Sacred Treason

by James Forrester

  Rebecca looked at him. She came closer and spoke in a very low voice. “How comes it that Mr. Draper is the only one of the Knights whom we have found in his own house?”

  Clarenceux did not understand why she was asking the question. Why should they not find a rich merchant in his own house?

  “I am worried, Mr. Clarenceux. Mr. Hill was so fearful he pointed pistols at us. You had to leave your house. I had to too. Lancelot Heath is in hiding. Everyone is in hiding. But not Mr. Draper.”

  As she stopped speaking, he heard again the voice of her husband in his ears. I trusted the wrong man. Everything is gone. It is over for me.

  “What can they be discussing up there?” he asked aloud, realizing the only possible answer as he said the words.

  Nothing.

  The blood in his face turned to cold fear. “You’re right. We’ve walked into a trap,” he whispered.

  “Do you think he’s with Walsingham?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to find Draper now, before it’s too late…”

  Even before he finished the sentence, Clarenceux started moving. By the time he was at the staircase, he was in a run. His knee hurt but he was not going to let it stop him. He put his foot on the first step and realized the need for stealth and slowed. He turned around; Rebecca was following. He raised a finger to his lips, then turned and crept up the stairs.

  At the top, on the landing, a candle burnt on a small table under a picture of the Virgin on the wall. He crossed himself and then looked at the door in front of him. There was a latch. He put his hand forward, enclosing the metal, said a small prayer, and opened the door.

  It took Clarenceux barely two seconds to understand the geography of the betrayal. He saw the long paneled room, the two fireplaces, the candles on the walls, and the writing table at one end. He saw the door directly opposite and the curtain on the inside—still drawn back. The servant had not closed it behind him when he left. He saw the narrow-faced, gray-bearded man at the desk at the far end of the room—with a look of surprise on his face—and he saw the pistol on the desk. But in those two seconds, without any fear at all, he worked out exactly what he would do.

  When Draper saw Clarenceux enter, he realized that he had underestimated the herald. He had hoped the man would wait obediently in the hall. He was too shocked for his mind and body to respond. He reached out a hand for the pistol but he fumbled, and by the time his finger found the trigger, Clarenceux was already at the fireplace. He looked on in fear as a gloved hand reached for one of the hot, silver-headed firedogs, lifted it, and threw it straight at him. He ducked, trying to avoid the spinning hot metal, but he was too slow; the edge of the foot caught him on the side of the head. An instant later Clarenceux was on him, pulling the pistol away and throwing it across the room with one hand while wrenching his hair out of his scalp with the other as he dragged him away from his desk. Draper was stumbling, head low, yelling with pain as Clarenceux ripped his hair out in tufts.

  “This is for Henry Machyn!” roared Clarenceux, grabbing Draper’s beard in his fingers. He punched him in the face as hard as he could, breaking his nose. Draper’s head jolted back and he fell, blood leaking across the floor. “And this is for Will Terry, an innocent boy who never did a wrong deed.” Draper’s body contorted as Clarenceux’s boot broke a rib.

  Clarenceux bent down and seized Draper’s hair again and twisted his face upward so he could look at him. “Now, I have one question for you. I know your Arthurian name is Sir Dagonet. The buffoon whom King Arthur knighted in jest. What is your date? Tell me.”

  “May your soul burn in hell and your body rot…” gasped Draper.

  Clarenceux glanced at Rebecca. She was standing by the door as if she wanted to run. He listened; as yet there was no noise from below.

  He turned back to Draper. “One last chance.”

  Draper said nothing.

  Clarenceux took the knife from his belt and held the blade directly in front of Draper’s right eye, half an inch away. “I said, one last chance. Or I am going to cut out your eyes.”

  “The…sixteenth of June.”

  “The year?”

  “1559.”

  Clarenceux took the knife away and sheathed it. “You are a proud man, Mr. Draper. You must have once believed in the cause, or Henry Machyn would not have chosen you. But you would rather give your soul to your mortal enemies than stand by your friends in Christ. As disciples go, you are Judas.”

  He stood up and looked across at Draper’s writing table. He saw a large leather pouch, walked over, and took it. It contained three gold sovereigns, several gold half-sovereigns and angels, ten large new silver crowns, and a few silver shillings, groats, and pennies. He hesitated for a moment, then remembered the money taken from the box in his own house, and the gold leaf on display in the hall. He pulled the pouch strings closed and tucked it into a pocket of his doublet, then glanced back at the figure of Draper.

  “Men have died because of your faithlessness. Remember that.”

  Then, with a final look around the room, he strode to the door opposite the one by which they had come in and beckoned to Rebecca.

  “The servant will think we don’t know about this route, so he will enter with Crackenthorpe by the front door. Come, quickly.”

  It was cold and dark on the narrow winding stairs. Clarenceux found himself reaching out for the walls, steadying himself as he descended, not knowing where they would come out. When the stairs stopped, he found himself in blackness, uncertain whether he was at the foot of the stairs or on a landing.

  “I can hear someone—footsteps running,” whispered Rebecca.

  Clarenceux knew there was no time. He dropped onto all fours, cursed the bruising of his knee, and felt around. A moment later he felt a wall and then steps going down. They could lead to a cellar.

  There were voices above. Clarenceux could hear his own hurried breathing and sensed Rebecca’s anxiety. A faint light caught his eye, level with his feet. It is gray light, not candlelight. It has to be the bottom of an outside door. I just pray that the servant left it unlocked.

  “Goodwife Machyn,” he whispered, standing up and reaching out for her. He touched the wall first and then her outstretched hand. He held it. “Be careful, there are steps here,” he said, guiding her past them.

  A flickering torchlight appeared behind them on the spiral stairs.

  “Don’t fear them,” he urged, finding the door and fumbling for the latch.

  The door was unlocked. Clarenceux opened it. The shadows of the chill night revealed that they were in a brick courtyard at the side of the house. There was only one obvious way out: through a gate ahead of them, beneath an arch. It was the only thing they could see—it was too dark to see any other doorway. But the gate was wide enough to allow delivery carts, and that meant it had to lead to the street. Clarenceux pulled Rebecca toward it.

  “Hold there!” yelled a voice behind. The light of a flaming torch fell on the gate. But Clarenceux was not turning back now. By the torchlight he saw the handle in the center of the gate, grabbed it and turned it, and pulled the left-hand side open to allow Rebecca through. He followed her as the pursuers rushed toward them, shouting, and slammed the gate shut behind him, holding the metal ring of the handle on the outside of the door.

  “Go down the lane,” he gasped, holding the door firmly shut despite the attempts of the men within to open it. “Turn right and keep going. I’ll see you at the back of St. Michael’s Church.”

  Rebecca hesitated. There were people all around them in the street, hooded shadows moving here and there, a few with lanterns but most simply returning from the markets.

  “Go on! Run!” he shouted as he fought to hold the handle of the door.

  Rebecca turned and ran.

  He had only seconds now to make up his mind what to do next. A sudden forceful effort from those within pulled the door open a couple of inches; Clarenceux hauled it back but could not shut it. He could see
the flickering of a torch through the narrow opening, like the flames of a pyre, and the light that was cast on his gloves. Crackenthorpe’s men are probably running through the house now, about to come around from the front and trap me. Again there was a great pull from those inside. Clarenceux turned and frantically looked for somewhere to hide, knowing he could not outrun the guards. But there was nothing to see—it was far too dark. But as he looked at an approaching group of hooded figures, their faces invisible in the near-darkness, he realized what he had to do. He waited another moment, and another, as several lanterns came toward him, and then let go.

  ***

  Holding a flaming torch in his left hand, the huge figure of Richard Crackenthorpe yanked open the front door with his right and jumped down the steps into the snowy street. He drew his sword as he turned to the outer gate, expecting it to be closed and to see Clarenceux there. But there was no one. The door was open, yet there was no fighting. There were just the shadows of his men.

  “Where is he?” yelled Crackenthorpe to the crowd in the street. A woman screamed when she saw the sword, and all the figures in the lane backed away from him as he swirled between them, pushing back the hats and hoods of those nearest him. “Where is he?” he shouted into the faces of the three watchmen who had come out through the gate. “He cannot simply have disappeared.”

  “We could not see,” explained the man who had passed through first. “When we pulled the door open it was too dark to recognize anyone. And then you appeared, and the torchlight reflected on the snow.”

  “The pox and the bloody flux upon you.” Crackenthorpe took a deep breath. “Damn you! I want you to pursue…No.” He stuck the sword in the snow. “No. The city gates are shut now. They will try to leave the city through the blacksmith’s yard by Cripplegate. Two of you will stay here to guard Draper—I do not trust him. You two, come with me.”

  “Why bother guarding Draper? Didn’t you see? Clarenceux bloodied his face.”

  “But he left him alive. If Draper had betrayed me like that, I would have slit his throat.”

  48

  Clarenceux ran on in the darkness for as long as he could. His whole body had taken too many blows—not just his bruised knee. He ached; he just wanted to lie down and sleep.

  But he was alive and free.

  On he went, pushing hard on his leg. It will not defeat me. Today, nothing will defeat me. A left turn, then a right, and I will be heading straight for St. Michael’s Church in Wood Street. Where will Rebecca be? At the back, I said. In the churchyard.

  Clarenceux slowed. Another group was approaching with a lantern, and they were not on their way home; they were official watchmen. For a moment he felt the irony of escaping from one danger because he had no light and then being arrested for nightwalking. He stopped and backed into the side of the street as the swinging light and shadows passed.

  He felt the still falling snowflakes cold against his neck and the wet fur of his collar. He pulled the robe closer and limped on, bumping occasionally into carts, barrels, and the other jetsam of the back streets of the city. Soon the tower of St. Michael’s Church showed against the dark sky. Coming to the wall of the cemetery, he felt with his hand all the way around to the lychgate and went through.

  His cap was soaked now and melted snow was running down the inside of his shirt. The city was almost silent. Only the occasional shout of watchmen in neighboring streets disturbed the peace, or a father shouting at his children behind the shutters of a nearby house. He heard the screeching of cats fighting not far away. Then it was silent again.

  “Goodwife Machyn?” he called quietly. But there was only silence in the churchyard.

  Where is she? I said the back of the church. Surely she must have understood that to be the churchyard? The church itself will be locked at this hour.

  “Goodwife Machyn?” he said a little louder. “Rebecca?”

  His shoe caught on a recently dug mound of earth; he stumbled forward, his gloved hand burying itself in fresh snow. He got up, shook it, and moved on.

  Nothing. Just cold silence. And the smell of wood smoke. The church rose in stone before him.

  She is not here.

  What if they caught her? Clarenceux’s thoughts began to gnaw at him. If she has been arrested, what should I do? I have no way of finding her. If I go and take shelter in the stable lofts of the tenements near Aldersgate, she will never find me.

  The thoughts turned in his mind, leaving it as cold as a bone beneath the stars. I cannot lose her now, not when we have come so far.

  “Rebecca?”

  Only the snowy silence answered, and the barking of a dog in the next street.

  Clarenceux waited for twenty minutes, leaning against the wall of the church. His robe was soaking wet. He turned and placed his hands flat upon the cold stones. Holy though they were, he could find no consolation in them. All he could see in his mind was Rebecca. Somehow he had lost her. He rested his forehead against the stones and remembered his father’s words years ago, a few days after his sister had died. Gold, fame, and fine horses mean very little; this is what we learn when we lose a loved one. His sister had been sixteen and he fourteen; all the laughter they had shared had vanished, never to come back. In the years since he had come to think of his faith as a consolation. Faith did not diminish with the loss of a mortal soul. But now he was not so sure. Where is faith now? What is God’s consolation? If a man loses someone he holds dear yet can find consolation in God alone, surely that person never meant that much to him?

  And then he shocked himself, profoundly. If the spiritual world is as real as the material world, then one is meaningless without the other.

  “God alone is not enough,” he whispered to himself.

  Suddenly he was swimming in deep pools of truth. He felt sick as he started to walk alongside the church, steadying himself on the stones. He made the sign of the cross in the darkness.

  God alone is not enough. Not enough.

  Someone moved nearby.

  “Is that you?” a woman’s voice whispered.

  “Goodwife Machyn?” He could hear the weakness of his voice.

  A hand touched his arm. “It is me. Rebecca.”

  “Rebecca.”

  He held her hand in his and recognized the feel of her and put his arm around her, clasping her tightly and holding her cheek to his own.

  “For a moment, I thought God had been cruel,” he said.

  “God is never cruel. Only we are vulnerable. How did you escape?”

  “I will tell you, but not here. First we must find somewhere to hide. I know a place not far away.”

  He took her hand in his and led her through the darkness.

  ***

  The stable felt warm as they came in from the cold. The smell and the heat of the horses was welcome after the ice and snow of the lanes. Clarenceux knew where to feel for the ladder in the darkness, and they climbed into the stable loft and lay upon a pile of soft hay, fragrant of a now-forgotten summer. They lay near each other and were quiet for a long time.

  “So how did you escape?”

  “The soldiers’ eyes were used to the torchlight—I realized they would be plunged into darkness when they came out. Like moths, their eyes were bound to be drawn to the first lights they saw in the street. I guessed it would be two or three seconds before they could make out a human shape. That’s enough time for a man in a dark robe and a black velvet cap to disappear in the shadows.”

  “I was so worried. I went back to look for you—I thought that if you were caught, I needed to know. To try to find out where they took you, so I could tell Julius. But by the time I got there you had vanished.”

  “All is well now, though.” Clarenceux leaned back in the hay and looked up into the darkness. “I think we have done all we can in the city. We know who the traitor is. No one has breathed a word about the last two Knights—not even their Arthurian names. It is time to go and check what dates we have against the chronicle, to f
ind out what they mean.”

  “Why do you think one of the Knights’ names cannot be mentioned?”

  “You knew Henry better than anyone else; why do you think?”

  Rebecca was silent.

  “Rebecca?”

  She sighed—not with relief but with unease. “Why did they break Henry’s legs?”

  Clarenceux knew the answer would hurt her. It was an image which deeply troubled him too. “They have various methods of torture. It could be any one of several. But he is at peace now. It is over for him.”

  “What he started, we must finish.”

  “I feel as you do. We are resolved.”

  “So the next thing is to get back to the chronicle,” she said, resting her head on his chest. “There’s no point in leaving here before dawn. We cannot pick up the horses until after the inn opens.”

  “No, but it might be easier to leave the city by night than during the day. Crackenthorpe knows we are still within the walls. He will have guards on every gate.”

  “What do you suggest? Another exit?”

  “Indeed. There is a gate in the backyard of a blacksmith by Cripplegate. Henry told me about it. I used it the night I called on your house.”

  “I know it. The blacksmith is my brother, Robert.”

  Clarenceux had not made the connection. “Of course. You said your maiden name was Lowe. I did not know you had a brother. You’ve never mentioned him.”

  “We’re not close. But Henry liked him.”

  “Well, in that case, you know the place. From there we can find our way to my house and wait there until dawn. No one is going to imagine it needs searching again, not after the damage they did. And no one will be watching it; there is no one there.”

  “Let’s rest here first,” she said. “It will be safer in the streets in the middle of the night, and both of us are tired.”

  As he lay there, feeling her head on his chest, he was glad. God alone is not enough.

  After a while she asked, “What do you know about the Pilgrimage of Grace?”