Clarenceux said little as they rode, half listening to Alice and half thinking ahead. He liked the sound of her voice, however, and he liked to see her smile; so when the conversation dried up, he asked her another question to encourage her to talk. She chattered on about the tavern where she had grown up, and how she had helped her father from an early age to carry tankards of ale and beer to the men in the hall. She clarified that he was actually her stepfather; she had no recollection of her real father, who had died when she was young.
“What about your sisters and brothers?” asked Clarenceux.
“I have just one sister now,” she replied in a matter-of-fact way. “I used to have an older brother but he died when he was two, before I was born. My older sisters also died. Only my younger sister still lives. But she is badly treated by our stepfather, as I told you before.”
“Before, you said she was with an uncle who treated her badly. You said he left her unable to move or speak.”
“Did I?” She smiled. “I sometimes do say that—to stop people asking questions. If a man is mistreating you, and he should be looking after you, it doesn’t really matter if he is your father or your uncle, does it?”
“A father abusing his daughter is quite another thing from an uncle abusing his niece. Both are reprehensible but one is more abhorrent because of a father’s duty to his offspring.”
“Is that so?” Alice asked with sharpness. Almost immediately she softened her tone. “Yes, I suppose it is. After all, we are taught to honor our fathers and mothers; the Bible says nothing about uncles.”
The sun that had shone in the morning disappeared behind billowing white clouds and then layers of gray that stretched away to the horizon and beyond. The people they met on the road were hurrying, with their packhorses and carts.
“What sort of tavern was it?”
“Do you mean did we serve beer or wine? Or do you mean was it the sort of place where the women of the house spent every night flat on their backs with a customer between their thighs?”
“I am sorry I asked.”
“But you did ask, and here is my answer. From the age of thirteen I was occasionally offered to men. It was expected of me. If your mother is doing all the hard work in the tavern—all the cleaning, the feeding of the family, making the clothes, serving beer to the customers, and, on top of that, having to make money when necessary from pleasuring men—you’ve got to help out. And when you start, when you’re young, men pay very well, which makes you feel good when you want to help your family.”
“How did your clients not get you with child?”
“A sponge, soaked in vinegar. My mother showed me how to cut it correctly, so they don’t feel it. It never failed.”
“There are a lot of confusing things about your past,” said Clarenceux eventually.
“Are there?” replied Alice, looking straight ahead. “You must realize I make most of them up.”
The admission astonished Clarenceux. It left him lost for words.
“Most of them?” he asked eventually.
“Some of them. The sponge is true.”
“You sound as if you do not regret the years of fornication in the tavern.”
Alice laughed. “Years of fornication,” she repeated, mocking him. “Mr. Clarenceux, my art is that of pleasuring men. And like any art, one gains a large degree of satisfaction in performing it well.”
Clarenceux turned to her. “Your art now is that of looking after my household. Cleaning. Going to market. Providing food.”
They rode on in silence. The clouds approaching were darker, and the air had turned colder, presaging rain. Sure enough, it began to spit. Rooks holding forth with their harsh croark-croarks in the trees nearby flew up all at once.
“I am sorry if I have offended you,” she said.
“Offended me? I just don’t know whether to believe you,” he replied.
“Why do you need to believe me? Isn’t it enough just to like what I say?”
Clarenceux felt old. He longed to be with his wife, to talk to her, hold her. She understood him. She was conscientious, considerate, and womanly—all the things that this girl was not. He longed to hear Awdrey’s voice. He had not been himself without her. He had been changed into a sullen and bad-tempered man, angry and fearful. He had to make an effort to be himself, and to find the generosity in his nature.
“The truth is, you frighten me,” said Alice.
It was Clarenceux’s turn to be amused. “Frighten you? You are such a force of nature, with such a perfect understanding of this sinful world, that I am surprised you know the meaning of the word.”
“Some women will always be the friend and daughters of bad men, and they will understand hard drinking, avaricious, lustful, violent men more than good ones, and they will look at men like you and be afraid. All I can do to get level with you is seek your weaknesses. When women like me find them, we work on them, like cracks in a stone, eventually breaking them open. But you seem to have no weaknesses, Mr. Clarenceux. You are too good a man. Worryingly good.”
Clarenceux rode on. “I have my weaknesses, Alice. A whole regiment of them. The Lord knows I do.”
***
They rode into Thame that evening. In the yard of the Saracen’s Head, Simeon greeted them and led them through to the hall. He did not even raise an eyebrow at the youth of Clarenceux’s companion; only later, when Clarenceux had a moment to explain discreetly, did the innkeeper acknowledge that it did not seem proper for a gentleman to be traveling alone with such a young “maiden.”
After nightfall, Fyndern and Thomas arrived. Thomas gave an account of what had been done at Thame so far. It had taken more time than they had anticipated to draw the cart and the chest all the way from London to the abbey—they had only arrived that afternoon. They would set the timber in place tomorrow, but the bolts on the refectory door were firmly in place. The chest itself was situated where Clarenceux had stipulated, and the gunpowder had been arranged as he had directed.
Clarenceux sat on a bench beside the fire in the chamber, cradling a goblet of wine. Thomas was not far away, drinking beer, looking into the glowing embers and the small flames licking around a new log. Fyndern and Alice were downstairs in the hall.
“Do you intend to go through with it?” asked Thomas.
“People in the last reign went to the stake because of what they believed,” said Clarenceux. “Who am I, and what am I, if I do not risk the same fate for what I believe and for those I love, and for whom I am responsible? I admit I am scared, Thomas; I don’t know how I will face it. So I don’t think about it. If I die, I will die a free man, and I will have liberated Awdrey. But even if I live, William Harley, Clarenceux King of Arms, will die in that building.”
Thomas swallowed. “We will not meet again, even if you live?”
“No.”
“Then that is the way it must be,” said Thomas.
“You will still serve Awdrey, after I am gone? And my daughters?”
Thomas lifted his beer and drank. “I am surprised you can think otherwise. If you are going to risk your life, the least I can do is continue to serve.”
“Alice said a strange thing today. We were riding together and talking about her childhood, and she confessed to me that some of the things she said were made up. When the conversation moved on, I told her that I didn’t know whether to believe her or not. To which she replied ‘Why do you need to believe me? Isn’t it enough just to like what I say?’ I have been thinking about that since. Belief is what sets us apart from other animals in Creation—and that goes for truth as well as faith in God. Alice is like the untamed birds that twitter with joy and gladden our hearts, or suddenly shriek in alarm and make us fearful.”
“Do you trust her?”
“To a point. In some ways she is very knowing and in others very ignorant and frivolous. P
erhaps she is not from Halifax, as she says; perhaps that accent comes from a manor nearer Sheffield. But we do not send children to hang. Lady Percy recruited her women from the jails—women who were all mothers and who all had been sentenced to death. Alice does not count on either score, even if she does come from Yorkshire.”
“Fyndern is besotted with her.”
“Poor Fyndern. She is after someone bigger, richer, and more powerful than he will ever be. And when she has ensnared her prey, she still will not be satisfied—she has ambitions.”
“Most women surrender their ambitions when they fall pregnant,” said Thomas.
“She even has a strategy for that.”
76
Ash Wednesday, February 12
As Clarenceux and Alice approached Oxford the next morning, the puddles in the roads were covered by a thin layer of ice. On the higher ground, a veil of white frost had been laid. Their breath billowed in the chill air.
Across the common to their left they watched as a boy rounded up the flock of forty sheep in his care; he whistled to his dog to bring them in when they started to dart in the direction of a copse. Ahead, a leather-capped husbandman was driving a pair of cows along the highway. The cows were in no hurry, nor was their driver; Clarenceux and Alice rode past. Further along, they overtook a cartload of eggs being transported in crates of hay—the driver steadying the horse and veering around anything that might damage his delicate cargo.
Oxford itself appeared, with its college towers and four or five church spires. The large open fields gave way to smaller enclosures, with barns and farmhouses plotted at the ends of muddy lanes, and small cottages nearer the highway. Alice had been full of conversation earlier in the morning, and as they drew close to the city, she spoke with even more vivacity. This is her true territory, thought Clarenceux, a place of people.
They crossed the bridge and passed Magdalen College. Under the gaze of the tall gatehouses and handsome stone buildings, the girl suddenly fell quiet. Oxford was like no place that she knew, and whereas she had chatted excitedly at the prospect of coming into a new city, she was intimidated by this one. The stone college buildings shut out the stranger, being built around quadrangles with small windows that squinted meanly at the outside world and large windows that gazed approvingly on themselves. Riding through Broad Street, she stared at the walls and windows—she had never seen quite so much glass, not even in London. The students caught her eye too; many young men in academic dress walked toward them along the side of the street and her gaze followed them. Who could teach the other the most? Clarenceux wondered.
As they turned into St. Giles, Clarenceux looked ahead: on the right was their destination, the frontage of St. John’s College, with its central stone gatehouse rising three stories above a handsome pointed arch. He dismounted and handed the reins to Alice. Without a word, he unbuttoned his doublet and reached inside for the package: William Willis, St. John’s College was written in large letters on the front.
He said nothing but walked to the gate and called into the shadows of a door to the side. A stooped, broken-toothed man of about sixty shuffled out.
“Eh?” he grunted.
“For William Willis,” said Clarenceux, holding out the package.
The old man stared at it, not understanding. He looked at Clarenceux again. “No—there’s no one of that name in this college.”
“I believe a Mr. Willis will collect this on Friday, the fourteenth. It is very important—make sure it is kept safely.” He handed him a coin.
“I will, sir. What did you say your name was?”
“Harley, William Harley.”
“I will look after it,” said the old man, accepting the package and shuffling back into the gloom.
***
Riding away from St. John’s College, Clarenceux just looked straight ahead. It was done now. They did not say a word until they had left the town along the same road by which they had arrived.
“What was that package you handed over?” asked Alice, as they passed the boy with the sheep on the common for the second time.
“An invitation to a duel,” said Clarenceux. “No—a command to one.”
77
Thursday, February 13
The evening of the following day, they arrived back in London. At Thame they had inspected Thomas and Fyndern’s work and then left, abandoning the cart and riding back toward London all together. They stayed one night in Chipping Wycombe, where Alice was shocked to realize that Clarenceux expected them to observe the fasting rules of Lent—no meat, not even eggs—and Clarenceux was mildly surprised to discover that Alice expected to be able to flout such rules. Fyndern listened to the debate about the restrictions on eating meat in Lent, and Clarenceux’s arguments based on Church law; and when Clarenceux had answered all of Alice’s questions, he asked: “Isn’t the fasting law made by Parliament, not the Church?” Clarenceux had swiftly changed the subject.
Thursday morning had been so wet they had delayed setting out, watching the rain come sheeting down from the east. After three hours, it started to ease but did not stop; nevertheless, Clarenceux ordered them to ride. There was a schedule to keep to, he reminded them, and they were still thirty miles from London. Within an hour, each one of them was soaked to the skin. The sound of the rain pattering on the ground and on the leaves of trees was depressing enough, but the rumble of thunder in the distance hinted at worse to come. Not until midafternoon did they enter Uxbridge, where Clarenceux bought four more leather riding cloaks before setting out again. They ate at an inn in Knightsbridge. Alice and Fyndern did the talking and Clarenceux silently dipped a piece of bread in his chicken broth, watching them beneath a furrowed brow.
At nine o’clock they arrived back at Clarenceux’s house. They led all the horses into the stable, stumbling through puddles as the rain splashed down in the yard. Fyndern, who knew the stables best, settled the horses in the darkness while Thomas lit the fire in the hall, striking a flint against a steel edge and igniting the dried lichen. Clarenceux went to his room to change his clothes, feeling his way up the stairs. Alice similarly felt her way to where she knew there was a towel, and then came back down to the hall, rubbing her hair.
Half an hour later, the misery of the journey was forgotten. The fire was alight and the hall illuminated by four golden candles; the wet cloaks and capes were drying. Clarenceux had offered wine, and Fyndern had brought up a flagon from the buttery filled with a strong French red. The smell of the burning wood and the wine created a rich atmosphere.
“Let us hear music,” said Clarenceux, at a quiet moment. “Alice, will you sing to us?”
“I am not a singer, Mr. Clarenceux. I can dance but I will not sing.”
“I will sing,” said Fyndern. After a nervous smile, he got off the bench and knelt, looking at the fire, and began to sing an old song they all knew in a fine voice—not wavering like that of a boy whose voice is breaking, nor yet like the full-bodied voice of a grown man, but hitting the notes cleanly and sustaining them, giving the depth of purity to the solemn old song.
There were three ravens sat on a tree
Down and down, sing, down and down
And they were black as black may be
With a down;
One of them said to his mate
“Where shall we our breakfast take?”
With a down, down, derry-down down.
Down in yonder green field
Down and down, sing, down and down
There lies a knight slain under his shield
With a down;
His hounds lie at his feet
So well do they their master keep
With a down, down, derry-down down.
His hawks they fly so eagerly by
Down and down, sing, down and down
No other bird dare him come nigh
With a down;
Down there comes a fallow doe
So heavy with young as she may go
With a down, down, derry-down down.
She lifted up his bloody head
Down and down, sing, down and down
And kissed his wounds that were so red
With a down;
She got him up upon her back
And carried him to earthen dark
With a down, down, derry-down down.
She buried him before the prime
Down and down, sing, down and down
But she was dead herself before even-time
With a down;
God send every gentleman
Such hawks, such hounds and such women
With a down, down, derry-down down.
With a down, down, derry-down down.
As the last note died away, there was an awed silence. Eventually Thomas spoke. “You have yet another gift, Fyndern.”
“It was exquisite,” said Alice.
Fyndern rose from his knees. “Thank you.”
Alice put her hand on his shoulder as he sat back on the bench and smiled at him. She almost immediately followed this by leaning across him and giving him a kiss on the cheek.
“There is something magical about you, young man,” said Clarenceux. “Long may it last.”
Silence fell again. The fire crackled. Thomas lifted a pewter goblet to his lips and sipped. Everyone waited for Clarenceux to speak.
Final Sacrament (Clarenceux Trilogy) Page 32