Gideon's Angel (10 page)

“I feared as much,” he said quietly as he joined me. “The militia was here this afternoon spreading the news. Asking questions.”

My head snapped upwards at his words.

“They suspect Fludd had surprised some robber—or band of brigands. Had his brains beat out, they said. Tell me it was not murder, brother, I beg you.”

As I told him all that had happened, I watched his face grow darker by the minute. After I had described the flight back to Plympton, I paused a moment, and then I asked the fate of the servant woman.

“She lives. But more important, she did not see her attacker.” Then came that look I knew of old, the blank stare of condescension and judgement: “
That
should please you some.”

His barb should not have stung me so, but it did. “I could not have wilfully killed her, you must know that. He, on the other hand, took little of my conscience. But I tell you, William, I had no choice. I swear it.”

“No choice? You told me you would not go back there. And Arabella will not be deceived by this,” he said. I pulled out the mildewed leather wallet, opened it, and removed the parchment letters, each folded and still sealed with wax and ribbon.

“Take these,” I said. “Get one of your associates to redeem them when you can, though you may have to wait until this damned war with the Dutch has run its course.” My brother picked up the letters of exchange and tapped them in his hands.

“Dearly bought, these notes. Pray that the price increases no further.”

I reached back into the satchel, and pulled out the metal disc I had found on Israel Fludd’s table. I had wiped it clean of blood to find it covered with strange symbols, its purpose a mystery. I handed it to my brother. “Fludd was in possession of this medallion. Have you seen its like before?”

William examined it, his finger tracing over the etching. “Is it pewter?... no silver, I think. These writings here... this is... in Hebrew.” His brow creased a little. “Some phrase about God, I think. As for
these
symbols,” he said, tilting the disc so I could see, “unintelligible to my learning.”

“But what is its purpose? Do you see the little hole at the top? Is it a pendant?”

William shook his head. “Perhaps some Fifth Monarchy device.”

I pulled forth the ring, which had proved to be silver and equally strange in appearance.

William studied this too, but could only shake his head. “Similar strange devices, but different ones from the disc. But see here... it scribes a five-pointed star. And this phrase that winds between the points—TETRAGRAMMATON—it is Greek. It means... four letters.” He shook his head and handed the disc and ring back. “I’ll tell you true, it smells un-Christian whatever it is. My God, Richard, what have you dragged back here with you?”

“A conjuring device of sorts?”

“I have not the science to tell you. But I know these Fifth Monarchy men are a queer lot. Throw it away. It will only serve to incriminate you anyway.”

Brother Anselm’s warning sprang into my mind and I leaned forward with a start.
It could be that there are those close to them that are invoking the Dark One... a powerful man is trying to change his fortune by other means.
Maybe it wasn’t the exiles after all. I slumped back into the chair with fatigue and ran my hand through my hair. William arose and fetched a jug of wine from the sideboard to revive me.

“I had a dream the other night,” I told him. “My first night back in England. Father was there and spoke to me about many things. He told me that Roger had left for the plantations in Massachusetts.”

William suddenly looked up at me as he pushed a goblet over. “He
has
, Richard. Not even one month ago.”

I lifted the wine and took a long swig. It had been many a year since I had experienced dreams of foretelling. Now it was happening again.

“A compass,” I muttered aloud.

“What are you saying?”

I shook my head. “I have felt more than passing strange since I set foot here again,” I muttered. “Everything I once knew is gone. The country is dying, I can see it. You can see that, can’t you? Your precious Parliament seems to have lost control of the hounds.”

William grunted, took a sip of wine, and set his cup down again. “When the army threw us dissenting members out of Westminster four years ago, I thought we would be returned in a fortnight. I was wrong. The ones that remained in the Parliament were all lapdogs of the Army Council. Nothing good has come of them.” And then he smiled weakly at me. “But we must forbear it until better days are delivered to us. There is now a rumour that Cromwell will dissolve the Parliament completely and rule by the Great Council alone.”

I sat up in the chair. “He’ll take the crown for himself next.”

William leaned in towards me. “That is why you must return to France. The next ship, if you can. Get out of here before you are caught.”

“Not every man is content to wait like you, William. There are those of us who will carry on fighting.”

“Don’t be a fool. The army holds the entire country in its grip. Its spies are everywhere and I can tell you that the new secretary to the Council, this Mister Thurloe, is a most efficient intelligencer and schemer. They will play you until you have revealed all of your co-conspirators and then they will close the net. Mark me!”

“Then I need to strike at the heart of the matter—Oliver Cromwell himself. I won’t see my family suffer any further degradation in this land. If I cleave the head from the serpent than the rest shall die too.”

William sank in his chair, instantly older. “You’ve been in exile for six years. You haven’t any understanding of what’s going on here. Oh, aye, you see the effects of the medicine well enough, and dire they are, but what you don’t see is that it’s Mister Cromwell and God’s good Grace alone that are holding back the radicals from taking power. From what I’ve seen of some of those in the army, they make Oliver look like a Papist.”

My laugh was sour. “That’s rich indeed. No, the whole house of cards will fall tumbling down when Old Noll loses his head like the king lost his.”

My brother again fixed me with the look of a circuit judge and for a fleeting moment I saw my father again in front of me. “You don’t comprehend the truth of things here. Do you actually think it was my intervention alone that allowed your trial for treason to take such an unprecedented course? The Council was happy to condemn you outright and hang you straight away. But they gave in to your banishment instead. Did you think that was a
democratic
decision of Lord Fairfax and the others?”

I bristled under his harangue. “It was a trial by combat. I
won
it, by God!”

“Yes, you did, Richard. You did. And the Council was a hairbreadth from hanging you just the same.” He paused a moment. “I will tell you now, that which I concealed from you these last eight years. It was
Oliver
who gave you your life. Oliver Cromwell himself who stood for your honour when the others bayed for your death. And Oliver got his way.”

I felt myself falling back into the chair, leaden. The world had indeed gone mad.

“And with your hands still bloody,” said William, “you would seek to murder the very man who spared your life?”

I couldn’t give him an answer. Finally, I whispered in a hoarse croak. “Let me see my boy.”

“T
HOMAS, MY VISIT
must remain a secret, a very deep secret amongst the three of us here. You must not tell a soul, not even your mother or your sister, that you have seen me. One day I will be able to stay for good, but not now. Do you understand?”

My fourteen-year-old son nodded at me. “Yes, sir, I understand.” He then glanced over to William. “Uncle has told me you were banished because of the wars with the king. Because you are a king’s man. The boys at school say you are a traitor to the country—and to God.”

I walked him over to the armchair and sat him down. “All of us who fought did what we thought best for the kingdom. But many of us could not turn against our king, who is ruler by God’s will.”

“But uncle turned against the king.”

I looked up at William, who had a look that said ‘you’ve dug the hole, brother, now climb out’ and then faced my son again. “Aye, well... he did. He stayed true to his beliefs and I stayed true to mine. But see, we are reconciled again, are we not? One day all of England will be reconciled again.”

He stayed with me not above an hour, and told me of his mother, his school and his friends, and a little of life without a father but with an uncle and cousins who treated him well. And I was glad of it. And when William ushered him out of the chamber, my heart was heavy but full. I could now give a face to my son again.

“You must know, Richard, that after this night, I can offer you no further help. If you stay—if you agitate—they will capture and kill you, be assured. And they are ruthless. For the sake of your children, go back to France. I will see that they do not want. You have my oath upon it.”

“And Arabella... and the babe. They need your protection too.”

“And they shall have it. Fear not.”

I managed a smile. “I will not tell you my plans, brother. It would be unfair to hazard you so. You are free to believe what you wish as to my destination. And, one last request... I have need of a blade, a dagger.”

He swore under his breath, looked to give an objection, but then turned and walked to his cupboard. He came back holding a weapon more suited to a surgeon—or an assassin.

“Here. A Venetian whore’s toothpick. I would tell you to not to be rash with it but that would be a waste of breath.”

I took the stiletto from him and placed it in my girdle where my lost Scots dirk had been secreted.

“Richard, I beg you to think again,” he said. “Stirring it all up will only serve to push us over the abyss. Go back while you can.”

I pulled out a leather purse with the coin I had stolen the previous night. “Take this,” I told him, throwing it on the table. “Consider it blood money... Give it to the grammar school. For Thomas.”

“If this is Israel Fludd’s money, Richard, I cannot take it.”

“
Sir
Richard, brother.” I watched his eyebrows lift and I nodded. “Aye, I am still a king’s man. God protect you and the family.”

And I was gone.

Chapter Seven

I
HAD MORE
strange and vivid dreams that night at the inn in Plympton. The kind of dreams that roll around your skull long after waking, daring you to think it was something real. In the first, Israel Fludd stood before me, his long hair matted black with dried blood. He was handing me back my Scottish dirk as casually as a passerby would hand you back the hat blown off your head. I took the dirk from him and saw that the blade had my name etched the full of its length in elegant script. That vision alone brought me to wakefulness, covered in sweat.

The second was stranger still. I was back in Germany, sitting in the gypsy camp I had wandered into as a very young and very foolish soldier. And Anya, Anya the black-maned, blue-eyed seeress, was with me again. Never the hag I had told Maggie she was, Anya in rags had been more beauteous than any woman at the French court. It was she who had made me a gift of the talisman I had worn these past twenty-five years. But now, in this dream, she was handing me something different. It was the silver ring. The curious ring with the five-pointed star that I had taken from Israel Fludd. Yet her words to me were the same as spoken all those years ago in the deep of the forest.