A Murderous Affair, page 34
With heavy legs and a heart threatening to burst through my chest, I pressed onwards. The ravine twisted and turned down the hillside, surrounded by trees on every side. At some places it closed in tightly, which I prayed would slow down the dogs. I knew I had momentarily lost the horsemen but the dogs were still in hot pursuit. Perhaps unsettled by the loss of their commander, the hounds seemed momentarily to falter and I was able to gain some ground on them.
At the bottom of the ravine was a stream. I plunged into its icy waters, only knee deep, but hopefully enough to cause some disguising of my scent. I ran down the stream as far as I dared in the open before darting back off into the forest.
The ground, now thick and muddy, rose away from the stream. I clambered my way upwards, catching at roots and stones. The next time I stopped for a breather, I looked back to see the hounds running, confusedly, down both sides of the bank. They turned in circles and barked at one another – my trick had worked temporarily. Hidden among the trees, and slowly recovering my breath, I watched transfixed until two or three of the horsemen caught up with the dogs. One leapt from his horse and started shouting for the footmen – it was Ingram.
After a moment, a man arrived with another dog on a lead – I recognised it from its white skin with large brown spots as a Lymerhound, the breed that my father and I had used to pick up the scent of boars when hunting on the Gloucestershire estate. The Lymers had a keen nose for individual scents, and were used for picking up the trail of a quarry once the hounds had lost it. The man held a fragment of my torn shirt to the hound’s nose. I knew it was only a matter of minutes before they were pursuing me again. Only partly recovered I fled again into the forest. My only hope, a forlorn one, was to try and out run the dogs.
I don’t know for how much longer I had been running, stumbling, limping, when I next heard the dogs on my trail. I had reached a part of the forest where the ground had levelled out and there was only the cover of trees, neatly spaced around me. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to take refuge. The dogs were gaining fast – maybe twenty, fifteen yards behind me.
Fearing that this was the end, I burst suddenly from the shade of the trees into a wide clearing, where only a few tree stumps stood covered in a thin veil of snow that smoothly caressed the mossy ground. Standing majestically in the centre of this Arcadian setting was a hart – a proud red stag, fully mature and the largest I had ever seen.
A warrantable hart of ten with magnificent antlers.
I had come upon it so fast that it had barely had time to react. We both stood frozen to the spot, each eyeing the other with the haunted look of the hunted. The hart twitched nervously and let out a plume of steamy air from its nostrils.
At the echo of the hounds crashing through the bedraggled trees, the hart lifted its head. Time seemed to choke to a standstill. I heard the slow beat of my heart, saw the recognition of danger flash in the stag’s black eyes, watched helplessly as it turned gracefully on its heels and kicked its hind legs backwards.
Leave me to die. That’s the sensible thing to do, I thought.
As the stag turned, the drooping-tongued hounds tumbled out of the trees, I braced myself for the impact of their bodies, the tearing of their teeth. Would Hardwick and Ingram and Dakers get to me before I was torn to pieces? Would it be better for me if they didn’t? These and other unavailing thoughts had all the time in the world to torment my mournful soul. The hounds closed in and I began to let out a roar of anguish.
When I tell this tale in the future I will call it The Miracle of the Red Hart.
The hart had turned fully and was gracefully loping towards the safety of its own secret forest. The hounds, perhaps momentarily disconnected by this sudden sight of movement, alighted on a new quarry. They tore past me on either side as I stood stock still, their warm, sweaty flanks brushing the tears in my breeches and stockings. I felt the hairs on my leg tingle with the sensation of fur. And then they were gone into the trees beyond and I stood alone in the clearing, trying to grasp what had just happened.
I had seconds to take cover before the first of the horsemen came crashing into the clearing. Shimmying high into an ash tree, I watched as the horsemen gathered, detected the direction of the hounds from their cries and then galloped off in their wake. Ingram, Dakers, Hardwick himself, among servants I didn’t recognise. I waited, clinging to the trunk of the tree as the footmen, with their dogs and weapons, ran on behind. The Lymerhound momentarily paused and twitched its nostrils in my direction but he was pulled on impatiently by his handler – who I noticed with a start was Scarface. Soon all of them had disappeared into the trees beyond and an eerie silence descended on the clearing.
I clung to the branches and wept silently with relief.
Chapter 31
What is the way to London town?
One foot up, the other foot down,
That is the way to London town.
(Traditional 16th century song)
Darkness fell as I trudged forlornly through the forest. And with the darkness came an uncheery quilt of cold. For the first hours after my escape, I had been kept warm by excitement and fear but the cold was seeping into my bones. Although I was grateful for the extra warmth afforded me by the woollen coat I had taken from the ship, I still needed to find shelter quickly.
I had heard nothing more of the hunt. How long the stag had run on with hounds and men in pursuit I had no way of telling. I only knew that the noble beast had saved my life. I vowed the foregoing of venison for good, if I ever returned safely to London.
Walking was becoming increasingly problematic in the dusk and after another half an hour had passed I was relieved to stumble across a pathway. I decided to follow it until I found some sort of shelter. I was still deep in the forest and didn’t expect to encounter anyone. Like all well brought up children, I had been regaled many times with tales of bandits and outlaws that lived in the woods, and it was true that recent wars and changes in the countryside had left many people homeless and living rough, but I was hopeful that any self-respecting robber would be snuggled up in warmth somewhere, rather than hanging around profitless paths in the forest.
I had not been on the track for long when I chanced upon a small clearing containing three pointed shapes against the outline of the starless sky. For a horrible moment I thought I was back in Hardwick’s garden, encountering more strange topiary, but investigation showed them to be three abandoned charcoal-burner’s huts, with high triangular roofs built of turf – ideal as a place of shelter. I prudently made sure that they were all empty, before picking the one that had the best-preserved roof and setting about making myself comfortable.
To begin with this involved a tortuous search for kindling and wood. My first task was to find a birch tree, knowing that birch bark will light even when damp – not the easiest thing to do in the dark. Fortunately, they were relatively plentiful in the wood and it didn’t take me too long to find a small copse of the thin white trees. The second task, though, was obtaining enough bark to start a fire. Hardwick had taken my knife, so I used the buckle of my bag to scrape as much bark as I could – resulting in the buckle snapping after only a few strips had been harvested. In the end I settled for less than I wanted and decided to substitute the bark with bombast, the stuffing used for puffing out clothing, which was already sticking out of various holes in my ripped doublet. The final task was finding a flint from which I could get a spark using the broken buckle. I managed to get a small part of the kindling burning and then spent a good fifteen minutes coaxing it into flames. After what seemed an inordinate struggle, I finally created enough fire and started to relax.
One thing I wasn’t short of for my impromptu camping trip was reading material. The bag had come through the ordeal unscathed – that is at least until I broke the buckle – and the letters I had stolen, along with Don Alphonse’s manuscript, were all present and correct.
I began sifting through the letters one by one under the firelight, sorting them by signatures and dates, and, in particular, looking for the ones that I had already noted were interesting. I had twenty-seven letters in total. All of them were addressed to Hardwick apart from four that were addressed to Dakers. There were three from Ingram, written in an illiterate scrawl, five from my brother, one from Marmaduke Drummond, one from Walsingham, and two from Don Alphonse. The rest were from unknowns, at least to me, but chosen because they were from interesting places such as France and the Canary Islands.
I read through my brother’s letters first – they set out in excruciating, and characteristically pompous, detail the plans for the phantom ‘expedition’ that he clearly believed in all too well. He had been only too willing to place himself at the head of the operation and he talked at endless length about the riches and fame that would be forthcoming. I found myself laughing out loud at some of his preposterous optimism, although I acknowledged to myself that hindsight was a great gift. It was difficult having only one side of the correspondence but the impression I got was that Hardwick had been weaving a clever web – encouraging Robert to assume command, whilst committing nothing himself. Robert’s last two letters were amongst those addressed to Dakers, suggesting that Hardwick had eventually managed to submerge himself completely into the background as far as the plans were concerned.
Ingram’s letters were more informative and I understood fully for the first time his role in the affair. His earliest letter was a speculative plea for future employment. He explained that since his patron, The Earl of Leicester, had recently died he was looking for a new position in service. He listed a number of skills, but as handwriting didn’t appear to be amongst them, I found it hard to decipher a lot of what he wrote. The skills I could discern though mostly seemed to revolve around conning people, all-be-it technically by legal means. His second letter was briefer but confirmed that Ingram had embarked upon the task that Hardwick had set him, presumably as some sort of test, a task which involved my brother and Don Alphonse, and could only be the setting up of the expedition that my brother was so keen on being a figurehead for.
I thought about this for a moment. Leicester had died at the beginning of September, about a month after the Armada had been repelled. Ingram’s second letter was dated midway through September, showing that he hadn’t wasted any time getting involved in the plot. From what I could glean, his role had been to offer himself in service to Robert, and in particular bring his business acumen to the expedition. Leicester had been no stranger to investment and trade, and having someone of Ingram’s calibre involved must have been very attractive for Robert. Some of this was guess work on my part but I felt pretty sure I was right.
Marmaduke Drummond’s letter had been tied together with one of Ingram’s and in it he also offered himself in service to Hardwick – using the device of a sycophantic poem that made me cringe. Drummond appeared to be acquainted with Ingram and must have somehow got wind of the plot and seen an opportunity to obtain a new patron. I thought about meeting him on the day after Don Alphonse’s death – he knew then precisely what was going on but was still playing the dutiful servant to my brother. I hoped I would get the opportunity of confronting him with the letter.
Opening Drummond’s letter out fully, another page slipped out. I looked at it casually and then felt my jaw drop. As an example of disloyalty, it took some beating.
The letter from Don Alphonse to Hardwick was dated much earlier than the others – almost a year before his death. As I huddled close to my makeshift fire the letter by turns made me gape in admiration, tense with anger and laugh out loud at the final outrageousness of it all. I had only glanced at Walsingham’s letter but now I looked at it afresh and saw in there everything I needed to confirm what I now knew. Don Alphonse – Catholic and Jew, patriot and traitor, cuckolder, adventurer, merchant, friend to the rich and famous, as well as to the Lion’s Quay lepers, and finally the master of a clever revenge plot. The only thing I still couldn’t fathom was who had killed him – and why.
I silently doffed my hat to him in the firelight and picked up the manuscript Emmalina had translated – wanting more than ever to understand all I could about this man.
* * *
October 1569 – Timbuktu
After many weeks of travelling, we have finally reached the city of Timbuktu, the great city that Gbère has repeatedly spoken of. Our journey has taken us through many Kingdoms, through magnificent valleys, and along great rivers. In every kingdom we encountered, we have been received by the king whom Gbèré paid tribute so that we were allowed to pass through unmolested and with the goods of the caravan intact. The people we have met have been for the most part friendly to us, although they fight constantly amongst themselves, but my white skin has been a perpetual source of wonderment to them. Some think I am a God, others an evil spirit. In every village I would be surrounded by a horde of natives, all wanting to touch my hands and face, and stare at me for hours. I am glad that we have finally reached a large city where I can be somewhat anonymous. Cassangoe is also relieved to be away from the caravan. For much of the journey he was afraid to speak, lest his native tongue should mark him out as different from the people we met, who are far more vicious to their own kind than they are to strangers from afar. Cassangoe also suffered many iniquities as my pretend slave, particularly from Gbèré, who offered to buy Cassangoe from me on many occasions and add him to the party of slaves he was bringing to the city to sell.
Gbèré was right to describe Timbuktu as a great city. As we approached, we could see its golden towers rising high above the fortified city wall, built of sun- baked clay, and once inside we could not fail to be impressed by the buildings, many of whose roofs were tiled with gold, and the great multitude of peoples of all kinds. On venturing into the vast markets, we found Songhai, Wangara, Fulani, Tuareg and Arabs all rubbing shoulders, and dealing with one another over the array of goods that seemed to pour into the city from all directions. Gbèré told me proudly that gold came from the south, salt from the north and Divine knowledge itself, from Timbuktu. The city is the capital of the Songhai Empire and the King has his palace at its centre. On certain days he rides abroad in the streets accompanied by a great entourage. The King possesses no less than 3000 foot soldiers armed with poisoned arrows and all those refusing to pay appropriate homage are executed. Also, at the heart of the city is a great mosque, where adherents to the Mohammedan faith, who vastly out number all other religious persuasions, go to worship. There are also many libraries in the city that hold hundreds of thousands of manuscripts, and many scholars travel here to study the Islamic faith in preparation for the Hajj. Even though we are considered infidels, we are encouraged to visit the libraries but there is very little there that I can read or understand, besides I am busy learning the ropes of trade from Gbèré.
We have taken lodgings in the city, but I spend my days accompanying Gbèré as his aide, whilst he buys goods in the market and begins to organise a train that will carry us across the desert to the north and to the Mediterranean Sea beyond. When not speaking of his home city, or stuffing his mouth with kola nuts, Gbèré spent much of the journey from the South discussing his plans with me for trade between Africa and Europe. His vision is that on returning me to my homeland, we will work together to create a trading empire that reaches to all the known corners of the world. I spent most of my time laughing at his plans – I don’t even know where my homeland is now anyway – but gradually he has worn me down and I must admit that the thought of having vast wealth is an appealing one.
Cassangoe, who haunts my side for fear of being enslaved, disagrees with me. He tells me that in his tribe, individual wealth is taken as a sin against the many and all must be shared for the good of the whole. It is true that the relationship between Gbèré and myself has caused there to be some disagreement between Cassangoe and I, but I have become a prize asset to the trader and he insists on taking me under his wing and parading me about the town. And anyway, I am convinced the friendship, the bond, that Cassangoe and I hold, will survive the present. We are blood brothers and he knows I would lay down my life for him.
One last thing – as the top of this page reveals, I have discovered the Christian date finally. It is nearly two years since I set off from Lisbon with my father. Two years of captivity and deprivation, of adventure. I left Lisbon a boy, now I am a young man.
Chapter 32
‘ .... they do come into the [ Realm] by secret Creeks, and Landing Places, disguised, both in their Names and Persons.’
(Queen Elizabeth 1)
I woke with a start like a hunted animal, Don Alphonse’s manuscript falling from my chest, where it had lain through the night, onto the earthen floor I had been sleeping on.
At first, I wondered what had woken me but then heard a rumbling noise coming along the path outside the huts. A quick glance through the smoke-hole in the ceiling told me that dawn was just breaking. The fire had burned out and there was no giveaway smoke rising through the hole.
I roused myself quickly and positioned myself by the entrance, ready to make a run for it, although the prospect held no joy considering the pain in my stiffened ribs and arm. The trundling sound of heavy wooden wheels came closer. It didn’t slow down as it reached the huts but continued on in the same slow manner. Just after it passed, I risked glancing from the doorway, and saw a low wooden cart being pulled along the track by two men, a third man walking beside. On the cart itself sat two further men, both huddled up – one seemingly asleep, the other glancing into the forest. I quickly gathered the letters and manuscript into my bag, waited until the cart was out of sight, and then set off cautiously in pursuit.
