The Roots of Betrayal

by James Forrester

  “This one. It is the way Mr. Clarenceux told me to tell you to go.”

  Cecil stepped forward. Set in the middle of the floor of the back room was a trapdoor, about two feet square. Rokeby opened it and Cecil looked down. About thirty feet below was the base of one of the pillars of the bridge, with a large flat cutwater—called a starling—visible above the waterline. The water churned around the stone of the starling. He looked hard at Rokeby. “Is this a joke?”

  Rokeby gestured upward. Above the trapdoor hung a rope ladder. He reached up and pulled on a cord and the rope ladder unfurled itself, tumbling through the trapdoor and trailing into the water below. “It is my escape way, in case of fire. Mr. Clarenceux asked me to show it to you. He said he doesn’t want anyone to follow you.”

  Cecil looked behind him at the men in the doorway. He said nothing. He looked again at the river below, its brown water twisting around the starlings. The starlings themselves were platforms of rubble shaped like sharp-nosed boats. They projected out either side of the bridge and caught small branches drifting downstream. Cecil now understood why Clarenceux had been so specific about the times; at high tide this platform would be completely covered. As it was, the tide was coming in, and boats were able to sail upstream and downstream. At low tide, this point would become almost impossible for vessels traveling in either direction. The arrangements had been sophisticated. He could no longer hide behind his men. From now on, he would have to go on alone or not go on at all.

  “What happens down there?”

  “A man will meet you. He has room in his boat only for one, or so Mr. Clarenceux said. If you step into that boat alone and go with him, Mr. Clarenceux will come to you. That is all he told me and all I can tell you.”

  Cecil looked from the trapdoor to Rokeby. “You are going to be in trouble, for helping a criminal. You know that.” He turned to his men. “Go to the banks, find boats, commandeer them, and follow me. Remain discreet—don’t make Clarenceux aware of your presence unless you see a struggle.”

  Rokeby watched as the queen’s Secretary leaned forward and tested the strength of the rope ladder. Hesitant at first, Cecil suddenly stepped onto it and swung, his feet striking the side of the trapdoor. Then he began to climb down toward the water.

  He looked up at the beams of the houses, cantilevered seven feet out over the edge of the bridge. He had seen them from the river before but never from this angle, this close. A bird flew out from the shadows. As he took another step, and another, the rope ladder swayed, but soon he was down on the stones of the starling. He looked downstream, then upstream. No one seemed to be coming for him. He saw the rope ladder move, pulled up—presumably by Rokeby. “Leave it,” he commanded. Rokeby did as he was told. Cecil stood on the starling and waited for a boat to approach.

  “Sir William,” said a voice behind him. “This side.”

  Cecil cautiously turned. A stout man in his fifties with a hat and an unkempt gray beard was there. He nodded for Cecil to come the other side of the great pillar supporting the bridge that arose from the center of the starling. Cecil walked across the uneven surface toward the man. When he came within a pace, he stopped. The man smelled of a tanyard.

  “Who are you?” asked Cecil.

  The man said nothing. He stepped forward, so he was within an arm’s length of Cecil. “I am directed to check you for weapons, Sir William.”

  Sir William shook his head. “How dare you?” But after waiting a moment, he slowly opened his cloak and let the man—a pelterer who had recently unloaded a cartload of skins—feel his doublet for a pistol or knife.

  “This way.” The pelterer led Cecil around the other side of the pillar to a wherry moored against the side of the starling. Cecil got in. The pelterer arranged the oars, pushed off, and started to row upstream. Cecil checked the boats along the banks; he caught a glimpse of two of his men running along the quay, trying to find a suitable craft in which to follow him. The others he could not see anywhere.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Up the river. Mr. Clarenceux will meet us when he is sure it is safe.”

  Cecil sat in the boat, apprehensive. He looked behind; no one was approaching—none of his men nor Clarenceux. He looked along the quays on both the south and north banks. There were men loading and unloading barges on the north; and smaller ferries, skiffs, and light boats all across the river, but no sign of Clarenceux. He looked at the timber-framed houses on the south side and the extraordinary mix of buildings on the north: quays, stone turrets and towers, staircases, jetties, half-timbered houses, platforms, and cranes. There were timber supports holding firm the banks of the river. Other timbers propped up the quays where boats were moored. But still no sign of Clarenceux.

  Clarenceux, in fact, was just getting into a boat, a larger one with a black canopy that covered the rear half. It was manned by a young fellow called John Gotobed, whose uncle was the clerk of the Skinners’ Company. They were concealed around a corner of the dock that had been built up just south of the Strand, not far from Cecil House.

  “There’s the boat,” Clarenceux said, seeing Tom Griffiths, the pelterer, rowing upstream.

  “The watchers have signaled,” replied Gotobed, looking along the quay to where a man was holding his hand aloft steadily. The man on the opposite bank was similarly signaling. “There is no one following them.”

  “Let’s go,” said Clarenceux, sitting back beneath the canopy. Gotobed pushed off from the side of the quay and started to row to a point upstream where he would meet Griffiths and Cecil.

  Cecil saw the larger, half-covered boat approaching. He felt annoyed, defeated by Clarenceux’s stratagem. He consoled himself; when this was over, he would still be the queen’s Secretary and he could manage the eventual outcome of this episode much more to his liking. This was just something he had to do first.

  Gotobed’s boat came alongside Griffiths’s. Cecil caught Clarenceux’s eye. “I suppose you want me to come across and join you.”

  “We have important things to discuss, Sir William. And we need to discuss them now.”

  Clarenceux and Gotobed did their best to steady the two boats while Cecil climbed over, but even so it was an ungainly operation for the queen’s Secretary. He was not as physically active as he had been in his youth. But he managed it and took a place on the covered bench to Clarenceux’s left. Griffiths also crossed and tethered his boat on a long rope to the rowlocks of Gotobed’s, so that it drifted along behind. Then the two oarsmen took their places and started to row the canopied boat back downstream.

  Cecil noticed the change of direction and the purposefulness of their stroke. “Where are we going now?” he asked.

  It began to rain. Clarenceux watched the droplets scatter themselves across the gray water. “Wapping,” he replied.

  “Are you taking me to watch one of your pirate friends be hanged?”

  Clarenceux looked at Cecil. “I know it was you. It took me a lot of time and pain to find out. You lied to me over and over again. You saw that letter to Lady Percy and you took action. Or, to put it another way, you panicked. You faked Rebecca Machyn’s theft of the document, and you sent her to Captain Parkinson.”

  Cecil looked away. “It was for the best.”

  “How can you say such a thing? How can you? Do you have any idea how many men have died as a result of you playing this game? Hundreds. Hundreds of men and women have died. Many others are wounded. You had a clever idea of how to fool me into thinking that a woman had stolen that document, thereby saving it from falling into the hands of Mrs. Barker. But what was the result?” Clarenceux held up his right hand, with the scar where Kahlu put his knife through it. “That is just one small result. The man who did that is now dead. So is the captain and almost all of the crew of the ship on which it happened. So are many of the crew members of the ships sent to blow us out of the water.”

>   “It was for the best,” repeated Cecil. “It was for the security of the State. I would do it again—and then ten times more.”

  “It was a mistake,” replied Clarenceux. “When I make a mistake, only I suffer, and those who depend on me. It is forgivable. But when you make a mistake, hundreds die. It is unforgiveable. Powerful men cannot afford to make mistakes.”

  “Listen to me. I meant well. I had to stop a rebellion—”

  “You meant well? Ah, that makes everything fine. Those men did not really die—because you meant well. This wound never happened, and the young woman I saw blown in half aboard the Davy did not die in vain, because you meant well. Sir William, damn your meaning well, if this is what it does—and to hell with your good intentions. If hundreds die and many suffer, it does not really matter whether you meant well or not, does it? You failed us.”

  “Clarenceux, a friendly warning: don’t make this worse for yourself.”

  “Worse? How do you think this possibly could be any worse?”

  “By insulting me. By threatening to send information to Dudley. By demeaning me—by dragging me into this miserable boat.”

  Clarenceux shook his head. “I told you to come alone. You paid no attention. I watched you. Six men followed you to my house. More were already stationed around it. You demean me by thinking that I am so stupid I will allow you to arrest me. And then you insult me by thinking I will not notice your soldiers. If I seem threatening to you, perhaps you ought to ask yourself what you are afraid of. Of me? Of me telling the truth? Or of the truth itself?”

  It was raining hard now, as they approached London Bridge again. Clarenceux looked across the water. Few boats were in use; most had taken shelter. One or two were still on the water, including one setting out from just this side of London Bridge. Clarenceux pointed to it. “You see what I mean? Row faster, Tom, John; there are men approaching from the north bank.”

  A flash of lightning lit the sky for a moment. Thunder rolled across ten seconds later. The rain came down harder. Griffiths and Gotobed continued rowing. “Keep going,” Clarenceux shouted. “There is a bonus for both of you because of the inclement weather.”

  Clarenceux turned back to Cecil. “It is the lies that disturb me most. You discovered the threat from the Catholics and you chose to deceive me. You never gave me the benefit of the doubt. You could have asked me for the document and that would—”

  “You would never have given it to me,” snapped Cecil. “Besides, how was I to know you were not complicit? You favor the old religion. The Machyn woman was complicit, so why not you?”

  “She was only playing for time,” said Clarenceux. “She was scared. For herself. For me and my family too.”

  “Where is Awdrey?” asked Cecil.

  “Safe. Where is Nicholas Denisot?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Someone I know wants to meet him.”

  Cecil looked at the rain hitting the gray water of the river. “He is in Ireland. I sent him there so no one could connect Captain Gray and the Davy with me.” He put his hand to his face and rubbed his forehead. “I cannot apologize for taking measures. You understand that.”

  “You could have taken measures that would safeguard more people, that would have at least protected me and my family, and Rebecca Machyn. I expect you to apologize for risking so many lives.” They were passing London Pool, the main docks just east of the Tower.

  “How much do you want?” asked Cecil. “Every man has his price. You have reason to feel aggrieved. Tell me how much you want in compensation.”

  “Sir William, you know me better than to ask such a thing. Every man may have his price, but a man’s beliefs are beyond purchase. If something I had done had hurt so many people, I would feel it a sin. A black stain on my soul. In your shoes, I would feel that what I had done was enough to damn me to hell. It would not matter what I had hoped to do or what my intentions had been. I would want to atone for my sin—not with money but with something more meaningful. If I have a price, it is your soul.”

  “Have I been tricked aboard this boat just to hear a sermon? Or do you have something more practical in mind?”

  “There are some men at Wapping due to be hanged as pirates. They were taken there by Sir Peter Carew—they arrived yesterday. One of them is already dead; I arrived too late to save him. But I want you to see him nevertheless. I want you to pardon him and his companions.”

  “You have lost your mind.”

  “No. I arrived yesterday morning, as the men were being led out. I had forged a letter from you, staying their execution until they could receive a trial. I said you would come along today in person to grant them a pardon. You are going to do that.”

  “I do not have the authority to grant a pardon. It has to be done under the royal seal. You know that. I do not have the seal with me.”

  “No. But I do.”

  “What?”

  Clarenceux reached inside his doublet and pulled out a large leather pouch six inches in diameter. He opened the drawstrings and pulled out the gilt bronze die that was the royal privy seal. “I watched you leave Cecil House. While you were at my house, I was in yours.”

  “Is there no end to this? How did you get in?”

  “Through the garden.”

  “I will not do it. I cannot free men just because you think I have committed a sin.”

  “And yet you can still send them to their deaths? Your morality astounds me, Sir William.”

  They neared Wapping. Clarenceux looked behind; Cecil’s men were still following, but they were a long way back. They had chosen a boat with only two oars.

  Three minutes later they landed. There was another rumble of thunder as Cecil and Clarenceux disembarked. John and Tom dragged the boat a little way up the shingle bank and Cecil followed Clarenceux to the line of gallows in the heavy rain. Six men were dangling from ropes, dead. The stench here was nauseating, that of moldering gray death—old death, not a fresh kill. As the river rose it soaked their lower parts, so that fish ate the flesh of the dead men for several hours a day. Eventually their maggot-infested corpses fragmented into the river.

  “Look at him,” said Clarenceux, approaching the second man in the row. The corpse was still intact. Cecil retched, retched again, and then was sick with the smell. “Damn you, look at him!” Clarenceux shouted, his hair and clothes soaked. “His name was John Dunbar. He was a Scot, a master gunner, captured at sea and forced to serve on the Davy. He was on board when you sent the ship to Southampton. All he did was follow the orders of his English captain—orders that you gave to that captain by way of Nicholas Denisot.” Water ran through Cecil’s clothes, cold. It poured from Clarenceux’s grief-stricken face. “When the ship changed hands again—when Carew took over—Dunbar was given one chance to flee. He stayed aboard with the men he knew rather than be cast ashore in England. He was no pirate. He simply was shoveled from one ship to another. Thus he had to defend himself when Sir Peter Carew attacked the Davy. Many more men like him died in the waters of the Solent. You did not see that—I did. I watched them die. Women too. I blew a hole with a cannon in a boat carrying men who were coming to kill me. You cannot know what it was like. You are just the chess player; we are the pawns in your game, unable to retreat.”

  Clarenceux looked at the river. The boat with Cecil’s men was coming into the bank. One jumped out and held the prow of the vessel as the others disembarked. Thunder rolled overhead again, almost immediately after a flash of lightning.

  “Tell them to go back to Cecil House,” said Clarenceux. “If I am not alive and at liberty to prevent it happening, copies of that letter you received, each with a copy of the text of the Percy-Boleyn marriage agreement, will be sent to Robert Dudley, Lord Winchester, and Robert Throckmorton. Your career will be over—and perhaps your life too. It will be of small comfort to you that you acted as you did an
d told so many lies, for the sake of steadying the ship of State.”

  Cecil waited in the rain as two of his men seized Griffiths and Gotobed. The other four rushed toward Clarenceux. When the first two were about to seize him, Cecil raised his hand. “Leave him be. He is a friend and a kinsman. We are both supporters of her majesty the queen. Let his oarsmen go too.”

  The men to whom he addressed his remarks were flummoxed. “Sir William, are these truly your orders?” asked one.

  “They are,” he said. “Wait for us. Find some shelter from this rain, all of you.” Then turning to Clarenceux, he added, “Show me your pirates.”

  When they had found the jailers, Clarenceux and Cecil were led to the makeshift prison where Skinner, Bidder, and the others were being held. It was made of wood, huge oak bars, sunk into the ground. The men inside were up to their knees in watery mud. One man was dead, lying face down in the brown water. No one spoke inside. The smell of feces was as strong as that of decomposing bodies drifting over from the riverside.

  Cecil took one look at the limbs hanging on to the beams of the cage and asked, “How many of them do you want?”

  “All those who were aboard the Davy,” Clarenceux replied.

  “You, open the door,” Cecil commanded one of the jailers, as the thunder crashed again. “Bring them out one by one.”

  “For Christ’s sake, let them all go,” muttered Clarenceux.

  “I will pretend I did not hear that,” replied Cecil, as the first man was led out of the waterlogged pit. He had suffered a huge cut on the side of his face. His shirt was almost torn entirely from his shoulders; what remained was a filthy rag. His breeches were covered in mud and excrement. “Was this man on the Davy?”

  “He was,” replied Clarenceux. “Stars Johnson is his name.”

  If Clarenceux found the sight of Johnson traumatic, the following men were even more disturbing. Francis Bidder’s arm had been broken, and the bones had ruptured the skin. The wound had begun to rot, and blood poisoning seemed to have taken hold. He was unable to stand, barely alive. “Mr. Clarenceux, are you saving us or turning us over to the Devil?” shouted one man. “Will you join us at the water’s edge?” yelled another. “You fired the cannon too,” cried a third voice. Clarenceux said nothing. Even worse were the screams of those who had not been aboard the Davy, whom the jailers thrust back into the cage.