Sacred Treason (22 page)

“They killed my husband—and he was sixty-six years old.”

Clarenceux agreed. “It's not a matter of whether you are a threat or not; it's enough simply to know a threat exists. Your knowledge is their weakness. If you don't understand that, you are in grave peril.”

Clarenceux and Rebecca had to wait for several minutes for the water-carrier to return. Rebecca insisted that it was Clarenceux's turn to ride inside the water butt. He had accepted this quietly at first, being distracted with his thoughts of the chronicle, but as the time passed and the snow continued to fall, he began to argue. Why should he travel in a water butt? True, it was capacious—it was more than four feet in diameter—but it was simply an indignity. He would walk beside the cart. Rebecca could travel safely in the butt.

She protested. “You are the one to whom Henry entrusted the chronicle. We must keep you safe.”

“I have no intention of hiding in a barrel while you risk yourself.”

“I cannot quite fathom your excessive pride, Mr. Clarenceux. You tell other people to be practical, and yet here you are, sought by a royal sergeant-at-arms who has placed watchmen to find you, and you won't even get into a barrel. You know Sergeant Crackenthorpe is riding around this area. It is dangerous for you.”

“It is no less dangerous for you, Widow Machyn.”

The word hit home. It hurt.

Rebecca walked away. Clarenceux feared she was about to turn into Little Trinity Lane, in full view of the watchmen; but at the end of the alley she stopped, turned around and came back.

“I know I should not be upset, because all you did was tell the truth. I am Widow Machyn now. But it does upset me—because you intended it to hurt me. You just made a speech to Michael Hill about his knowledge being our enemies' weakness. Well, your knowledge is my weakness. Please be careful what you say, Mr. Clarenceux, because a hurtful word from you could destroy me.”

Clarenceux bowed his head. “I apologize, Goodwife Machyn.”

They heard the sound of the water-carrier's cart. Clarenceux looked up to see the old man shaking his head. “Thames Street is a busy place this afternoon, sir. I wouldn't like to take your lady wife along that way. Not in the barrel nor out of it. Not even for another shilling.”

“You don't have to, my good man. All you have to do is drive north from here. We will walk beside you, both of us. I will walk by your front wheel and my wife”—he glanced at Rebecca—“will walk beside the rear. I do believe we can avoid the men in Garlick Hill that way.”

“Awdrey must have the patience of a saint,” muttered Rebecca.

Daniel Gyttens was, like Michael Hill, a once-handsome man of about sixty, with high cheekbones and a pugnacious jaw. But he was dressed shabbily in an old doublet and jerkin, both of which he allowed to hang loose. “I daren't go out,” he explained, and Clarenceux could see from the fact that he wore his side-sword in the upper rooms of the bookseller's house that he was indeed too nervous to go anywhere. Instead he ate, drank, and read books borrowed from the bookseller below. When they entered his room there was a plate of bread and cheese on the table and an open copy of Edward Hall's
Vnion
of
the
Two
Noble
and
Illustrate
Famelies
of
Lancastre
and
Yorke
.

After the formal introductions, it soon appeared that Clarenceux and Gyttens had much in common. Both had been at the attack on Boulogne in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and both considered that that king's strategy had been as deplorable and misguided as his religious policy. Clarenceux remarked on the book Gyttens was reading, a Protestant work. “One should know one's enemies,” replied Gyttens, “and a bad historian is the most steadfast enemy of the truth.”

Clarenceux smiled. “Turning to the Knights of the Round Table, we need the names and dates of each Knight. The dates we believe all correspond with entries in Henry Machyn's chronicle. There is no hope of gathering all the Knights together, but if we can collect all the names and the dates, and then find the dates in the chronicle, we should be able to discover Henry's secret. Then we can start to bargain with those in power.”

Gyttens refilled his wine goblet. “That is easy enough. My name is Sir Reynold.”

Rebecca and Clarenceux looked at one another.

“No,” said Rebecca, worried.

“Well, it is.”

“But Sir Reynold is the name carried by Nicholas Hill.”

Gyttens shrugged. “I've met Nicholas Hill—he's a son of Michael Hill. I would be surprised if he had the same Arthurian name as me. That would not make sense.”

“It might,” Clarenceux mused. “We were told that Nicholas Hill took Sir Arthur Darcy's place as Sir Reynold.”

“Who by?”

“Michael Hill.”

That seemed to cause Daniel Gyttens some discomfort. He lifted his wine glass to his lips and drank.

“Were you one of the founders of the fellowship?” asked Rebecca. “Do you remember what happened in 1550, the year of the foundation?”

Gyttens took another swig of wine. “No, no, you've got it all wrong. It was many years before that. After the Pilgrimage of Grace had failed and all those northern lords were hanged for daring to stand up for the true faith. You'll get a different explanation from Edward Hall, of course, but it's in there too.”

Clarenceux remembered the horror. Twenty-six years ago, more than two hundred men had been executed by the king, including abbots, priors, lords, and members of the gentry. It had been one of the bloodiest stains upon that bloody king's character. Man after man of distinction had gone to the gallows, the king's officers mercilessly killing them for speaking the truth.

Rebecca was confused. “But the chronicle begins on the thirteenth of June 1550, when my husband, Sir Arthur Darcy, and John Heath dined together at the Bull's Head. We have assumed the fellowship was founded then. Are you saying that that was not the case?”

“Well, when I say it was after the Pilgrimage of Grace, that was when we started to meet. We didn't have Arthurian names then, but we were angry. And we wanted revenge on the king.”

“What date did Henry give you?” asked Clarenceux.

“June the nineteenth, 1556.”

Clarenceux nodded, satisfied. “So there are indeed two Sir Reynolds. You have one date and Nicholas Hill has another, June the fifteenth, 1552. But
why
have two Sir Reynolds? It is hardly the most auspicious of Arthurian names. Why no Sir Bedivere? Galahad? Gawain? Kay? King Uther—even Merlin?”

“Maybe those are the names we don't know?” Rebecca speculated.

“We know seven now—King Clariance, Lancelot, Dagonet, Reynold—twice—Ector, and Yvain. There are only two more. That leaves several famous Arthurian names unused.” He turned to Gyttens. “Do you know any more dates?”

“No. Only my own. We were all instructed never to let anyone else know them. It is only because you are Henry Machyn's friend that I feel I can trust you. Obviously others have trusted you too.”

Rebecca turned to Clarenceux. “We need the chronicle. We need to return to Summerhill…”

Clarenceux suddenly frowned at her and shook his head. She gave him an inquiring glance, and then was mortified, realizing the meaning of his expression.
If
Crackenthorpe
finds
Gyttens, he will be interrogated. A man who wears a side-sword by day in his lodgings is hardly a man with the strength of mind to resist torture: he is torturing himself.

“We do need to see the chronicle, you are right. But first let us go and see Draper,” he said. “We have that one last lead to follow up. Let us do that now, before dark. We know his Arthurian name, but we must get the date too. After we have seen him, we will have done as much as we can for the time being.”

“Can we eat something before we go?” asked Rebecca. “I am desperately hungry.” She looked down at the bread and cheese on the table. “I am so famished I can't think clearly.”

“Help yourself,” said Gyttens with a slightly drunken flourish of his hand. “Christian bodies need sustenance as much as Christian souls.”

The light was fading as they left the house in Paternoster Row. A blanket of snow lay across the street, trampled into hard paths by pedestrians. Never did the city look so pure and clean, thought Rebecca—the perpetual mud had been frozen solid and concealed by a layer of white. The roofs were similarly pristine. The footsteps of a hundred thousand citizens and visitors to the city packed the snow down hard on the ice and made the ground slippery. The air was full of the smell of wood smoke. Some boys by the gate to the cathedral yard were sliding on a smooth patch—a long frozen puddle now covered in compacted snow. They laughed as one fell over and carried on skidding on his back.

Clarenceux looked up as he put on his gloves and watched the heavy snowflakes falling against the backdrop of the tower of St. Paul's. The cathedral still looked broken to him. All his life he had known the tall spire—one of the tallest in Christendom—and then one day, as he had been sitting in his study, Awdrey had run up the stairs to tell him it had fallen. He had not believed her until he had seen it with his own eyes—something so magnificent and holy reduced to a gaping hole, a mass of splintered oak, and smashed stone. Now just the stunted tower stood there, gaunt against the gray sky, snowflakes falling like sad blessings all around it.

Something had broken in London that day. Since then, nothing had been wholly good or perfect. England was struggling on, like the cathedral, damaged in spite of the prayers of the faithful. It was as if the faithful were drinking wine from a broken cup.

He walked in a somber mood beside Rebecca through the wide street of Cheapside. The last market stalls were still doing business but most had now closed up. The purchasers had departed, unable to confirm the quality of the goods in the dim light and driven away by the snow. Traders were loading their panniers and baskets onto carts or loading up packhorses, calling out to one another as they worked. Some were warming their hands over a fire of broken-up wooden boxes that they had lit in the street.

One of the market traders recognized Clarenceux and waved a greeting. Clarenceux nodded perfunctorily in reply.

“Do you think this is safe?” asked Rebecca.

“Crackenthorpe has been searching for me since Sunday. He has probably been looking even longer for you. Do you think they imagine we are walking through the middle of the main market street in London?”

“They might.”

“We are hidden by people. If we were in an alley and ran into Crackenthorpe, we would be the only ones present—he'd recognize us instantly. At least, he would recognize me. But here there are too many distractions.”

They turned off left, along Ironmongers Lane, following a crowd of hooded and hatted men and women heading in the same direction, all hunched up against the cold. The chill wind sent the snowflakes swirling for a moment between the houses, and blowing them into their faces. A dog padded along behind its master, leaving claw marks in the compacted snow. A broken sign above a tavern hung at an angle, its design almost invisible against the darkening sky, while below it men and women were queuing up to go inside, into the warmth. The music of a lute, a tambourine, and a man's voice could be heard as they passed the open door. A cart stood on one side of the road, the snow on its wheel rim undisturbed until a boy ran his hand over it, gathering the snow to throw at another boy who was chasing him.

“Not much further now,” Clarenceux said, looking around warily.

They crossed quickly into Basinghall Street, both of them watchful. But even here they were surrounded by people going home. An old woman came toward them dragging a handcart loaded with firewood, struggling against the flow of pedestrians. A younger woman on a gray horse rode behind her, with a large, faded blue blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Snow was piled thickly on the rungs of a ladder propped against the side of a house, and the barrel at the foot was frozen over, with snow across the surface of the ice and heaped over the rim.

Clarenceux pointed to the large redbrick house on their left, rising proudly above the snow. Its tall windows were filled with many small panes of glass, some with armorial designs. Two of the windows on the first floor projected out in a semicircle above the street and rose through to the second floor. This new-built house, three bays wide, shouted of fashion, money, authority, and distinction.

Clarenceux climbed up the three steps to the front door, which was intricately decorated with ironwork, and knocked hard. He looked around—across the street, past the snow-piled ladder, back to the crossroads—but there were no obvious signs of watchmen.

The door opened. It was dark within, but they could see the servant's bald pate.

“Greetings to you and your master. I have come to speak to Mr. Draper on the most urgent business. My name is William Harley, Clarenceux King of Arms. This is Goodwife Machyn.”

The bald man was dour. “Is Mr. Draper expecting you?”

“In a manner of speaking,” replied Clarenceux. “May we come in?”

“It is very cold out here,” Rebecca added with a smile.

The bald man did not smile back. “If Mr. Draper is expecting you, you had best wait in the hall.” He held the door open while Clarenceux and Rebecca shook the snow from their feet on the doorstep and stepped inside. “This way,” he said, leading them into a dark passageway.

A moment later, they emerged into a spacious hall lit by candles. The ceiling was in shadow, about forty feet above them. One wall was largely composed of glass from head height upward, windows twelve feet high. On the opposite side there were benches piled with colored cushions. Halfway along was an elaborate fireplace, where a fire burnt slowly, hissing with new wood. Candles flickered silently, fixed to the wall, and above the fireplace was a frieze of plasterwork that seemed to be painted with bare-breasted black women. Portraits hung on either side of the fireplace, and an Arras tapestry at the far end, above a table on a dais, showed an army besieging a town beside the sea.

“Wait here,” the servant commanded and disappeared up a small staircase that led from the far corner of the dais.

“Draper certainly has money,” commented Rebecca, looking up at the carved wooden ceiling in the shadows, noticing the gold leaf on the beams in the candlelight.

Clarenceux lifted his eyes to follow Rebecca's line of sight and caught the curve of her neck in the light of the candles before he looked away and up into the beams. He did not care for the quantity of gold leaf on display. He looked back at Rebecca and saw the mole on the side of her face.
There
can
be
beauty
in
imperfection, and imperfection in something as beautiful as this hall.

He turned away again, wondering what could be taking the servant such a long time, and looked up at the tapestry. It was difficult to make anything out.
Perhaps
it
is
supposed
to
represent
Calais? The supposedly impregnable English town on the French coast. It took the great King Edward III nearly a year to capture it two hundred years ago. And England held onto it for all that time—until Queen Mary let it slip through her fingers five years ago. She might have been a Catholic but she was still a bad ruler. The burnings, the neglect of duty, her fear and the resultant oppression, the concentration on herself and her royal will…Even Catholic queens have their faults.

Rebecca looked at him. She came closer and spoke in a very low voice. “How comes it that Mr. Draper is the only one of the Knights whom we have found in his own house?”

Clarenceux did not understand why she was asking the question. Why should they not find a rich merchant in his own house?

“I am worried, Mr. Clarenceux. Mr. Hill was so fearful he pointed pistols at us. You had to leave your house. I had to too. Lancelot Heath is in hiding. Everyone is in hiding. But not Mr. Draper.”

As she stopped speaking, he heard again the voice of her husband in his ears.
I
trusted
the
wrong
man. Everything is gone. It is over for me.

“What can they be discussing up there?” he asked aloud, realizing the only possible answer as he said the words.

Nothing.

The blood in his face turned to cold fear. “You're right. We've walked into a trap,” he whispered.

“Do you think he's with Walsingham?”

“I don't know. But I'm going to find Draper now, before it's too late…”

Even before he finished the sentence, Clarenceux started moving. By the time he was at the staircase, he was in a run. His knee hurt but he was not going to let it stop him. He put his foot on the first step and realized the need for stealth and slowed. He turned around; Rebecca was following. He raised a finger to his lips, then turned and crept up the stairs.

At the top, on the landing, a candle burnt on a small table under a picture of the Virgin on the wall. He crossed himself and then looked at the door in front of him. There was a latch. He put his hand forward, enclosing the metal, said a small prayer, and opened the door.

It took Clarenceux barely two seconds to understand the geography of the betrayal. He saw the long paneled room, the two fireplaces, the candles on the walls, and the writing table at one end. He saw the door directly opposite and the curtain on the inside—still drawn back. The servant had not closed it behind him when he left. He saw the narrow-faced, gray-bearded man at the desk at the far end of the room—with a look of surprise on his face—and he saw the pistol on the desk. But in those two seconds, without any fear at all, he worked out exactly what he would do.

When Draper saw Clarenceux enter, he realized that he had underestimated the herald. He had hoped the man would wait obediently in the hall. He was too shocked for his mind and body to respond. He reached out a hand for the pistol but he fumbled, and by the time his finger found the trigger, Clarenceux was already at the fireplace. He looked on in fear as a gloved hand reached for one of the hot, silver-headed firedogs, lifted it, and threw it straight at him. He ducked, trying to avoid the spinning hot metal, but he was too slow; the edge of the foot caught him on the side of the head. An instant later Clarenceux was on him, pulling the pistol away and throwing it across the room with one hand while wrenching his hair out of his scalp with the other as he dragged him away from his desk. Draper was stumbling, head low, yelling with pain as Clarenceux ripped his hair out in tufts.

“This is for Henry Machyn!” roared Clarenceux, grabbing Draper's beard in his fingers. He punched him in the face as hard as he could, breaking his nose. Draper's head jolted back and he fell, blood leaking across the floor. “And this is for Will Terry, an innocent boy who never did a wrong deed.” Draper's body contorted as Clarenceux's boot broke a rib.

Clarenceux bent down and seized Draper's hair again and twisted his face upward so he could look at him. “Now, I have one question for you. I know your Arthurian name is Sir Dagonet. The buffoon whom King Arthur knighted in jest. What is your date? Tell me.”

“May your soul burn in hell and your body rot…” gasped Draper.

Clarenceux glanced at Rebecca. She was standing by the door as if she wanted to run. He listened; as yet there was no noise from below.

He turned back to Draper. “One last chance.”

Draper said nothing.

Clarenceux took the knife from his belt and held the blade directly in front of Draper's right eye, half an inch away. “I said, one last chance. Or I am going to cut out your eyes.”

“The…sixteenth of June.”

“The year?”

“1559.”

Clarenceux took the knife away and sheathed it. “You are a proud man, Mr. Draper. You must have once believed in the cause, or Henry Machyn would not have chosen you. But you would rather give your soul to your mortal enemies than stand by your friends in Christ. As disciples go, you are Judas.”

He stood up and looked across at Draper's writing table. He saw a large leather pouch, walked over, and took it. It contained three gold sovereigns, several gold half-sovereigns and angels, ten large new silver crowns, and a few silver shillings, groats, and pennies. He hesitated for a moment, then remembered the money taken from the box in his own house, and the gold leaf on display in the hall. He pulled the pouch strings closed and tucked it into a pocket of his doublet, then glanced back at the figure of Draper.

“Men have died because of your faithlessness. Remember that.”

Then, with a final look around the room, he strode to the door opposite the one by which they had come in and beckoned to Rebecca.

“The servant will think we don't know about this route, so he will enter with Crackenthorpe by the front door. Come, quickly.”

It was cold and dark on the narrow winding stairs. Clarenceux found himself reaching out for the walls, steadying himself as he descended, not knowing where they would come out. When the stairs stopped, he found himself in blackness, uncertain whether he was at the foot of the stairs or on a landing.

“I can hear someone—footsteps running,” whispered Rebecca.

Clarenceux knew there was no time. He dropped onto all fours, cursed the bruising of his knee, and felt around. A moment later he felt a wall and then steps going down.
They
could
lead
to
a
cellar.

There were voices above. Clarenceux could hear his own hurried breathing and sensed Rebecca's anxiety. A faint light caught his eye, level with his feet.
It
is
gray
light, not candlelight. It has to be the bottom of an outside door. I just pray that the servant left it unlocked.

“Goodwife Machyn,” he whispered, standing up and reaching out for her. He touched the wall first and then her outstretched hand. He held it. “Be careful, there are steps here,” he said, guiding her past them.