‘This bird has been hand-reared. So we have to teach her to hunt. My men are sending the kite up with a lure attached. You can see that bag there with yellow feathers on it. Jeanette already associates that with food. Now watch.’
He removed the hawk’s hood, held her at arm’s length and released his hold on the jesses strapped to her legs. The bird flew and quickly soared higher than the kite. I watched as she circled several times.
Locke dismounted. ‘She was a falcon, you know.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t quite hear…’
‘Queen Anne — her heraldic badge was the falcon. How high she flew. How high and how beautiful.’
I watched the gently gyrating bird, captivated by her graceful, effortless gliding. Then, suddenly, she became an arrow, cutting the air in speared flight, taking the lure and plunging with it to earth.
‘And all at once, in a moment, she fell.’ Locke stooped to feed the hawk her reward and gather up the jesses.
Later, the session over and the party returning to the lodge, I said, ‘You must have been very close to the queen.’
‘I brought her more than silks and news of the Paris fashions. She grew up at the French court and I kept her in contact with old friends and new ideas.’
‘New ideas? Does that mean what people call the New Learning?’
‘What scoffers and God-haters call the New Learning!’
We were silent for some minutes as we rode through a belt of trees, glad to be out of the wind.
‘You said earlier that Robert’s enemies were God’s enemies,’ I probed. ‘Do you think he was killed on the orders of the bishop or his senior clergy?’
Locke gave me a sideways glance. ‘Do not tempt me to name names, young man. I know you not well enough. Permit me rather to catechise you. Is it God’s will, think you, for all to be saved through knowledge of his truth?’
‘I must believe so.’
‘And is that truth contained in God’s holy word written?’
‘So the Church teaches us.’
‘Should all who are literate read that word for themselves? What says the Church to that?’
I stumbled around for an answer. ‘Some say “Yea”. Others say “Nay, it is too profound for ordinary men; it must be interpreted by priests.”’
‘And what say you?’
‘I… I am neither on one side nor the other.’
‘You think it too dangerous to hold an opinion on such things.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Then by the same yardstick I will not name Robert’s killer.’
I groaned inwardly with frustration. It seemed that my excursion to Hampstead had been in vain. I decided to try one last, bold overture.
‘Robert spoke warmly of a group he belonged to — the Christian Brothers.’
Locke yanked on his rein, bringing his ambling mare to a sudden halt. He turned her round to stand before me on the path and fixed me with a penetrating stare. ‘You lie,’ he said quietly.
I opened my mouth to protest but Locke went on: ‘Robert would never break his oath. If any such organisation existed and if he belonged to it, he would not mention it to an outsider — no matter how close a friend such an outsider might be.’
‘That secrecy did not save his life,’ I muttered angrily, ‘but it seems that it will protect his murderer.’
That obviously stung Locke. He raised his head, thrusting forward his grey-flecked, neatly trimmed beard. ‘Robert was a brave Christian warrior who knew the risks he was taking for truth’s sake. But he was not the only one, nor was he the greatest to lose his life for what he believed.’
‘You are thinking of Queen Anne?’
He nodded.
‘I was there,’ I said, ‘in the Tower. I saw. I heard what she said.’ The memory was still vivid — the small woman in grey, standing beside the block, poised and untrembling, her hands clasped before her. ‘She confessed nothing.’
‘And had nothing to confess.’ Locke’s cheeks blazed with sudden anger. ‘She was a God-fearing woman and a faithful wife. No king ever had a truer consort or one who used her position more for good. I know better than most what she believed and what she achieved. It was I who bought her books for her — Bible translations in French and English, works of devotion by the best scholars in France, treatises urging reform of abuses in the Church. His Majesty will never have a better wife, nor England a better queen.’
‘Then why — ’ I began, but Locke’s passionate devotion to the late queen was like a key to the coffer of his memory that, once unlocked, spilled out its contents.
‘She did not merely study holiness; she practised it. Her reign was short but she achieved remarkable things. She had godly preachers, like Dr Crome, appointed to their livings. And bishops! Where would Latimer be were it not for her patronage? Or Archbishop Cranmer? Who set the king on his course to close the abbeys so that all their hoarded wealth could be used for the common good? How much more might she have done if she had been spared? She was zealous in rooting out nests of papists and would have purged even the chapter of St Paul’s, given time. And the Bible! Oh, how close we came to having an English translation set up in all churches by royal command…’ He paused for breath, then continued in a quieter voice scarcely audible above the whining wind. ‘So, of course, she made enemies — God’s enemies — as Poor Robert did.’ He shivered and drew his cloak tighter round his shoulders. ‘But dusk is almost upon us and you must make your way back to the City. Come, I’ll show you a shorter route across the heath.’
As I set out on the return journey with my attendants I was deep in thought about what William Locke had said — and what I could deduce from what he had not said. Had I been less preoccupied I might have been readier for what happened when we had travelled a scant mile. We were passing a couple of cottages that appeared to be derelict when there was the sound of a gunshot. Dickon reared up. I was thrown from the saddle and fell heavily. I lay momentarily dazed and winded. Then, unthinking, I sat up. That was when I heard a second shot.
Chapter 20
I felt this one. The metal pellet tore through the thick folds of my cloak and hood. It seared the flesh of my neck. That brought me to my senses. I looked around. Two of my mounted companions were standing like statues. The third was trying to calm his skittering horse. ‘Take cover!’ I shouted. Easily said. The heathland was wide and empty. The shots had come from our right, almost certainly from a small clump of trees. To our left, some twenty yards away, stood the ruined buildings. ‘The cottages!’ I yelled. ‘That’s our only chance.’ The others spurred their horses towards the shelter of the ruined walls. I pressed myself close to the damp grass. I looked around for Dickon. He was ten yards to my right, limping, holding one of his forelegs off the ground. I stared at the trees but could see no movement. Leaping to my feet, I charged towards Dickon at a crouching run. I had almost reached him when another shot rang out. Good, I thought. The attacker will have to reload. I reached the horse and grabbed the reins. Frantically, I hauled him towards our chosen refuge. We were a few paces away when I heard another shot. This one whistled past my head. We scrambled into the shelter of the broken walls.
‘Is everyone all right?’ I called out as we reached safety.
There was a reassuring chorus of replies.
I peered round the side of my refuge across the open heath. ‘Can you see them? How many are they?’
‘Two, I think,’ said Walt, my groom.
‘No, only one,’ someone else added.
We crouched against the wall and stared across the darkening landscape. Almost immediately there was a flash amid the cluster of elms and a ball thudded into the decaying wattle and daub to my left. Then silence. I watched intently and moments later, another shot was discharged from exactly the same spot.
‘One it is,’ I agreed.
‘God damn him!’ Walt muttered. ‘Whoreson highwaymen and footpads! This area has always been plagued with them.’ He seemed more angry than frightened.