Sacred Treason (19 page)

They continued down, below ground. Here was an undercroft, wholly devoid of natural light. Clarenceux pushed the door and saw by his candle that the room was vaulted and empty apart from a couple of old broken barrels. He turned back to the staircase. From here on down it was a spiral; Julius was still descending.

“Where does this lead?” Clarenceux asked, hearing the echo of his voice.

“You'll soon see.”

They continued down for another forty or fifty steps. At the bottom, the stairs ended at the mouth of a passage. Clarenceux rubbed his knee, which hurt after the long descent. He lifted his lantern and inspected the rock but he could not identify it in the candlelight. He scraped the surface with his knife: it was soft and, where he had scratched it, white. It was chalk.

The passage sloped gently. At the upper end, far away, was a vague spot of greenish daylight. The descending tunnel led into complete darkness.

“There are miles of passages under the house,” said Julius, his voice echoing. He held his lantern aloft, illuminating his face as well as the passage. “They are the remains of an ancient quarry. The people who built them were probably looking for flints for their houses, but in so doing, they created a labyrinth. When my ancestor, Sir John Fawcett, bought the manor, he decided to build a fortified house on top and to fortify the passages beneath. The house and passages work together in a most subtle way. Up there, where you see that light, is an opening in the side of the hill, about forty feet beyond the corner of the outer courtyard and thinly covered in ivy. Now, come and look at this. Mind, do not walk in front of my lantern. Keep back behind me.”

He led them up the passage toward the distant daylight.

At first he walked at a normal pace but gradually he slowed. “Careful,” he warned. “There. Stop.”

At first neither Clarenceux nor Rebecca could see anything. The hillside opening was still almost a hundred yards away, and the floor looked as dark and as uneven as the rest of the passage. But then something caught his eye, something not quite right. And as he looked at it, he began to see that the chalk he was looking at was not horizontal, or nearly so, as the floor would be, but vertical, dropping down from the level he stood on. In fact, it was the far side of a shaft, about twelve feet long, and running the entire width of the passage.

“Take two steps further forward and you would fall into that chasm. It is forty-eight feet and three inches deep—I know because I measured it with a rope when I was a boy. You would land on a series of jagged rocks, placed there by Sir John to break bones, I imagine. And just supposing you managed to survive that, you would have to crawl in complete darkness through the tunnels for about half a mile—
if
you knew the way out.”

Clarenceux looked up at the opening. “But why have the entrance outside the house? Why not inside where it would be better protected?”

“Ah. He was a clever man, Sir John. If he was already in the house, he could just escape into the tunnels the way we came down, by the stairs. But the tunnels allowed him to think differently from his contemporaries. Most castles, you see, had a sally port so their occupants could
escape
quickly and safely. Using these tunnels, Sir John constructed a means whereby he could
enter
his house quickly and safely, even if being pursued. As you come into the tunnel, from the daylight you are blinded—it takes your eyes time to adjust. Of course he knew where he was going and would run on into the darkness for sixty-seven paces. Then he would stop and feel for a stone jutting out on the right-hand side of the wall at head height. One step beyond that is a concealed passage to the right, which goes through the chalk there and comes out just to your left. His pursuers would not know about the passage; you can't see it, even with a lantern, as it's concealed by the rock. And coming from that direction the shaft resembles the rock floor, just as it does from here. If you are carrying a lantern, you do not even see a shadow. You do not realize there is a gap here until you step and feel nothing beneath your feet and fall into the darkness.”

Clarenceux shuddered at the thought of falling so far underground—and not knowing what lay below.

“Did he often need to kill his pursuers, your ancestor?” Rebecca asked.

“Oh, yes. He was the sort of man who would grow bored in a castle during a siege and attack the enemy for his own amusement. He made enemies easily. A number of them ended up down there. Some of the bones I inspected as a boy might have belonged to wild animals but I expect most were human. Elsewhere in the tunnels there are three or four skeletons of men who died trying to find the way out.”

“Who else knows their way through the passages?”

“Outside the family, no one. Only the older servants know there are tunnels here and that the secret passage from my study leads to them. After twenty years' service they are told. But, even then, they are strictly forbidden to come here. A few other people have been let into the secret from time to time—I sheltered a couple of priests down here last year. But otherwise, this underworld is my family's own. That is why we have held onto this manor when all our others have been taken or disposed of. And that is why I swore both of you to secrecy. Now, come this way.”

Julius led them back down the long sloping tunnel to a large cavern, from which several passages led off in various directions. He made one turn then another, his lantern guiding them through the labyrinth. The temperature was warmer than above—warmer even than the hall had been. The air was still and dead. Apart from their footfall, there was no sound at all—except once, when Clarenceux thought he heard the dripping of water.

After five minutes, they came to what seemed to be a long chapel cut out of the chalk: a nave with columns supporting the roof, and side aisles too. Glints of silver sparkled on the walls. At the end was an altar, covered with an ancient gold-embroidered cloth. Six candles and a gilt-silver crucifix were set upon it. Julius lit the candles, and a golden glow filled the cave.

Clarenceux was astonished. There were jeweled crosses on the walls and reliquaries in carved niches in the columns. Books were piled high in one of the aisles, next to vellum documents in barrels. He could see a chest full of silver pattens, gilt-silver chalices, and more crosses.

“Julius, you said money was in short supply.”

“This is not my property. It belongs to the Church; I simply protect it. Much of it came from the abbeys, taken by abbots, priors, and monastic treasurers to stop it falling into the hands of the old king. Several monastic libraries are here and their archives. As you can see, your chronicle will be safe.”

“There are no locks,” Rebecca observed. “Anyone could come down here.”

Julius gave a little laugh. “Exactly. If I had told you that I would place the chronicle somewhere without a lock on it, you would have thought me foolish or mad. But locks tell you where secrets are hidden. Down here, the hidden and the secret are one. There is no need to lock things away—only almighty God and my sons and I know how to find this place. And God and we have an agreement. He won't tell anyone if we don't.”

You have left a trail of devastation across the city,” shouted Walsingham. “I thought when we spoke yesterday, in this very chamber, that the worst you had done was kill a servant boy.”

“What are you accusing me of?” retorted Crackenthorpe, facing the small man on the other side of the table.

“It's not me accusing you. It's Clarenceux's manservant, and he has a host of witnesses. Not only did you hang the boy, but you also stole Clarenceux's horses.”

“I did not steal them. I took them as compensation for the murder of my brother.”

“You had no right simply to appropriate another man's property just because you felt aggrieved. There are courts—”

“I don't give a damn about courts. No one kills a member of my family, or blinds one of my men in one eye, and lives to brag about it. No one.”

“Don't be a fool, Crackenthorpe. It is not a personal matter. Regard it as such, and you will get yourself killed. You'll betray me. You failed to keep Clarenceux in your sight—that is what matters most. That he killed one of your men is not my failing but yours. You should have posted more guards. You should have followed him yourself.”

Crackenthorpe suddenly kicked over the chair in front of him and stamped on it, splitting the struts. He stamped again, then pulled off one of the legs and held it like a cudgel. He pointed it at Walsingham. “So it's my fault that Clarenceux killed my brother? My fault that Ralph French was blinded? I have a good mind to beat your brains out, here and now.”

Walsingham stared him down. “Yes, it's your fault. And beating me won't change what you've done. It will remove your only protector—the only man who will save you from the gallows. You are responsible for the death of that servant boy. And Machyn's. And that of the Scottish assassin. And the theft of the horses. And the fact that Clarenceux is at large. You have failed on almost every count. If the course of the law were to run freely, you would draw your final breath this very day.”

Crackenthorpe gripped the chair leg more firmly. “I found Machyn's will. Not you. And I found Machyn himself too. No one else stayed out that godforsaken night. I waited for hours in the cold and the rain—and not only did I find Machyn but I discovered that Clarenceux was part of the plot. You had not even imagined that he was involved. I protected Draper from the Scots assassin and I found out about the Knights of the Round Table. Don't tell me I have failed on every count. I have paid a very high price in your service. And I have succeeded in ways you did not foresee.”

Walsingham stepped around the table until he stood barely five feet from the taller man. His voice was calm. “Do not presume you can speak to me in this manner.”

There was silence. Suddenly Crackenthorpe smashed the leg of the chair down on the edge of Walsingham's table, breaking the leg in two. He threw the piece into the fireplace. “I'll speak how I see things, Mr. Walsingham. I'll do things my way. I will kill Clarenceux. I have sworn it and I will do it. And if you try to stop me, I will kill you too.”

“Don't even think of it. I could crush you.”

Crackenthorpe laughed. “You? Look at the size of you!”

“Exactly, Crackenthorpe. Look at the size of me. I am the State. I am the force of law. If you kill the body of Francis Walsingham, you have not even begun to touch me. I am just one of the many instruments of her majesty. I hang men like you every day by the hundred—all across the country—and I glory in those hangings, the true measure of my power.”

Crackenthorpe stared at Walsingham, the black skull cap, the relentless will. “All right. I have made mistakes. But I swear that what I said is true. I will kill Clarenceux. And I will kill anyone who tries to stop me.”

“First you must find him. Then you must let me interrogate him. Afterward you can do what you want.”

“I will find him, be certain of it.”

“And the other Knights of the Round Table—you will find them too.”

“Draper we have already seen. Nicholas Hill was found in Queenhithe ward by the guards I had posted looking for Clarenceux. He ran as far as the Guildhall before they brought him down.”

“Has he talked?”

“He will soon.”

“I don't care about his welfare, as well you know, but I don't want to offer the authorities any more reasons to indict you. Their interference will just make our problems worse. Don't kill him. What about the others, Michael Hill and Daniel Gyttens?”

“No sign of them. Yet.”

“And the blacksmith's house, the one by which Machyn came and went. Have you identified it?”

“There are no houses on the walls owned by anyone called Mason. But there are only a limited number of ways into the city. I will know by this time tomorrow.”

At Summerhill, Julius's wife, Lychorus, joined them for supper. She was a pleasant, round-faced woman who wore a wide ruff, elegant gold-embroidered clothes, and a radiant smile. It was difficult for Clarenceux and Rebecca to make a meaningful contribution to the conversation, or even to answer all her questions fully and openly. The principal topic was the two Fawcett sons, one of whom was at Oxford and the other in Venice. Rebecca smiled at Lychorus and spoke occasionally but felt awkward, knowing she was behaving falsely, like a woman acting above her station. They retired early, Rebecca to go to bed, Clarenceux to drink wine with Julius.

Rebecca and Clarenceux were assigned adjacent chambers in the great tower. Hers was as comfortable a room as she could imagine. There was a fire already alight when she was shown to her bed, and the maid helped her undress in front of it. The walls were paneled and covered with bright red, blue, and gold tapestries. The shutters were closed, and the hangings around the bed were clean—newer than almost everything she had seen in the house. The silver ewer was full of fresh water, the basin recently polished. The candles on the table made everything in the room glow in the winter dark. She undressed, snuffed the candles out as was her custom, and got into bed. She lay between clean sheets, listening to the crackle of the fire.

Clarenceux stayed up drinking sack with Julius until late. The drink made him vulnerable to his sadness. His entire life lay in ruins, he explained. He had lost his home and his wife, his children and his friends. He began to lose himself in wine-soaked self-recrimination.

“William, I know why you are talking like this. I can see that these are your honest feelings. But I must be honest with you too. You sound full of self-pity. Tomorrow I want you to reflect on this moment and to realize that this was when you were at your lowest—lower even than when you believed you were going to be killed, for then you did not know what you had lost. I am prepared to shelter you and to guard your chronicle. But you must be yourself: your bold, intelligent, well-meaning self. I have no desire to shelter a self-pitying wreck or to risk myself for the sake of a traitor awaiting his own betrayal. But a man who has lost almost everything and is still fighting a holy Catholic war because he truly believes he is in the right—he has my respect and my unquestioning service.”

Clarenceux was left speechless. Julius was exhorting him to be himself, but that now seemed impossible. What Julius was referring to was a man he had been in the past, not the man he was now. He felt hollow. He mumbled a reply: “Believe me, Julius, I
am
willing to fight…” But his voice trailed off. It was not that he was lying—it was simply that he could see that Julius was right. He was becoming a self-pitying wreck—if he had not already become it.

Julius gently urged him to go to bed. He stood up, embraced his friend, and walked unsteadily toward the stairs.

As Clarenceux climbed to his chamber, Rebecca sighed in her bed, trying to breathe deeply. A heavy weight seemed to have settled on her chest. She put back the blankets and tried to breathe again. Nerves racked her body—or, rather, the feeling of being so alone. Her life was like a street with houses on either side, and every house was someone else's home. She just had to carry on walking until she came to the end of that long street, when there would be no more houses, no more people.

She heard the sound of footsteps on the tower staircase.

Clarenceux lifted the candle and crossed to the door of his chamber, the old floorboards creaking as he walked. He looked at the door on his left, which he knew was Rebecca's. He stared at it for some few minutes.

Inside, she listened, aware of his presence.

In his mind he saw her looking at him, speaking to him with her eyes. Gradually, the outward reminders of his life came back: Will's dead body, the smashed furniture of his house, Crackenthorpe's scarred face, the man he had killed in the street. He thought of Awdrey's vulnerability and Rebecca's need for his protection…His life was being torn between the opposites of fear and love. He wished he had been able to see it when Julius had spoken to him but then he had been too dismayed to see anything clearly. Julius had been right to castigate him—but he had been looking from the outside. On the inside, his life was simply a matter of fear and love. And he could embrace either all his fears…or everything he loved.

Rebecca heard him take another two steps, lift the latch to the adjacent chamber, and close the door.