Final Sacrament (Clarenceux Trilogy) (6 page)

“There’s one other thing,” said Cecil, lifting the glass of wine. “Please would you be so good as to release the herald, Clarenceux?”

Walsingham stopped. “Clarenceux was arrested for breaking the peace at the hanging of John Blackwell, the traitorous Catholic priest. He was heard by the whole crowd to speak openly in favor of the man, and to encourage them to throw off the control of the civil authorities. He cannot be allowed—”

“Yes, yes, I know. I had spies there too. It’s nothing he has not done before. Let him go.”

“Given his custody of the Percy-Boleyn marriage agreement—which you never seem to speak about anymore—I have reason to believe he is safer in my keeping than he would be in his own home.”

“If you are worried about him, you can put him under watch. I am sure you have considered that already.”

“Morning, afternoon, evening, and night. Nevertheless, I can assure you that you are making a mistake.”

Cecil looked Walsingham in the eye. “I would rather make a mistake than follow the advice of those who claim never to make them.” Cecil leaned back in his chair and surveyed the table. “Now, I think I am ready for my custard tart. Good evening to you.”

Sunday, December 22

Rebecca Machyn awoke early in the little cottage in the village of Portchester that she shared with Widow Baker. It was still dark, and her mind was echoing with a dream. In her heart she felt a tremendous sense of loss, for she realized the dream was just that: a dream. A moment ago, asleep, she had been happy. She had been lying in a bed in an inn with William Harley, Clarenceux King of Arms. They had been traveling somewhere and pretending that they were man and wife; she had been wearing just her smock and he his drawers, and in the darkness he had kissed her and held her, and moved his hands over her body. She had felt so loved, warm, and when his hands had brushed her nipples, her body had sung like the strings of a lute. Now the lute was silent, the strings slack, and she was alone in the darkness. Even Widow Baker was abroad, having gone to nurse a woman in the next village.

For a moment Rebecca lay still, divided between the luxury of the dream and cursing herself for her self-pity. She pictured Clarenceux—his curly dark hair, his grim but handsome face, his height, his brown eyes—and wiped away a tear.
Even
now, even after all this time, he can move me
. She cast her mind back to their meeting, when her husband, Henry Machyn, had still been alive. Henry had been a merchant taylor, no one important, but he had idolized Clarenceux and referred to him as “the most noble gentleman of my acquaintance.” This was why Henry had chosen Clarenceux to be the recipient of his precious chronicle. Clarenceux had taken to her, and his looks had increasingly lingered on her. After Henry was murdered, she and Clarenceux had been chased by Walsingham’s agents and together they had discovered the secret contained within the chronicle. He had looked after her, cherished her, desired her, loved her. Gladly she would have sworn to be with him always—but it could not be. He was married, and he loved his wife no less than he loved her.

She had not seen him for two years now, since the autumn of 1564, when she had gone back to London to collect the last of her things from the old house. On that occasion, a bright October day, she had traveled with the cart along Fleet Street. Approaching Clarenceux’s house she could not help but look at it, and remember him, and feel close to him. She had not meant to say good-bye in person, but at that moment he had come to the window and seen her, and rushed out of the house. That final meeting in the street had overwhelmed her. She had dismounted and he had embraced her, and they had talked. He had politely asked her about the old house and she had explained that it was all John Machyn’s now, Henry’s son. She was going to live in Portchester, where she had found acceptance and happiness in her work at the military hospital in the castle. Clarenceux told her how he wished her well. There had been a long pause, when neither of them had said anything. He had embraced her then, and she had known in the way he held her and the way he kissed her that his feelings for her were still strong. Hers for him were equally so. But there was nothing they could do. He had simply whispered good-bye to her and had waved her on her way.

Why
was
she
even
thinking
of
him
now?
The previous day, Mr. Wheatsheafen had told her that two young men had come looking for her. That fact had unnerved her, and she had searched her mind wondering who they could be. Although she did not want to admit it, there was a chance they had come from London. No one there knew where she was—except Clarenceux and her stepson, John Machyn.

Rebecca got out of bed, felt for her shoes, and pulled them onto her feet. She put her dress on over her smock. Hunched forward to avoid the low beams, and with her hands stretched out in the darkness, she made her way to the opening and down the ladder to the room below. The faintest glow of the embers on the hearth could be seen, and finding a loose stick, she raked off the surface and crouched down to blow on them. Soon there was a small flame. She broke a few more sticks, built the fire a little more, and then fetched a candle.

If the two young men had come from Clarenceux, she thought, perhaps this was good news? But he would be unlikely to send two men, and certainly not two
young
men to her. He knew how harshly young men with strength and authority treated an attractive woman with neither husband nor father to protect her. Clarenceux was more considerate than that.

She put the candle into a lantern, set it beside the basin, and rinsed her face and hands. Taking the lantern, she went back upstairs to rub herself clean with linen and to dress in her best clothes, ready for church.

Clarenceux led his daughters by the hand through the churchyard to join the queue of people entering St. Bride’s. The great bell was ringing in the chill air above them. Occasionally he caught someone’s eye and nodded a brief greeting. Annie was feeling the cold and about to complain, so he held her hand a little tighter to remind her to be quiet. She would warm up soon enough in the church, with the heat of all the people.

He looked up at the vicar’s room above the porch. So many vicars had come and gone, so many changes had taken place. One had even gone to the stake. Now there was no vicar: William Living had resigned the previous year to go to St. Mary Abchurch, and a series of chaplains held the services. The present one was a nervous man with short black hair called Mr. Bowring. His sermons were too enthusiastic for Clarenceux, too idealistic, copied from Mr. Bowring’s more able heroes.

Clarenceux had first come here at the age of seventeen, before old King Henry’s dissolution, when the rector and right of patronage had been with the abbot of Westminster. It had then been one of the most beautiful religious buildings in the environs of the city, and he had marveled at it. The columns in the nave had carved stone vines twisting around them—a monument to a rich man called Vyner—and they had been painted, as if growing up to the roof. The walls too had been painted and the windows filled with rich glass. There had been six altars in the church, including a fine tall altar to St. Katherine in front of the rood screen. The printer Wynkyn de Worde was buried just in front of it. And each of those altars had had a painted screen behind it with sculptures of the highest quality, and an altar cloth around its front, and beautiful silver-gilt furniture. Above the high altar had been a great wood-and-silver cross. The whole nave had been a wonderful cave of color, light, and music. Chantry priests had sung through the day, until compline in the early evening; the organ had played during services. Now almost all of that had gone. The altars had been torn out, their sculptures smashed. The paintings had been covered in whitewash, the rood cross had been burned, the chantry priests all thrown out and the chantry hall sold off. The organ had been abandoned and was no longer used. No one dared sing anything but psalms these days. Tombs had been defaced, altar cloths turned into kitchen rags, and treasure melted down. Even the beautiful vine carvings on the columns had been purposefully damaged, the paint scraped away.

He entered the church and sat on the plain bench pews in the nave. Around him, people found their places, and sat or knelt. He looked up: traces of sculpted beauty remained but most had gone. His daughters would never know the lyrical majesty of their parish church, which, like the vine, had once drawn the eye in many directions. They would only know the one altar, the stern dictatorial commandment to look east. To them, church attendance would not be a matter of community but duty—to take their place obediently behind the profusion of private pews of various types that now filled the nave, and to listen to the didactic and sanctimonious speechifying of an impostor priest. It was a sign of the times: people were no longer members of a community but individuals, cut off from each other, as if they were all choosing to stand alone in the eyes of God. It made him bitterly sad to reflect on so much destruction. It was not holy. Destroying beautiful things and fragmenting society could not be justified, and the smashing of the sculptures had been particularly vindictive.

He knelt down, shut his eyes, and prayed for the mystical true faith to find another way to enter their lives, to allow a better understanding of God’s guidance. He prayed for the safety and security of his wife Awdrey and their daughters. He prayed for his closest friends, especially Julius Fawcett of Summerhill, Sir Richard Wenman of Caswell, John Hooker of Exeter, and especially for Rebecca Machyn. He prayed also for his servants, Thomas, Joan, and Nick, and the community of which he felt a part. Then he opened his eyes, and resumed his seat.

A strange gentleman, seated not far away, was looking at him. He had a distinct air of being out of place. He showed no sign of connection to those sitting beside him. His hair color was extraordinary—it was white, even though he was clearly not old. His clothes were just as distracting as his hair: despite the cold, he was not wearing a doublet but only an extremely fine linen shirt embroidered with gold and silk. He seemed not to know how to wear that properly either; the ties at the collar were hanging down and he wore no ruff. His cuffs too were loose. On his lower body he was wearing soft leather breeches and silk netherhosen.

Clarenceux met the strange gentleman’s gaze twice. The first time he held his eye. The second, he felt uneasy. He glanced at Awdrey, who turned to him. When she understood his expression of concern, and had herself seen the white-haired young man, she shrugged, to say she knew nothing about him. But from the corner of her eye she studied him, watching his movements.

At the end of the service, Clarenceux and Awdrey led their daughters straight out of the church. The white-haired man was caught in conversation with another gentleman who had been sitting on the benches in the nave, and who wanted to know more about him. He did not catch Clarenceux’s eye again.

Rebecca caught up with Mr. Wheatsheafen after the service in the church in the precincts of Portchester Castle. He was walking back to his lodging slowly, appreciating the sunny morning.

“Good morrow, Mr. Wheatsheafen. A fine day for December, is it not?”

He turned around and caught sight of her long brown hair and smiling eyes. “Ah, good morrow, Rebecca. It most certainly is a good day. I was just reflecting that, at my age, one appreciates every day that bit more, regardless of whether the weather be good or bad. One knows one has relatively few days left to enjoy. But if all days are good, then it follows that the fine ones are doubly pleasant.”

She walked alongside the physician, comfortable with him. He was a good Christian man who genuinely cared for people regardless of their status in the world.

“Did you see Philip Camp in the congregation?” she asked him. “To think—two weeks ago we did not expect him to live another day.”

“Indeed, it is something to give thanks for. The Lord is merciful as well as bountiful.”

Rebecca went on for a few more paces before turning the conversation to her prime concern. “You remember, yesterday, you told me that two young men had been looking for me?”

“I do.”

“Can you tell me more about them? Did you notice anything in particular?”

Wheatsheafen turned to her. “Such as?”

“Well, I do not know exactly. But…were they kindly disposed toward me?”

They had reached the gate leading out of the castle. The great gate was closed but a smaller side door was open, allowing people to come and go freely on foot.

“Well, I would not go so far as to suggest they were unkind,” Wheatsheafen said after thinking hard on the matter, “but nor would I say they were friends of yours. They both had strange accents, from the north, I believe. One of them was—well, ugly. He had swarthy dark skin, like an Egyptian, and his eyes were too close together. I cannot imagine your beautiful brown eyes settling happily on his and not being a little disconcerted. You know what they say about the Egyptians. It is just as well consorting with them has been made a felony.”

“And the other one?”

“I can recall only one thing about him—I do not think he was a man.”

“You mean he was a boy?”

“No, no. The Egyptian seemed to be taking direction from this smaller, smooth-skinned person, who did not speak at all. I had thought his demeanor odd at the time; being a physician I had looked at his hands—but he was wearing gloves. I also looked at his throat but he had covered it up. Later it struck me that this is exactly what a woman who dressed as a man might do to conceal her identity. So my best guess is that this second man was a woman in disguise.”

Rebecca stopped. “Did you not see fit to tell me this?”

“I only thought about him being a woman after I sent to you. Would it have made things different? Would you have known them? My dear, you have to admit, you are something of an enigma. It is nearly two and a half years since we first met and yet I know so little of your life before then. You keep many things hidden. I would ask, but I am afraid of appearing to pry into matters that you very clearly wish to keep to yourself. I recall a man coming here not long after you had arrived. Immediately you had to go to him. I knew then that you had a past that you could not wholly leave behind.”

“That was Mr. Clarenceux.”

“Is he a past lover? Or, let me put it more discreetly: do you love this man from your past?”

“With all my heart.”

“Then you should go to him. We may need you here, but you must follow the path of your emotion. Feelings are the Lord’s way of guiding people in life, I believe.”

Rebecca shook her head. “He is married. He loves his wife, and she is much younger than me.”

“Ah.” Mr. Wheatsheafen looked down the lane toward his house. “In such unfortunate circumstances, the Lord Almighty can sorely tempt us. Perhaps that is what He is trying to do—test you, by making you love a man who does not love you. Virtue is your guide and your target.”

“It is not that he does not love me. I know that he does. He and I shared an intense experience three years ago. It was very dangerous; we became very close. He would look at me and his eyes would linger, always that moment too long, and I would hold his gaze. But the fact is that he is married and loves his wife dearly; the affection he feels for me is secondary to that fact. But such things are settled—this is not about affection. If someone is searching for me, and knows I am here, then they have good information yet they are not friends. That in itself is worrying. Why are they looking for me? If it has anything to do with my experiences with Mr. Clarenceux, then I might be in serious danger, and so might he.”

“Is that likely?”

Rebecca looked over her shoulder. There was no one in sight; the lane was empty. She spoke in a low voice nonetheless. “You must not repeat this to anyone, Mr. Wheatsheafen. Not even your wife. Mr. Clarenceux has possession of a document that could destroy the queen—it proves that her mother was previously married to Lord Percy and so the queen is illegitimate. It was given to him by my late husband, Henry. Needless to say, there are a number of Catholic plotters who are prepared to do anything to seize it. My husband was killed by Francis Walsingham simply because of a suspicion that he would use it for revolutionary Catholic purposes. Two years ago last May, when Mr. Clarenceux came here to Portchester, it was because the document had been stolen. I believe he recovered it, although I never asked him and I have not been in communication with him at all since October of that year.”

Mr. Wheatsheafen listened with the same careful attention with which he listened to patients telling him of their illnesses. At the end, he considered his prognosis and spoke solemnly. “On the one hand, Rebecca, I have always said you had some dark secret and that your past was not yet over. In that I am satisfied; the enormity of your situation does not disappoint. But I am not glad to be right, for I can see that it saddens you and makes you think about the past perhaps a little too much. There is a man there you must forget; you must leave both him and that awkward situation behind and live your own life, guided by God.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “As for your affection, I do know also that it is possible for a man to love two women. I still love my first wife dearly, God rest her soul. I also love my present wife. I therefore love two women. Although one might now be permanently in the past, if she were alive today, I would love her all the more. Likewise, I cannot say that I would not love my present wife if my first were miraculously to return: love is not just a matter of timeliness. So, if it be that I go to Heaven, and trusting that both my wives will be there too, I will find myself living in a state that contradicts the scriptures.”

They fell silent, looking at each other. Eventually Wheatsheafen said, “Rebecca, I think you are wise to be cautious. I do not believe those men—or that man and that woman—meant you well.”