The Roots of Betrayal

by James Forrester

  “I dislike you saying that to me too. I always remember to whom I am speaking. You do not seem to remember to whom you are listening.”

  “I said enough. What is the meaning of this?”

  Walsingham took a deep breath. All the speeches he had prepared in his head disappeared. “I have dedicated my life to the pursuit of conspiracies and plots, as you bade me. And yet the most important document of all, one that demonstrates the queen’s illegitimacy—”

  “Keep your voice down, man!” Cecil tried to take Walsingham’s arm and steer him down the corridor but Walsingham shook him off.

  “Not only did you not tell me about it, you asked Clarenceux to guard it for you. Who is the plotter I am meant to be tracing? Who is it, if not you? You have acted in a deceitful manner. You have formed an alliance with that herald, a suspected traitor. How am I to separate the traitors from the loyal men when no one is being honest with me, not even you?”

  “I see. You are right, of course. But this conversation should be conducted far away from here, as you well know. I am riding back to the city now. Let us discuss this on the way.” He spoke louder. “Did you know that the Byzantine merchants in India are seeking English help in resisting the advances of the Portuguese—in spite of our ancient peace treaty with the Portuguese? In Constantinople itself, a Greek man has been tortured for declaring Christianity a finer religion than that of Mahomet.”

  Half an hour later, they were riding side by side, with Cecil’s clerks and servants following at a distance.

  “Why did you not tell me?” asked Walsingham.

  “Clarenceux would never have given it up. I did the next best thing I could: I made him guard it with his life.”

  “That should now be forfeit.”

  “It would achieve nothing. If he has lost the document, then he is more useful alive than dead. He will try to find it.”

  “I found him last night in the attic of that house in Little Trinity Lane. He was pinned to the floor, badly bruised and cut.”

  Cecil drew in the reins to his horse. “They tortured him? What did he say?”

  “I don’t know. He claims to have told them nothing. But it seems Widow Machyn betrayed him at their request and then she betrayed them too—at his urging. They say they do not know where the document is, nor where the woman is hiding. He claims the same ignorance of both matters.”

  “Everyone is betraying everyone else,” said Cecil, looking across the meadows to the slow-flowing river.

  “Not everyone,” protested Walsingham. “I have served you many years and never withheld information from you. Yet you have lied to me. You have embarrassed me and compounded the betrayal of your deceit by concealing how you knew about that document.”

  Cecil started to ride on. “I did hope that, if my actions were revealed to you, you would understand.”

  “Understand? Sir William, I am very grateful to you for all you have done to advance me. But if I cannot trust you, her majesty’s Secretary, I cannot trust anyone. I have given my life to your service, every waking hour; I will not be treated in such a manner.”

  “We are all puppets, Francis. We are all dependent on the higher authorities who pull the strings. The queen pulls my strings and I pull yours, and you pull those of your men, and they pull the strings of the ordinary men and women in the street…”

  “And who pulls the queen’s strings? Dudley?”

  “No. God.” Cecil looked ahead at a couple of low cottages by the side of the road. Two men were leading a cart along a lane to a large field. “You could say that you and I do too. The puppet, being strung to the puppeteer, controls him. The men and women in the street have a hold on your men, and your men have a hold on you, and you on me, and all of us on the queen…”

  “And the queen on God? I do not think so.” They rode on in silence.

  “I am sorry I did not tell you,” said Cecil after a short while. “It was most unwise of me. I should have realized that your spymaster’s intuition would eventually determine that, as I knew that document existed and was in Clarenceux’s possession, I had a role in him keeping it.”

  “I thank you for your apology. But I am still angry. This has wasted time. I should be interrogating Clarenceux, not hearing apologies from you. When Clarenceux says he went to Mrs. Barker’s house willingly, to confront them, he is only half telling the truth. They lured him there. They know Widow Machyn is working with him. They know he knows where she is.”

  “I too want to know what Clarenceux has to say for himself. Will you bring him to Cecil House tomorrow afternoon?”

  Walsingham looked at him suspiciously.

  Cecil glanced back and understood his expression. “I promise I will keep him as securely as you would in your own house.”

  “If you are going to question him, I want to be present.”

  Cecil nodded. “Good. I would value your contribution. Let us set a time on it. Three of the clock. We will both have words with Mr. Clarenceux. We will both hear what he has to say for himself.”

  45

  Clarenceux listened to the thin trickle of urine fall the two stories to the stone-lined vat in the basement. He adjusted his clothes, replaced the cushion over the opening, and prepared himself for what he would do next. He said a prayer, crossed himself, and left the closet.

  The single guard accompanying him was waiting by the door on the far side of the chamber. He was a fair-haired youth of average height and, apart from the knife at his belt, he did not appear to be armed. Walsingham seemed to trust Clarenceux’s wounds to restrain him. But this was the weakness in the plan.

  “All done?” The fair-haired man smiled and gestured for him to go ahead.

  Clarenceux could not bring himself to respond positively. He shuffled across the room slowly, reaching out for the doorframe, emphasizing his crippled state. But as he left the room, he lurched to the right, grabbing the latch and throwing the door back into place, almost shutting the guard on the inside. The guard was not so slow and managed to place his boot in the opening. “Hold fast!” he shouted. “Return to your room. You cannot get away…” He wrestled against the door, which Clarenceux was holding firmly. Both men struggled with it until Clarenceux let go and ran, as fast as his wounds would allow, toward the staircase. He did not take the stairs leading up to his chamber but those that led down to the front door. The guard was after him straightaway.

  Clarenceux rushed down the stairs, hearing the younger man just behind him; he managed to reach the bottom first, without falling. “Stop! Stop him!” yelled the guard. Clarenceux saw a chair in the hallway and seized it, flinging it around desperately at his pursuer, catching him on the side of the head. But he did not knock the man to the ground. The act of turning had delayed him. There was no time for him to reach the door. A moment later, three other men had appeared in the hall from various rooms. Clarenceux was thrown against a wall. Holding him by the throat, they tied his hands and marched him back up the stairs to his cell on the second floor. They flung him on the floor and left him there, locking the door behind them.

  46

  Saturday, May 13

  Carew had been awake most of the night. At dawn he was on deck with Stars Johnson, watching the depth of the heavens disappear behind the shallow light of the new day. They had made good progress, with the steady wind straight up the Channel. Now they were less than fifteen miles from Dover.

  Carew had already examined almost every inch of the ship. When galleons were first launched, they were sometimes found to be unsteady, and the hull needed to be widened slightly through the insertion of wooden pegs between the ribs and the strakes of the vessel. The result was always a loss of speed and a little more seepage of water. But the Davy was a beauty; whoever had planned her had known his job perfectly and had made no error. She balanced in the water, turned easily, and had never needed modifications to her hull. He had
been aloft too, and inspected the sails and rigging entirely, from the crow’s nest to the stays. Whoever maintained her had been conscientious in his attention to detail, with no slack ropes nor any too taut or too frayed. It was a good sign that there were spare sails stacked in the orlop, but they would not be needed for a while yet as the existing sails were in good condition. It was reassuring; one storm could change everything. Whoever owned this ship was keen to make sure that his investment was safe. He had taken every precaution—all except that of the ship itself being taken by outlaws.

  “What is the business with the girl?” Johnson asked. “Won’t it delay us?”

  Carew looked at the shore, with the deep-blue sky above it. “It’s the moral of the thing, Stars. We take what we want. We kill men like that captain where we will. But if those are things we can justify, then we must stick by that code. And my code says we should protect women and children.”

  Johnson laughed. “You tell all the new ones to throw the religion overboard, but you’ve got more moral scruples than a priest.”

  Carew looked Johnson in the eye. “I should hope so. That’s the point.”

  47

  The bell in Cecil House rang four o’clock. Clarenceux had been standing for an hour in Sir William’s study, his hands tied behind his back. He was dressed in spare clothes from Walsingham’s house, worn-out items that the servants did not need. His shoes did not fit properly. He was tired, in pain, and exhausted, but still he refused the offer of a seat. He would stand until he collapsed.

  “I don’t understand,” Cecil said to him. “You went to the house in order to interrogate Mrs. Barker and the Knights of the Round Table as to the location of the document. But they ended up interrogating you regarding that very same thing. Very well, Widow Machyn has betrayed you both. But you already knew that. Why did you go there?”

  Clarenceux’s mind was numb with tiredness. “Why did Walsingham go there? For the same reason, I imagine.”

  “I doubt it,” replied Cecil.

  “I wanted to find out where she went, where she took the document.”

  Cecil said nothing. He glanced at Walsingham. “I think we had better show him the message,” he said. Walsingham watched as Cecil walked to the side of the room and reached into a wall cupboard, taking out a piece of paper. “We have been watching Mrs. Barker for quite another reason.” He handed Clarenceux the transcript. As Clarenceux read, Cecil added, “We ascertained that the bearer of that message, which was originally in code, was a servant in Mrs. Barker’s house. So you see, the question is: how did you know Mrs. Barker was involved?”

  Clarenceux read the words with grief. Rebecca Machyn had given her assent to a plan far larger than anything he could fight alone. According to this document, her brother had taken her by ship from London to Sandwich and then on to Scotland. She was beyond his reach now.

  “Are you going to answer me?”

  “I acted on a suspicion,” he said. “I knew that Mrs. Barker had provided Rebecca Machyn with shelter in the past. I paid a visit to her house last Tuesday evening. Mrs. Barker told me the Knights of the Round Table had persuaded Rebecca to assist them in recovering the document. She suggested that I meet them.”

  “So you admit it,” began Walsingham. Cecil silenced him with a gesture.

  “Why was she so helpful at that time?” asked Cecil. “Why did she not take you and torture you then?”

  Clarenceux shrugged. “I took her by surprise. Perhaps at that moment she did not know that Widow Machyn had betrayed her. Or perhaps it was bait—to make me return when the others were there.”

  Cecil turned to Walsingham. “Has Mrs. Barker said anything yet? Or any of her men?”

  “She has said very little. My plan is to interrogate her further when we have extracted a confession from Clarenceux.”

  “Has she said as much to you as Clarenceux here has admitted she said to him?”

  “No.”

  Cecil looked at Clarenceux. “Isn’t that curious—that she should be so frank with you and then torture you?” He waited for an answer. None came. He continued, “What exactly did you intend to do with the document?”

  “To look after it safely, as you bade me. I was acting out of loyalty to you.”

  “Highly commendable, do you not agree, Mr. Walsingham?”

  “Not if he failed.”

  “Precisely. And because of that failure, Clarenceux, I cannot offer you my protection. Not now—at least, not outside this house. The best you can do is hope for a reprieve when this is all over. And retire quietly with your family to a provincial town.”

  “I cannot do that,” said Clarenceux.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I cannot give this matter up,” he replied. “Thousands will die, don’t you see? I do not want there to be a Catholic insurrection. Every time there is a rebellion in the name of the old religion, the persecution grows worse. Property is confiscated. Houses are searched. Men and women are rounded up, imprisoned, tortured, flogged. Books are burnt, priests hanged, chapels desecrated. I cannot stop all this. I am on your side in wanting it not to happen, even though I do not share your religious outlook. The only way to bring an end to this reign of terror is for the rebellions to stop, so that Catholics are no longer a danger to the State. You have to help me find Rebecca Machyn!”

  Cecil listened without gesture or expression. “You did not hear me correctly. To allow you to search for Widow Machyn in order to prevent a Catholic plot would be like allowing a wolf to guard the chickens lest a fox come and eat them. You are just as untrustworthy as she is.”

  “But thousands will die,” Clarenceux pleaded.

  Cecil nodded. “So you keep saying. And you are right. But it does not take a brilliant mind to come up with that prognostication. I am sorry. I will keep you here in this house until further notice. You will not be ill treated—I will make sure of it.”

  Walsingham stood up. “It would be more suitable if I were to guard him. You never know when he might try to escape. Last night he tried to run from my house while using a latrine—”

  “Then it sounds as if your house is not secure,” retorted Cecil, not looking at him. “This is a modern house. I have a first-floor room designed for accommodating distinguished guests of dubious loyalty. It has a closet attached. I can’t guarantee that Mr. Clarenceux will be comfortable, but most certainly he will be safe.”

  48

  Sunday, May 14

  Clarenceux slept unexpectedly well. He had been taken straight from Cecil’s study to a small room on the first floor at the back of the house. Like Walsingham’s secure chamber, this had bars on the window. Once inside, they had untied his hands. There had been the last vestiges of the evening sun when he had arrived, but he had not bothered making use of the light to investigate his new surroundings. He had seen the bed—there was nothing else in the room apart from a pewter ewer and basin on the floor—and had stumbled across to it, laid down, and been asleep within seconds. He did not wake until the early hours, when he realized with a pang of guilt that he had not said a prayer for his wife and daughters.

  It was thus at dawn, after his prayers, that he set about discovering the room. The door was secure and seemed to be fitted with more than one lock. The bars on the window were solid. Between them he could look out across Cecil’s formal garden, with its intricately arranged beds of ornate shrubs and flowers in the early-morning light. Beyond were the graziers’ fields north of the Strand, where the Convent Garden used to be before the Dissolution. There was a mist across the grass now. Above it, he could just see the top of Southampton House, to the east of the village of Holborn. Nearer, on the right-hand side of the garden, was Drury Lane; if he craned his head around to the right, he could see Drury House and Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The wall between the garden and Drury Lane was quite high, but there was a door halfway along that seemed to lead
out into the lane.

  The house was still quiet. He wondered if he could use a part of the wooden bed frame to lever the door open, but it was as solidly constructed as the door. The wall too was plaster over stone—not a plaster and lath partition. He turned his attention to the door to the closet but here too the quality of the recent workmanship meant that there was no chance of him working loose the hinges or a section of the door itself.

  There seemed no chance of breaking out of the room. The door was hopeless. The barred window was solid. There was no other aperture into the room—except the latrine in the closet.

  Clarenceux remembered a chronicle he had read; it had described how the French had captured the great castle of Château Gaillard by making a man climb in through a latrine chute. He looked at this one. There was no hope of climbing through: the aperture in the wooden seat was too small. Even if he could get through, there was a risk he would fall into the cesspit two stories below. Gongfermors sometimes died of the fumes when cleaning out cesspits and were found dead in them. He might knock himself out and drown.

  The chute was his only chance. He could not see the bottom, but the brick lining was visible. There had to be fingerholds. As his eyes adjusted, he became aware of a vague lightness at the foot. This being a relatively new house, there would be a barrel positioned below, in the hope of catching all that fell from above. Emptying barrels was easier and cheaper than clearing out cesspits.

  The seat was a single piece of planed wood, about three feet wide, smoothed around the hole. It was built into the wall. As he looked closely at the edge, he saw the plaster overlap and wondered if it had only been plastered into place rather than mortared in with the bricks. He heaved on it, testing its looseness, but it held firm. He needed a sharp edge to gouge out some of the plaster. Going back into the room, he picked up the basin, and having emptied the water in it down the chute of the privy, he placed it against the wall, at an angle. The metal yielded easily to the force of his foot. The crease in the metal made a sharp strong edge and with this he set to prodding and breaking the plasterwork around the seat.