The Bones of Avalon (10 page)

‘Yes.’

How different life might have been, for all of us, had Arthur not died
so young, bequeathing his crown and – most fateful of all – his bride, Catherine of Aragon, to his brother, Henry.

Dudley gazed out over the river.

‘The Queen, as we know, admires her father. And indeed may be said to possess some of his… resolve. But she’s also aware of his very conspicuous failures. Failure, despite six marriages and the resulting division of the churches, to produce a surviving male heir. Bess considers the short life of Edward and the longer but hardly happy reign of her half-sister. Fears a resumption of the decline.’

‘Inevitably.’

‘And she’s superstitious.’

Well, no-one knew that more than I. The Queen, needing to believe she’s chosen by God to rule this land, looking always for signs and portents to reinforce her confidence.

One of my own roles being to point them out to her. And Cecil had said she might speak to
me
of her inner problem – while ensuring there was no chance of this happening in the near future by making himself the intermediary in the matter of Arthur’s bones.

‘Here’s the point,’ Dudley said, ‘Arthur’s linked by Malory and others to the Pope and the Holy Roman Empire – forget that he might have been no more than a heathen, go with the lore. What does Harry do? Breaks with Rome and fills his coffers with the treasures of the Church. Finally sacking Glastonbury Abbey… where lie Arthur’s bones.’

‘Someone’s suggesting Harry dishonoured King Arthur?’

Dudley shrugged.

‘Thus bringing down a curse upon his line?’

‘If the curse was not already there. A few years ago, an appeal was made to Mary to put Glastonbury Abbey back together. Much as she’d have wanted it, there was little money to spare then. Even for God.’

‘So now something – or someone’ – I began to see it – ‘has put it into Queen Elizabeth’s mind that she has much to redeem if her reign’s to be fruitful.’

‘Or even avoid disaster. Glastonbury, John – it all comes together in Glastonbury. Arthur and Jesus Christ, all bound together. The holy heart of it all.’

‘Who put this into her mind, Robbie?’

‘I don’t know. Not me.’

‘Cecil speaks of visions. What’s that about?’

Dudley shook his head. A shadow fell betwixt us. Martin Lythgoe stood there, a stocky, amiable man, and patient.

‘Mortlake, my lord.’

Dudley sighed.

‘Get them to row in circles, would you, Martin?’

William Cecil had a certain genius for putting together the right men for a particular task. Here were two fellows of contrasting skills, committed to the same woman, if not for the same reasons. Dudley it was who had introduced me at court, Dudley who had commanded me to select a date for the coronation.

Two men committed, by bitter history, to the watching of each other’s backs.

‘So when
do
we leave?’ he said.

‘After I look into the history of this. For instance, if an approach was made to Mary for the restoration of Glastonbury Abbey, was mention made of the bones then?’

‘Does Cecil not know?’

I shook my head.

‘Bonner might,’ Dudley said. ‘You still a friend?’

‘Needs all the friends he can get at this moment. It’s a wonder he still lives.’

‘A tribute to Bess, who refuses, bless her, to resort either to the axe or the taper.’

‘Thus far.’

Dudley snorted.

‘Bloody Bonner. Be a queue of people a mile long ready to set light to
his
pile.’ He regarded me for a moment, tongue probing a cheek. ‘Thinking about it, you must be the only man he ever spared. Fellow you shared a cell with…
he
was burned.
Are
you still Bonner’s friend?’

‘For my sins. And his.’

‘Have to admire the old bastard’s nerve. Still refusing to recognise the Queen as head of the church, even when she offers a compromise.’

‘That mean prison?’

‘Marshalsea. For good this time, unless he changes his song. If you feel it worth visiting him, I wouldn’t waste any time.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That might be worthwhile.’ I watched a gull wheeling over the remains of our midday meal, which seemed still to be following in our wake. ‘How is Amy?’

‘Amy’s well.’ Dudley’s expression unchanging. ‘She ever prefers the country life.’

‘There’s fortunate,’ I said.

For a moment, he almost frowned. He swung his feet to the deck and stood up.

‘And what of you? Still dipping it in the mercury?’

‘Dudley, if a man can barely afford to support
himself
…’

‘That excuse, John, wears thin.’

‘So we ride out,’ I said, ‘with banners held high—’

‘That’s not how a great quest is undertaken. We fast for several days, perform three nightly vigils until dawn and then ride out silently, and with humility. We take few men with us, if any, and each church we chance upon, we stop and pray.’

‘Unlikely to get there before midsummer, then.’

Dudley stretched his arms.

‘Taking few men – that’s certainly part of it. I rather like the idea, to be honest – a rare freedom to move around as a common man, unencumbered by the trappings of high office.’

I may have blinked. Robert Dudley shorn of the trappings of high office was like Hampton Court with no glass in the windows and a flock of sheep in the gardens.

‘Cecil intends that we travel as lowly servants of the Crown,’ he said. ‘Undertaking a survey of historical remains. We’re to be accompanied by someone with knowledge of the country. Cecil’s organising that, too. Leaves nothing to chance.’

‘No.’

‘Thinks to remove me from court for a while,’ Dudley said.

‘Surely not.’

‘Doesn’t realise that a man who brings to his Queen such an irrefutable symbol of her royal heritage… something which bestows upon her monarchy’s most mystical aura. That man… he may expect his reward.’

He was not smiling.

‘It isn’t a quest for the Holy Grail,’ I said.

‘Maybe not for you. But for me… possibly.’

Dudley was gazing out, in noble profile, across the broad water, then up at the sky where a buttermilk moon bided its time.

A
LTHOUGH I DON
’
T
consider myself sensitive to such intrusions, that night it was as if I were not alone in my library.

It happens. Oft-times I’ll hear a scraping of paper, as if the books are conversing amongst themselves. The sound of knowledge being shared and expanding in the air. Or a faint clarion of bells – distant, yet somehow within the room itself, as if proclaiming the nativity of an idea. Oh, I’m fanciful, you might think. But what
I
think is that science must never become dull and roped to rigid formulae, but must always be alive to the omnipresent
otherness
of things.

This night, sitting at my work board under two candles, a cup of small beer at my elbow, I’d thought to work on my creation theory, an attempt to explain precisely, concisely and
mathematically
the origins and composition of our universe… and how we might have commerce with the hidden influences which govern it.

But then caught myself thinking of our lost housekeeper, Catherine Meadows, and the times I’d wished I lay with her, that we might find warmth and consolation in one another, for Catherine looked a gentle girl who would not…

Oh dear God, what am I become?

Dr Dee trades with demons!

‘John.’

I almost cried out, in my shame. My mother was standing in the doorway, holding a candle in a tin tray, her face turned to vellum in its light. She wore an old grey robe over her nightgown.

‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘I like not the way our neighbours look at us.’

Candlelight shadows bounded over the walls of books and manuscripts
and the globe made for me by my friend and tutor, Gerard Mercator. Logs shifted on the fire. I sat up.

‘Which neighbours? Not Goodwife Faldo?’

‘No, they’re… not people I know by name. Do you not notice the looks we get?’

I thought of the men who’d stared at me in the tavern where I’d been in search of Jack Simm. And of what he’d said. I wanted to say something reassuring and could only think of Cecil’s offer to have my mother guarded – knowing what her reaction would be.

‘I don’t want it. I have to live here. I don’t want us to be seen as… strange.’ My mother came into the room and shut the door behind her. ‘I thought it would all be different, when you were given the rectorate of Upton-upon-Severn.’

‘That was a long time ago.’

‘Not so very long.’

‘Mother, it was another era. The boy Edward was king, Seymour was protector, the Act against witchery was withdrawn, I was—’

‘Untainted,’ my mother said, ‘by rumour.’

‘Unknown,’ I said. ‘I was unknown then, there’s the difference.’

There’s ever been a thin line ’twixt fame and notoriety.

Couldn’t deny that the eighty pounds a year for Upton had been useful, but I was never going to be a minister of the church. The cure of souls – the very idea of such responsibility was terrifying to me.

‘I don’t know what you do,’ my mother said, in a kind of desperation. ‘I no longer understand what you do.’

‘I study. Collect knowledge. Calcule.’

Couldn’t see her expression, but I could feel it. Must needs do better.

‘Studying mathematics’ – I closed my book – ‘I’ve become aware of universal patterns. Ordered patterns, which I feel could enjoin with something within us. Allowing us to… change things. I hope eventually to understand something of why we are here. To know, in some small way, God’s purpose—’

‘How does that change
my
life? Who
pays
you to know of these things?’

I closed my eyes. She was right. The Queen had oft-times spoken of making my situation more formal, but nothing ever happened. No
income, no title, not even the offer of a new rectorate. Men had been awarded knighthoods or peerages and estates for smaller services than my work on navigation, while I was yet a commoner.

But, then, who honours a conjurer?

I should not feel bitter. What was a title worth? It made you known to the world in ways I care nought for, only wanting to be left alone to get on with my work. Although, yes, I agree that it would have been pleasant not to have to worry about money.

‘Please thank the Secretary for his concern for me,’ my mother said, ‘but assure him that I shall be quite secure here.’

‘You don’t think that. You said—’

‘I’ve never lived
entirely
without servants. Indeed, I’d thought you’d be married by now, and there’d be another woman here to—’

‘Mother—’

‘Still… perchance the very fact that you are
not
here… will make the difference.’

‘Yes,’ I said softly. ‘Maybe it will.’

The candlelight flickered like soft lightning on my coloured charts of the planets, glimmed in my hourglass, brought the eyes of the owl to life. I felt like a man hanging onto a stunted tree bent over an abyss. No firm situation, no wife, no siblings. No family but my poor mother, who only wished for me to be a normal man, and respected as such.

‘Don’t stay up too late,’ my mother said. ‘You’re not
so
young any more.’