‘He filled me with an awe, my lord. I was drawn to him.’
‘Followed him?’
‘Like the Messiah.’
‘You said you followed people all the time.’
‘Folk goes to unexpected… places.’
‘Like? Where does Dr Borrow go?’
‘Church, once, at night when it was quiet. The doctor went to the Church of St Benignus, and he lit a candle, and I-’
Benlow reached out and gripped my arms, fighting for his breath.
‘What else did you see?’
‘Heard. He cried out. He was alone in the darkness at the altar, and he cried out, like Christ on on the cross. Angry.’
‘ Father, why have you forsaken me?’
‘Uh?’
‘What Christ said on the cross.’
‘I… don’t know.’
‘Where else does he go? Where else did you follow Dr Borrow?’
‘Walking to the sea, once, but I… got tired. Too far. Came back. And he’d go at night to the Meadwell.’
‘When?’
Feet on the ladder.
‘When, Benlow?’
‘Two times, three times…’ His eyes grew sly. ‘I’m tired of doing good. This en’t good, my lord. ’Tis all a lie.’
‘Gone,’ Monger said, stepping down. ‘He’s gone.’
His face was aglow with sweat, eyes wide and bright with a bewilderment I’d never seen in him.
‘Matthew… he’s not there. Must be out on his rounds, can’t find him. We have no doctor.’
Benlow moved. A noise from his throat like the thinnest, distant bird-song.
‘As you thought?’ Monger said, and I nodded.
‘You go and do whatever you must do,’ he said. ‘I’ll clean him up, make him comfortable. Can’t see a man die like this.’
‘Better in your hands.’ I stood up carefully, head bent under the ceiling. ‘Better a doctor of horses, than… Joe, he must be stopped.’
Benlow’s mouth was agape, like one of his skulls, a thin finger crooked, beckoning me.
‘Dudley,’ I said. ‘We have to bring him back. And the bones. Bury the bones again. Somewhere no-one ever digs.’
‘Then somebody has to ride like hell,’ Monger said. ‘Tell Cowdray. If he sends all his boys out… With a cart, they can’t travel too hard.’
‘And will have to stop somewhere tonight.’
‘Pray God.’
Benlow was trying to raise himself up, and Monger went to him. Benlow kept on looking for me, looking at where I’d been a moment ago, his eyes unseeing.
‘They didn’t…’ His throat creaking, no laughter left in him. ‘They didn’t… call him Big Jamey Hawkes for nothing, my lord.’
We watched the riders leave, Cowdray and I. The sky was like lead, the daylight dying without having had much of a life.
Three of them were gone after Dudley: the stable boy, the kitchen boy and another who may have been Cowdray’s son. One had taken my horse. Each of them carrying my own copies of a brief letter for Dudley, scribed, in the absence of a fitting seal, with the symbol of the eyes I’d once made for the Queen as my signature, for a jest. Each letter inked and sand-dried and bound, conveying the message that if Dudley did not return at once, with the box of bones unopened, his only reward would be death. The worst of deaths. Hard to think how best to convey this. The grave of love, I’d written finally. Underlining it twice.
‘Whatever you were thinking to charge,’ I said now to Cowdray, ‘you should double it.’
He was silent for a moment, and then he shook his head.
‘I’ll take nothing for this.’
He didn’t know. Couldn’t know. But he was a good man.
I nodded in the direction of the tor, tried to speak evenly.
‘Where will Nel pass the night?’
‘Meadwell, I reckon. Used to be an old gaol up town, but they wouldn’t rely on that now. There are cells at Meadwell. ’Tis almost fortified, that house. Well… so they say. I’ve never been.’
‘Never?’
‘Not since it was rebuilt.’
‘Will Carew be there?’
‘Most likely, aye.’ He cast eyes on me and winced. ‘Dr John, man… you’re in sorest need of sleep. You’re like the walking bloody dead. You en’t eaten… In truth I don’t know how you’re still on your feet.’
‘I’m well. And must needs talk to Carew, without delay.’
Better it were Dudley, but who could say when, or if, we’d see Dudley again this night. I told Cowdray what Benlow had said about Stephen Fyche and the murder of Martin Lythgoe.
‘Let this come out, Master Cowdray. Let it be spread far and wide. Too late now to rebound on poor Benlow.’
A weary disbelief on Cowdray’s face.
‘You think it en’t known? What that boy is. Folks might’ve chose to forget the tales about Fyche, in view of his charity, but they’ve seen what his boy’s like, loose in the town of a summer night, well into his cups.’
‘Where’s the mother?’
‘Long gone. Fyche and the boy, ’tis said they goes whoring together in Wells.’
‘Carew knows of this?’
‘It would alarm Carew?’
‘No. I suppose not. Look, what’s the quickest way to Meadwell? I only know it’s the other side of the tor.’
‘No, Doctor.’ Cowdray sighed. ‘’Tis only the other side of the tor when you’re on the tor. The Meadwell’s a mile or so out of town. If you follows the track after the one to the tor, keep heading east, you’ll come to the gates.’
I nodded. I was thinking of Borrow, where he might be. Where he’d been educated thirty years ago or more.
‘You’re thinking to go there on your own?’
‘No-one else. No, no…’ I held up a hand. ‘ Thank you. Look to your inn.’
Cowdray shook his head. I wanted to say, Cowdray, they want to kill the Queen. They’ve poisoned her heritage. Yet, if he’d asked who, I could not have told him with any degree of certainty.
‘I assume… there’s no-one left to watch for me, is there?’ I said. ‘Carew’s guard?’
‘You never was the one they was guarding, you must know that.’ Cowdray laid a hand on my shoulder. ‘You just watch out for yourself, hear me?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
So much now to watch out for. The sky was all the colours of mould, but wild lights were blazing in my head as I walked into the street. I’d go to Meadwell, but not yet.
The darkening town was silent, streets deserted, the air laden with comforting smoke as I walked down towards the church of St Benignus. The doctor’s surgery was sinking into the gloom of early dusk, and I was just another shadow at the top of the steps as I took out my dagger.
I’m no expert at this, but it was an old lock and the wood splintered around the blade.
Inside, the fire in the grate was near dead, but I managed to light a couple of candles from it, setting them on the trestle board. Not yet sure what I was looking for but I’d know when I found it.
LII
Abominations
What had I expected? Maybe not the severity of it.
For those of a certain wealth, as I’ve said, this is the first age of light. Big houses have big windows.
Not like the mean mullions at Meadwell. I stood in the gateway. Noone in attendance, the house rearing before me, like a cliff face in the dusk.
The gates were open. I’d not expected that either, imagining myself accosted by some surly jobsworth and having a message sent to Carew who, in his own good time, would emerge before me, angry or sneering. But he’d be forced to listen. By Christ, I’d make him listen. And an execution would, by God’s good offices, be halted pending an inquiry which might take many weeks and end with different necks in nooses elsewhere.
I wanted Carew, not Fyche. Out here.
But only the owls were out. Fluting across the valley behind me, in a sky which, perversely after such a day, was clearing.
No stars yet, though. I was on my own. Kept on walking.
It had not entered my mind that Carew himself might be party to any of this. He was not, in essence, that complicated. True, he’d served different kings in Europe, fought at different times with opposing armies. But since returning to England he seemed solely committed to England’s interests, Protestant to his spine, an adventurer, not a conspirator.