'So they must have been killed before?'
'But that can't be,' Benjamin replied. 'The cooks told us they set the tables for the evening meal, yet we found no trace of that.'
'Unless Jonathan ordered it to be cleared himself?' I declared. 'I have another theory.'
I explained about Lord Charon and my meeting with him: the initials 'I.M.' on the hangings in his chamber were identical to those on the locket buried with the remains of poor Lady Isabella. Benjamin, eyes closed, heard me out.
'It's possible.' He opened his eyes. 'It's possible that in his own devilish way, Lord Charon had a hand in this business.' He tapped my hand. 'You didn't tell me about your meeting in the sewers?'
'You never asked,' I retorted. 'And it's something I'd best soon forget.'
Benjamin walked over towards where we had laid out our bedding for the night.
'Ah, that is not a matter for us, Roger, but for the authorities. The capture of Lord Charon will need troops.' He took off his boots, lay down on the bedding and pulled a blanket up to his face. 'A house of secrets,' he murmured then fell asleep.
I sat for a while listening to the house creak. I grew agitated as I realised the Great Beast would soon make his anger felt. I went out into the passageway, took a torch from its sconce and stood at the entrance to the cellar. Castor, who had been asleep in the corner of the kitchen, roused himself and followed me out. He stood silently beside me as I stared into the darkness.
What had taken Castor down there in the first place? My master's questions about the setting out of the table and the cleaning of cups bothered me as well but I was too tired to think. I returned the torch, went back into the kitchen and lay down on the bedding with Castor sprawled beside me. I fell into an uneasy sleep thronged by nightmares, bloody-mouthed spectres in ghostly galleries and other terrors of the dark. (Oh, don't laugh at poor Shallot. I have seen ghosts! I have been at Hampton Court on the anniversary of Catherine Howard's arrest, and heard her scream as she did in life, as her ghost ran down to the royal chapel to beg the Great Beast's forgiveness for having slept with Thomas Culpepper. Once, following a wager with Master Walsingham, the Queen's master spy, I spent a night in the Bloody Tower. I was locked away in a cell - the result of some stupid remark or jest at court. I felt the ghosts throng around me: Thomas Cromwell, Henry's great minister who fell from power after taking lunch with the Duke of Norfolk. Or the poor Princes stifled in their beds. True, I never saw anything but, the next morning, when the captain of the guard came to open the cell and take me to the officers' quarters to break my fast, he stopped me on the stairs and said, 'Sir Roger, you will have to pay your wager.' 'Why?' I asked.
'Well, sir,' the fellow replied. 'You said you would be alone, but when I looked through the grille at midnight you were asleep in your bed.’
4Of course I was,' I scoffed. 'I was drunk.'
'But there was someone with you.'
My blood ran cold. 'Who?' I asked.
'I don't know,' the soldier replied. 'Just a cowled and hooded figure sitting on a chair beside your bed staring down at you.'
Oh yes, I believe in ghosts and that's the last night I ever slept in the Tower!)
The next morning the terrors of the living woke us: Doctor Agrippa, Kempe and Cornelius pounding on the door. I have never seen the Doctor so agitated. He brushed by me and swept into the kitchen: clutching his broad-brimmed hat, he looked like a country parson ready to pray, except for those eyes, which had turned pebble-black.
'The King wants your heads.' He glared at Benjamin. 'Either that or his Orb back.'
'I didn't steal it!'
(Always the same old Shallot! Make sure you whine and protest your innocence!)
'He doesn't give a fig for that,' Kempe intervened. He looked dreadful; unshaven, with black shadows under red-rimmed eyes. 'His Grace,' he continued, 'held a banquet last night in Lord Egremont's honour. He drank deeply to restore his good humour but, beforehand, his rage can only be believed.' Kempe pointed to his ear which was red and swollen. 'He hit everyone he could!'
'And he'll not get my master's ships!' Egremont stood in the doorway. 'No ships for the English king,' he continued, walking into the kitchen. 'No favours for you, Sir Thomas. Master Benjamin, being the Cardinal's nephew will not save you!'
'Our heads are our own!' Benjamin snapped back. 'It won't be the first time the King has been displeased with us.' He shrugged one shoulder. 'At least for a while. Anyway, why are you here?'
Egremont sat himself down at the table. 'To see if anything new has been discovered.'
'Yes and no,' my master replied.
He described our stay in the house the previous night, how every sound and footfall seemed to echo like a bell, and how difficult it would be for even the most soft-footed assassin to steal along the galleries.