Sacred Treason (11 page)

“It is strange how often people overlook the legs as a means of effective control,” said Walsingham. “We rely on them to move us swiftly away from danger. We trust them to carry us in both peace and war, on foot and on horseback. What better way to make a man feel vulnerable than to damage his legs?”

Clarenceux winced as the waves of pain surged in his knee.

Walsingham walked across to the tray of sweetmeats. He set it down on the table and ate another morsel, looking at Clarenceux on the floor.

“You seem to me very complacent, Mr. Harley. You think we do not realize how serious this matter is. I can think of nothing of greater importance to her majesty at this moment than the location of that book. Do you understand? Nothing. Not even France.” He paused, allowing the message to sink in.

“Let me illustrate. Imagine being suspended above the ground by your hands. Not high up, just eight or nine inches. And then imagine a guard, not unlike your assailant here, breaking your lower legs. One leg strapped to a stool, and a sudden blow with an iron bar. Then the other. As you swing there, with both your legs broken, in agony, you may scream and do other time-wasting things. Eventually, however, you will stop. Then I might ask you again where Machyn's chronicle is. If you tell me, you will be let down gently, and I will have the bonesetter see to your injuries. But if you choose to remain silent, I might well decide to cut that rope and let you fall…The damage would be irreparable. And that would not be the end of the pain but rather the start—for I would just leave you there, where you fell.”

Walsingham gestured for the guards to raise Clarenceux to his feet.

“You are a…” began Clarenceux, but he broke off. The pain surged in his knee as the guards lifted him upright, forcing him to stand. He put his weight on his left leg. “We have a…law against torture.”

Walsingham calmly placed his palms flat on the table. He leaned forward again. “I will repeat what I said a moment ago. You seem to me to be very complacent. Until just five years ago we burnt men and women for heresy. Forty years ago we boiled women alive for poisoning at the king's court. Some crimes will never deserve anything other than the most extreme punishment. Heresy is one. Treason is another. The festering wound of religious division must be cauterized. If not with fire, then with something equally efficient.”

“Hence…your damned searches,” hissed Clarenceux, still grimacing against the pain.

“So, you
do
understand. Good.” Walsingham ate another sweetmeat. “Now, what I said about breaking your legs will not happen to you tonight. And if you tell me where Machyn's book is, it will not happen to you at all. That knock on your knee will do no lasting damage.”

“No?” said Clarenceux, still feeling it.

“Of course not,” snapped Walsingham. “I need you to stand in the pillory first, with your ears bleeding. Then I want you to be seen walking through the streets to the Tower. In chains, in procession. To show the Catholics what they can expect, so more of them are minded to bow before the power of her majesty and inform on their fellow plotters.”

Clarenceux said nothing.

“Where is Machyn's book?” Walsingham demanded.

“I do not know.”

“Again, where is Machyn's book?”

Clarenceux wanted to shout, to give vent to his anger, but he knew that that was what he was expected to do. Instead he concentrated on the pain in his leg.

“Mr. Harley, you are being very foolish. Or…what was it you said earlier? ‘Unwise.' I know you have that book.”

“Then send your men to find it.”

“The search is under way as we speak. And I have given Sergeant Crackenthorpe every liberty to be as thorough as necessary. Every chest, every floorboard, every nook. He will search every hole in every wall and every floor. Every barrel, full or empty, every keg in your kitchen, every piece of furniture will be upended, every fireplace unblocked…He will find it.”

“So why are you asking me for it?”

“Have you not worked that out for yourself?”

Clarenceux stared at him.
What
does
he
mean? Surely I am being interrogated…pleading for myself, my own case. Is this not a battle between the information I have and the punishment he can inflict?

“You disappoint me, Mr. Harley. I had hoped you would be honest and save me a lot of trouble. But I suppose it does not matter. Mr. Secretary Cecil will forgo his kind memories of you, I am sure, when I tell him why you are to be sent to the gallows.”

Clarenceux closed his eyes.
Maybe
this
is
not
about
me…If I have already been pronounced guilty, I am being interrogated to see if I will confess. To see whom I might implicate in Machyn's plot.

He opened his eyes: Walsingham was smiling. He tried to set aside the man's confidence, to reassure himself.
I
have
admitted
many
things
since
coming
into
this
room, but very few that Walsingham did not already know. I have learned far more than he has.

“Are you going to tell me about the book, Mr. Harley? Or do you want to feel the iron bar against your other knee?”

“Even if I had the book, I could not help you. I did not realize it was more than a very poor chronicle. That is the honest truth. I have no idea how it might be—”

“I do not believe you.”

“It is true!” exploded Clarenceux suddenly. “It is true, true, TRUE, I tell you! If that is a secret document, only Henry Machyn can tell you how to use it. I cannot help you.”

Walsingham poured himself another cup of wine and walked over to his sweetmeat tray. “Still not good enough, Mr. Harley. You see, I know that you are lying. Do you not understand?”

A slight draught caught the candles, and they guttered together. Tears were rolling down Clarenceux's face.

“Do you not know where Machyn was arrested?”

“Of course I don't.”

“In your stable loft.”

“What?” At first Clarenceux did not believe what he had just heard. Then he remembered Thomas telling him that there were signs of a fight in the stable. He himself had found the gate unlocked when he went out in the night.

Walsingham nodded. “When you were taken home, after your little interlude with Sergeant Crackenthorpe, your friend Machyn was found on your premises.”

“No. No!”

“Left knee.”

“No!” As he turned to look at the man with the iron bar, he lost his balance on his one good leg and fell. He hit the floor hard and found himself sobbing, terrified by the thought of his imminent torture and hanging. He felt sick. He tried to wipe the tears from his face. He backed into the table, attempting to shield himself from his attacker. But the man with the bar did not strike him.

Walsingham was leaving the room. There had been a knock on the door. He was talking to someone outside in a low voice.

Minutes passed. He remembered Machyn's tears.
That
was
only
last
night. After Machyn left my house, he must have hidden in the stable loft through the worst of the storm. Fool! Why did he not stay inside when I offered? Then I would not have left the house, never have been caught by Crackenthorpe
…

A different thought suddenly occurred to him.
How
did
Machyn
know
Crackenthorpe
would
kill
him
by
the
end
of
the
day? How did he know that Crackenthorpe would find him there, in that stable loft? Was it just a guess? Or had he planned it? Was that last line in the chronicle written simply to stir me into action? Is this all an elaborate trap?

Walsingham walked back into the room.

“You will be put in the cellar overnight. Tomorrow you will be taken over to the Tower.” Walsingham lifted his cup to his lips. “No one outside those walls will hear you.”

Clarenceux was motionless, numb. “Am I to have no trial?”

Walsingham frowned. “Mr. Harley, do you still not see? This
was
your trial. It is over.”

Awdrey tucked the blankets around her daughter in her cot and, looking at her sleeping face, whispered a prayer. She set the candle on the floor and wiped her eyes. The handkerchief was already sodden. She put it down and looked around the room again, trying to take in what she had lost.

They had been ruthless. They had destroyed her clothes chest, smashed it to pieces with an ax. They had even ripped up the clothes. Here was a linen sleeve from a chemise; there a bodice from a favorite blue dress she had had for years. Why did they need to do that? Machyn's book could not be hidden in the seams.

She picked up a linen shift. It had a huge tear across the breast. She wiped her eyes again. Lifting the candle, she could see that William's chest had had one side smashed in and the top wrenched off. The candlestick in the recess above the bed was broken. The mattress and pillows had been slashed. Feathers lay all over the floor, shifting in the air of the room. Even the rocker under the child's cot had been broken off. The front of the cupboard in the wall was nothing more than splintered wood. The brass basin she had proffered to William that morning lay upside down, dented by a boot.

William. What has happened to him?

She crossed herself, unsure whether to be angry at him for bringing this on them, or fearful lest he be injured or imprisoned.

William had said that he feared that Henry Machyn would be killed. But it had been Rebecca who had told her about the book. It had also been Rebecca who had taken it from the house in the minutes before Sergeant Crackenthorpe had returned. Why hadn't William given it to her? Why had he not told her where it was? Now everything they owned was destroyed. They had even slashed open Annie's mattress. She was sleeping on a makeshift mattress of blankets.

This
is
William's fault. If they indict him, he will have brought that fate on himself. In a moment of madness. He should have known better: he is experienced enough. No doubt they have destroyed all the books in his study too.

She crossed herself again. She would go in the morning down to her sister's house in Devon to get away from this horror, which she had once cherished as her home.

She looked at her sleeping daughter and made the sign of the cross over her. Then she left the room quietly.

Holding the candle, she went down the stairs. When she glanced in the parlor, the glow of the candle revealed broken wood and plaster across the floor just inside the door. She turned away. She would leave first thing in the morning. Take nothing with her to remind her of this. Just the children.

But where was everyone? Where was Thomas? Emily? Nurse Brown? The boys? She had been told to go upstairs and stay there with her daughters after they had ransacked and destroyed her bedchamber. She had not seen what had happened down here.

In the silence she looked around the hall. The elm table was almost the only thing that had not been broken. The silver candlesticks too were intact. She bent down and picked one up, setting it on the table. To her left, William's prized round mirror was smashed, lying in pieces on the floor where a soldier had stamped on it. The carpet over the chest had had a knife driven through it.

As she moved along, bringing her small light to bear on each minute sadness, she felt that much more had been destroyed than her possessions. Her trust in the place had been destroyed too. Her husband's protection had been found wanting. And more than that: she was walking in dead, empty space. There was no one, no sound from anywhere in the house.

Could
they
have
arrested
them
all?

She walked, almost in a daze, down the dark back stairs. The lake of liquid across the floorboards in the corridor told her that they had broken the barrels. The buttery door was open; inside, the kegs were on their sides.

She carried her candle through to the kitchen. Apples and vegetables were everywhere, having been stamped underfoot and kicked together with corn strewn from the sacks that used to be propped against the wall. Joints of meat that had been hanging in the rafters had been cut down and thrown on the fire. The remains of several legs of salted pork sizzled quietly in the ash and embers. There too lay several blackened meat bones and a trivet, upturned. A skillet nearby had been thrown onto the fire so its handle had burned away.

She felt the tears welling up in her eyes again. There was nothing for her here now. She lifted the candle for a final look and turned to go. At that moment she realized that an old brown blanket had been hanging almost directly above her. It was suspended from one of the kitchen roof beams. It was odd, she thought, for them to throw a blanket up into the beams. She raised the candle and looked up. The blanket was damp at one corner, and a few spots of glistening water were dripping from the damp edge. But that damp edge enclosed a dirty foot. She looked higher into the shadows and saw the torn shirt with the blood on it and the jerkin covered in sawdust. Only then did she see the white face of Will Terry—and his lifeless eyes staring into the infinite void.

The door to the cellar slammed shut, and Clarenceux was left in darkness. He heard the bolts being fastened. All he had managed to see of his accommodation for this, the last night of his life, were the stone steps leading down into the blackness. It was damp and very cold. It stank of urine and decomposing excrement. It must be a large cellar, he thought, and the shutes of the privies on the floors above must empty into barrels stored down here.

He reached for the wall. The smell made him feel sick. He already felt queasy from his interrogation and now he felt worse. The pain in his right knee had slightly abated, and he could walk. But it was still difficult to put weight on it.

He took a step down in the darkness, keeping his hand on the wall. A small stone or piece of plaster dislodged, fell from the steps, and splashed into the water that covered the cellar floor.

Clarenceux stopped. At this time of year, in this temperature, everything would be damp. His own house had no cellars, but those of his neighbors were often flooded. His neighbors said the flooding was a benefit, for the urine that fell into the barrels rotted the wood so that the liquid seeped out and was dissolved in the water. But Clarenceux was sure the water did not go anywhere. It just sat there in winter: cold, stagnant, and stinking.

Still touching the cold wall, he carefully eased himself down onto the step. His knee ached terribly. He heard shouts from upstairs and a few men walking about. Then nothing.

A rat scampered through the water in the darkness.

He ran a hand over the velvet of his doublet. By now they would have found the book. And they had Henry Machyn. They would torture Machyn until he confessed everything. And when he did so—whatever it was that he confessed—he, Clarenceux, would be deemed guilty of all the same offenses. He too would be tortured, and even though his confession would hardly tally with Machyn's, they would both be condemned. His name was everywhere in the book. He was Machyn's social superior, so Machyn would be considered just a foot soldier in whatever battle he was fighting. Clarenceux would be judged the leader.

He remembered Awdrey's face and her golden hair as she had lain in bed the previous night. And Annie, in her bright-eyed innocence, sitting on his knee a few days ago and talking to him about things she had seen in the city.

What were they doing to his house? He hoped they would be restrained. And Awdrey—was she too in prison somewhere? How were they treating her? And what about Goodwife Machyn? If they had arrested her husband they were bound to want to question her too. He imagined her being arrested, those sad, brown eyes shocked and fearful.
O
God
, he prayed,
please
do
not
let
any
harm
befall
either
of
them.

He wiped his eyes on his sleeve, feeling the anger rise. It was Machyn's fault. That was the truth. What was it he had said about his recognizing a sentence from the book of Job? What could he remember of Job?
Should
a
wise
man
speak
vain
knowledge, and fill his belly with the wind from the east? Should he reason with words of no value? Or make pointless speeches? You cast off fear and fail to pray before God, for you have confessed your sins with your own mouth, you choose the way of cunning. It is your own mouth that condemns you, and not mine. It is your own lips that testify against you.

Machyn was probably testifying at this moment.
Are
the
consolations
of
the
Lord
small
for
you? Is there any secret in you?

Is
there
any
secret?
Clarenceux clenched his fist and pressed it against the stone wall. Machyn had overestimated him. The man had had too high a regard for his learning and his influence. And he himself should have known better. A lesser man had taken advantage of him, and he in his vanity had succumbed.

Walsingham had been right in one respect. He had been complacent. He had been naive. And now he was going to die.

“I AM INNOCENT!” he yelled, the sudden words like color across the darkness. “I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!”

What would it feel like, the rope around his neck? But no, he did not need to fear that. He was going to be tortured to death. Would he fear death if he felt only pain?

What would they use to bring it about? He shivered in the cold. He had heard about a contraption they used in France. They called it the rack. He had read about it in his copy of Sir John Fortescue's
De
Laudibus
Legum
Angliae
. Fortescue had been so horrified by the very idea of the rack that he had not described the instrument in his book. Instead he had described the anguish, worse than death, experienced by guiltless knights who were tortured until they confessed to treasons so they might be killed quickly rather than be subjected to further torment.

There was nothing he could do now but wait and pray.

Where was God in this? Could this, in any possible way, be His will? That a man should be tortured to death for a crime of which he was completely ignorant?

This cellar had been deserted by God. He was already entering the kingdom of the dead.