The Cleaving Of Paycocke’s by Orlando Wysocki.
Category: Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Paperback: 538 pages
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1906146608
ISBN-13: 978-1906146603

May 1487

"John Paycocke saw blood where there was none, only where it had been, a shadow of past lives. He was a butcher accustomed to carnage and to life spilling easily from carcass to clay, yet now John’s palms flushed crimson with guilt and shame.

But which man would not have done the same for his three sons? A tarnished coin has as much value as one shiny with dew. With such wealth he might be a butcher no more, but a clothier, prosperous and fat on good venison and boar, his sons growing strong by his side. He might move to Coxhall, build a house and in times to come his own sons would build houses there too and the future of the Paycocke family would be assured.

It had been a dream turned sour by knowledge and curdled further by the realisation that there might be no way back, the riches tainted. Once something is known, it might not be unknown. A royal coin taken can never be returned. This John knew he must live with, he and only he. He was proud to serve the house of Tudor, but at what cost would it be?

As the wain left Suffolk for Essex he turned one last time in the direction of Walsingham to the north, where lately King Henry had been on Easter pilgrimage, praying to Our Lady for a miracle. John uttered his own prayer, for such a miracle would serve him well.

Paycocke would pray for Henry too, a good man, despite all, that he might vanquish the pretender Simnel and that he might return England to a peace and stability squandered by the reckless third Richard. He would pray for his sons: John, Robert and young Thomas. He would protect them. Aye, he knew as yet not how, but he would find a way."

20th February 1923

"Holst adjusted his spectacles and peered at first violin. Smythe nodded only with his eyelids, flicking his bow an inch in the air to firm his assent. How strange they all looked in their rehearsal garb, these musicians so recently in a different uniform, their lives spared for reasons Gustav could not fathom. He raised his baton, holding his breath to accentuate the complete silence.

Cello came in a hair early and Gustav blamed himself: he had twitched; his signals had not been clear; his hand was shaking; nerves. As it ever was. As it had come to be. A dizziness washed over him and he closed his eyes. The Planets had proved to be a millstone in its triumph by dint of its ravenous expectation, emphasising his mortality. He stepped from the rostrum and looked around. Reading. Yes, he was at Reading. It was good to know where one stood.

"Gentlemen," he said. Rows of faces inclined to him. "Gentlemen..." He had forgotten what he intended to say, as if the altitude drop from rostrum to stage had compromised his memory. Did these musicians see failure spark from his eyes, he who had promised so much? From The Planets down to earth. Gustav had thought his new opera The Perfect Fool worthy, its scoring more elegant than even Saturn, and yet who knew the minds of the critics? Doubt. They might distill doubt from talent, reduce his piece to farce. Now he himself was unsure as to the merit of the libretto, was vexed by fears that his works exhibited a single dimension. His head throbbed and he gripped the bridge of his nose between his thumb and ring finger, aggravating the ache in an effort to make it pass. How could he rehearse? He ought to dismiss the orchestra, but that would be yet more failure. Holst turned to face the musicians once more and an excruciating pain torched his arm. The neuralgia again. The players seemed to loom en masse, filling his vision with their monochrome and their whispering voices. He stepped back, finding air. The baton escaped his hand and he clutched for it, before falling from the stage and smacking his head on something unyielding.

Gustav lay still, imagining forcing his eyes open, picturing himself raising his body and saying, ‘It is all right. I am quite well.’ But all was not well, he knew that. All had never truly been well, nor might it ever be well. There was Isobel and there was Imogen. If only Imogen were here. If only he could see the world through his daughter’s eyes, fresh and untainted, then he might rest.

The perfect fool. He lost consciousness."