The Roots of Betrayal c-2

by James Forrester

  Five minutes later, there it was. The piece of carved wood covering the lintel was coming away and hanging down slightly, and there was no doorframe. But the four irregularly spaced scallop shells, nailed above the door and green with age, were clear enough.

  Clarenceux drew his knife and hammered on the door. It opened: a woman in her late twenties with her hair tied up in a dirty white scarf answered. She looked shocked to see Clarenceux. The door swung open into a dimly lit living space with a stone fireplace and old baskets hanging from the ceiling. A small cooking fire was on the hearth, with a chafing dish set into the ashes on one side and a small cauldron suspended above the flames. Nicholas Hill was standing beside the stairs, unshaven, his belly proud before him, his jerkin loose over his shirt. He was dressed in the same fawn doublet he had been wearing when Clarenceux had first met him last December.

  Clarenceux walked straight in. “Did you think the Knights of the Round Table could just take that document and that I would do nothing about it?” he demanded. “Well-did you?” Without thinking or pausing to check his rage, Clarenceux found himself aiming a fist straight at Hill’s jaw. Hill, however, saw the punch coming, and stepped to one side, leaving Clarenceux to lurch off-balance.

  “You should not have come here, Clarenceux. You should have proclaimed that marriage agreement while you had the chance.”

  “I was charged to look after that document with my life.”

  “Then you value your life more highly than the True Faith,” said Hill. “And that is bad. But not as bad as the fact that you betrayed us.”

  “I did not betray you. I saved you from Walsingham. You would still be in his prison if-”

  “You led Walsingham’s men to our doors! You stood by and waited for us all to be arrested. For what? So you could keep that document as if it’s an heirloom, a grant of arms or some historical treasure. Shame on you, Clarenceux, shame on you! You did not act as Henry Machyn told you to. You withheld us from our purpose.”

  Clarenceux glared at Hill. “Where is Rebecca Machyn? Where is the marriage agreement?”

  Hill leaned forward, as if taunting Clarenceux. “My…lips…are…sealed.”

  Clarenceux lashed out again. This time he was faster than Hill and his fist connected with the man’s nose. Hill staggered backward, turned, and reached for a sword that hung on the wall. He swept around with it, drawing it from its scabbard, and moved to stab Clarenceux, but as he came forward, Clarenceux leaped aside and drew his own blade.

  Hill’s terrified wife let out a scream.

  Clarenceux shouted, “How is it that your father has died and you are still here in this slum? Did he write you out of his will-for being a fool?”

  “How dare you speak of my father!”

  “He had more sense than you. He advised you to give up the document.” As he spoke, Hill thrust. Clarenceux easily parried the blow. “To whom did he leave his house in St. Mary Woolnoth? Not to you, clearly. Is that what disturbs you?”

  Hill’s wife moved to the stairs. “Stop it, Nicholas,” she cried. “You can’t kill him. He’s a gentleman. They’ll hang you if they catch you.”

  “They won’t. No one knows he is here. No one is waiting for him-he acts alone. At least he does now, since Rebecca Machyn chose to side with us.”

  Clarenceux knew how to use a weapon better than Hill. He had been trained. He could play with the man. He swept the blade across Hill’s line of vision, then darted forward and cut him in the shoulder, drawing blood. He then drew the point back across Hill’s face as the latter winced with the pain, moving forward and catching the wrist of the man’s sword hand. “Drop it!” he commanded, holding the point of his sword at Hill’s throat. “Drop it or I’ll fight you in earnest.”

  Hill stopped. But he did not drop the sword.

  “When did your father die?” Clarenceux demanded. “Was it in February?”

  “He did not leave me his house because it was not his,” Hill said. “He rented it. It was his way out of these alleys. I always hoped that religious change would be mine.”

  Clarenceux reached forward and took the sword from Hill’s hand. He gave it to the man’s wife, not taking his eyes off him. “Put it away somewhere safe until I have gone. I do not want to harm your husband but he is dangerous. I would sooner run him through than have him do the same to me.”

  Hill’s wife took the blade and ran upstairs, the wooden soles of her shoes sounding loud on the steps.

  “Does she know what this is about?” Clarenceux asked.

  Hill nodded.

  “And your children?”

  “What children?”

  Clarenceux paused. “None of you have children. You do not, nor does James Emery, nor Rebecca Machyn-all three of hers died. Henry Machyn’s only son has turned into a drunkard and Robert Lowe has no children. Maybe if you had children you would be more mindful of the future and the necessity of protecting your offspring, not feeding them to religious fires.”

  Hill looked like an animal about to pounce. Clarenceux kept his distance, taking no chances. “Now tell me-when did your father die?” he repeated.

  “February the sixteenth.”

  “So who is Sir Percival?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Yes, you do. Mr. Emery told me four of you are left. None of you would trust William Draper. Lancelot Heath’s whereabouts are unknown. Daniel Gyttens and your father are both dead. That leaves Lowe, Emery, yourself, and Sir Percival. Who is he?” Clarenceux looked Hill in the eye and lifted his sword to his throat, holding the point about two inches away. “I know Sir Percival brings and sends messages to and from Lady Percy. But who is he?”

  “I will not tell.”

  Clarenceux darted upward with the blade and slashed Hill’s cheek, surprised at how easily the sharp point sliced into his skin. Blood rushed to the surface and ran down his chin.

  “I asked: who is he?”

  Hill felt the blood with his fingers. “He is a holier man than you.”

  “Who is he?” Clarenceux insisted. “Where can I find him?”

  “You will never find him. None of us knows his name, do you not remember?”

  “But you have met him. And he knows who you are. How can I find him?”

  “So you can chase after Goodwife Machyn?” the man sneered. “She has gone, Clarenceux, gone. And so too has the marriage agreement.”

  There was a single knock at the door. Hill stepped back and opened it: two men stood outside, in rough working clothes, both as muscular and grim looking as Hill himself. Both were openly wearing side-swords.

  Hill looked back at Clarenceux. “Go, herald. Either go now, peacefully, or fight us three. I may not be able to match your swordsmanship alone, but I have more friends than you, and together we are stronger.”

  Hill’s wife slowly descended the stairs. He continued, “When you live this close to so many, you can just knock on a wall to summon help. The rich and the poor all have their friends. Only those in the middle are alone. Which is where you are, Mr. Clarenceux.”

  Clarenceux stayed calm. “Stand away from the door. I will leave in peace if you give me space.”

  Hill gestured to his friends. Clarenceux slowly walked toward the door, his sword still at the ready, his left hand on the hilt of his dagger. The two men drew away, backing into the street. Clarenceux looked at Hill once more, then turned and marched back the way he had come, listening carefully in case he was followed.

  25

  Pieter Gervys, landlord of the Two Swans at Southampton, was half Flemish. Like many proprietors of houses of ill repute, he and his Flemish wife Marie lived on the fringes of society. In the old days, many stews and bordellos had been run by Flemish women, but then the great pox had come to England. One by one the stews were closed and the whores driven out of the cities. Those who had worked in Southwark had almost all left by the end of Henry VIII’s reign. The city officials never gave a thought to where they went. Many citizens saw the pox as a p
urifying thing, for they presumed the women had all turned to more honest occupations. In reality they had either turned to crime-organized theft-or removed themselves from the city to carry on their trade elsewhere, in less rigidly controlled towns. Thus Pieter and Marie had come to Southampton in 1555.

  The inn they ran, the Two Swans, was on the quay. Behind its respectable-looking front building was a second hall, the “long hall” as it was affectionately known. In fact it was a barn that Peter and Marie used when the occasion demanded. The return of Raw Carew was just the sort of occasion. By eleven o’clock, they had been told he was in town. By twelve, two casks of ale had been opened in the long hall and a pig set to roast in the kitchen. By four o’clock, the real festivities were beginning. There were bagpipes playing, and Luke Treleaven was playing a fiddle, his green eyes dancing between his fellow survivors as they sat on long benches and guzzled their way through the feast of pork and ale. Hugh Dean was plucking a lute in time to the bagpipes and Francis Bidder was lying on the floor, half wishing he was asleep and half wishing he could get up and dance some more. Harry Gurney was in a corner, laughing, with his hand up the skirts of a fat young woman, and Stars Johnson and Skinner Simpkins were dancing with another woman, who darted her kisses between the two of them, teasing them. George Thompson-a young man known as Swift or Swift George to his fellow mariners-had his arms around a woman in a corner, as she helped herself to ale from his flagon. John Devenish was leading a dozen others and their newly found womenfolk in a drunken line of dancers. Charity Pool had tied her hair up in an extravagant style, complete with ribbons and flowers, and was dancing with a dark-haired lad from the ship, Nick Laver, who had a soft spot for her. Alice had in her clutches two young men: one was an apprentice shipwright whom she had taken a liking to on the quay, and the other had heard the dancing and come in from the street. A third woman from the ship, dark-eyed Juanita, known for her fierce temper, was dancing alone in her native Spanish style, four or five men clapping and cheering around her as she lifted her skirts, jumped, and swirled in time to the music. With a hundred people laughing, singing, and dancing, with meat in their stomachs and ale in their flagons, it was a heart-warming sight.

  Raw Carew was sitting on a table with a half-full ceramic flagon of ale. He was keeping one eye on the door. His attention was mostly on Ursula. Tall and blond-but sadly now afflicted with a long scar across her face-she was the elder sister of Amy, the woman with whom Carew had spent two whole days and nights in this inn, nine weeks earlier. Ursula was dancing with Hugh Dean, who grinned at her from under his mop of black hair as if she had wholly bewitched him. He put down the lute, stood behind her, and cupped her breasts in his hands; she wiggled her hips provocatively, pressing herself into his hose. Hugh was beginning to feel the effects of the ale on top of the two days without sleep, and she slipped away from him, holding her skirts.

  “Amy not here?” Carew shouted at her as she spun around and another bearded sailor, Cleofas Harvy, a Breton, seized her and ran his hands appreciatively over her hips.

  “She has a customer. One who pays good money,” she shouted back, succumbing to Cleofas’s groping hands and moving her neck as he almost slobbered over her with his ardent kisses.

  “Who is he?”

  “A watchman. From the fort.”

  Carew nodded and said nothing more. It was a wise thing to do, to keep Captain Parkinson’s men happy. He turned back to the dancing. He had lost a ship, a number of friends, and a large amount of money-but with the help of Stars Johnson’s knowledge of the skies, he had saved many and steered them back to safety. The end of the evening would be as usual-a lot of drunken men and women, a lot of mess to clear up, and an argument about the bill. Pieter Gervys was generally tolerant but he could prove a stickler for money, and even if he was content to let the bill mount up, it made him grumpy. Gervys would add sums here and there because he knew that Carew had nowhere else to go. Here a debt on the shop book would never be written off, and it would never be cheap; but it would not lead to a covert attempt to bring the constables to him in the night. For his part, Gervys knew that when Carew had money he did not stint but spent it generously.

  The dancing stopped and the bagpipes and fiddle began a merry jig, accompanied by a horn blown by a drunken woman from the ship and a tabor played skillfully by Kahlu. Carew laughed as John Devenish tried to lift Harry Gurney and then both men fell headlong, crashing into a trestle table that promptly collapsed, sending flagons flying and two men and their women sprawling on the floor. Recovering, Devenish lifted one of the women and turned her upside down, and danced with her that way until her would-be bedmate raised a fist at him. At that he put the woman down and started dancing with her lover instead.

  Ursula broke away from Cleofas and came over to Carew. “Are you not going to dance?”

  Apart from the scar, of which she was very conscious, Ursula was still pretty. She had pale skin and freckles like her sister but she was taller and less given to laughing. She also lacked the vivacious spark and sexual beauty of her younger sister. But she was shrewd, imaginative, and caring. Carew liked her.

  “Is that an invitation?” he inquired.

  “I’ll dance with you,” she said. “Or are you asking for a business deal?”

  “You mean, you won’t take me for love.”

  “Love I get every day. It’s money we need.”

  Carew lifted a hand to her cheek and ran a finger over her skin, down her neck, and over her breast. The same finger drew an imaginary circle on her dress and then followed the curve of her hips. “It does a man good to see you, Ursula. But something is not right.”

  Ursula leaned forward and kissed his lips. “It is good to see you too-and not just because we need the money.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Ralph is sick. Amy’s already lost one child-losing another would be hard, cruel hard.”

  Carew remembered the bodies in the sea. He thought back to earlier times, worse hardships, terrible fears. The great sea of darkness. The truth was that he was proud to confront journeys and challenges that other men would not even dare to think about; yet the reward for such courage might be nothing more than oblivion and a watery grave. At that moment he understood that these women did something similar. They were proud to have men love their smiles and try to please them; it was part of who they were-desirable and beyond possession, only temporarily attainable. But then, in childbed, the reward for their loving might be nothing more than a feverish death, if not their own then that of a loved one. The death of a child might be tragic or it might be a blessing. In Amy’s case she had loved her dead daughter, and no doubt she still did.

  Ursula kissed him again, snapping him out of his reverie. “So? Will you dance?”

  A moment later she was dragging Carew forward from the table and he was dancing with her-to and fro, then in each other’s arms-as the crowd watched them and clapped or danced alongside them. As one dance gave way to another they grew bolder: Carew throwing Ursula up in the air and catching her. At the end of one dance he called for silence and then, after a long pause, held everyone spellbound as he sang a mournful ballad of companions who sailed no more; following this, he sang a fast song with which the bagpipes, pipe, and fiddle joined in, everyone stamping and thumping on the table. Then the dancing began again and he lifted Ursula and raised her skirts to show off her legs, while she playfully tried to fight him off and he carried her around the hall.

  The drinking went on through the afternoon. Every so often Carew would stop trying not to remember, weighing the joy of life against the sadness of his memories. Every time he caught Ursula’s eye the message passed between them, about Amy and her sick son. Every time he felt the sea swallowing him again, as it had almost done in the wreck, he would crack a joke to make Ursula laugh. The anticipation of having her later dabbed at the great tear welling within him. He did not know exactly what caused it: it seemed to be connected to so many things. The loss of the ship and the c
annon. The loss of so many friends. But then he reflected that it was none of those things. It was the more distant past.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Carew?” Ursula looked genuinely worried.

  “I am, thank you.” Then he shook his head. “Sometimes I think I ought to be different from what I am. I should have-I don’t know-done other things.”

  “Like what, Mr. Carew?”

  “Like…learning to write.” It pained him to say the words. “Or marrying an honest woman.”

  “Mr. Caroooby-you’re drunk!” giggled Ursula, and as she said the words, she sounded just like her sister, and she had the same sparkle in her eye. “You’ll never marry anyone-you could not remain faithful for more than an hour. And I bet you’ve not been in a church since you was baptized.”

  Carew cleared his throat. “It would give me great pleasure if you and I were to retire now with this flagon of ale, go to your quarters, and stay there until dawn.”

  “Is this for cash or credit?”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t charge you.” He kissed her. Then kissed her again, more passionately, running his hands over her back. “Truth is, you could ask for whatever you wanted right now and I’d promise it.”

  26

  Clarenceux walked down Little Trinity Lane in the early evening sunlight and knocked at the iron-studded oak door of Mrs. Barker’s house. A dark-haired man answered, barely as tall as Clarenceux’s shoulder.

  “Good day. I need to speak with your mistress. Is she within?”

  “Who seeks an audience?”

  “William Harley, Clarenceux King of Arms-a friend of Rebecca Machyn.”