In the Garden of Iden (18 page)

They were not any kind of human creature at all.

“Rose.” Nicholas touched my shoulder. I swung around to him and wrapped my arms tight about his neck. Without even a word or a question he carried me away, good man, away to the long walk under the rose arbor. I lay there with my head in his lap, crying like a fool. How I wished, how I wished I were a mortal girl.

“Ah. There she is.” Joseph, at the end of the walkway. Hurriedly I sat up. He strolled in and knelt on the grass beside us. Nicholas sat straight and squared his shoulders.

“My poor child. This nasty business hath unsettled thee quite, I see. Please do not be frightened, Daughter. All, I promise thee, shall be well.”

“So we trust, sir,” Nicholas said. Joseph just smiled at him.

“It is an act of loving charity to comfort my child that is so distraught. I must offer my profound thanks, young man.”

“Why, sir, I accept them with a good will,” said Nicholas coolly. “And must express my admiration, in good sooth: there were hounds on your track just now, and you faced them down as boldly as any fox God ever made.”

Joseph’s smile quirked up into his beard. His gaze, though, was flat and assessing.

“Come, come, young man, your metaphor! Any fox that faced down his enemies would be torn to pieces where he stood. The fox hath more discretion: he hath speed, he dodges and feints, he hath a thousand places to hide himself.”

“And leaves a stink wherewith he may be tracked, alas; and so is slain,” added Nicholas.

“It seems thy young man is hostile, daughter.” Joseph cocked an eyebrow at me.

“By no means, sir.” Nicholas took my hand in his. “But I do grieve for the kits of the fox, who are slain with him though they have stolen no hens. Nor unicorn’s horns.”

“My young friend, what should a fox want with such a thing?”

“What indeed, since surely such a fox hath the wit to see that the creature was only a goat!”

Joseph blinked. “Aye.”

“What a comedy! And I would have laughed, but that you were nearly murdered before your daughter’s eyes.”

There was a long silence. “You are a clever boy.” I didn’t like Joseph’s smile at all. He settled into a more comfortable position, and his voice took on an edge like cutting glass. “Loquere mihi, puere.”

“Facio libens.” Nicholas matched his Latin without a second’s hesitation. “Senex.”

“You have a bright and questing mind. Why have you turned its light on my personal affairs?”

“I did so at first because I perceived you to be a threat to my master, my faith, and my nation. Having satisfied myself that you were not such, or at least not directly, I continued in the second place because I fell in love with your daughter, whose unlikely talents, remarkable opinions, and charming lies present an enigma I feel compelled to understand. Not merely to know the truth about her, but also better to comprehend the strange events taking place under Sir Walter’s roof.” Nicholas leaned forward to emphasize the last point.

Joseph looked very calm. He stroked his beard a moment before inquiring:

“What conclusions have you drawn, may I ask?”

“None that I think you would care very much to have spoken aloud. I will not judge your life; but I will say that it has not agreed much with your daughter. Accordingly, I had determined to ask you for her hand.”

Oh dear. Oh dear. How sweet, but oh dear. Joseph looked vastly amused.

“In light of your present sleeping arrangements, this is a generous offer indeed, but I am afraid you have overlooked the fact that I am not the only man in this rose arbor whose past does not bear close examination.”

Nicholas went pale.

“Oh, yes, my young friend, you have enemies. Talkative ones. And you and I have something else in common, you see: I too am fascinated by mysteries. I suspect my sources have told me a great deal more about you than my daughter has told you about me.”

“Rose …” Nicholas glanced at me. He ran his tongue over his lips.

“Now, my child, as you pointed out, is of remarkable opinions and doubtless would not be very shocked if I told her of your intimate connection with a group that interpreted Holy Scripture in a highly … original way. In fact, I think she would find the allegations of your personal stamina and appetites quite amusing. And, having experienced it herself, she would well understand that your considerable personal charm drew not a few converts to a fairly disreputable sect.”

Nicholas winced deeply. He turned and took me by the shoulders. “Rose. What he is saying is the truth. But I …”

“I know.” I glared at Joseph. “I don’t care.” I turned and put my arms around Nicholas’s neck and kissed him. He returned my kiss in confusion. Joseph leaned back, watching us.

“There, my friend, you see? She has a forgiving nature.”

Shut up
, I transmitted.

“But I am somewhat more cautious. Call it the point of view of an old fox, perhaps, watching from the safety of his den as a young fox makes a stand before an oncoming pack of hounds. This is a valiant young fox, surely, but he is soon to be a dead fox as well.

“I will not grant my daughter’s hand to such a fool. However, I trust that we may still remain good friends. Good day, young man. Daughter, when you are sufficiently composed, you may wish to speak to me privately, but there is no immediate need to do so.” He made his exit.

Nicholas was distraught, and I was furious, but please note what Joseph had just accomplished: my panic horror, brought on by the vision of the inhuman force he really was, had vanished. I now wanted to kill the smug little son of a bitch, but I wasn’t afraid of him. Further, he had just spared me the ordeal of explaining to Nicholas why I couldn’t marry him. I could no more marry him than I could believe in his God, could I? I was no more human than Joseph was.

As soon as Joseph’s back was out of sight, Nicholas cleared his throat. “Rose.”

“What?” I turned to him, almost irritable. He was watching me closely.

“Shall I plead my case?”

“It matters not.” I jumped up and shook rose petals out of my skirt. It had become cold in the garden. “All his talk was lies and ill will.”

“Ill will, yes, but not lies.” He got up to follow me. “I must confess I did such things.”

“I knew it before. Master Ffrawney came to me with just such a story,” I announced.

There was a silence. Nicholas smacked his fist into his palm a few times, meditatively, quite hard. “And didst thou believe it, love?” he inquired.

“I hardly know.” I stopped to look him in the eye, which of course I had to tilt back my head to do. “What should I believe?”

“That I was only a boy. That I came among folk who were hypocrites, though they spake the Word of God, and I believed them.” His mouth set at the memory.

“These people did no more than preach the Word of God?” I adjusted my comb, ever so casual.

He looked away. He shrugged. “No,” he said.

The silence fell between us again. I could have stamped my heels and shrieked. “Such dreadful things are told of, for example, Anabaptists, I am certain my imaginings are far worse than the truth,” I nudged hopefully.

“I doubt it.” He looked glum. “Now, I wonder how long I shall pay for having been seventeen.”

I wondered what he looked like at seventeen. “Speak, dearest love.”

He took my hands and led me to a bench. He drew a deep breath, not meeting my eyes. “Know, sweetheart, that my birth was … obscure. And my father would do little for me but this: he provided me with a tutor and sent me to school, that by having some education I might earn mine own bread, and he should hear no more of me.

“I revered my tutor as a father, for his learning was great, but also for this: he spoke like an apostle with Christ’s words still ringing in his ears. He taught me to read the Holy Scriptures for myself in the original, and showed me by many examples how far the Church had gone from what was written there.

“So far as this went, he was a light unto my soul.

“I called him Father, he called me Son; and he had besides some several other sons in this kind, and not a few daughters, for he was tutor to many well-born children.”

Yes, I could see it coming. I leaned forward sympathetically.

“We came together in secret places to hear him preach the Word of God truly, and to discuss its meaning with him. We lived like disciples.”

Secret meetings, drinking parties, and hanging on their master’s every word.

“Or as Adam lived before the Fall, in perfect charity and communion.” He took a deep breath again. “The serpent in our Eden became manifest, even so; and it is a lasting confusion to me, and a bitterness, that God could so gift a man with the Holy Spirit and leave him so open for the Devil to meddle with.”

“Go on.”

“The better to show us what divine love was, he concerned himself with lifting from our eyes that veil which makes us perceive gluttony, drunkenness, and lechery as vices.” His lip curled back in a sneer. My God, he was handsome. “Mark me, love, in Eden they are no sins, but we are not in that place. Such a subtle distinction cannot be easily understood by a boy, look you, but even I began to see his folly. Others saw it before me. They left our community, and there was scandal.”

I could imagine.

“And I despaired in my heart, seeing that our master had deceived us. Even I, by my example, had led folk to idle, filthy pastime. But I saw further, that as my master had done, all the leaders of the Church had done, by a thousand twistings of the plain truth.”

“Then the truth is not so plain, is it?” I pointed out gently. But his face was grim; he was living his memory.

“It is as plain as the blazing sun!” he cried.

“And as hard to look at,” I said. “My love, this sun in the sky, we live by its grace; but it does well enough where it is, and we do well enough minding our own business down here. Seek to stare at it, and thou wilt burn out thine eyes.”

“Better to go blind bringing the light to those who have never seen it,” he answered. “And so I determined. I went forth into the lanes, and I began to preach the Word of God. I called upon the righteous to live as we had lived, without sin in a Paradise of love, where flesh is no enemy to the soul.”

“Oh, my love.”

“And I was taken and beaten,” said Nicholas composedly, “a drunken boy spewing and blaspheming before the horrified multitudes. I was put in irons, but privately, for I was a gentleman’s son. And I was conveyed to prison in another town by night, lest the neighbors come and burn me where I lay. Some months I sat in prison, while good men came and reasoned with me, making so evident the peril I stood in that I recanted all my former words, so great was my terror.

“Well, my father had done some service to the king. Clothes were found for me, and I was sent from England awhile, until folk had forgot my disgrace. And so back into Kent, where I have lived these several years a blameless man.”

“Thanking God that thou still breathest,” I finished in awe. He had come just as close to death as I had.

“Aye,” he said, and then, “No!”

I looked at him. His eyes had gone small and angry. “No,” he repeated. “I have suffocated, breathing this air. I lied so that I might go on living in this world, I who had lived in Eden! To creep into this little hole and never bear witness to the truth again, that was the price of my life. My soul.”

This kind of talk made me very uneasy. “But if thou hadst been hanged, I’d never have known thee.” I gave a little laugh.

His gaze came back to me. He put out his big hands and drew me close. “That much good has come from it, at least. And God knows, this is the first honest work I’ve done this seven year.”

On which note, we melted into a kiss, but I thought: Work?

Before I could voice my question, there was a trampling of feet, and we jumped apart guiltily. Sir Walter came into sight around a hedge, accompanied by two servants bearing pitchforks. “Nicholas!”

“Sir.” Nicholas stood and bowed. I curtseyed, and Sir Walter acknowledged me with a brisk nod.

“Nicholas, I have sought thee. We must carry the search into the surrounding fields.”

“Aye, sir. Shall I muster the household?”

“No. I have done that. Go thou with Tom and Peter out into the way toward Sevenoaks, and hunt there. And think how we may remedy this, when thou shalt speak with Master Sampson. A new horn, of wax or bone, for appearance’ sake?”

“Very good, sir.” Nicholas bowed again.

I walked slowly back to the manor. There were servants scurrying everywhere, poking into hedges and peering up trees. A few gave me surly looks, but said not a word to me.

The house was virtually empty. I could hear the radio blaring from Nef’s room, so I went up there. Nef, however, was not in sight. Joseph was stretched out on the bed, reading one of her magazines. I froze in the doorway; but he looked up with a charming smile.

“Mendoza. Baby. Do come in.” I stepped inside and shut the door. “Sorry I had to beat up on your boyfriend, your very tall boyfriend, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to deflect his line of questioning. Bright guy, isn’t he? Beautiful command of Latin.” He turned a page.

“Where’s Nef?” I stared around sullenly.

“In there.” He pointed with the magazine. “Dictating her report to the disciplinary board. Be a good kid and don’t bother her, okay? She’s going to be at it awhile.”

I looked at the silent door. I couldn’t hear anything but the radio, which was playing dance music. I went over and turned the volume down.

“Look, I, uh, wanted to apologize.” Joseph laid the magazine aside. “Nef and I really blew up at each other, and I’m afraid the shock waves kind of got to you. Didn’t they? And I know that can be unsettling to a young op, especially in the field. We let ourselves go, and we shouldn’t have. I’m sorry. She’s sorry too.”

“I bet she’s really sorry.” I looked at the door again.

“Not as sorry as she could be.” His mouth became hard for a moment. “But she’s a good operative, she’s done good work for a long time; they’ll let her off with a slap on the wrist. I was the one who had to deal with the consequences. I thought I saved us from getting lynched rather neatly, don’t you? Are they still down there searching for dastardly Flemings?”