Final Sacrament (Clarenceux Trilogy) (32 page)

Ash Wednesday, February 12

As Clarenceux and Alice approached Oxford the next morning, the puddles in the roads were covered by a thin layer of ice. On the higher ground, a veil of white frost had been laid. Their breath billowed in the chill air.

Across the common to their left they watched as a boy rounded up the flock of forty sheep in his care; he whistled to his dog to bring them in when they started to dart in the direction of a copse. Ahead, a leather-capped husbandman was driving a pair of cows along the highway. The cows were in no hurry, nor was their driver; Clarenceux and Alice rode past. Further along, they overtook a cartload of eggs being transported in crates of hay—the driver steadying the horse and veering around anything that might damage his delicate cargo.

Oxford itself appeared, with its college towers and four or five church spires. The large open fields gave way to smaller enclosures, with barns and farmhouses plotted at the ends of muddy lanes, and small cottages nearer the highway. Alice had been full of conversation earlier in the morning, and as they drew close to the city, she spoke with even more vivacity.
This
is
her
true
territory
, thought Clarenceux,
a
place
of
people
.

They crossed the bridge and passed Magdalen College. Under the gaze of the tall gatehouses and handsome stone buildings, the girl suddenly fell quiet. Oxford was like no place that she knew, and whereas she had chatted excitedly at the prospect of coming into a new city, she was intimidated by this one. The stone college buildings shut out the stranger, being built around quadrangles with small windows that squinted meanly at the outside world and large windows that gazed approvingly on themselves. Riding through Broad Street, she stared at the walls and windows—she had never seen quite so much glass, not even in London. The students caught her eye too; many young men in academic dress walked toward them along the side of the street and her gaze followed them.
Who
could
teach
the
other
the
most?
Clarenceux wondered.

As they turned into St. Giles, Clarenceux looked ahead: on the right was their destination, the frontage of St. John’s College, with its central stone gatehouse rising three stories above a handsome pointed arch. He dismounted and handed the reins to Alice. Without a word, he unbuttoned his doublet and reached inside for the package:
William
Willis, St. John’s College
was written in large letters on the front.

He said nothing but walked to the gate and called into the shadows of a door to the side. A stooped, broken-toothed man of about sixty shuffled out.

“Eh?” he grunted.

“For William Willis,” said Clarenceux, holding out the package.

The old man stared at it, not understanding. He looked at Clarenceux again. “No—there’s no one of that name in this college.”

“I believe a Mr. Willis will collect this on Friday, the fourteenth. It is very important—make sure it is kept safely.” He handed him a coin.

“I will, sir. What did you say your name was?”

“Harley, William Harley.”

“I will look after it,” said the old man, accepting the package and shuffling back into the gloom.

***

Riding away from St. John’s College, Clarenceux just looked straight ahead. It was done now. They did not say a word until they had left the town along the same road by which they had arrived.

“What was that package you handed over?” asked Alice, as they passed the boy with the sheep on the common for the second time.

“An invitation to a duel,” said Clarenceux. “No—a command to one.”

Thursday, February 13

The evening of the following day, they arrived back in London. At Thame they had inspected Thomas and Fyndern’s work and then left, abandoning the cart and riding back toward London all together. They stayed one night in Chipping Wycombe, where Alice was shocked to realize that Clarenceux expected them to observe the fasting rules of Lent—no meat, not even eggs—and Clarenceux was mildly surprised to discover that Alice expected to be able to flout such rules. Fyndern listened to the debate about the restrictions on eating meat in Lent, and Clarenceux’s arguments based on Church law; and when Clarenceux had answered all of Alice’s questions, he asked: “Isn’t the fasting law made by Parliament, not the Church?” Clarenceux had swiftly changed the subject.

Thursday morning had been so wet they had delayed setting out, watching the rain come sheeting down from the east. After three hours, it started to ease but did not stop; nevertheless, Clarenceux ordered them to ride. There was a schedule to keep to, he reminded them, and they were still thirty miles from London. Within an hour, each one of them was soaked to the skin. The sound of the rain pattering on the ground and on the leaves of trees was depressing enough, but the rumble of thunder in the distance hinted at worse to come. Not until midafternoon did they enter Uxbridge, where Clarenceux bought four more leather riding cloaks before setting out again. They ate at an inn in Knightsbridge. Alice and Fyndern did the talking and Clarenceux silently dipped a piece of bread in his chicken broth, watching them beneath a furrowed brow.

At nine o’clock they arrived back at Clarenceux’s house. They led all the horses into the stable, stumbling through puddles as the rain splashed down in the yard. Fyndern, who knew the stables best, settled the horses in the darkness while Thomas lit the fire in the hall, striking a flint against a steel edge and igniting the dried lichen. Clarenceux went to his room to change his clothes, feeling his way up the stairs. Alice similarly felt her way to where she knew there was a towel, and then came back down to the hall, rubbing her hair.

Half an hour later, the misery of the journey was forgotten. The fire was alight and the hall illuminated by four golden candles; the wet cloaks and capes were drying. Clarenceux had offered wine, and Fyndern had brought up a flagon from the buttery filled with a strong French red. The smell of the burning wood and the wine created a rich atmosphere.

“Let us hear music,” said Clarenceux, at a quiet moment. “Alice, will you sing to us?”

“I am not a singer, Mr. Clarenceux. I can dance but I will not sing.”

“I will sing,” said Fyndern. After a nervous smile, he got off the bench and knelt, looking at the fire, and began to sing an old song they all knew in a fine voice—not wavering like that of a boy whose voice is breaking, nor yet like the full-bodied voice of a grown man, but hitting the notes cleanly and sustaining them, giving the depth of purity to the solemn old song.

There were three ravens sat on a tree

Down and down, sing, down and down

And they were black as black may be

With a down;

One of them said to his mate

“Where shall we our breakfast take?”

With a down, down, derry-down down.

Down in yonder green field

Down and down, sing, down and down

There lies a knight slain under his shield

With a down;

His hounds lie at his feet

So well do they their master keep

With a down, down, derry-down down.

His hawks they fly so eagerly by

Down and down, sing, down and down

No other bird dare him come nigh

With a down;

Down there comes a fallow doe

So heavy with young as she may go

With a down, down, derry-down down.

She lifted up his bloody head

Down and down, sing, down and down

And kissed his wounds that were so red

With a down;

She got him up upon her back

And carried him to earthen dark

With a down, down, derry-down down.

She buried him before the prime

Down and down, sing, down and down

But she was dead herself before even-time

With a down;

God send every gentleman

Such hawks, such hounds and such women

With a down, down, derry-down down.

With a down, down, derry-down down.

As the last note died away, there was an awed silence. Eventually Thomas spoke. “You have yet another gift, Fyndern.”

“It was exquisite,” said Alice.

Fyndern rose from his knees. “Thank you.”

Alice put her hand on his shoulder as he sat back on the bench and smiled at him. She almost immediately followed this by leaning across him and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

“There is something magical about you, young man,” said Clarenceux. “Long may it last.”

Silence fell again. The fire crackled. Thomas lifted a pewter goblet to his lips and sipped. Everyone waited for Clarenceux to speak.

“You all now know that I have in my possession an extremely valuable document. You all know, more or less, how dangerous it is. At Thame, I intend to hand it over to John Greystoke, to buy my wife’s freedom. We will ride first thing on Saturday and stay at the Saracen’s Head on Sunday night. Thomas will stay at the inn; Fyndern will go on ahead to the abbey that night. Alice, you will ride with me to the abbey on Monday at noon. I will need you to be my messenger.”

Thomas gave Clarenceux a searching look. “What if Greystoke does not turn up?”

“He will be there. His life depends on it.”

Thomas’s already deeply lined forehead was made even more so by a frown. “Mr. Clarenceux, are you sure?
Greystoke’s
life?”

“Think. Why does Walsingham trust him so much? It is not because they are old friends. It is not because they met in Padua ten years ago. Walsingham would not give two farthings for that if he had even the slightest doubt of his loyalty—and Walsingham doubts everyone. He trusts him because Greystoke has promised to obtain the document for him. If Greystoke does not do what he promised, Walsingham will have him killed.”

“But why is Greystoke working for Walsingham?” asked Fyndern. “I thought he was working for Buckman.”

“That’s the mistake I made,” said Clarenceux. “He is not working for Walsingham—merely pretending to. He is using Walsingham; each one is using the other. But if Walsingham knew the truth, he would have him killed straight away. Greystoke spent four years learning swordsmanship with Camillo Agrippa. Agrippa is from Milan but he resides in Rome. When he published his book in 1553, he had it printed by the pope’s own printer. Do you think a man like Agrippa would take on a Protestant pupil? And train him for four years, in Rome? No Protestant would have risked even living in Rome for that long, let alone attending swordsmanship classes with a champion of the Catholic Church—and an Englishman could hardly have avoided detection, even if he could quote Dante in Italian. When Walsingham met Greystoke in Padua, he presumed he was an English Protestant; that was reasonable, for in 1556, every town under the administration of the Republic of Venice was full of English émigrés fleeing from Mary’s persecution. But Greystoke was not there as a Protestant émigré; he was there as a Catholic spy, feeding intelligence back to his masters in Rome.”

“He serves Buckman then. Is that not what we thought all along?” asked Alice.

“The chain of deceit goes both ways. Buckman is using Greystoke for the same reason Walsingham is—to get close to me. But despite its symmetry, there is no beauty in this architecture of intrigue. All the monsters are feeding off each other. As soon as I hand over that document, the fragile bonds of trust will fall apart. Buckman will expect Greystoke to hand it over to him so he can deliver it to Lady Percy. Walsingham will expect Greystoke to deliver it to him so he can hand it to Sir William Cecil.”

“It will be interesting to see who he chooses,” said Fyndern.

“He won’t choose either of them. He is going to take it to Rome.”

“Rome!” Alice exclaimed.

“That is where his true loyalty lies. My mistake for so long was to think that all the Catholics were on the same side and working together. They are not. This isn’t a two-way fight; it’s a three-way one. Father Buckman and Lady Percy are loyal to Lord Henry Stewart; they look to him to restore Catholicism in England. Greystoke is for Rome and Queen Mary of Scots. The forces of her majesty Queen Elizabeth are the third element. On Monday I am going to burn the document they all seek. Neither of the Catholic sides can allow that to happen. It is like a strategically important bridge that they cannot allow to fall into an enemy’s hands and yet cannot afford to see destroyed either. As it happens, all three sides expect Greystoke to obtain the document for them. That is why he will be there.”

Friday, February 14

It was good to walk along Fleet Street in the cold morning sun, thought Clarenceux. It was good to breathe the fresh air, and to see all the people coming into the city. Fifteen hundred years had passed since the Romans had invaded, and still the city thrived. And before that, it had been the city of King Lud and maybe even of Gorbodoc, whose sons had torn the country in two, fighting between themselves. So much time, so many people passed along this street, taking so much for granted, as he had done for the last thirty years. So many would walk along here in future—sometimes idly, sometimes happily, sadly, quickly, slowly, fearfully, joyfully—and more often than not, without even reflecting on what it meant to be here.

Today he was thinking about what “being here” really meant. Whatever happened on Monday, whether he lived or died in the fire, he would never be able to return to this city, never walk along this street after he left tomorrow morning. He would never be able to stand here again and look about him as he did now. Never be able to reclaim any possession of his, or call at his house, or consult a document or chronicle that had once been in his library or Cecil’s library. Even if he emerged well and healthy from Thame Abbey, not even his closest friends must know he was alive. He would have to surrender his idea of himself and give up his fascinations, accepting that there would be things he would want to know that he could not find out; people whose well-being he would want to be sure of, whom he could not contact. He would not even be able to see his friend Julius Fawcett in Chislehurst, for his house was too close to Scadbury Park, where Walsingham had grown up. Everyone had to believe that he was dead, that the last nail had been hammered into his coffin. No one could be allowed to suspect that he was the one who had hammered it in himself.

Awdrey was the exception. If he could not know her in the world he foresaw, he did not want to live. Two women had governed his emotional life for the last three years: one, Rebecca Machyn, was already dead. To be cut off from Awdrey as well would be the death of him. She confirmed what he was; she allowed him to know himself and she defined his place in the world. If he lived, he would take her away from this city and its dangers and live quietly with her somewhere, perhaps in the countryside, or maybe in a foreign country. As he looked at a well-dressed merchant’s wife walking toward the city with two female friends and a basket-carrying servant in her company, he had a picture of Awdrey walking through the Bourse in Antwerp in the same way, looking handsome and confident, with her daughters beside her.

How he prayed for her! If God judged prayers by fervor and regularity, surely He had to listen to Clarenceux’s prayers for Awdrey and their daughters.

The bells started to ring, and Clarenceux stepped faster toward Cecil House. His chest felt tight and full of strangeness, as if he had inhaled some exotic incense. But there was no more time to feel. Now was the time to act. He had only one day to put his affairs in order.

***

Cecil welcomed him in his writing room, sitting on a bench by the fire. Although fully dressed, his uncovered foot was out in front of him, propped up on a low stool. The book presses, with their brown, white, and black vellum and leather-bound volumes, provided the paneling of reason and knowledge. The portrait of Cecil was similarly reassuring.

“I apologize for not standing; it is this accursed gout. Have you been to see Annie yet?” asked Cecil after their initial formalities.

“No, I intend to do that next. I hear she is playing with Robert in the garden.”

“You should be able to see them from this window.”

Clarenceux looked out. Fifty yards from the house Annie enthusiastically threw a ball for Robert. Her aim was not good and her expectation of his catching abilities overoptimistic. She picked the ball up and tried again. Again he failed to catch it and the two of them ran to where it lay in the grass as Robert’s governess looked on.

“Thank you for looking after Annie.”

“It is the least I can do. But listen. You are upset. Take some time.”

“I have, Sir William, I have. On Monday, at noon, I am going to hand the Percy-Boleyn marriage agreement over to John Greystoke, the man who abducted my wife and who has subsequently repeatedly forced himself upon her. He has also deceived Walsingham. But I suspect you know that.”

Cecil said nothing.

Clarenceux unbuttoned the top of his doublet and pulled out the two letters he had tucked inside. He held up the first one. “You told me once that I would write a letter to my wife. Here it is. It contains my last wishes—please give it to her if the need arise.” He handed it to Cecil and raised the second letter. “This one is the instructions for Walsingham.” He handed that one too to Cecil.

“I have half a mind to throw both of these on the fire and tell you to pull yourself together, William.”

“Then you would do me a great wrong. Even if you were to surround the place on Monday, you could not guarantee my wife’s safety. Nor could you guarantee our safety in future. If you arrested all those who are after us, the Catholic plotters in this country will never accept that that document is lost to them. They will simply deny it. Even if you prove people wrong on something they collectively believe in, they will continue to have faith in it—and collectively they will deny the proof. What hope does a man have? They killed Rebecca Machyn just to teach me a lesson. If you take the document from me, I will be killed—or Awdrey will be, or one of my daughters—as a lesson to you. We’ve become symbols of a refusal to betray our monarch. As Catholics who are loyal to the crown, we are hated by the Catholics who are militant. The only way to end it is for me to be seen to destroy the document and myself. Consider it an act of purification.”

Cecil raised an eyebrow. “And this is the way you hope to save your family?”

“I have provided for my wife and daughters,” Clarenceux continued. “They should benefit from almost £300 in cash. I hope that you will reward them on my behalf and watch over them if I am successful in this endeavor and stop the document from falling into Catholic hands.”

“But the document
already
is in Catholic hands—yours.”

“Sir William, this is our last meeting, so I will be wholly honest with you. I have attended the same church for the last thirty years—I have not changed. I have said the same prayers in my heart and sung the same psalms. I believe that God looks after communities that look after their members, and forbids the eating of meat in Lent and the marriage of priests. I believe that the Mass is meaningful in helping the souls of the departed. And I believe it was wrong of the old king to take away the places of memorial, to destroy abbeys and churches, to desecrate all the old holy places. I look at the blank space in the church where my parents were buried—the cold, plain stonework—and I feel the loss of their memorial like a second loss of them in person. I deplore the burning of roods up and down the country. I weep to think of the altars not just unattended but destroyed, and the holy sculptures smashed. All along I have asked myself, ‘What is it that makes a man change his faith? How can a monarch command a man’s belief?’ There is nothing in the world you can say that will make me lose my belief in the old religion. For me, it is like believing in the beauty of women, or that water runs downhill. These are things beyond all persuasion—as much as trying to make me believe my hip does not ache or that I am not in my forty-ninth year. I could say that I do believe what I do not—but I would be lying. Is the rest of the kingdom lying? Some are—and the rest are forgetting. All across this kingdom, people are closing their eyes to the old religion. They see no votive offerings on altars and so they forget that this is a way we may seek divine intervention in our lives. They forget the names of the dead and the holy places of the past. There are empty stone niches in church walls where jeweled reliquaries used to be set, gleaming in the darkness with the Lord’s power. Now the young just see holes. Do you not remember the great tomb of King Henry, in the abbey? Gold, glimmering in the darkness, with the beauty of centuries of devotion from kings, even emperors. In the church of the Greyfriars, there once were the tombs of the queens—Queen Margaret, Queen Isabella, Queen Joan: they were all destroyed and the effigies sold off for the value of the alabaster. Bare stone flagstones adorn that church now. And yet it was founded by a queen of England, and a most loved queen at that—an ancestress of the present queen. Nothing you can say will make me believe that that was the Lord’s will. And yet the queen commands this shift of faith—and people all across the kingdom obey. Are we such cowards, Sir William? Not all of us. I might be in a minority but, in losing my wife and my daughter, and almost losing my other daughter, and in losing my dear friend, Rebecca, I know it must be conscience that moves me. It must be. The world will change because of cowardice and complacency—but I will not. If I must sacrifice myself to secure my family’s freedom from tyranny, I will do so gladly, in the eyes of God, and with a bleeding but unbroken heart. And those men that call themselves Catholics—those who would steal the document from me, and who would have me start a war in the name of their faith—are nothing of the sort. They are fickle players in the false religion of politics, and their saints are Lord Henry and Mary of Scotland—just as your saint is Elizabeth—and they do not follow the path of righteousness, nor the will of God, but that of self-interest, tyranny, and hatred.”

He went back to the window and rested his forehead against the leaded glass. Cecil remained silent for a long time.

“When do you want me to send this letter to Walsingham?” he asked quietly.

“Today. He will need time to prepare.”

Cecil struggled to his feet. Resting his weight on the heel of his foot, he limped over and stood beside Clarenceux looking out the window. Annie and Robert were hiding from one another behind the low bushes in the formal squares of the garden, jumping up and surprising each other.

“It is St. Valentine’s Day,” said Cecil.

“St. Valentine was a martyr too.”

“He gave his life for his faith, not his wife.”

“What brings me closer to my wife brings me closer to God.”

Cecil looked at Clarenceux, studying the face, the beard, the eyes, and thinning, graying hair. “I admire you. No one will remember me for the fact that I too love my wife. All people will remember is that I served our queen.”

Clarenceux turned away and walked to the door. “Your wife herself might remember it, Sir William. And your children. They count too.”

Cecil took the reprimand silently. “William.”

“Yes?” said Clarenceux, looking back.

“I don’t know…This cannot be our final good-bye. At least, I cannot believe it.” He shook his head in distress and looked at Clarenceux with shining eyes. “I know we have had our disagreements but…”

There was a long silence. Clarenceux came back across the room and embraced Cecil. “Some things are not even within the gift of the most powerful man in the kingdom.”

***

He walked among the box hedges of the knot garden holding Annie’s hand. The hedges turned this way and that, and back on themselves, in a square design. He himself felt similarly intricately contorted. In stark contrast to his mood, Annie had been telling him about the sort of horse she wanted to have when she grew older, and the sort of house she wanted to live in—one with lots of glass, naturally, like Sir William’s house, only gabled, like her home. She wanted two embroidered foreparts for every dress, and ruffles and slashed sleeves, as well as a velvet gown and cork-soled shoes.

“And who is going to pay for all these things?” Clarenceux asked.

“
You
are, Father,” she replied joyfully, turning to him and smiling up at him with her joke.

Clarenceux squeezed her hand, swallowing back the emotion. “I think you will need to find yourself a rich husband.”

“I will have nine children,” she said with the supreme confidence of a seven-year-old. “Four boys and five girls, and the girls will all marry knights and lords and earls, and the boys can be admirals and captains.”

He stopped and crouched down to look her in the eyes. “Listen, Annie, I am not going to be able to come to see you for a while. But I am sure that Sir William and Lady Cecil will look after you very well. And I hope very much that your mam will soon be back, and she will look after you.”

“Will you not be here when Mam comes?”

“I don’t know, Annie.” This was the moment he was dreading. “I don’t know what is going to happen to me.”

“Are you going to be executed?”

Clarenceux laughed. “No, my sweet, I am not going to be executed. I am going to…to…”
I
can
never
come
back
here. I will not see her grow up and become a young woman and marry
. “I will be back before long,” he said. He ran his fingers through her hair, and then hugged her.

“Why are you crying?”

“It doesn’t matter, Annie. It doesn’t matter. Will you promise me something?”

Annie nodded.

“If I don’t see you for a long time, I want you to do three things. Be brave, always speak the truth, and be kind to those you love. Can you remember those three things?”

Annie held up her fingers. “Be brave, say the truth, and be kind to Mam.”

“And Mildred. She is your sister—you must take care of your sister.”

“And Mildred. Where are you going?”

Clarenceux stood up straight and took her hand again. “Thame Abbey. But let us not talk about that now. What are the three things you are going to do for me?”

“Be brave, say the truth, and be kind to Mam
and
Mildred.”

After his final good-byes, he walked away from Cecil House. He allowed himself one glance back. Annie was waving to him from the courtyard, with Lady Cecil and a number of attendants. And above them, at a window, was the watching figure of Sir William too, his hand raised.

***