Sacred Treason (32 page)

Clarenceux and Rebecca rode into St. Albans at dusk. The dark clouds and the lack of moonlight discouraged them from pushing on too far. After supper at an inn, the Fighting Cocks, they removed themselves from the hall and went to their chamber in silence. Both were mindful that this was their last night on the road. Both were thoughtful. The candle of their time together was about to go out.

There was little to do but be together. Rebecca washed in a basin of warm water brought by one of the inn's servant boys and Clarenceux talked to her from where he sat on the bed, looking up from the transcripts of the letters he had made at Sheffield Manor. Afterward they spoke of their childhoods and experiences in later life—from hardships to past Christmases, diplomatic missions, and marriage. Both of them had to admit that, in comparison to Lady Percy, they had been lucky.

At that, they fell silent. Rebecca was quiet as she climbed into bed. Clarenceux knew she was thinking about her husband. He wanted to comfort her, and the fact that he could not hurt him. He could offer her no real solace at all. He stayed sitting on the edge of the bed.

“We need to plan for tomorrow,” he said. “From here to London is twenty-one miles. If we leave at eight of the clock we will be there just after noon. We could go straight to Hackney, skirting around the city. Or we could return the way we came and place the chronicle in safekeeping with Julius. Or we could go to what is left of my house and hide the chronicle in the remnants. Having been ransacked once, it is probably safe.”

“You decide. You're going to decide anyway.”

“I'd like to hear your opinion.”

“We should go straight to Hackney. Find the key to the chronicle as quickly as possible.”

“Interesting.”

“That is your way of saying you disagree.”

Clarenceux turned and smiled at her. “You are getting to know me too well. I thought the same thing—but has it not struck you as strange that no one has stopped us on the road?”

“What has that got to do with it?”

“Think of it this way. How long ago was it we were being chased around London? Nearly two weeks. How many Knights had Walsingham tracked down by the time we left? He got to James Emery before us. He got to Lancelot Heath too, remember, and searched his house—but Heath was wise enough to hide himself. Walsingham also knew about William Draper, of course, and your husband. If in the space of just a few days he managed to track down five men and search their houses, then he had a means to find all the Knights quickly. So, as we both realized some days ago, he has worked out the sequence of names and dates, and probably he knows that ‘Lord Percy June 1537' relates to a tomb, not Sheffield Manor. We took a wrong turning there—and because we were wrong, we did something unexpected. I imagine he is fuming about the fact that he can't work out where we are. But if we walk freely into Hackney Church, we won't walk freely out again.”

“Then let us go to Julius first, and stow the chronicle safely there. It is nearly full moon. If it is a clear night we can ride on from London and travel to Chislehurst. Then we can go to Hackney the following day.”

He lifted the bedclothes and lay beside her. “That is what I was thinking.”

“Are you also thinking that the proof we are looking for is hidden somewhere in Hackney Church?”

“I suspect it is. And that we will need the chronicle to find it.”

“That will be very dangerous.”

“It will.”

“We could take it with us.”

“That would be even more dangerous.”

With that they both fell into their separate thoughts.

“What are you thinking?” asked Clarenceux after a while, as the candle began to splutter.

“I was thinking about the queen.”

“What about her?”

“Do you think Lord Percy was her real father?”

“No. He couldn't have been.”

“Really?” She raised herself on one elbow and looked at him. “What makes you so sure?”

“While at Sheffield I checked Lord Percy's accounts for the time of her conception, November or December 1532. He was in Northumberland. The queen, Anne Boleyn, was with the king, on his way back from Calais.”

“And you? What were you thinking about?”

“Similar thoughts. It is not fair to visit the sins of the father—or the mother—on the daughter. Seeing Lady Percy has shifted my heart somewhat.”

“You and I would make very bad revolutionaries.”

“Maybe. But as far as Walsingham is concerned, we will make very good ones after he has hanged me in chains and burnt you alive for treason.”

There was a silence. The candle went out.

Rebecca lay back on the bed. “Please don't mention the burning again. Or your being hanged. Things are sad enough as they are.” After a while she asked, “Do you remember the first bed we shared together? The one at Mile End?”

“Trying to stay apart instead of rolling together in the middle. Yes, of course.”

“This is the last night of our journey. Tomorrow we will be back at Mr. Fawcett's house, and then…”

Clarenceux understood. They were both fighting their instincts. He put his arm around her in the darkness and felt her put an arm around him, laying her head on his shoulder. For a time they listened to each other's breathing. Clarenceux remembered how awkwardly he had held her before, not knowing what she expected of him. Now things were different. He was happy to be able to hold her, happy that she wanted him to.

“Good night,” he whispered, listening to her breathing.

“Good night,” she replied.

He kissed her hair.

Tuesday, December 28

The decision to go to Chislehurst first meant they had to travel quickly, so they pushed their horses hard over the first twenty miles, crossing the Thames at Fulham about an hour after noon. There were no guards on the ferry nor at the nearby tavern, the Swan, a possibility that had worried Clarenceux. After that they encouraged their exhausted mounts to canter down every slope, forcing them on for the last fifteen miles. Even so, it was dusk long before they approached the rise up to Summerhill.

As the skies began to darken, so did their mood. They began to note the looks of strangers on the way, the inquisitive glances that asked no questions but wanted to know their business. One gentleman on a horse saw them and kicked his mount into a gallop. Their thoughts began to twist into the shadows that loomed among the trees on either side of the road. Apprehension crept into the corners of their minds. For both of them this meant long periods of silence or short, terse conversations that betrayed their nerves.

“At least we can be sure of a warm hearth and a bed for one night,” said Clarenceux.

Finally, after many hours in the saddle, with the color drained from the landscape and cold biting into their hands despite their gloves, they rode up the long slope. They saw the black clumps of trees and noticed here and there the straight edge of a wall against the near-dark sky. And they noted too the silence, the absence of movement, the lack of light.

They rode up to the gatehouse. Clarenceux dismounted and twisted the handle of the oak gate; it was locked. He pushed it but it did not budge at all. He knocked and he called, but several minutes passed and no one came. There was nothing but the bitter cold and the breeze shifting the leaves of the trees nearby.

“Do you still have money for an inn?” asked Rebecca.

“There's money enough, certainly,” muttered Clarenceux. “That's not the point. Julius has servants—a wife too.” He picked up a stone that he had just kicked with his foot and hammered repeatedly on the gate. “Julius! Julius!”

“Who calls?” shouted a thin voice from the far side of the courtyard.

“William Harley, Clarenceux King of Arms, friend of Julius Fawcett.”

He waited, rubbing his gloved hands together. Rebecca dismounted. A shutter in the gatehouse above them opened, and someone looked out in the gloom. It closed again and they heard voices from within. There came the sound of a heavy drawbar being dragged across and the gate being unlocked. It opened a little.

“Mr. Clarenceux?” The man's voice was frightened.

“Yes. And Goodwife Machyn. Let us in, please; I must speak to the master of the house.”

“Mr. Fawcett is not here. He…he has not been seen for several days.”

Whatever feelings Clarenceux had had on the journey, this surprised him. At the very least he had expected to find Julius here—not the cold darkness of an unlit house.

“Will you please let us in even so?” Rebecca asked. “We are returning two of his horses—and we need your hospitality for the night.”

But the reply was guarded, fearful. “How do we know you are who you claim to be?”

“What is this? A trial?” snapped Clarenceux. “If you would shine a light, you would recognize me. We were here two weeks ago, guests of Mr. Julius Fawcett, whom I have known for upward of twenty years.”

There was a muttering in the darkness. One of the men—with a rasping, old-sounding voice, who had not previously spoken—said, “Very well, Mr. Clarenceux, we trust you. But you must understand, terrible things have happened here today. A man has been killed. We are all shocked. To tell the truth, we are at our wits' end.”

The gate swung open. Clarenceux and Rebecca led their horses into the blackness and waited while the gate was shut and locked and the drawbar heaved back into place.

“We are sorry, Mr. Clarenceux,” continued the old servant. “Mr. Fawcett told us never to use a light if we are uncertain who is at the gate. He used to say the advantage lies with the—”

“The man with the sword,” Clarenceux interrupted. “Yes, I know. What has happened?” He emerged into the dimness of the courtyard and, having handed the reins of his horse to one of the servants, walked in the direction of the hall.

“Not that way, Mr. Clarenceux, please. The hall door is locked because of a terrible tragedy. James Hopton, Mr. Fawcett's chamberlain, was killed by a royal sergeant-at-arms…” The old man's voice faltered.

“Crackenthorpe?” asked Clarenceux.

“Sir, I do not know the man's name.”

They entered the house by way of the kitchen, through a small door. The high room was mostly dark but the light of a fire on one of the great hearths and a single rushlight on the large round table in the center cast a faint gold glow upon their faces. The man who was talking to them was indeed old, thin-haired, and with missing teeth; they both recognized him from their earlier visit as one of Julius's clerks.

“Whatever his name, he was the most brutal man I've ever seen. Like a soldier on the field of battle. He forced his way into the house this morning with a large number of men and proceeded to search every room. Mr. Hopton was one of the few of us still here. Mr. Hopton tried to stop the sergeant in charge but he simply took out a sword and held it against his throat as if to threaten him. And then, suddenly—without any warning—he sliced with the sword, cutting Mr. Hopton's throat. We were too shocked to do or say anything. The strange thing was that it was almost as if the sergeant had not meant to do it. But he killed Mr. Hopton as he stood there. He
killed
Mr. Hopton. After that he calmly went where he wanted and so did his men—while Mr. Hopton's body was left in the hall in a pool of blood. He and his men turned over furniture, ransacked Mr. Fawcett's library, and ripped open cushions. He even stepped over Mr. Hopton's body on the way out…Kicked it too, he did; he
kicked
Mr. Hopton's body…”

Clarenceux put his hand on the man's arm as the old voice choked with the pain of the memory. “Calm yourself. Listen. Tell me your name.”

“Francis. Francis Shepherd.”

“Goodman Shepherd, take a deep breath and tell me the whole story. What happened before the killing? You said that Mr. Fawcett has not been seen for several days. When did you last see him?”

Francis Shepherd wiped his face on his sleeve. He shook his head and went to the light stand. His hand trembled as he tried to light a second rushlight from the first, but eventually it caught. He inserted it at the correct angle and stood looking down, the new flame casting a huge shadow on the high wall of the kitchen behind him.

“On Christmas Day, in the early afternoon, the whole household was in the hall. The master was here, his wife and about six or seven customary tenants, a few lease-holders, and all the servants and the gardeners, thirty-five of us. Then a gentleman came demanding entrance. He was the young man who used to stay sometimes at Scadbury Park, Francis Walsingham. He was announced and Mr. Hopton and I went to see him. In a very haughty tone he ordered us to take him to Mr. Fawcett. I went back into the hall, to seek the master's word on the matter, knowing that Francis Walsingham was not welcome; but Mr. Fawcett had gone. So had his wife. They had both vanished. As soon as they heard the name Walsingham they got up and left the hall together. And we have not seen them since.”

“That explains Julius. But where is everyone else? Where are all the rest of the servants?”

“Sir, ten men were arrested by Walsingham in the hall that same afternoon. After he left, many simply left of their own accord. I cannot blame them. Had I been younger I would have left too. We were all frightened. This morning there were only six of us here. That was when a large number of soldiers arrived: thirty men, maybe more. We were just shoved to the side as the sergeant in charge forced his way in. Mr. Hopton stopped him in the hall and told him he had no right to enter. That was when the sergeant-at-arms killed him.”

“The man in charge—was he a tall, dark-haired man with a distinctive mark?”

“He was. Very dark hair and a scar right across one side of his face.”

Clarenceux looked up at Rebecca. “How did he know?”

She said nothing.

Clarenceux put his hand to his forehead and felt the cold perspiration. He turned back to Shepherd. “I do not understand how…”

And then he remembered. He looked at Rebecca. “They must have caught Daniel Gyttens.”

For an instant Rebecca did not know what he meant. Then she too remembered. She inhaled suddenly and held her breath, putting her hands over her face, not wanting to see anything or hear anything. “It's my fault,” she whispered. “I said the name Summerhill…It's my fault. Oh, Lord almighty, in the name of Jesus's mother, I am sorry, I am so sorry…”

Clarenceux was silent. He looked down at the table, trying to collect his thoughts. Eventually he said, “What has happened has happened. We cannot dwell on one mistake. Mr. Hopton's body—is it still in the hall?”

Shepherd wiped the tears from his eyes and nodded.

Clarenceux looked at the other men who had come into the kitchen with them. There were both elderly servants too. They looked terrified. “How many others are left here tonight?”

“Sir, just we three,” said the man who had taken the reins of Clarenceux's horse. “Everyone else has gone. My name is Jack, groom of the stable. This is Thomas, groom of the hall.”

“You did well to stay. I commend you. I assume none of you will object if Goodwife Machyn and I spend this night in the rooms we stayed in two weeks ago?”

“Sir, we would welcome your company and thank you for it. But those rooms are mostly ruined,” said Shepherd, recovering himself. “The furniture is broken, and the linen scattered.”

“We will make do. Will you two stable our horses and bring in our belongings?”

“Sir, we will. Immediately.”

Clarenceux glanced at Rebecca. She was motionless, head downcast, her hands at her sides. He understood.
She
does
not
want
to
meet
my
eye
for
fear
of
what
I
might
say. But this is no time for recriminations. I need her now more than ever. I need her to remind me to stay strong.

He looked around the kitchen. He walked to some shelves along the wall and saw what he wanted, took down a couple of wax candles, lit one from the rushlight, and set it standing on the table. The other he set down beside it, on its side. Rich golden light spread around the kitchen. The servants would not have spent their master's wax candle so freely but they appreciated Mr. Clarenceux's doing so.

“Is there anything to eat?” he asked. “Some bread and meat perhaps?”

“There is plenty of cold meat, good white bread from this morning, cheeses, ale, wine, and pears and apples.”

“Just bread and meat will do,” Clarenceux said. “But first”—he paused, looking at Rebecca—“first we will go into the hall and lay out the corpse of Mr. Hopton.”

“Us? Why?”

“You must have laid out a corpse before. You know what to do.”

“I do, but it's not me, it's…”

“Sir, it is not a fitting task for a gentleman,” Shepherd objected. “It is women's work. We will send for someone from the village in the morning.”

“It is not fitting to leave a good man in a pool of his own blood either. Goodwife Machyn will help me. I want to see his body. I want to touch it, and I want to remember him. I want to remember many other things too. Tomorrow I might also have to kill a man, and that man might be Sergeant Crackenthorpe. If it is, it will be revenge for many deaths—Will Terry, Goodman Machyn, and Mr. Hopton among them.”

“But why?” insisted Rebecca again. “I will help you if I can. But why do you want to lay out this man's corpse now, in the dark? That won't be revenge.”

“Do you forget the old ways so quickly? Before the old religion was banned, we used to watch the night through with a man when he died.”

“What has got into you, Mr. Clarenceux?”

“The fear of God, Goodwife Machyn. And I want to keep it that way. For if I fear almighty God and keep Him close, then my fear of Sergeant Crackenthorpe will be as nothing.”

And with that Clarenceux picked up both the lit candle and the spare one, left the kitchen, and walked into the great hall.

***

Rebecca knew that she would never forget that night. She was tired and hungry, she was confused and grieving; but most of all she was frightened. She had been increasingly scared on the way to Summerhill but nothing had prepared her for this. For what was truly alarming was not that Walsingham had discovered that they had been at Summerhill, nor even that Crackenthorpe had searched the house. It was Clarenceux's reaction. Ever since their meeting with the dowager countess he had been more and more self-possessed. And now his composure had gone a stage beyond anything she could have predicted. He had re-entered the mental world of the soldier, in which action is instinctive, the mind attentive, and the soul not afraid of anything.

He
is
preparing
himself
to
confront
death.

The shadows in the hall were high on the walls. Tapestries and armor looked down on them. They had been safe—too high for Crackenthorpe's men to reach. Clarenceux saw the corpse and set down the candles on either side of the head. Mr. Hopton's face wore an open-eyed, shocked expression—a look of dismay, not pain. His neck had been cut cleanly but the lower part spilled out over the upper, with tubes and white membranes visible. The pool of dried blood lay black on the flagstones around him, smeared here and there by the passage of boots. A rivulet had started to run toward the wall before it had congealed on the cold stone.