The Licence of War (51 page)

“My grandfather was a vintner, a kindly man but extravagant,” replied Price, borrowing from Sir Montague. “He raised me, after my parents died, at his house in the Strand. I was eighteen when
he
died and left behind him huge debts. I struggled to pay them, and in the end had to sell everything to his creditors, including his house. Then in the summer of ’42, I determined to enlist in His Majesty’s army.” He paused; Lady Beaumont was studying him as if he were transparent, an expression he had seen often in Beaumont. “Fate played on me another cruel trick, my lady: on my way to join his standard at Nottingham, I tumbled from my horse and cracked my spine. I despaired ever of walking again. God took mercy on me, and by October of last year, my injuries were healed. That was when I met your son, who brought me into Lord Digby’s service.”

“Is that so,” she remarked, still skewering him with her gaze.

“Your ladyship, my father’s marriage cost me my position in the world, and I have had to win it back through my own efforts. I would not care to repeat his mistake.”

“In marrying a tradesman’s daughter?”

“No, my lady: I would not marry Elizabeth without her father’s blessing.”

“She shall not marry without it, sir. He will give you due consideration, after I have recounted to him your tale.”

“My lady, please let me speak to his lordship whilst I am here. I do not know when I can next return, given the uncertainties of war.”

“His lordship’s health is as uncertain, sir, having had his house ransacked and his estate pillaged. I cannot allow it any upset.” Lady Beaumont left the parlour, and once more Price had to follow, enraged by her rudeness.

Three women were at the head of the stairs: Elizabeth, with a defeated air; Anne, hers sympathetic yet resigned; and a blonde girl. Price thought of the Hall in its glory, and today, naked. Penelope and Catherine were clearly twins, but such was the contrast between them. Had Beaumont married this fey creature to exorcise Lady Hallam’s curvaceous ghost? The women came down, and Anne introduced Price to Catherine, whose eyes were a deep brown, and peculiarly direct. On her ring finger, she wore a slender band set with a dull stone, a cheap-looking trinket compared to Lady Hallam’s opulent jewel. Why had Beaumont not chosen something better?

Elizabeth gave Price her hand, and he touched it to his lips. “We must bid each other goodbye, madam,” he said. “And goodbye to you, ladies, and to your ladyship.”

Anne and Catherine gave their goodbyes, but Lady Beaumont did not answer. It was this final insult that resolved him: he would marry Elizabeth with or without her parents’ consent.

Around ten o’clock, Laurence gathered his boys outside the church of St. Martin’s at the Carfax. He ordered one fellow to stay on guard there, while the rest accompanied him to the Green Dragon.

“He’ll be fast with his rapier,” Laurence reminded them, “and his valet may also be armed.”

As the youths melted into the shadows, he entered the taproom alone carrying his saddlebag. Tonight the crowd was thinner and less raucous; even the grizzled veteran seemed sober, nursing a tankard of ale with his dog at his feet. Diego stood near the entrance to the eating chamber, and waved Laurence over.

“How’s your master, Diego?” Laurence asked in English, to see if the valet would comprehend.

“
Triste, Señor Beaumont – muy triste,”
Diego replied obscurely, escorting him to de Zamora’s candlelit alcove, and left them.

De Zamora addressed Laurence in Spanish, without a hint of his former bravado. “I congratulate you for detecting the forged confession. I had no brother. My mother died in giving birth to me, her sole offspring, and my father joined her in the grave a year later. Sir, let us start afresh. I wish for us to be friends, as well as kin.”

“Don’t you think it rather too late?” Laurence inquired. “You’ve done your best to pit my brother against me, you injured and robbed an old man who is
my
friend, and God knows what you’re plotting to accomplish at Chipping Campden.”

“Was the Doctor badly hurt?”

“He was, but he’s improving. Where is his property?”

De Zamora untied a sack on the bench beside him, to give Laurence a view of the bowl, then shifted it out of Laurence’s reach. “Since I am in desperate financial straits, I cannot retract my price for it. Yet I do regret my violence. I lost my temper because of his persistent denials,” de Zamora went on, with a sigh. “As if it is not perfectly obvious that you are my son. As I explained to him, the evidence is plain as day.”

Laurence fought to keep his expression bland; out of a desire to protect, Seward had erred again by not disclosing this to
him
. “He told me of your claim, Don Antonio,” he said, carefully.

“It is no mere claim. Before we make our exchange,
mi hijo
, here is the full truth about why I came to England, and about my relations with your mother.”

“Don Antonio, you’re like the boy who cried wolf,” said Laurence, though he was torn between dread and curiosity.

“Please hear me out,” de Zamora said. “Grant me a chance – not to redeem myself, for I am past redemption for my sins – but to have myself understood. I never expected that my venture would conclude in so precious a discovery –
you
.” Laurence could read agony in his eyes, and, to his own unease, an intense, passionate craving for affection. “I would not have travelled here except for a miraculous coincidence that occurred last October.”

“Your stories are plagued with coincidences.”

“Our whole lives are thus plagued, my son, as you will learn. It was on a Sunday, as my wife Teresa and I were leaving the great Cathedral of Santa María de la Sede after Mass.” De Zamora leant forward. “A gypsy girl was begging outside. She had a babe with her, a boy with our green eyes.” Laurence caught his breath, as though the tip of a knife had probed beneath his skin. “When questioned, she said that his father was an English mercenary who had formed an attachment to her in the Low Countries and had journeyed with her to Spain. There he had forced her to be his mistress, and abandoned her when she became with child. She named Laurence Beaumont as her son’s father – and she called the boy Lorenzo. Imagine: Beaumont was a name I had not forgotten. Of course, she recognised you in my features. I could not let them go. I provided shelter for them at a friend’s hostel, where they remain to this day. Lest you were wondering, it was she who told me of your exploits in the Low Countries.”

“Ah,” said Laurence, now too thunderstruck to frame a better response.

“I knew then that God had put her and Lorenzo in my path to answer my prayer. For over thirty years, I had sworn revenge on James Beaumont.”

Laurence was exerting all of his expertise, as cardsharp and as spy, to hide his inner turmoil. “Please, continue,” he said, focusing on the gap between de Zamora’s slanted brows, to avoid his distracting stare.

“As for the truth about your mother,” said de Zamora, “she and I were in love, but we could not marry. The house of de Capdavila was mired in debt, and I had no fortune to my name but a half-derelict castle – the de Zamora family seat. When James Beaumont came courting Elena, I was still working to establish my reputation as an officer.” He broke off, and frowned. “You appear to find my story tedious, sir.”

Laurence shrugged in a semblance of boredom. “It’s a familiar tale, Don Antonio: the poor yet noble lover unjustly thwarted in his heart’s desire.”

De Zamora’s eyes blazed at him. “You are cold, my son. It must be the effect of your rotten climate.”

“Then it’s my turn to apologise. You were saying …?”

“The challenge of money, in itself, would not have prevented me from winning Elena,” de Zamora resumed. “There was another obstacle. Her father, Don Giraldo de Capdavila, loathed me, as I did him. Before embarking on his final voyage to the Indies, where to my immense delight he subsequently perished of ague, he forbade me to visit his house. In his absence, I persuaded my aunt Cecilia to lift his interdiction, for the sake of her deceased sister, my mother. Yet she would sooner have sold her soul to the devil than let us cousins marry. When she knew of our mutual love, she decided to sacrifice Elena to the heretic Englishman, even though it tortured her that she would not see her child again. Thank God she could not take from Elena and me that ultimate night, on which you were conceived.” De Zamora hesitated. “You must want to know if I forced myself on Elena.”

“To me, what’s past is past,” said Laurence, though he yearned to know. “You’ve lost her, and you’ll never have her back.”

“That may be, but what of you and I?” De Zamora lunged across the table to grip Laurence’s arm. “Can you honestly deny that you are of my seed?”

“My true father is the man who raised me.”

“I hear doubt in your voice. You know you haven’t a drop of
English blood in your veins. You belong in Spain, with me. Thomas shall have his estate, and all of us will be happy. We’ll reunite blood with blood! Would you not enjoy watching your son Lorenzo grow up? He is a beautiful boy. We could watch him together,
my
Lorenzo.”

The idea was so absurd that Laurence nearly laughed. Then he saw the extreme seriousness on de Zamora’s face. Years of obsessive brooding had poisoned the man’s brain, Laurence thought, almost pitying him; but that rendered him more of a danger. “No, Don Antonio, I belong here, in England.” Laurence detached himself politely. “You should beware of the child. He may turn out a liar and a thief, like his mother.”

“Did she lie when she said you raped her – repeatedly?”

“Is that what she said? Yes, she lied.”

“Then it is my guess that you must have been in love, to travel so far and to stay such a time with her,” de Zamora concluded, with an edge of victory.

“I had a lust for her, Don Antonio, but now I care nothing for her, or for the boy. He must be one of many bastards I’ve sired, here and there.” Laurence stood up and slung his saddlebag over his shoulder. “We should get you your money. It’s with the owner of a more respectable tavern near St. Martin’s Church, less than a mile away.”

“
What?
You don’t have it on you?”

“I wouldn’t carry ten pounds on me in this neighbourhood of cutpurses, let alone three hundred.”

“You are luring me into a trap.”

“If I’d wanted to entrap you, sir, you would not be at liberty tonight.”

Laurence walked out to the taproom, with de Zamora in pursuit calling for Diego. “The lazy fellow must have gone to bed,” he told Laurence agitatedly. “Let me wake him. I will not leave without him.”

“We haven’t the time,” said Laurence. “We must finish our business before the other tavern closes.”

“I’m a fool to trust you,” growled de Zamora, but he went along. When they gained Cornmarket Street, Laurence drew him towards a modest house, its windows heavily shuttered. “If this is a tavern, why is there no sign outside?” he demanded.

“Its patrons are mostly town officials who can’t be seen breaking the curfew laws,” Laurence replied, which was the truth.

The crowd of well-heeled drinkers seemed to assuage de Zamora’s fears. He sat down at an empty table while Laurence fetched the leather purse that he had left with the tavern keeper. Neither of them spoke as de Zamora unfastened it and poured out the coins into the skirt of his cloak, beneath the table. “Three hundred,” he said with a grudging smile, when he had counted them back into the purse. “Diego thought the bowl must be worth much more to the Doctor, for his visions.”

“Seward is an adept: he can see visions in any common looking glass.”

“Then why did he fight me for the bowl?”

“It’s a talisman bequeathed to him by his mentor – in the
black arts
,” Laurence added; he had surmised from Seward’s account that de Zamora might be superstitious.

“Thank God I am rid of it,” said de Zamora, crossing himself. “Diego did not want to let it go. He has studied alchemy, and other subjects that our Church condemns as witchcraft. He was eager to test
his
powers of divination.”

Laurence pressed a little further, in case Diego had any plans to retrieve the bowl. “He had a lucky escape, Don Antonio. Without knowledge of the appropriate rituals and incantations, he would have invoked evil demons and become possessed.”

“Sometimes he is too clever for his own good. Sir, what now?” de Zamora asked, tucking the purse into the front of his doublet.

“We must say goodbye,” Laurence said, picking up the sack.

“That makes me sad. I feel more affinity to you than to my other sons – not that I should be surprised: your blood is thicker with mine than you know.”

This last comment disturbed Laurence. He had the impression that de Zamora had tossed it out as bait, so he ignored it. “When you decide to sail home, don’t try the enemy ports,” he said. “You might find a ship from Bristol, which is held for the King.”

“How far is Bristol?”

“About seventy miles from Oxford, to the southwest.”

“Should I greet Juana for you, on my return?”

“If it pleases you.”

They quitted the tavern, each with his prize. Laurence’s nerves jangled in anticipation of a setback, and he drew away instinctively when de Zamora opened his arms wide. “Does an English son not embrace his father, on parting?” de Zamora inquired, his cheeks glistening with tears.

“We clasp hands,” said Laurence, and so they did.

“
Que Dios te bendiga, hijo mío
. I pray that I may see you again in this world.”

“
Adiós
, Don Antonio.”

As de Zamora’s footsteps retreated, Laurence blew out an exhausted sigh and sagged against the tavern wall. The words still echoed:
your blood is thicker with mine than you know
. He had an urge to chase after the Spaniard and ask what it meant. And to think of Juana, and a child: no mystery there as to the true father.

Laurence whistled to the scout posted by St. Martin’s Church. “All well, sir?” the youth said cheerily, bounding out from the darkness like an angel sent to dismiss the unclean spirits of night.