Final Sacrament (Clarenceux Trilogy) (27 page)

Clarenceux did not speak to Fyndern. He did not even speak to Thomas. He did not even look at them. He withdrew into the darkness of himself, seeking the core of his despair.

It was the realization of how he had let this happen to his wife, how naive he had been, that caused his double distress. He did not just weep for her; he cursed himself for not recognizing the danger Greystoke had posed. He was like the unseeing optimist, telling his wife to trust him when truly he did not know what lay in wait. But that was the character of John Greystoke: he was not just cruel, selfish, and calculating; he was deceptive too. The
vipera
that lies in wait, curled in the bosom of one’s own heart, getting closer and closer and eventually poisoning the soul from within.

Four hours later, in the cold, early afternoon, with the briefest of explanations to Thomas as to where he was going, Clarenceux left the house. Walking swiftly, he passed along Shoe Lane, across Holborn Bridge, up to St. Giles in the Fields, and then down Drury Lane. There he stopped, looking across the gardens at the back of Cecil House. He breathed the air of the day, wishing that somehow his breathing would cease, extinguishing his problems as easily as a candle flame is extinguished when pinched.

There was still one little ray of light left to him, however, and she was in the house that now lay before him. Behind those glass windows, beneath those stone carvings and pinnacles—despite all that carved pomp and elegance—there was a girl who now was the only other free member of his family. With quickening steps he hurried toward Cecil House.

Annie was in the garden, surrounded by a small court of servants. Little Robert Cecil—a diminutive three years of age to her seven—was playing with a ball made of an inflated leather-covered bladder, throwing it to her or kicking it and letting it bounce. She was going after it, albeit slowly, and throwing it or kicking it back. One lady in a dark-red embroidered kirtle was anxiously following her with a small form for her to sit on, it being only three days since her fever had broken. But Annie did not want to sit and refused all suggestions, even when she fell over. Clarenceux recognized a familiar stubbornness. He also smiled to see that Annie was behaving very responsibly to the young boy, as if she were his older sister.

Gradually all the ladies, gentlemen, ushers, and other servants recognized that Clarenceux had come to be alone with his daughter. They bowed to him and withdrew in ones and twos, taking young Robert with them and leaving Annie alone with her father.

“Will you walk with me a little way, Annie?” he asked, holding out his hand.

She took it. “Where are we going?”

“A short walk. I think that you and I should talk a little.”

They came to a seat in a small enclosed part of the garden; Clarenceux sat, listening to the birdsong. Annie nestled close.

“I am going to have to go away soon,” he began. “There are men and women who have…well, they have hurt your mother and sister. It falls to me to right the wrongs they have done.”

“What have they done to them?”

“They have taken them away and locked them in a room.”

Annie looked very solemn, at the ground. “Robert Cecil will be sent away to school when he is five. I am seven. Can I go to school?”

Clarenceux put his arm around her. “Girls don’t go to school, Annie. Girls are taught to read by their parents. Or a tutor.”

The air in the garden smelled so cold and so sweet. The bright sun on the hedges about them and the sparkling on the bare twigs above highlighted the fleeting moment.

“Will you teach me to read?”

He felt his chest tighten. “I will do all I can.” He hugged her gently. There was so much he wanted to say to her, about things she would need to learn in life—about families, about history and the wonders of past centuries, and about the joy of having children and seeing them grow, and understanding the future through them. All of this would have to wait. She would find out in her own time.

“You are sighing a lot,” said Annie.

“Am I?” laughed Clarenceux, releasing her.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I love you,” he replied with a lump in his throat. “Because I so dearly love you.”

Clarenceux led Thomas and Fyndern out of the house and locked the door behind them. He did not look up at the house opposite. He remained silent as he walked across Fleet Bridge and through the darkening streets. At Ludgate he spoke brusquely with the guard about the urgent business he, Thomas, and his stable boy had to see to in the city, and gestured to Thomas’s lantern, which was necessary for them to go about the city later, after curfew. Soon the three of them were walking through the city proper, with its overhanging timber houses, frozen mud, and gravel streets. The signs above the doorways were fading in the dusk, and people heading for home were dark forms, huddled inside their cloaks against the cold. Church steeples conspired against the sky.

The three men wove through the streets and alleys, around the north side of the cathedral, through Paternoster Row, where the booksellers had already shut up shop, and up to Cheapside, where the market stalls were being cleared away from the wide street. They went eastward, past people carrying market goods on their backs, on their heads, and in baskets; past Goldsmiths Row, past the water-bearers and the great conduit. At the east end of Cheapside they turned right down Lombard Street beneath the gaunt tower of St. Mary Woolnoth and then, after a short distance, they came to Gracechurch Street. Crossing it and passing the church that gave its name to St. Dionis Backchurch, they turned left into Lime Street and then left again into the alley leading to the Black Swan.

The inn was a substantial old building tucked away behind other houses so that hardly any of it showed on the alley. The hall was still open to the rafters, with a rush-covered earthen floor in front of a large brick fireplace. Flasks and bottles stood in the shadows on high wooden shelves, and several spare candles hung in pairs from the common wick between them, draped over metal hooks in the wall. It was crowded with about seventy or eighty people—hot, smelly, and dimly lit, with the fire burning and six bright pricks of candlelight on tables and another eight set on holders attached to the walls. Laughter and chatter were in the air—and music too. Three men were playing together in the far corner: one with a fiddle, another with a set of pipes, and the third with a tabor. The tabor player was beating out exciting rhythms to which various men and women would dance for a short while before stopping to drink their beer. At the far end of the hall were two doors: one leading to the buttery, or so Clarenceux surmised, and the other leading to the private quarters.

As he searched the faces and people, some sitting on benches, others standing, he struggled to see anyone with an apron. He noted round-faced workers; hearty shopkeepers; builders with naked biceps glistening in the candlelight beneath their jerkins; two clerks or students nearby; and leather- and russet-clad workers of all descriptions, some with hats, some with shirts open. Four young women sat together at a table, as rowdy as their menfolk, but otherwise there were only a few women present, dotted here and there in the throng. There was barely room enough to move. It seemed a most unlikely establishment in which to find a Catholic priest.

Clarenceux caught sight of a woman carrying tankards, but before he could signal to her there was a chanting sound and clapping. Shouts of “Alice! Alice!” filled the hall. Clarenceux looked about for this Alice—and noted that Fyndern was staring straight across the room to the left-hand of the two doors. His attention was so strongly fixed that Clarenceux found himself bound to follow his gaze. A young dark-haired women stood there, seventeen or eighteen years of age, of slight proportions and a gracious smile. But it was not her face or her hair that was drawing Fyndern’s attention: it was what she was wearing. It was like a woman’s thin linen smock, except it was black. It fitted her body very closely and showed off her curves. Most shocking of all, it revealed her bare arms. Clarenceux suspected that if he could get close enough, he would see her ankles exposed too. Just to see her moving in that shiny black smock was enticing; when she stopped and placed her hands on her hips, looking sideways with a smile, every man present except Clarenceux inwardly sighed, groaned with desire, or shouted with lust.

She broke her pose and walked toward the musicians, who followed her from the corner to a position in the middle of the long wall of the hall. She raised her hands above her head and turned to the crowd. There was a great cheer: she started clapping rhythmically and the crowd did likewise, following her lead. The tabor player picked up the rhythm and added some flourishes of his own, playing double beats. The fiddle player started up with a fast tune, giving the cue for the piper, who followed suit. With the crowd all clapping, the young woman put her hands on her hips again and held the pose just long enough to increase the excitement.

Her confidence was extraordinary. To stand there as an object of attention, practically alone, and yet smiling and holding that pose, drew not just the eye but the whole mind. Thomas nudged Clarenceux and pointed to Fyndern, who did not even realize they were looking at him. “We’ve lost him, for sure,” he said. Clarenceux nodded, turning to look for the landlord but now unable even to see the woman with the tankards. People had not come here for the beer.

When the young woman began to move, Fyndern was not alone in staring at her hips, which undulated and swayed as if she was a river in which every man would want to swim. The women too were fascinated, struck by the confidence with which the girl danced, catching the eye of the each of her admirers, and emulating the movements of sexual gratification provocatively in front of them all.

Fyndern closed his eyes, just to see if he could believe what was before his eyes—but he opened them again quickly, not wanting to miss a moment. He tried to imagine his cheek close to the thin black cloth over her hips—staring as it shifted back and forth with her rhythmic movements. But then he looked at her shoulders: those too were equally sensual…There were just so many parts of her to look at it; her whole body was a sea plant, its fronts undulating with the waves.

A middle-aged man with a beard and bushy eyebrows moved through the crowd, filling tankards. He was the only other person in the hall besides Clarenceux not staring at the dancing girl. The bushy-eyebrowed man, who was tall but not as tall as Clarenceux, noticed him and waited as Clarenceux pushed his way through the open-mouthed onlookers toward him.

“I am looking for a beer called Old Faithful,” Clarenceux said.

There was a huge cheer as the woman presented herself side on to the crowd, put her chin on her shoulder, and started to tweak the skirt of her black smock, swinging her hips as she did so. Clarenceux did not turn away from the man.

“You don’t look the type to drink Old Faithful.”

Clarenceux drew closer to him. “I will see him. Either you introduce me or I will do so myself.” He looked the man in the eye again, and repeated slowly and clearly, “Old Faithful.”

The bushy-eyebrowed man turned his expression to the right-hand of the two doors. He pointed and then, slowly, elevated his finger to indicate the room above that door. “Don’t cause trouble.”

Clarenceux started to push through the crowd. It took him some time to reach the door—people did not want to be disturbed as they watched the dancing. Thomas was behind him; Fyndern was still spellbound. “Wait here,” Clarenceux said in Thomas’s ear. “Make sure no one follows me.” He took a deep breath, lifted the latch, pushed the door open, and went through, closing it behind him.

In opening the door, Clarenceux caught a glimpse of the room beyond. There was a substantial ladder set into the wall to the right. The music from the hall was muffled and he had the impression that there had been another sound, a tinkling noise in the distance. Had it been his imagination? He felt around the doorframe for a string that might have rung a bell but found none, and stepped forward, reaching for the ladder. Gripping both sides, he started to ascend, slowly, hearing the faint music, cheers, and clapping from the adjacent hall. One step, two. After a third step his head struck an oak board, which shifted slightly. It was a wide and heavy cover. When he pushed upward, it resisted on the hinged side. He adjusted where he was pressing and pushed harder, raising it.

He was greeted by a single golden light. There was a smell of burning and recently extinguished candles, sealing wax, the fug of airlessness and body odors. He pushed the hatch all the way open and moved up into the light.

“Stop there,” came a nasal, slightly high-pitched man’s voice. “Who are you?”

Clarenceux did not stop. He climbed the last steps and looked around the attic chamber. There was one candle on a holder attached to a beam, not far from the hatch. The noise from the hall continued.

“Who are you and what are you doing here? Speak now—I have a pistol aimed at your chest.”

“You do not frighten me,” said Clarenceux, walking to the candle and lifting it aloft. He saw the slope of the roof, the underside of the shingles. The room covered the space above the buttery and the downstairs chambers, and was more extensive than he had anticipated. In the shadows were various items of furniture—but no people.

“Who would have thought of finding you, a Catholic priest, hiding in a bawdy house such as this?”

The voice continued its same nasal monotone. “Who are you?”

“I am the one you will not shoot, Father Buckman. The man to whom you owe your soul. The man whose wife and daughter you have stolen.”

“Clarenceux.”

“I am he.”

“You owe me a document.”

“I owe you nothing. You have hounded me, persecuted me, shot my elder daughter, taken my wife and raped her, taken my other daughter, killed my maidservant, made foul use of my property—and my soul is sick of it, tired and sick.”

Cheers rang out from the hall downstairs, clapping and hoots, which gave way to chants. The musicians struck up another tune.

The nasal voice seemed colder. “Then I suggest you do something to cure your sickness. Return the rightful property of Lord Percy to his widow, and your wife and child will be returned.”

Clarenceux held the candle aloft and walked toward where Buckman was hiding. “I am not going to let you, or John Greystoke, or anyone else anywhere near that document until I know for certain that my wife and daughter are safe and well. Take them into Oxfordshire.” Clarenceux moved to one side. There was a table there with a desk slope upon it. An open inkwell, several folios of used and blank paper, and three leather books were also on the table. The candlelight caught the rim of a small bronze bell fixed to a truss.

“Would you care to suggest a particular place in Oxfordshire?” asked Buckman.

Clarenceux did not answer but began to look around the attic, avoiding hitting his head on the trusses of the roof. When he came to the two chests, one on top of the other, he drew back. Buckman had placed a tabletop on its side next to them, allowing him a hiding place such as a child would make when playing in an attic full of furniture. Clarenceux saw the glint of a glass moving and walked back to the hatch, where he set the candle back in its holder. He then moved into the darkness himself.

“I will only hand the document over to you or to Greystoke in person. A time of reckoning has come.”

“If you have a duel in mind, I warn you Greystoke is one of the best swords in the kingdom, and a fine shot too.”

Clarenceux maneuvered himself behind the chests and saw Buckman move out of his hiding place, around to the far side. He was weasel-like and thin, not tall but with little hair, bespectacled and dressed in a cassock. He was holding a gun and pointing it at Clarenceux as he backed away toward the hatch.

“Go on, run away, if that’s what you are edging over there for,” said Clarenceux from Buckman’s hiding place. “Go and see Greystoke; tell him to make arrangements to take my wife and daughter to Great Milton in Oxfordshire. That is close to where we will make the exchange.”

Buckman was near the candle now. He blinked repeatedly as he backed away, holding the gun, saying nothing. Within reach of the candle, he snuffed out the flame, leaving Clarenceux in darkness, and descended the ladder as quickly as he could. Clarenceux heard the dying strains of the music downstairs: less applause this time, and no shouts. He felt his way across the attic in the darkness and followed Buckman. At the foot of the ladder he felt for the door and found the latch at the same time as Thomas opened it. He looked over his servant’s shoulder across the candlelit space of the hall to see Buckman leaving by the main door.

Fyndern was staring alternately at Buckman and at Clarenceux, as if asking what he should do.

“Curse the boy,” said Thomas, “he’s too slow. I told him to follow the man.”

“No,” replied Clarenceux. “Let him go. Buckman’s armed—no need for Fyndern to risk himself. Besides, Buckman’s too sharp to lead us to Awdrey. He will lie low, once he has made sure he has not been followed.”

The fiddle player was playing alone now. There was an air of drunkenness and the noise of chatter in the hall. A group of men had gathered around the dancing girl and she was laughing nervously, looking from one to the next.

“Where is the innkeeper?” asked Clarenceux.

Thomas indicated the other door. “Replenishing tankards.”

Clarenceux took the nearest wall-fixed candle, despite a few glances and complaints from drinkers nearby, and put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “Come with me,” he said as he headed back toward the stairs and up through the hatch, clutching the small light.

He lit the candle that Buckman had extinguished and took the second light across to the table. The papers were theological notes, nothing in code. He opened the heavy leather cover of the first and largest of the three volumes: it was a Bible in Latin. The second was in Italian, Dante’s
Inferno
. The third book he recognized as soon as he glimpsed it: it was Henry Machyn’s manuscript chronicle. Someone had stolen it from his house.

“Mr. Clarenceux,” said Thomas, who had kicked apart the straw mattress and bedding and was now inspecting the two large chests. They were each about three feet high, four feet wide and two feet deep. He lifted one end of the upper chest with some difficulty, due to the weight of the oak. It was locked.