Book of Souls by Glenn Cooper (16 page)

Edward II was, by no means, a popular monarch, and his subjects, for all intents and purposes, permitted him to be deposed by Edward’s French wife and her traitorous consort, Roger Mortimer. The king’s son, Edward, was only fourteen at the time of the coup. Though crowned Edward III, he became a puppet of the Regent, Mortimer, who wanted the old king to be more than imprisoned—he wanted him dead. Edward’s murder at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire was a foul affair. He was accosted in his bed by Mortimer’s assassins, who pressed a heavy mattress against him to hold him down, then shoved a copper tube up his rectum and thrust a red-hot iron poker through it to burn his intestines without leaving a mark. Thus, murder could not be proven, and the death would be ascribed to natural causes. But more slyly, Mortimer was delivering fitting punishment since the king was said to be a buggerer.

As Edward approached his eighteenth birthday, cognizant of his father’s ghastly demise, he plotted a son’s revenge. The word was spread by his father’s loyalists that the young king was in need of conspirators. Charles Cantwell was contacted by agents and readily agreed to an intrigue because he was a Royalist, but also because, as an adventurer plagued by unsuccessful business dealings, he had few good prospects. In October of 1330, he joined a small brave party who audaciously snuck through a secret entrance into Mortimer’s own fortress at Nottingham Castle, arrested the toad in his bedchamber, and in the name of the king, spirited him away to the Tower of London to meet his own grim fate.

Edward III, in gratitude, made Charles a baron and granted him a fat royal stipend and further tracts of land at Wroxall, where Charles immediately began improving his estate by building a fine timber house grand enough for the name, Cantwell Hall.

The stable master had Charles’s horse ready and saddled. He set off at a trot, following the northern bank of the river, enjoying the fair breezes as long as he could before he had to turn his horse and plunge into the fetid, narrow lanes of the industrial city. In half an hour or so, he was on Thames Street, a comparatively broad and open thoroughfare, hard by the river, to the west of St. Paul’s, where he easily maneuvered his beast through a gaggle of pushcarts, horse-and-riders, and pedestrians.

At the foot of Garrick Hill, he spurred the horse’s belly to coax it north, into a snaking, claustrophobic lane, whereupon he promptly felt the need to press his nose into a cloth. Open sewer ditches ran along both sides of Cordwainers Street, but the human effluent was not the greatest offense to Charles’s senses. Unlike the cobblers who made cheap shoes from used leather and eked out a living doing repairs, their more esteemed brethren, the cordwainers, needed fresh leather for new boots. So these city environs were also home to slaughterhouses and tanneries, the enterprises causing the greatest stench with their rank, boiling pots of leather, wool, and sheepskin.

All the good cheer of the morning had drained from him by the time he dismounted at his destination, a small shop marked with a hanging sign of black iron in the shape of a boot. He tied his horse to a post and sloshed his way through a mud puddle at the front of the two-story workshop, which was crammed cheek by jowl against other similar structures forming a long row of guild buildings.

Immediately, he suspected a problem. While the cobblers and other cordwainers on both sides of the street had their doors and windows open amidst signs of thriving commerce, this shop was shuttered tight. He muttered under his breath and banged upon the door with the heel of his hand. When there was no response, he banged again, even louder and was about to kick the bloody thing when the door slowly opened, and a woman stuck out her kerchiefed head.

“Why are you shut?” Charles demanded.

The woman was thin as a child but haggard and elderly. Charles had seen her at the shop before, and though aged, he had thought she must have been a great beauty in her youth. That impression was faded now, washed away by strong measures of worry and toil.

“My husband is ill, sir.”

“’Tis a pity, I am sure, madam, but I am here to collect my new boots.”

She looked at him blankly and said nothing.

“Did you not hear me, woman. I’m here for my boots!”

“There are no boots, sir.”

“Whatever do you mean! Do you know who I am?”

Her lip was trembling. “You are the Baron Wroxall, sir.”

“Fine. Then you know I was here six weeks ago. Your husband, Luke the Cordwainer, made wooden lasts of my feet. I made half payment, woman!”

“He has been ill.”

“Let me inside!” Charles pushed his way through the front door and looked around the small room. It served as a workshop, a kitchen, and a living space. On one side, a cooking hearth with utensils, a table, and chairs, the other side a craftsman’s bench, laden with tools and a paltry collection of cured sheepskins. A rack above the bench had dozens of wooden molds. Charles fixed his gaze on a mold that was inscribed “Wroxal” and exclaimed: “Those are my feet! Now where are my boots!”

From the higher floor a weak voice called out, “Elizabeth? Who is there?”

“He never began them, sir,” she insisted. “He became ill.”

“He’s upstairs?” Charles asked, alarmed. “There’s no plague in this house, is there madam?”

“Oh no, sir. He has the consumption.”

“Then I will go and speak to the man.”

“Please, no, sir. He is too frail. It might kill him.”

In recent years, Charles had become wholly unused to not getting his way. Barons were treated like—barons, and serfs and gentry alike acceded to their every whim. He stood there with his fists thrust truculently into his waist, his jaw jutting. “No boots,” he finally said.

“No, sir.” She was trying not to cry.

“I paid you a Half Noble in advance,” he said icily. “Give me my money back. With interest. I will take four shillings.”

Now the tears flowed. “We have no money, sir. He has not been able to work. I have begun trading his leather stock to other guild members for food.”

“So, you have no boots, and you have no money! What would you have me do, woman?”

“I do not know, sir.”

“It seems that your husband will be spending his last days in prison at his majesty’s pleasure, and you too will see the inside of a debtor’s cell. When you see me next, I will have the sheriff.”

Elizabeth fell to her knees and wrapped herself around his stockinged calves. “Please, no, sir. There must be another way,” she sobbed. “Take his tools as payment, take what you like.”

“Elizabeth?” Luke weakly called out again.

“Everything is fine, husband,” she shouted back.

While seeing these thieves to prison would give him satisfaction, he knew he would rather spend the rest of his morning at a new cordwainer than tramping around the foul city looking for the sheriff. Without answering, he went to the worktable and began to inspect the array of pincers, awls, needles, mallets, and knives. He snorted at them. What use to him, he wondered? He picked up a semicircular bladed instrument, and asked, “What is this?”

She was still on her knees. “It’s a trenket, a shoemaker’s knife.”

“What would I do with this in my belt,” he said derisively. “Cut off someone’s nose?” He poked around the table some more, and concluded, “This is rubbish to me. Have you anything of value in here?”

“We are poor, sir. Please, take the tools and leave in peace.”

He began to pace back and forth, looking around the small room for something that would satisfy him enough to abandon his threat to have them arrested. Their possessions were indeed meager, the kinds of goods his servants had in their peasant houses.

His eyes fell on a chest near the hearth. Without asking permission, he opened it. There were winter cloaks, dresses, and the like. He stuck his hands in and felt underneath and touched something hard and flat. When he parted the clothes, he saw the cover of a book.

“Do you have a Bible?” he exclaimed. Books were rare commodities, and valuable. He had never seen a peasant or tradesman possessing one.

Elizabeth quickly crossed herself and seemed to say a silent prayer. “No, sir. It is not a Bible.”

He lifted the heavy book from the chest and inspected it. He puzzled at the date on the spine, “1527” and opened it. A sheaf of loose parchments fell onto the floor. He picked them up, glancing quickly at the Latin. He saw the name Felix on the top page and put the sheets aside. Then he inspected the pages of the book and cast his eyes on the seemingly endless lists of names and dates. “What is this book, madam?”

The fear dried Elizabeth’s tears. “It is from a monastery, sir. The abbot gave it to my husband. I know not what it is.”

In truth, Luke had never spoken to her about the book. When he returned to London from Vectis years earlier, he had wordlessly placed it in the chest, and there it had remained. He knew better than to remind her of Vectis. Indeed, the very name was never uttered in their house. She had a sense, however, that the book was wicked, and she crossed herself every time she had to use the chest.

Charles turned page after page, each one awash in the year 1527. “Is this some kind of witchcraft?” Charles demanded.

“No, sir!” She struggled to sound like she believed her next words. “It is a holy book from the good monks of Vectis Abbey. It was a gift to my husband, who knew the abbot in his youth.”

Charles shrugged. The book was bound to be worth something, possibly more than four shillings. His brother, who was more skilled with a pen than a sword, would know the value better. When he returned to Cantwell Hall, he would seek his views. “I will take the book as payment, but I am most displeased by this venture, madam. I wanted my boots for the Royal Council. All I have is my disappointment.”

She said nothing and watched the baron put the loose parchments back into the book and stride out of the shop and onto the street. He dropped the book into his saddlebag and rode off in search of another bootmaker.

Elizabeth climbed the stairs and entered the cubby, where Luke lay in a feverish, wasted state. Her hale, strapping man, the savior of her life, was gone, replaced by this old, shriveled shell. He was slipping away. The tiny room smelled like death. The front of his shirt was smeared with old brown blood and sputum and a few fresh streaks, bright red. She lifted his head and gave him a sip of ale.

“Who was here?” he asked.

“The Baron Wroxall.”

His watery eyes widened. “I never made his boots.” He was seized by a paroxysm of coughs, and she had to wait for his chest to quiet.

“He has left. All is well.”

“How did you satisfy him? He gave me payment.”

“All is well.”

“My tools?” he asked sadly.

“No. Something else.”

“What then?”

She took his limp hand in hers and tenderly looked him in the eyes. For a moment, they were young again, two innocents, on their own up against the large, cruel forces of a world gone mad. Those many years past, he had rushed in and saved her, as chivalrous as a knight, plucking her from that stinking crypt and a horrible fate. She had tried her whole life to repay him and had woefully failed to produce a child. Perhaps, in a small way, she had saved him today by tossing a bone to the wolf at the door. Her beloved Luke would be able to die in his own bed.

“The book,” she said. “I gave him the book.”

He blinked in disbelief, then slowly turned his head to the wall and began to sob.

THE INSTANT WILL AWOKE, he recognized the old unhappy syndrome, his head filled with lead weights, his mouth sponged dry, his body wracked by flulike myalgias.

He had a whopper of a hangover.

He cursed at his failings, and when he saw the quarter-full bottle next to him on the bed, lying there like a streetwalker, he angrily asked it, “What the hell are you doing here?” He had an urge to spill the contents down the sink, but it wasn’t his property, was it? He covered it with a pillow so he wouldn’t have to look at it.

He remembered everything, of course—he couldn’t use the pathetic excuse he’d blacked out. He’d cheated on ex-wives, he’d cheated on girlfriends, he’d cheated on women he was cheating with, but he’d never cheated on Nancy. He was glad he felt like crap: he deserved it.

Nancy’s text message was still there, unanswered on his cell phone. After he got out of the bathroom, full of minty toothpaste to mask his hangover mouth, he used the one available bar to call her. It was early there, but he knew she’d be up, feeding Phillip, getting ready for work.

“Hi,” she answered. “You’re calling me.”

“You sound surprised.”

“You didn’t text me back. Out of sight, out of mind, I figured.”

“Hardly. How’re you doing?”

“We’re okay. Philly’s got an appetite.”

“That’s good.”

His voice sounded off beam. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

She didn’t sound convinced. “How’re you getting on?”

“I’m in a big old country house. Feels like I’m in an Agatha Christie book. But the people here are being—very nice, very helpful. It’s been worth it. There’s been a breakthrough, but you probably don’t want to hear about it.”

She was quiet, then said, “I wasn’t happy, but I’m over it. I realized something.”

“What?”

“All this domestication. It’s hard on you. You’re too penned up. An adventure comes along, of course you’re going to jump at it.”

His eyes began to sting. “I’m listening.”

“And there’s something else. Let’s look to move sooner rather than later. You need to get out of the city. I’ll start talking to HR about possible transfers.”

He felt unspeakably guilty. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything. Tell me about your breakthrough.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t over the phone.”

Concern crept back into her voice. “I thought you said you were safe.”

“I’m sure I am, but old habits…I’ll tell you in person soon.”

“When are you coming home?”

“I’m not finished yet, maybe a day or two. As fast as I can. We found the first clue. Three to go.”

“Prometheus’s flame.”

“Quite the puzzler, that Mr. Shakespeare. Big old candlestick.”