He picked up the New Testament that was lying on the floor and leafed through it to the point at which he had stopped reading earlier in the day. The heavy black Latin text reprimanded him for his weakness; the sternness of the lettering told him that using the Bible in this way was hiding. At a time like this, he should not be reading just for his own benefit. He whispered to Annie, “I will be back shortly.” Five minutes later he was back at her side with a large tome, which he opened near the end and leafed through. “‘This is the book of the generation of Jesu Christe, the son of David, the son of Abraham,’” he began. “‘Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was borne Jesus—even He that is called Christ…’”
Late into the night, Clarenceux read from the gospels, long after Annie had fallen asleep and Awdrey had taken her leave of him to sleep in their bed. She listened to his voice in the next room and was lulled by the reliability and security of his words and his faith.
34
Tuesday, January 7
Cecil walked through the garden of Cecil House with Walsingham in the early morning mist. All around them were plants frozen in frost, with icy tendrils and leaves like frozen glass.
“Were you aware that the woman that Clarenceux was so close to has been killed?” Cecil asked.
Walsingham felt the cold, and his gloved hands were holding each other for warmth. “Yes, of course. She was called Rebecca Machyn. His mistress, I believe.”
“How do you know about her death?”
“My watchers told me.”
“Ah yes. Your spies,” said Cecil, looking across the low hedges of the garden, laid in squares. “Would one of them happen to be a Mr. Greystoke, a gentleman with white hair, from the north?”
“John Greystoke, from Cumberland.”
“Have you known him long?”
“Ten years. When I was in Padua, he was one of the English émigrés there. He is a fervent, passionate man: an expert swordsman and a fine shot with a gun. He is also a scholar—Dante is his great love.”
“You have no doubts about him, none at all?”
Walsingham paused. “What are you driving at, Sir William?”
Cecil stopped by a wall-climbing rose bush, its leaves frozen white against the brown brick. “Mr. Clarenceux has great difficulty accepting that you might have sent a man to watch over him. For reasons of security he has asked me to check that you have done so; he also asks that I give him my word that the gentleman in question, John Greystoke, can be trusted. I am hopeful that I can give him that reassurance.”
“Damn Clarenceux! Why does he not just hand over that document and be done with it. It would make all our lives easier.”
Sir William looked askance at Walsingham. “Would you, in his shoes?”
“Of course. It is the dutiful thing to do.”
“Don’t pretend he is a fool, Francis. He is an intelligent man, and his family is in jeopardy. Moreover, his mind is concentrated on the situation in a way we cannot match.” Cecil paused. “You know about his daughter?”
“What about her?”
“She was shot. In Clarenceux’s own house, on Sunday. By a woman.”
Walsingham shook his head. “Greystoke has yet to report it to me. He has probably taken further safeguards. I am sure he will today.”
“When he does, see whether he reveals who killed the woman. I would like to know whether he volunteers that information.”
35
Clarenceux was sleeping when Sir Gilbert Dethick called. He had spent the night attending to Annie, reading to her from the Bible, tending her when she cried out in pain, which she often did, and mopping her brow when she was hot. Awdrey had taken over from him at first light and Clarenceux had crept off to sleep. Now, as the city bells chimed ten and Sir Gilbert Dethick, Garter King of Arms, knocked on his door, he was snoring in his bedchamber.
Thomas did not know Dethick well. He did know who he was, however, and that Clarenceux trusted him even less than he trusted Francis Walsingham, and liked him even less than that man too. Their verbal fights were famous. Clarenceux would inevitably rise to the bait, with wall-shaking eloquence, and would throw down some impossible gauntlet to the superior herald that, while it left a profound impression, also made him seem both a maverick and unreliable in the eyes of those watching. Part of the problem was that Clarenceux refused to like Dethick on principle. Dethick’s grandfather had been a German armorer and Dethick had lied about his birth to gain English denization, even changing his name from Derrick to Dethick to claim a false ancestry. Clarenceux objected to the highest heraldic office in the kingdom being awarded to such a man. It did not help that Dethick’s father had married a Dutchwoman and Dethick himself had also married a foreigner. It was not their foreignness that Clarenceux objected to so much as their willingness to do anything to advance themselves. It was as if there was no principle to which they would remain firm, no single truth to which they were loyal.
Clarenceux was honest enough to admit that he also resented the foreigner being given several important diplomatic missions to Germany and Holland instead of him; that did not make him feel any warmer to the man. It did not help either that Sir Gilbert Dethick was particularly good-looking. Although nineteen years older than Clarenceux, he looked more handsome even now, in his late sixties. With his mustache preened, “devilish” was not an inappropriate term to describe his looks.
“I wish to speak with Mr. Clarenceux,” announced Dethick from his horse, sheathing the sword with which he had struck Clarenceux’s door.
“He is not well, Sir Gilbert,” said Thomas with a bow. “But I shall go and inquire if he is well enough to wait on you.”
Thomas met Awdrey on the stairs and explained that Dethick had arrived. “Like the fly that settles on an open wound,” she whispered, heading down to the door while Thomas went to rouse Clarenceux.
When shaken awake, Clarenceux blinked and tried to go back to sleep. He heard Dethick’s name and ignored it. Only when he thought of his daughter did he awake. “How is Annie?” he asked, getting out of bed.
“She is unchanged, Mr. Clarenceux.”
He put on his breeches and rinsed his face. “You know, Thomas, over the last few years I have been chased along the top of London Wall in the snow, been attacked in the street, fought a duel in a cavern, been dragged through the sea behind a pirate ship, climbed through Sir William’s latrine, and fought a naval battle against impossible odds. And now I would rather do any of those things again than have to speak to Dethick.”
“I am sure he holds you in equally high affection, sir.”
Clarenceux smiled. He drew a clean shirt from his clothes chest and put it over his head. “Well, let us see.”
Clarenceux stepped out from his front door and looked at Dethick astride his horse, wearing his sword openly, which he was permitted to do as a knighted gentleman. Across the street, Greystoke was leaning against the front door of the house in his usual white shirt, with a sword in his belt—worn openly despite the law. Above there was a man watching from the first-floor window.
“Sir Gilbert, greetings. How might I assist you?”
Dethick tugged at the reins as his horse shied away from Clarenceux. “You can help by doing what you have promised to do, what you have been asked to do, and what you are obliged to do on behalf of her majesty. You cannot simply put off the visitation until it is convenient to you. You have a duty to perform.”
There were few people in the street, and no one who looked as if they were eavesdropping except Greystoke. “A woman broke into this house on Sunday,” Clarenceux said. “She had two guns: one loaded, the other unloaded. The unloaded one she fired at me. The loaded one she fired at my daughter, who is now lying in bed, suffering from the wound. If the guns had been reversed, to whom would you be addressing your comments? Because it certainly would not be me. The College would have no Clarenc
eux.”
“Do not tempt me, Clarenceux. You know you need to do this work. Tell me when—that is all we need to discuss.”
Clarenceux shook his head. “In all sincerity, I will set out when the bullet wound in my daughter’s shoulder has healed—and not before. Is that clear enough?”
Dethick did not answer. He looked down disdainfully on the upstart herald while his horse jittered in a circle and, without a word, rode off down to Fleet Bridge.
“Tell me,” called Greystoke from across the street, “are all the heralds like you? I would hate to be your employer.”
Clarenceux walked across to him. “Garter herald is not my employer,” he said, looking down the street and watching Dethick cross the bridge and ride up the hill through Ludgate. “He is responsible for the administration of the College of Arms but he has no right to dictate to me.” He looked Greystoke in the eye. “I want to talk to you. I want you to come with me.”
A short while later, when he was properly dressed, Clarenceux led Greystoke up Shoe Lane to St. Andrew’s Church, where they turned right to Holborn Bridge. There the road divided around a single rickety house: the left-hand lane went around the city to the north and the right between the merchants’ houses straight to Newgate. They took the right turn, passing long lines of timber-fronted houses. All the way, he questioned Greystoke and Greystoke answered without hesitation. He explained where and how he had met Walsingham—at the house of Signor Giuseppe Buzzaccarini in Padua, in the company of the earl of Devon. They had both been twenty-three. Walsingham had been eager to know more about Italian government. From Padua they had traveled to Venice together in the company of the earl of Bedford. Walsingham was fascinated by the machinations of the Venetian noblemen and their elaborate safeguards against plots. They had been guests at the doge’s palazzo together, and Walsingham had supported Greystoke when he had been forced to fight a duel with the husband of a woman who had fallen for his readiness to whisper lines from Dante in her ear.
All the while they were moving toward the great church now called Christ Church—once the home of the London Greyfriars. At the gate, Greystoke was surprised to find that the church itself was the building to which Clarenceux was leading him. He obligingly removed his sword and left it leaning against the wall behind the door. It was no warmer within than it had been outside: the huge echoing space only grew warmer when the parishioners crowded in on Sundays and feast days. They spoke in low voices. But Clarenceux walked on until he came to a particular arch in the nave.
Greystoke pointed up at the stained-glass window above them, which included a number of coats of arms. “You are testing me, Mr. Clarenceux.”
“I am.”
“The answer to the question is that the Greystoke arms therein were in memory of my great-uncle, another John Greystoke. He was buried in the north aisle. Obviously the tomb has now gone.”
“Does that not make you yearn for the return of the old religion?”
Greystoke shook his head. “If we have learned anything from the events of our own time, it is that England has started to change again. Every five hundred years it experiences a revolution. You can see it in the chronicles of Britain. Two thousand five hundred years ago, Brutus came to these shores. Five hundred years after that, Gorboduc’s sons pulled the kingdom apart in a civil war. Five hundred years on, the Romans invaded. Move on another five hundred years, the Saxons invaded. Five hundred years after that, the Normans invaded. That was exactly five hundred years ago. Now, England is torn over a matter of faith. It is like an invasion from within, tearing ourselves apart—as in the days of Gorboduc. There will be war, if we do not guard against it.”
“Your mother’s family was Dacre, was it not?” replied Clarenceux. “Argent three escalopes gules, yes?”
Greystoke pointed to the Dacre coat of arms in the window further along the nave. “There. Gules, three escalopes argent. You see, Mr. Clarenceux, I am what I say I am. I am John Greystoke and I have been sent by Francis Walsingham to protect you. Ask him yourself.”
“I already have,” replied Clarenceux stiffly, moving back to the door. “But I don’t trust him any more than I trust you.”
36
Wednesday, January 8
Awdrey knew that her husband was not in his right frame of mind the moment she pushed open the door to his study. All day they had taken it in turns to look after Annie, whose wound was causing the little girl fear as well as surges of great pain. They were both fraught, both tired and frightened. Then there had been a knock at the door and a message had arrived. Thomas had taken it and passed it to Clarenceux, who had read it and gone alone up to his study, without a word. Now he sat at the table in there, looking preoccupied.
“What is it?” she asked, placing her hands on his shoulders.
He held up the note that he had received from Sir William Cecil. “Walsingham did send Greystoke. They have known each other for the last ten years, having met in Italy and traveled to Venice together. Greystoke is a Dante scholar and an exponent with the pistol as well as the sword. All good reasons for Walsingham to send him, you might think. But at the bottom Sir William has written six words in small letters: ‘Hominum credere nolite timere bonum est.’”
“What does that mean?”
Clarenceux closed his eyes. “I don’t know where to begin. It is deliberately ambiguous—a paraphrase of a message that appears in a chronicle. In 1327 the captors of Edward II were discussing what to do with the king after they had forced him to abdicate. According to one chronicle, a message was sent to his custodian that read: ‘Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est.’ You might read that as ‘Do not kill Edward; it is good to be afraid.’ However, it could equally well mean ‘Do not fear to kill the king; it is a good deed.’ Sir William’s message can similarly be interpreted in two, opposite ways: ‘Do not fear to trust the man; he is good’ and ‘Do not trust the man; it is good to be afraid.’”
Awdrey looked at the small piece of paper. “Will he protect us? If he has doubts about Greystoke?”
“No.” Clarenceux put his head in his hands. “That is the reason for the ambiguity. He cannot be sure. He has repeated to me what Walsingham has told him, but with that Latin he has indicated that he cannot give the guarantee I sought.”
Awdrey walked across the room. “It felt like a siege before, but this…this is even worse. Let us go, just go—down to Devon, anywhere! Let us not stay here any longer.”
“That is not possible, Awdrey. Annie cannot travel. Besides, if we run away from this trouble, it will follow us. If we start running, we will have even less protection than we do now.”
“But what do we have now? We are being watched by someone whom even Sir William cannot trust! William, you seem determined to isolate us. Let us run—while we still can.”
Clarenceux brought his hand down hard on the table. “No! Lady Percy has obviously never forgiven me. I think she has found it easier to blame me, and to hate me, than to do anything about her despair.”
“You! You, you, you—I think you actually like being the center of attention, the only one who knows where this document is. While it is your little secret, you will never want for friends—but we will never lack enemies.”
“It is not like that.”
“We are all in danger now, William. We, your wife, your daughters. Annie is probably dying and what do you plan to do? What are we going to do?”
Clarenceux spoke in as calm a tone as he could. “I am not going to damage things further by running. Where could we go? Unless we were to disappear somewhere that no one would ever suspect, what chance would we have? How many people knew Rebecca was hiding in Portchester? Very few indeed—but they found her. If we went to Devon, how long would it be before someone slips a few shillings to an agricultural worker or laborer to find out where we—the strangers—are hiding? How long could we stay in hiding? Who will risk us being
on their property? At moments like this, there is a temptation to trade the danger you know for an unknown one, in the hope that the unknown danger is less. But doing so is to choose ignorance, and there is no refuge in ignorance—not from this, not from anything.”
Awdrey seemed emptied of her rage. “Then what do we do?”
“We think. We think through everything. This was not a hastily thought-out robbery. Whoever planned it knows they face a great problem in trying to persuade me to give up the document. They know that they have got to terrorize me into doing so, and they know that the only way they can do that is to threaten you and our daughters. Nothing else will really make any difference. And if I am dead, then their cause is lost. If it comes to the worst, I can put a bullet in my head and the matter is over forever. So it is—”
“Don’t say such things!” cried Awdrey. “Don’t even think that.”
“It is true, Awdrey,” he said, looking her in the eye. “You do not need to admit it or agree with me, but it is true. And I feel it is reassuring. But, in the name of God, it is not what I want. Last night, as I was watching Annie, and listening to you blessing Mildred, when Joan was putting her to bed, I realized that if I ended my life I would never see our daughters grow, never see them marry, never see them have children of their own. And it overwhelmed me with grief. But that grief is premature. We cannot afford to let such things overwhelm us. You are vulnerable. They are not going to try to kill me—it was no accident that the gun pointed at me last Sunday did not contain a bullet. They want to terrorize me, but they need me alive.”
Final Sacrament (Clarenceux Trilogy) Page 18