Final Sacrament (Clarenceux Trilogy) (22 page)

Tuesday, January 28

Sounds of a child’s laughter came from a bedchamber at Cecil House. Awdrey sat on the floor, rolling glass beads to Mildred across a sloping board. “Eighteen!” exclaimed Mildred, delighted. “Eighteen,” echoed her mother, smiling. Sunlight made the bead sparkle as it rolled. “Nineteen…twenty!”

“Well done,” said Awdrey encouragingly. “Now, if you were to roll half of all those beads back to me, how many would you have left?”

“Six!” guessed Mildred.

“No, no, think,” said Awdrey. “Divide them into two groups.”

There was a knock at the door. One of Cecil’s ushers entered with a young maidservant, whom Awdrey recognized as a woman called Elizabeth. He bowed. “Madam, your husband is here to see you. And my mistress craves the companionship of her goddaughter in the chapel.”

Awdrey turned to Mildred. “Will you be very good for Lady Cecil, and go with Elizabeth?”

The little girl nodded gravely and got to her feet to join the maidservant, who held her hand out to her, smiling. The usher withdrew. Clarenceux stepped slowly into the room. He bowed to her formally, then came closer and kissed her.

“We have found the way by which those women entered the house,” he said. “They came through a hole in the back attic. It was covered with a hide.”

“How did you find it?”

“With difficulty. How is Annie?”

“Improving. She has been up and about—although she is still not well enough to move from her room. Tell me more about the attic.”

“I met a young lad in a tavern. I do not know him at all and yet I have the feeling I know him very well. He has a gift for divining things—so much so that he has clearly enraged several men in his time who have cut his face for using his skills to defeat them in card games. I used to have something of a similar gift, when I was his age. Mine was nothing like as marked as his, but I understand what it is to sense the truth. He found the concealed entrance.”

“Does this boy have a name?”

“Fyndern Catesby.”

“And? Is there a sign of the women?”

“No. When we investigated their chamber, there were three beds. Two were abandoned. The third woman had recently fled.”

Awdrey bent down and started to pick up the glass beads that Mildred had left scattered on the floor, replacing them in a small box.

“I miss you,” she said suddenly, without meaning to say what she was thinking.

Clarenceux joined her in bending down to pick up the beads, popping a couple in the box. “Do you remember when we were courting? I would visit your father’s house and bow so respectfully, and quote chapters from the Bible—all the time trying to stop myself from imagining you naked.” He paused, rolling a bead between his fingers.

She smiled and playfully punched his arm.

He smiled back, and then said, “I miss you too. But now, after everything that has happened, I yearn for a different form of satisfaction, one far greater than mere happiness.”

She put her hand on his arm. “You will find it. I have faith in you. I don’t believe anyone will ever be able to stop you doing what you want, or at least what you feel is right.”

They spoke together for another half an hour about the children, and the dark clouds of doubt momentarily parted to allow gleams of hope to touch them. They went to see Annie in her chamber overlooking the garden. Briefly Clarenceux saw Lady Cecil, her young son Robert, and his daughter Mildred after they had concluded their chapel attendance. Then it was time for him to go. He embraced little Mildred and playfully flicked a lock of her hair, which made her giggle. Lady Cecil considerately took the children away, leaving him to say good-bye to Awdrey alone.

“I will call again on Thursday,” he said, putting his cloak over his shoulders. “Tomorrow I have to confront Dethick and agree with him about this visitation of Oxfordshire. I don’t think I can put it off any longer—not without him threatening to summon me to answer to the Earl Marshal. But we shall see.” He came close and put a hand to her cheek. “Your skin is so soft.” He embraced her and kissed her.

Awdrey watched him walk away into the cold damp air of the courtyard. Now she could see that she truly was his Pole Star. His hopes were guided by her existence. She quietly answered questions for him that he did not even think to ask. She steadied him, comforted him, just through merely being part of his life.

Wednesday, January 29

In the morning, Clarenceux called again at the house two doors from his own, where the women had stayed. Still the old woman who lived there had not returned, which he found surprising. She was a widow and her married children lived in the city still, so she was often to be seen walking down to the bridge to visit them. As he stood outside with Thomas and Fyndern, rubbing his hands for warmth, he cursed. She was his only hope of finding out who had made the initial approach to her to allow the women to use her house.

Later, Clarenceux went to see Sir Gilbert Dethick at Derby Place, the home of the College of Arms. Dethick lived here in a suite of rooms that he considered too modest for him, the most senior of all the heralds. Clarenceux entered through the main gate to the quadrangle and sent word that he would meet Dethick in the great hall. There he paced up and down, looking up at the familiar coats of arms of past heralds and the painted panels of past kings. He nodded a brief greeting to the familiar servants as they came and went. Only when he saw one of the lesser heralds, the pursuivants, who would be required to accompany him on his visitation, did he speak at any length.

Sir Gilbert strode into the hall half an hour later, his gray hair and mustache neatened in the mirror before making his appearance.

“Mr. Clarenceux, I am glad to see you. Am I to suppose we have progress? Your visitation will proceed?”

Clarenceux bowed politely. “Mr. Garter, I feel that I owe you an apology. We parted abruptly and that was my fault. I am sorry.”

Dethick raised his eyebrows. “What? Where is the old I-don’t-give-a-fig Clarenceux? Where is the swaggering man who boasts of being the only herald to have killed a man in hand-to-hand combat? Are you here as his impostor?”

“It is something that must be done. If the clerks can be ready on Tuesday morning, I will set out then. Does that meet with your approval?”

“Approval? You would have met with my approval had you set out two weeks ago. But your coming here and giving me the date goes some way to allay my concern. Let us drink to that.”

Half an hour later, Clarenceux was walking along Thames Street. A slight drizzle had begun to fall—yet more rain. He walked down to the Thames and stood on Queenhithe looking at the hundreds of small boats crisscrossing the river. On Three Cranes Wharf, barrels of wine were being loaded for transportation up the river to Berkshire. On the far bank, lines of houses faced the river, with the bear-baiting and bull-baiting rings behind them. To the west there was the great structure of the bridge and, beyond that, the forest of masts of ships in the river awaiting lading or unlading at the sea-going vessels’ quays. In one of the upper windows of the houses on the south bank, a woman hauled in her washing on a pole that had been left out too long. Another house nearby had a similar pole out; their laundry was getting slowly soaked again. Barges bobbed about on the gray-brown water, moored in midstream; wherries ferried men in ones and twos from one set of river steps to another, their awnings at the rear raised to protect their passengers from the rain. All life was bustling on. All would continue to bustle on, even if he were no longer here to see it.

He looked to the east, where the line of houses on the south bank stopped and the fields met the river. How long would it be before the trees and bushes there were gone? Paris Garden would no doubt one day be a suburb of the city; the trees around the manor house there would be cut down and burned or used for timbers and planking. So many people were now coming into London seeking their fortunes that the city was bound to expand. And where would it leave people like him? More ambitious men would make their fortunes and erect great houses; more people would claim coats of arms and seek to impress their fellow men. His colleagues would never be out of work. But increasingly the heralds would pander to rich self-made men—lawyers, bankers, statesmen, merchants, and courtiers—and collude with them in their attempts to become distinguished and respectable, with many quarterings on their shields.

It wouldn’t be the nobility who built on the south bank of the river: it would be the new merchants whose covetousness was like a stench that pervaded the city. Personally, he had never understood the driving ambition to become so wealthy. He accepted his place in the social hierarchy—and while he understood why people with less money than him felt the need to improve their lot, he could not comprehend why men who were already wealthy desired even greater wealth. But he knew such men would one day change everything. They were discovering new countries, new islands, new animals, and new plants. They were questioning the old wisdom—and they were doing these things in the name of the Protestant faith that the queen espoused.

Two bedraggled seagulls came to land near him, both having spied a piece of bread at the same time. They started fighting over it, lifting their wings and uttering harsh,
guaaark
screeches at each other. A third bird came into land, and a fourth. This last one was larger and went for the others with his beak. When the smaller birds had backed off, the larger one stood there proudly, not eating the crust but daring any other birds to come near and steal it.
We
are
not
so
different
from
them
, mused Clarenceux.
For
the
sake
of
a
crust, people are flocking here and fighting, and the great merchants find more pleasure in having their wealth than spending it.

The drizzle was coming down harder. Clarenceux looked up at the cold gray skies and started to head for home. In Carter Lane, a familiar voice hailed him. “Mr. Clarenceux, sir, Mr. Clarenceux!” He looked up to see Fyndern running fast toward him. There were beads of sweat and rain on the boy’s face when he reached him, panting.

“Fyndern, how did you find me?”

“Sir, I just guessed…But your wife, sir!”

“What about my wife?”

“Lady Cecil has sent a message asking if she can come home, sir, as your daughter Annie is worse for health.”

“But Awdrey is already with Lady Cecil.”

“No, sir. Apparently you sent a message by way of Thomas to her at Cecil House. Lady Cecil’s man said you asked her to come urgently, saying that you were in great danger and needed to pass a message to them in person before fleeing.”

Clarenceux did not ask another question. He started to run. People hurrying to get out of the rain saw him and stepped out of his way. Around corners of houses he ran, understanding now how the plot had always been unfolding around him. As he hastened across Fleet Bridge and up Fleet Street, he knew he had been outmaneuvered. They had spied on him from inside his house and from outside. They had tracked his family’s movements and learned exactly what was necessary to separate him and Awdrey and to lure her away from safety.

Clarenceux reached the front door of his house and hammered on it, out of breath. Fyndern came running up immediately behind him. Thomas answered.

“Tell me it is not true, Thomas,” gasped Clarenceux. He grabbed hold of his servant’s arm. “Tell me it is not true!” But he could see in the old man’s eyes that his hope was in vain.

“Mr. Clarenceux, I know not what to say. We knew nothing about this until an hour ago, when Lady Cecil sent for Mistress Harley. The servant—he was one of Sir William’s ushers, I recognized him—he said Mildred was with your wife. But Annie is suddenly worse. She is feverish and has a rapid pulse.”

“It is possible, is it not,” said Clarenceux, trying to calm himself, “that Awdrey has gone to call on someone. Maybe she saw the early signs of this development—the fever and Annie’s suffering—and sought the surgeon.” But then he looked at Thomas, who was shaking his head. “How can she have gone? Someone in the street must have seen her—between here and Cecil House.”

Clarenceux threw himself back out into the cold rain, seizing passersby and demanding of them if they had seen a twenty-seven-year-old blond woman and a four-year-old girl with her, with equally fair hair and blue eyes like her mother. But no one responded with anything other than alarm. He grew even more desperate, yelling at people—at the mute windows to give up what they saw, to the doors to open and reveal their secrets. The rain came down harder, and as Clarenceux moved up the street from passerby to passerby, from coal carrier to water bearer to laborer to blacksmith’s boy, he lost himself in despair. Behind him walked Fyndern, taking his lead from Thomas.

From the windows overlooking the street, other people observed him. Tom Green looked down from the house opposite. From another window in the same street, Sarah Cowie watched his progress. From a different window in the same house, Joan Hellier watched him. Through a half-opened shutter on the floor above, Greystoke watched him. They saw him go from stranger to stranger, asking in vain, slowly approaching the great edifice of Cecil House, with its unseeing wide eyes of glass.

***

Sarah Cowie turned away from the window, her heart beating fast. It was so wrong, what they had done. When they had seen Awdrey leave Cecil House, they had been concerned because her daughter was with her. Only Greystoke had been pleased. “The fledgling as well as the hen,” he had muttered. And his men had performed the task with careful precision. The cart had been drawn across in front of her and Cecil’s servant, shielding them from the passersby while the man was slaughtered with a knife through his windpipe and loaded into the cart and she was seized and hauled into the nearby house, with a thick rope around her head, in her mouth, preventing her from shouting. Joan had seen to Mildred, lifting her up and carrying her into the house, and then taking her up the stairs. That was when Awdrey stopped struggling. She accepted that she could not leave without being separated from her daughter. Now she was huddled with Mildred under a blanket in a back chamber.

“Greystoke wants her moved tomorrow,” said Joan, still looking out the window.

“In Christ’s wounds, I hate that man,” said Sarah. “It is not the fear of God he puts into me but the fear of something worse. I just hope that now Mr. Clarenceux will come to his senses and surrender the document.”

***

Clarenceux pushed past the usher in the corridor and opened the door to the parlour himself. The panelled room was empty. “Where is Sir William?” he demanded. “Where is he?”

“He has been sent for, Mr. Clarenceux. I am sure he will return from Richmond just as soon as—”

“Mr. Clarenceux, may I be of assistance?” said Lady Cecil, approaching.

“How did it happen? Where is she?” jabbered Clarenceux, holding out his hands, gripping the air that held no answers. “I don’t know what to do. I cannot think.”

“Your panic will help no one. Calm down,” said Lady Cecil stiffly. “Now, as my usher tells me, your wife and your younger daughter have gone missing. Your other daughter Annie is feverish. I think it would be productive for you, in your wife’s absence, to attend to your sick daughter.”

Clarenceux was suddenly sober. “Yes, of course.”

Lady Cecil nodded and led him upstairs through the corridors of the house to the chamber at the back. Annie laid on a bed beside the window, a woman beside her, wiping the sweat from her brow. She moved her head from side to side and had a gray pallor. Her hair was wet, her night rail soaked, and her mouth open as she breathed rapidly.

Clarenceux crossed himself when he saw her. Her eyes were shifting focus, seeing him and then not seeing him. She showed no reaction to his presence. “Where is my mam?” she asked. “I need my mam.”

The woman nursing her moved aside and Clarenceux bent down and placed his face next to hers, feeling the heat and smelling the sweat of her fever. “Your mam has had to go away, Annie, my angel,” he said. He put his arms around her shoulders. “But you are in good hands; Lady Cecil is looking after you.”

“I want Mam,” repeated Annie, seeming not to understand her father. Then, blinking, she reached out and touched his beard, but let her hand fall back to the bed.

Clarenceux saw the dressing on her shoulder coming away and the yellowing and blood-smeared gash of the wound beneath. He felt the tears come to his eyes and tried to stop them, but he could not. One by one, they ran down his cheek and through his beard, dripping on his daughter’s counterpane. He wiped his face, struggling once more to stop them, but the thought of his wife’s absence was too much, and the emptiness and anguish overwhelmed him. Gritting his teeth, he pulled Annie toward him, praying silently at first, and then aloud. “Oh, Annie, my sweet, be well, please be well. We will find her. I will spend all day and night trying to find her. I will pray, I will hope—I will never give up hope—and we will all be together. Oh God, help me, help us.”

***

Sir William Cecil handed Clarenceux a glass of wine and took his seat at the table in the private dining room, next to his wife. “I’ve sent word to Walsingham, and the captain of the watch on the ward, as well as the watch on the bridge. We will have the houses of known Catholic sympathizers searched.”

“And the houses hereabouts?” asked Clarenceux. “They must have been taken between this house and my house, only a few hundred yards away. Search those too.”

“I will have those houses searched too, all of them along the route. But if this plan was as well-executed as it seems—so carefully done that they were spying on us both in order to seize their opportunity—they will not linger in the same house but remove Awdrey and Mildred to another place, further away. However, should they try to do so tonight they will find all the alleys as well as the highways patrolled. My men will search all the carts, all the wagons. I am confident that if they try to move her, we will catch them.”

“One act of kindness,” said Clarenceux bitterly. “I took in one document for a friend—and my life has not been the same since. I have made enemies of people, unwillingly. I have been hounded, persecuted, tortured. Friends and servants have been murdered, my daughter shot and now close to death, and my wife and daughter taken. I feel as if the Lord is trying my faith, as He did Tobit, blinding him and forcing him into poverty to test him, or like Job, who was righteous, perfect, and upright, hard-working and wealthy, with seven thousand sheep and three thousand camels, and the Lord smote his house, his lands, his animals, and everything he possessed…”