgotten my uncle and namesake in all the excitement.)

We rode out of the valley scarcely twenty-four hours after we’d arrived at Combe House. We had our escort of liveried servants, who rode fore and aft of us. I was glad of this as we retraced our passage through the belt of trees where we’d been ambushed the day before. There was no sign of the black-garbed men nor any trace of our companion Thomas Cloke, though I’d been half-expecting to see his body tossed casually into the undergrowth by the wayside. Surely, when they discovered that he wasn’t carrying what they were searching for, they would have no further use for his corpse?

As we reached the rim of the valley, Abel and I turned to look back at Combe. The house lay, jewellike, in its moat. The birds were singing while a breeze was combing the trees. The day was clear. You would not have thought that a murder had taken place so recently in the precincts of Combe nor that another man had met a violent end inside the house.

The main road was in sight. A band of travellers was trotting along, their passage raising swirls of dust. There were a dozen or more of them – all classes, to judge from their clothes – enough to deter all but the most violent robbers. This was probably the reason why they were travelling together in the first place. Anyway, Abel and I decided to take our chances by following in their wake. In truth, since no danger was in prospect, we wanted to part company from the liveried escorts and be about our own business.

So we cantered on, thinking we’d left the whole raft of priests, agents and recusants well behind us. At least I did. After a couple of hours our stomachs told us it was time for refreshment, and we reined in on a patch of ground, which, though surrounded by woodland, was not far from a scatter of cottages. We had bread and cheese and ale from Combe, so we tethered our horses while we sat on the grass and talked about everything that had happened over the last day and night.

It was then that Abel Glaze revealed his final surprise, the second of the discoveries he’d been about to broach to me in the chamber when we were interrupted by the Shaws.

He had the book with him, the Armageddon Text, the bloody Black Book of Brân.

‘Jesus, Abel, what are you doing with that?’

Abel had retrieved the book from his bag. It sat between us on the grass, a tainted thing. Abel’s pride in pulling off a neat trick had turned to unease when he saw my reaction.

‘I took it from the kitchen drain. When I was down there with that Gifford, what should I see lying next to his body but this what do you call it? This Armageddon Text? While everyone was busy getting the body laid out on the kitchen flags, I tucked the book under my doublet so’s no one should see it and climbed out.’

‘In God’s name, why didn’t you leave it where it was? That’s what the Shaws wanted. Or rather, they never wanted to see the bloody thing again. I don’t want to see it either.’

Abel looked so crestfallen that his long nose actually seemed to quiver.

‘I thought it was valuable.’

‘I don’t know about valuable, but it’s certainly dangerous.’

I looked around as if we might be being spied on at that very instant. We were in sight of the road, but there were no riders close. The party of travellers had passed into the distance. I started because I thought I detected a movement in a nearby clump of trees and bushes, but it was nothing, only a pigeon taking flight.

‘All right,’ said Abel. ‘I’ll leave it here. Throw it into those bushes.’

‘You can’t do that.’

‘But you just said—’

‘I know what I said. But you can’t discard the book now. We’re lumbered with it.’

‘Perhaps it’s fate, Nick.’

I was about to say what I thought of fate, and in a particularly pithy way too, when I was distracted again by a stir in the nearby trees. More pigeons taking flight.

But not only pigeons. From the shelter of the trees there emerged, with much rustling and crashing, a band of men. Black-clad men. And not four this time, but five. One of them went to stand sentry at the roadside, while the others approached us.

Abel and I had already jumped to our feet. We had no weapons. Our horses were tethered several yards away. As I said, there were a handful of houses in view but no sign of any of the occupants. In any case, I don’t think these tough and resolute-looking men would have been distracted from their purpose by the presence of a few locals. We were trapped.

All this flashed through my head, and probably Abel’s as well. But it wasn’t the principal thought in my mind. Instead, I stood there, mouth hanging open like an idiot, heart hammering away in my chest, the blood roaring in my ears. For striding towards us was the figure of Thomas Cloke. The dead man, whom I’d seen the previous day shot off his horseback perch and tumbling to the ground. The late Thomas Cloke who, out of cowardice or prudence, had slipped the Armageddon Text into Abel’s case. Not a ghost but a living, breathing, grinning piece of flesh.

Cloke walked with that familiar bounce. He was enjoying the looks of disbelief on our faces. He was wearing the same gear as on the previous day except for a clean shirt replacing the one that had been soaked in his own blood.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is I, Thomas Cloke.’

The other three men stood slightly to his rear, suggesting that Cloke was their leader. Two of them were carrying muskets. At the edge of the road, the fourth man kept watch against passers-by. I glanced sideways at Abel. He looked too dumbstruck to speak. So I felt it was incumbent on me to make some remark, to say something halfway intelligent.

‘You’ve been planning this a long time, Master Cloke?’ I said, even managing to strike a casual note.

‘A combination of planning and the willingness to seize an opportunity,’ he said. ‘When I heard that you and Abel Glaze were to visit the Midlands, we thought it would be a good moment to put a particular . . . plan into effect.’

Cloke glanced down at the black-bound book where it lay neglected on the grass. The book that he’d secreted in Abel’s bag. The book that was surely part of the mysterious plan he referred to.

‘We?’ said Abel, finding his voice. ‘Who’s
we
?’

‘A certain group connected with the Council,’ said Cloke. ‘A private group.’

He meant the Privy Council. More specifically, he meant those agents of the Council under the direct control of Robert Cecil. Little Cecil, recently ennobled (again) and now the Earl of Salisbury. Wrynecked Cecil who had his fingers in more pies than you could count. Crookback Cecil, who ran a network of spies and intelligencers in the name of national security. I had encountered Robert Cecil once at the time of the Essex uprising in Queen Elizabeth’s dying days. The thought of those days – and of Cecil in particular – was enough to make my guts do a little dance. I tried to keep this from showing on my face, but no doubt Cloke was accustomed to the reaction prompted by any mention of the Council.

‘I thought you were our friend, Thomas,’ said Abel. ‘I thought you enjoyed being in our company and attending our plays.’

‘I did not object to your company and I am a devotee of the playhouse. But some things are more important than friendship, Master Glaze.’

‘You are not even Thomas Cloke,’ I said. ‘Tell the truth – your name is not Cloke.’ Abel turned to look at me. The other man said nothing so I ploughed on, more confident in my theory. ‘The Shaws were surprised when I told them that their kinsman was a playgoer. He is not, but
you
are. So who are you, Master . . . ?’

‘Never mind,’ said the man we’d thought of as Thomas Cloke.

‘Is there really a Thomas Cloke?’ said Abel, and then, realizing the question was foolish (since the Shaws had willingly acknowledged Cloke as their kinsman), he asked instead: ‘What has happened to the real Cloke? Is he dead?’

‘Alive and well, as far as I know,’ said the man who wasn’t Cloke. ‘I took on his name as a means of getting close to Combe House. Cloke is indeed a cousin to that nest of recusants.’

‘But you could not get too near the house or the family, could you?’ I said. It was all becoming clear to me. I had to struggle to keep the admiration out of my voice, admiration at the neatness of the scheme concocted by the ‘private group’ of the Council. ‘For some reason you wanted to convey that item to Combe, but you had to make yourself scarce before you got there. Otherwise they would have recognized you – or
not
recognized you as Cloke.’

‘Very good, Nicholas.’

‘You pretended that your companions now, these gentlemen, were actually your pursuers. You put on a good act of being fearful so that when we were ambushed – and you were apparently killed – we’d accept it without question.’

‘Good again, Master Revill.’

‘So what did you use for your imaginary wound? The fatal wound?’

‘You recall our chat in the Knight of the Carpet? The two of you had just come offstage from playing in
The Melancholy Man
. You did a good death scene, Nicholas, you with your bladder of sheep’s blood and all that writhing about. Well, what did you think of
my
death scene, eh? The shot that rings out in the woods, the pool of blood that spreads across the chest of the victim, the way he huddles over his horse’s neck, the manner in which he falls helplessly to the ground. I used sheep’s blood too. Convincing, eh? Do you think Master Shakespeare and the other shareholders would give me a place with the King’s Men?’

‘No,’ said Abel. ‘There’s more to being a player than dying well.’

‘Sir!’

It was the man stationed by the road. He gestured in the direction we’d come from, to the south-east. I noticed the way he addressed Cloke as ‘sir’. The other three stiffened and one of the musket-holders took a sudden interest in his weapon.

‘Why did you go to such lengths? What was it all about? Was it on account of that book there?’

I asked partly out of genuine curiosity but also to distract ‘Thomas Cloke’ from whatever he planned to do with us. He spoke with great certainty and command. He was quite different from the man I’d encountered in a couple of taverns, quite different from the idle follower of the players. But he was human enough to be proud of his trickery. And the longer he talked, the greater the chance of some travellers passing.

‘On account of that book? No, not directly. The Armageddon Text – as they are pleased to call it – is useful to smoke out renegades and traitors. There was one such in Combe House.’

‘Henry Gifford?’ said Abel.

‘That was one of his names, but he was no more a Gifford than I am a Cloke.’

‘You know the priest is dead, then,’ I said.

‘We have heard. We did not stir far from Combe last night or this morning. We became . . . aware . . . that a man had died in the house. But he was no priest. Or if he was, it was merely a cover for worse work. Gifford was an agent for our old enemies.’

‘Old enemies? The Spanish? I thought we were at peace with them. A treaty was signed last year.’

The Council man smiled slightly as if in pity at my ignorance or naivety. ‘Oh, we are at a formal peace, Nicholas. But there are elements on their side who are conspiring with sects over here . . .’

‘So the whole business was a means of smoking out this Gifford?’

‘You have hit on it. We knew that the Armageddon Text would be irresistible to Gifford . . . for reasons I do not wish to enlarge on. It smoked him out, as you said. What we could not have counted on was such a happy result after the smoking-out. That Gifford would perish in Combe House. One less of them!’