“Accursed spawn of Satan,” hissed the Abbot, “how dare you flaunt me thus? When Cicely was wed to Christopher she wore those very gems; I have it from those who saw her decked in them—the necklace on her bosom, the priceless rosebud pearls hanging from her ears.”
“Oho! oho!” said Emlyn; “so you own that she was wed, the pure soul whom but now you called a wanton. Look you, Sir Abbot, we will fence no more. She wore the jewels. Jeffrey took nothing hence save your death-warrant.”
“Then where are they?” he asked, striking his fist upon the table.
“Where? Why, where you’ll never follow them—gone up to heaven in the fire. Thinking we might be robbed, I hid them behind a secret panel in her chamber, purposing to return for them later. Go, rake out the ashes; you might find a cracked diamond or two, but not the pearls; they fly in fire. There, that’s the truth at last, and much good may it do to you.”
The Abbot groaned. Like most Spaniards he was emotional, and could not help it; his bitterness burst from his heart.
Emlyn laughed at him.
“See how the wise and mighty of this world overshoot themselves,” she said. “Clement Maldonado, I have known you for some twenty years, and when I was called the Beauty of Blossholme, and the Abbot who went before you made me the Church’s ward, though I ever hated you, who hunted down my father, you had softer words for me than those you name me by to-day. Well, I have watched you rise and I shall watch you fall, and I know your heart and its desires. Money is what you lust for and must have, for otherwise how will you gain your end? It was the jewels that you needed, not the Shefton lands, which are worth little now-a-days, and will soon be worth less. Why, one of those pink pearls placed among the Jews would buy three parishes, with their halls thrown in. For the sake of those jewels you have brought death on some and misery on some, and on your own soul damnation without end, though had you but been wise and consulted me—why, they, or some of them, might have been yours. Sir John was no fool; he would have parted with a pearl or two, of which he did not know the value, to end a feud against the Church and safeguard his title and his daughter. And now, in your madness, you’ve burnt them—burnt a king’s ransom, or what might have pulled down a king. Oh! had you but guessed it, you’d have hacked off the hand that put a torch to Cranwell Towers, for now the gold you need is lacking to you, and therefore all your grand schemes will fail, and you’ll be buried in their ruin, as you thought we were in Cranwell.”
The Abbot, who had listened to this long and bitter speech in patience, groaned again.
“You are a clever woman,” he said; “we understand each other, coming from the same blood. You know the case; what is your counsel to me now?”
“That which you will not take, being foredoomed for your sins. Still I’ll give it honestly. Set the Lady Cicely free, restore her lands, confess your evil doings. Fly the kingdom before Cromwell turns on you and Henry finds you out, taking with you all the gold that you can gather, and bribe the Emperor Charles to give you a bishopric in Granada or elsewhere—not near Seville, for reasons that you know. So shall you live honoured, and one day, after you have been dead a long while and many things are forgotten, perchance be beatified as Saint Clement of Blossholme.”