Final Sacrament (Clarenceux Trilogy) (4 page)

Clarenceux paused in the doorway. “I am not going to let them hang him with no one but jeering crowds there to see him. He was a good priest to both my mother and my brother. He stood by them while they were dying. He gave them the last rites. I want him at least to know there are people who will always appreciate the good he has done in this world before he goes to the next.”

Awdrey put one arm around his shoulders and the other hand she placed on his chest. “William, it is too dangerous. Those people across the street, do you not think they will see you? They will know where you are going. Walsingham is probably waiting at this very moment for you to step outside—to arrest you for trying to protect a man he has condemned as a traitor.”

He looked at her and saw the fear in her blue eyes. He gently moved a loose strand of golden hair away from her face. “Awdrey, Sir John is my friend in God. I will not let him go to his death without someone beside him. No more than I would you.”

He removed her hand from his chest, kissed it, and stepped out onto the staircase. He descended fast, determined not to look back. At the bottom he picked up his long black cloak from the peg nearest to the door and nodded to his old manservant, Thomas, who had heard his master’s footsteps but was too late to reach the front door. Thomas was left standing, watching, as Clarenceux strode out of the house, leaving the door open behind him.

Thomas closed it. A child’s cry made him look up. In the hall, he found Awdrey crouched on the floor holding Mildred, who was crying. She had dropped her doll and Clarenceux had inadvertently stepped on it as he had left. Annie was standing there too, uncertain what to do.

“He’s allowing it to take him over,” Awdrey said, looking at Thomas. “I don’t know what to say to him. He is living every moment as if he’s fighting, scared. He cannot hold a conversation without bringing it back to that accursed document. I wish he would just destroy it and be done with it.”

Thomas tactfully waited until an opportune moment came. “He says that he
has
destroyed it, Mistress Harley.”

Awdrey cradled Mildred all the more. “You don’t believe that, Thomas, do you? That document is like a bad conscience, eating away at him, making him do things that are dangerous.”

“Mistress Harley, would it be reassuring if I followed Mr. Clarenceux? We know where he is going.”

“Yes, Thomas. Yes, it would. Please. Go with God.”

Mary Vardine was forty-three years of age and near death. The wounds from the whip on her bare back stung terribly; the gashes were as deep as the thickness of a finger and they would probably never heal. She lay in the dim corner of the jail, starving and frozen on the cold earth floor. Pieces of muddy straw had stuck to the congealed blood on her back She had nothing covering her but the remains of her torn smock. The stench of urine around her was rank, and she had fouled herself. In the last four days she had had nothing to eat but only three slices of stale bread.

She coughed and tried to spit, but there was no phlegm. She closed her eyes and opened them again; all she could see was a gray haze of moving shapes. She heard the clink of a key and the creak of the cage door opening. Two of the shapes approached, and she heard the voices of two younger women prisoners trying to attract the attention of the jailers. One of them was a kindly young tailor’s wife who had made sure that Mary had been given a piece of bread one day. If Mary had had the energy, she might have hoped that the warden would choose to lie with her. But in truth she was too tired even to hope anymore. They were all in this hole because they had been accused of felonies; in all likelihood they would be sentenced to be killed on the next visit of the assize judges. For the younger women, there remained the one hope that they could become pregnant before that day, so they could plead their bellies. It was not so much to prostitute themselves that the women called to the guards—it was to find a man who was ready to show pity to them. There was no other transaction except the sexual act, unless the barbarities perpetrated on some of the women by the more vicious jailers counted as a form of payment, by the women.

Mary was too old to plead her belly; the court would not believe her if she did. Besides, she was guilty, and in a cell full of desperate women. Twenty years ago she had found herself in prison for the theft of a silver-rimmed purse from a market stall. The penalty would have been hanging, had she not pleaded her belly. On that occasion she had been in a mixed cell, and among the male prisoners was a young man due to hang the next day; she had let him lie with her all night. After he had been killed, many others had taken his place, whether or not she wanted them to. All she knew about the father of her third daughter was that he had been a criminal. When the girl was born, Mary had been taken out of the cell to give birth in the warden’s house; her brother’s wife had acted as the midwife and managed to arrange her escape while only women were allowed into the birth chamber, before the clearing up was complete. Such a strategy was now beyond her. Even if her age had not been against her—even if she had not been in such a pitiful state—no one would come to her aid in another nine months. Her brother was dead and so was his wife. Besides, she suspected the jailers here wanted her to face trial and be put to death. She was not facing the noose but the punishment of being burned at the stake—high entertainment in many people’s eyes. In her ecstasy after stabbing her husband, she had cried with relief and told many people what she had done. She was not without supporters—a number of women quietly sympathized with her plight and were glad for her—but someone had told someone who in turn had told other men. The High Constable had ordered her to be arrested, on penalty of a heavy fine to be paid by the whole parish. That was how she had been whipped and now faced death by burning: for ridding the world of a vicious drunk, a bully and an abuser of his own stepdaughters.

Mary did not understand why the jailers did not pick either of the women for fornication but came toward her.

“Mary Vardine?” one asked, nudging her arm with his boot.

She did not answer. Somewhere beyond the bars, in another building, was a courtroom, and in that courtroom the evil of her crime would be announced, and her sentence officially spat out. They said that people normally lived to feel the pain even after the fat of their own feet had started to drip into the flames. Death was the only release. It would be better that she just died here, in this cell, of cold and hunger. She did not regret what she had done, and she would stab her husband over and over again if she had to. She might not have saved her daughters from all the indignities and sufferings of life, but she had put a permanent end to one of them.

The second jailer came over to where she lay and, together with the first, they lifted her to her feet. She made no attempt to stand, so they dragged her out of the cage and down the corridor to a chamber where a gentleman, Mr. Philips, was waiting to see her. There they tried to place her on a bench. She blinked in the light, then kept her eyes closed and collapsed onto her side.

“This is the woman?” asked Mr. Philips, looking down with disgust at her bloodied skin and filthy smock.

“It is,” replied the first jailer. “She stinks as rotten as her soul. She boasted about her crime. He was found in his own yard, stabbed in a frenzy. The constable had her whipped.”

Philips stretched out a gloved hand and lifted one of Mary’s eyelids with his thumb. She opened her eyes but said nothing. He withdrew his hand. “Lord Shrewsbury wants her spared,” he said.

“If that is Lord Shrewsbury’s will,” said the first jailer, “then we must obey, but the London justices surely won’t like it that he’s taken so many women now from an appointment with the Devil.”

Philips took off his glove and reached into a pocket. “Be that as it may, I have my orders and now you have yours.” He handed each of the men two silver coins. “Take her to Mistress Haig’s house; there she can be cleaned up and fed. After that, your custodial duty will be done. Mistress Haig’s man will see to the rest, as before.”

“Mr. Philips,” said the second jailer, whose lank hair fell across his face, “why does Lord Shrewsbury choose this woman? There are many who are hoping to see her burn—and many women far more deserving of compassion. We could easily find Lord Shrewsbury a younger and better-looking woman.”

Philips shook his head. “It is his old aunt’s decision. Lord Shrewsbury instructed me to follow the orders of Lady Percy’s steward, Benedict Richardson, in all things concerning this jail and his rights herein. As you know, Lord Shrewsbury has the power of life and death over convicted felons—an ancient prerogative. What I tell you is simply what Mr. Richardson has decided on behalf of Lady Percy. They are the ones exercising judgment, not Lord Shrewsbury.”

Clarenceux walked fast, managing the pain in his hip as best he could. He felt conscious of his awkward gait. From Fleet Street he turned left into Shoe Lane, with the smells of smoke from the morning’s fires and fresh horse dung in his nostrils. There were only a few white clouds in the blue sky, the mildest of breezes; despite the sharp cold, it was like a spring day. A long barnlike building on the west side of the street was being pulled down for new housing on the site. Several trees from the garden had also been cut and were being sawn up by workers who had half-blocked the road with their wagon. The men outside the cockpit were preparing for the afternoon’s entertainment, taking in birds in wooden cages from carts parked there and chalking up prices on a board. Clarenceux passed old houses with low beams and shutters wide open, women carrying baskets, servants cleaning steps, and men setting about their work. At Holborn, on the corner with Fetter Lane, beneath the tower of St. Andrew’s Church, he turned to watch the people and carts crossing the Fleet at Holborn Bridge.

A friend of his wife’s greeted him jovially with a “Good morrow to you, Mr. Harley,” and he acknowledged her with a nod, and a smile; but he turned slightly, indicating that he did not wish to be engaged in conversation. Even after she had gone he could not rid himself of the image of her smile. It was such a contrast: a man was about to be killed for nothing but the crime of being loyal to the Church and kind to his fellow Christians—and she was trying to engage him in idle chatter.
How
can
anyone
say
“good morrow” when one of their company is going to be killed for a matter of conscience? The Romans killed Christ for preaching a message of peace and goodwill, and now the priests who carry God’s blessing are being killed by the State.
Clarenceux asked himself the question:
After fifteen hundred years of Christ’s ministry, has anything changed?
In his heart he had to say:
Yes, the hypocrisy is worse.
But was that just his old age speaking, the timeless grumblings of men past their prime? People seemed to have lost both their sense of right and wrong, and their courage to stand up against injustice. They had learned to smile while the State executed dissenters. They separated their own interests from those of their communities. From now on, more and more people would live their lives as selfish individuals, not as persons belonging to a greater commonwealth.

Thomas knew that Clarenceux would walk along Shoe Lane. He had been twice with him to watch an execution—or, rather, to give succor to a condemned man. At the gate to the city liberties, he stopped, a hundred yards short of the church, where a house on the right-hand side protruded into the street. The mud here stank, having been used as a pissing place by men coming and going from the cockpit. After a minute, and seeing Clarenceux waiting for the procession of those condemned to die, he returned down Shoe Lane and cut across to Fetter Lane to wait for the procession to pass Barnard’s Inn.

About ten minutes after the bells of the city had chimed the hour, Thomas saw the Tyburn cart crossing Holborn Bridge. It had high sides, solid wooden wheels, and was pulled by two chestnut horses. Six guards accompanied it, all armed with halberds. Not many people had gathered to watch it go past, not here. Most knew the fate of the six men and three women standing inside it; they would have presumed that the condemned were thieves and murderers, to be pointed out to children as examples. One or two onlookers shouted a curse or an insult as the cart passed them; most, however, were unmoved by the sight of the men and women on their way to execution. It was just another one of the city’s routines.

Clarenceux stepped out from his waiting place by St. Andrew’s and started to walk behind the cart. “Sir John, remember that God is with you, and the goodness you have done in His name will never be forgotten, and that you are in our hearts,” he called in a loud voice.

Men and women stopped what they were doing and stared at him. For a moment there was amazement that anyone—not least a gentleman—would dare speak openly to one of the criminals in the cart. But there was no doubting that that was exactly what Clarenceux was doing; his voice was trained to carry and he was using it to good effect.

Three of the guards stopped and rounded on him; they leveled their halberds at him. “Silence, you! Do not speak to the prisoners,” shouted one, as the cart continued on its way.

They resumed their positions and likewise Clarenceux resumed his, following the cart. “God be with you, Sir John,” he called. “Tonight you will dine at the right hand of the Lord Jesus. The food of Heaven will be sweet—sweeter by far than the bitterness that people—”

The first clod of earth hit him, shortly followed by the second. “Shame on you, Papist!” yelled a woman. A man with a tall, black hat confronted Clarenceux, trying to stop him from following the cart. “Do you want to hang too?” he demanded. “Show some sense, go home.” But Clarenceux simply moved around him, to the other side of the road, close to where Thomas was standing. The guards backed away cautiously, watching him.

Thomas waited as the cart rumbled past the end of Fetter Lane. Never had nine men and women looked more pitiful, he thought. Two prisoners were on their knees—he could see their faces through the side of the cart. Two women were embracing each other. The others just stood with their hands bound, leaning against the wooden side of the cart as it lurched over the uneven road. Sir John alone stood proud in the middle, his head shaved.

“Behold, you, the living! You, the complacent living!” Sir John’s voice rang out. “There is still one good man among you. One man of courage, one man of goodness. Do not pray for me; I go to meet my Maker. Pray for him—the good man, the man of conscience! Pray for yourselves, in your viperish and self-consuming sin! Pray for your redemption from the evil that you do in God’s name!”

For a moment Thomas lost sight of Clarenceux amid the gathering crowd. Then he heard his master’s unmistakable voice singing “
Agnus
Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi.
” Clarenceux was on the far side of the street, about fifty feet behind the prisoners. The guards had their halberds leveled at him and were walking backward, trying to keep pace with the cart, but they were no longer trying to push him away. They did not know what to do. They were irritated and confused. “
Miserere
nobis
,” Clarenceux sang, before repeating, “
Agnus
Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi.
”

Thomas hurried across the street, ready to protect his master. Clarenceux was singing part of the Latin Mass—“O Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world”—and the next line would end with the words
dona
nobis
pacem
: “give us peace.” It was threatening in its purity and its irony. He was striding more freely now, committed to his protest. More mud hit him. A gentleman in a fine silk waistcoat and doublet tried to have words with him. Clarenceux pushed him away, still singing.

At the top of Chancery Lane, more people started to gather. Still Clarenceux went on singing—and in chanting the
Agnus
Dei
he was joined by several of those in the cart, who, even if they did not know who he was, realized that he was singing it for them, and making a spectacle of himself for them, in defiance of the guards and the crowd. On they went, still singing the
Agnus
Dei
, and when they passed the grounds of Lincoln’s Inn, where the road left the houses and there were fields on both sides, the sound of the singing seemed to be stronger. People paid no attention to the prisoners but cajoled and cursed Clarenceux, accusing him of wanting to let murderers kill innocent people and Catholics assassinate the queen; but few followed the cart very far. When it approached the village of St. Giles in the Fields, only six people were still following. Clarenceux was one, Thomas another, and the other four were also singing the
Agnus
Dei
.

No one in the parish of St. Giles challenged the protesters, although the people in the high road looked askance at them. The guards did not bother them either, their halberds back on their shoulders. The prisoners took heart from this and continued singing through St. Giles and beyond, out along the road that led to Tyburn. But here the four men with Clarenceux fell away and returned to their own business. Thomas stayed with him, walking alongside, watching out. People going to Tyburn to see the execution caught up with them and then hurried on, often shouting an insult as they went. Washerwomen in the fields briefly stopped laying out their laundry and stared. But as the men and women in the cart saw how near they were to Tyburn, their singing turned to fearful wailing. One of the women began to scream hysterically. Sir John turned and tried to comfort her, and when she paid him no heed, he tried to rouse the others to sing again, but their hearts were not in it. They were people who preferred the tavern to the pulpit and had no wish to go to their deaths singing part of the old Mass. Those walking to the place of execution continued to shout abuse at the condemned as they passed the cart. Then even Clarenceux fell silent, simply repeating, “Hail, Mary, mother of God,” as he walked.

There were more than a thousand people gathered at Tyburn. It was the first of several law days in the city, and it had been some weeks since the last jail delivery, so those looking for some gruesome entertainment had all turned up early, hoping to secure the best view. As the cart drew nearer to the gallows, the distress of the prisoners became more extreme. Thomas saw there were children in the crowd: a boy of about nine was playing with a dog, and a young girl was chasing another child between the standing onlookers. He heard joyful shouts and saw a young woman being lifted into the air by a group of young men. Around him came careless shrieking, insults, and the singing of rude songs. He saw the face of a man in a leather jerkin who, realizing he had been swindled, lashed out at the coney-catcher who had tricked him. There was a woman being lasciviously kissed by a man at the back of the crowd, his hands groping her breasts. “Surely the Hell to which the most miserable sinner is condemned is no worse than this,” Clarenceux shouted to Thomas. But then the crowd surged forward. The people were not angry; they were singing and dancing and gesticulating and laughing, shouting jokes and throwing mud at the prisoners simply for the sport of seeing if they could hit them. The cries of the prisoners and the screams of a woman only made them laugh more, and the guards had to fend them off with their halberds.

Within a few seconds, Clarenceux, Thomas, and the cart were engulfed. The cart was almost stationary now with the press of the onlookers. Thomas tried to keep as close to Clarenceux as he could but it was difficult in the festive, jeering crowd. The six halberd bearers were assisted by a dozen soldiers who had been waiting at the gallows since early that morning, but it was all the guards could do to keep the crowd from climbing onto the cart. Thomas hoped that Clarenceux would back off, but he did not. Instead he pushed forward to seize hold of the back of the cart, and held on to it all the way to the gallows.

The gallows itself was a large timber frame of three interlocking beams—an oak triangle—on three huge upright oak supports. From each side of the triangle hung three nooses, ominously empty. The entire structure, massive though it was, could be seen to move slightly as the crowd pressed in around it, causing the empty nooses to sway. The cart came to a halt beneath the first of the great beams and two executioners placed sackcloth bags over the heads of the first three victims followed by the nooses. Then the back of the cart was let down. No one paid any attention to the priest at the foot of it, who tried to read words of consolation to the prisoners. One of the women and two of the men stood shivering and crying, muttering prayers until suddenly the cart gave a lurch and moved off. A huge roar went up as the crowd saw the three bodies twisting and spinning on the end of the ropes. The men with the halberds pushed them back, to make way for the cart to turn, as the three hanging prisoners began to twitch, their bodies struggling for breath.

After the next three prisoners had been left choking on the end of a rope, it was the turn of the last three, including Sir John. The cart turned and came to rest directly beneath the third beam. As the executioner climbed up onto the cart and started to put the hoods over their heads, Sir John stood grim-faced, looking down at the crowd, waiting his turn. He was second-to-last. Next to him stood a terrified young woman. “I am innocent,” she wailed. “Tell my girls I died an innocent woman. It was John Lucas who took Mr. Robert’s linen.” But the crowd simply laughed at her and mimicked her plea. To their great delight, the executioner forced a kiss upon her lips and squeezed her breast before covering her head too and placing the noose over her neck and tightening it.

Thomas closed his eyes. He wished the whole lamentable business was over. But when he opened them again, to his horror, he saw Clarenceux climbing up onto the back of the cart. He tried to get to him, but Clarenceux had already started to declaim to the crowd. The people closest to him were so startled to hear such a voice booming out that they fell silent, and soon the whole crowd was wondering who this was and what he had to say.

“You laugh—you laugh today at these unfortunate creatures before you and those”—he gestured toward the six now motionless corpses—“and you laugh away your humanity. These are not all villainous murderers dying here. These are not all thieves. There is a good man here, a priest, who would stand up for his fellow men. He would stand up for you, even though you are strangers. When you laugh at him, you laugh at the ties that bind us to our fellow men. You laugh at what is good in you. You laugh at kindness; you laugh at the courage to stand up against the constables who would rule your lives with an order and a knife…”

A clod of earth was thrown. It missed Clarenceux, who carried on regardless. “Sir John is destined to be killed because what he believes is unwelcome to the State. And the State insists that it must come first—before your friends, before your family—yea, even before your faith. Who here, doing the business of the State, loves the State more than his own kin? Who here would put the queen above God? Do you not see what the destruction of the Church has brought upon us?”