“He must find a baser instrument.”
“Well so,” said the Benedictine, “well so, good Sir John. Only keep your back to us, saving your honour, and see nothing for a little space.”
The Lieutenant, without another word, strode away, his harness clanging in the vaults.
The covert priest stood listening, a smile, small and hungry, on his lips. He hungered, indeed, had always hungered, for many things—preferment, power, the good immoral gifts of life and indulgences other than Papal. And suddenly, amazingly, it appeared, they were all come within his grasp. He had only to persuade this master of his to a certain deed, by absolving him for it before committed, and a mitre awaited him. It had been whispered in his ear, as he had whispered in Sir John’s. The abbot of his own Order at Westminster was deeply involved with the Queen-Dowager, to whom he had given sanctuary. The crooked King disliked people who sheltered his enemies. A motion of his hand and the chaplain was in the abbot’s place. The seat awaited him—it was stupendous, actual—and, while reaching for it, to be baulked by a scruple of conscience not his own! The thing was intolerable.
Abbot of St. Peter’s! His lips watered, thinking of it; his eyelids blinked and reddened. He was a lean, famished-looking body, with sharp-set features, and a smile perpetually on his mouth between propitiatory and craving. One might have counted his ribs, and never guessed at the dreams of surfeit that wantoned under them. He turned and crept away.
That night a messenger rode from the Tower, following in the wake of the royal progress northwards. He found the King where he lay at Warwick Castle, and, entering to him at midnight, whispered of Sir John’s obstinate density and of the chaplain’s better understanding. A few minutes later Sir James Tyrrell, Master of the King’s Horse, started on his way back to London. He took with him a brace of confidants, fat trusty fellows, whose names should be pilloried throughout the ages. They were John Dighton and Miles Forrest, sinewy miscreants, as callous to suffering as Smithfield butchers. He took also a royal warrant, entrusting to him, for one night only, the custody of the fortress, its keys and passwords; and finally he took, for his personal comfort in the business, a sure conviction of his own damnation. Reaching the Tower, he displayed his commission, locked away all troublesome witnesses, emptied the outer ward, to which the public had access, of its loiterers, and had the place to himself. Having done which, he hastened with his two ruffians to the gate-house where the princes lay.
It was a close, windless night, with thunder brooding over the river. Every stone that slipped under the assassin’s feet jarred his nerves intolerably. He muttered to himself as he walked, wringing his wet forehead. The shadow of a figure that rose upon him from the shadowy porch brought an oath from his lips.
“Who’s that? Answer, and be damned!”
“Hist, good Sir James!” whispered the crawling priest. “Curse not thine own absolver.”
“A blasphemy,” answered Tyrrell; “or God Himself is a villain. Come,” he said intolerantly: “show us the way to hell.”