“Why?”
“Because Gyttens said it was the reason why the Knights started to meet. It was long before 1550, wasn’t it? I remember people talking about a Catholic rebellion in the north, and a large number of men being executed—but I was only nine or ten, I think.”
“There was a rising of discontented followers of the old religion in Lincolnshire. It was in October 1536, after Henry the Eighth had broken from Rome and was determined to impose his will upon the English Church—as if its lands were his own to dispose of. The lords and gentry of the county, like the common folk, all agreed that what the king was doing amounted to heresy as well as tyranny. Their forefathers had founded monasteries and endowed them so priests would sing Masses for their souls; what right had the king to dissolve them and sell off the land? What right had the king to make the break with Rome and declare himself spiritual head of the Church in England? As for the nobles, what right had the king to sell off the very abbeys in which their predecessors had been laid to rest, as if their honorable bones had been buried in any common kitchen? In this they found common cause with the people who looked at the altars of their country churches and could not believe that the figures of the saints to whom they had prayed last week were now to be destroyed. We forget what a shock it was, even those of us who look back on their struggle and believe they were right and good people. Remember the old days: when your horse broke a leg or your mother broke an arm, you would place a clay or wax figure on the altar, make a donation, and pray. The old king forbade that. To many people it seemed that he had made it a heresy even to pray for good health. Add to that the physical destruction of the rood in every church and the implementation of a new prayer book, and you can begin to see why the people of Lincolnshire rose as one. Rich and poor, young and old, they all did exactly what the king had forbidden them to do: they went on a pilgrimage to Lincoln. Forty thousand of them. They wanted their saints back; they wanted to be able to go on pilgrimages and make offerings. They wanted to pray in their own way, to do what they knew was dutiful in God’s eyes.”
“That was the Pilgrimage of Grace?”
“No, that was just the start. The king responded by sending the blood-stained duke of Suffolk against the pilgrims. He threatened the faithful with death if they refused to give up the pilgrimage and go home. The king himself had expressly ordered that no mercy was to be shown them, the duke said. As a result, the men of Yorkshire began their own protest, under the leadership of a lawyer, Robert Aske. He was a pious man; he did not want to provoke a conflict, nor even to threaten the king’s forces. He led nine thousand men into York and restored the monasteries there. He was a good leader too; he took Pontefract Castle without a single casualty and kept his followers under control, so there was no looting or theft. He even managed to control the more political demands of his fellow gentlemen. But the king was duplicitous. He accepted a list of demands sent to him by Aske but never responded. When pressed, the king pretended to accede and Aske, realizing his pilgrims could not remain mobilized indefinitely, disbanded them. In January 1537, after a rebellion in Cumberland, the king gave orders that all those who had taken part in the events at York should be rounded up and executed. More than two hundred knights, abbots, priests, and clergymen were hanged. Aske himself was dragged back to York and hanged there in chains.”
Clarenceux shook his head, his voice cracking with emotion. “When people ask me about my religion, what I mean when I say I am Catholic in my faith, I think of the men trying to protect the burial places of their families, and their honest ways of praying, and their desperate hopes in the saints, and I applaud them for fighting to preserve the Church from the monster that was Henry the Eighth. And yet what did I do? I fought for that despicable, unholy king at Boulogne. I fought for him in Lord Paget’s company, under the command of the same duke of Suffolk. To the end of my days I will regret that. And to the end of my days I will believe that what Henry did in the north was the work of the Devil. Kings should not pretend to be men of the Church or to rule the Church; nor should they condemn men simply because of their faith.”
Rebecca was quiet for a long time. “That is what we are getting ourselves involved in, isn’t it? You are a new Robert Aske.”
Clarenceux rested his head in his hands. They begged Aske to be their leader; Henry begged me to take the chronicle. Like Aske, I am prepared to fight for what I believe is right. For both of us it is a matter of freedom. But there is a difference: Aske knew what he was up against.
“If I am, does that matter to you?”
“Yes. It means that I believe in you.”
***
They left the stable loft about three o’clock in the morning. The sky had cleared, and the new moon had not yet appeared, so the stars were the only light. It was just enough to show the whiteness of the snow; they could see the streets and alleys and did not have to feel their way.
They walked carefully nonetheless. The deeper cold meant that the snow had frozen harder, but at the edge of the lanes it had not compacted as much and so crunched under their feet. Clarenceux led the way, stopping here and there to check for the night watch in this ward. No one seemed to be about. There was just starlit stillness.
It occurred to Clarenceux that the door to which they were heading might be locked. For a long time he did not whisper this to Rebecca, but when he did, she reassured him that Henry had told her that her brother rarely locked the gate. Still, his mind was not at ease.
On they went. Despite the dimness Clarenceux saw a rat scurry across the white of the street, and then two more. He realized that the rats were used to the streets at night.
“We’re nearly there,” he whispered.
“I know,” she whispered back. “Why have you stopped?”
“If this is your brother’s house…” He did not need to finish the sentence.
“Don’t worry. Not many people know.”
“All the same. If something happens, and we get separated, let us meet back at the stable loft.”
“Nothing is going to happen,” she said.
They moved on. Now he could see Robert Lowe’s house. There was the white of the lane outside his yard; the gate was in the shadow of the wall, twenty feet away.
“Wait here. I am going ahead to check. If it is clear, I will come back directly. If not, retrace your steps. I need to be sure you will do that, Rebecca. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do.”
“God be with you,” he said.
He crossed the last few yards to the house in the darkness and reached out to feel the walls—first the wall of the house, then the wall of the yard. He took two more steps in the snow and his fingers touched wood. He pushed; the gate was shut. He fumbled in the dark for the latch, found it, and went through.
49
Francis Walsingham could not sleep. He threw back the covers, pulled open the bed curtains, and sat on the edge of the mattress in his nightgown and cap. He noticed that the candle was guttering and about to burn itself out. He pulled on a heavy robe, took a wax candle from a small pile in a recess in the wall, and lit it from the old candle before setting it in its place. The new flame flickered and rose into a perfect, small tongue of light. Feeling the cold, he got back into bed and sat there.
Six Knights had been arrested. Machyn had died—that had been a god-awful scene and a mess from start to finish—but otherwise Crackenthorpe had done well. Robert Lowe and Michael Hill had only been seized that evening. But Emery and Nicholas Hill had talked. Draper had yielded more at the second time of asking. Indeed, he had been so fearful at the thought of what they would do to him for having been circumspect first time around that he had told them everything he knew. And his new evidence this evening provided conclusive proof that Clarenceux and Rebecca Machyn were working together.
The dates were important, that was clear. So far he only had three: Draper’s, June the sixteenth, 1559; Nicholas Hill’s, June the fifteenth, 1552; and Emery’s, June the twenty-fir
st, 1558. But there were nine in total. If Lowe and Michael Hill also talked, then he would still need four more in order to understand the chronicle, as Draper had explained.
Six Knights taken into custody or dead. And I know the names of the other three: Gyttens, Heath, and Clarenceux himself.
He lay on his side, sure that there was something very obvious that he was missing. It was impossible for Clarenceux to gather all the Knights together, but it was not impossible for him, Walsingham, to learn all the dates. If I do not find Gyttens and Heath, it does not matter. All I need to do is find Clarenceux—for he will know them. He probably assigned them.
He turned in his bed. If only I could see the chronicle. Do the dates relate to false entries? That makes the most sense: a chronicle full of true facts but with a series of false descriptions of events that together tell people how to foment a rebellion. Brilliant. If our spy had not sent word from Edinburgh in time for Crackenthorpe to save Draper from the assassin, we would never have known.
He turned over again. But who is the woman whom Draper described as “her ladyship”? It couldn’t be the Machyn woman, could it?
50
Rebecca was waiting in the cold blackness beside her brother’s front door when the shout rang out: “Hold fast!” She almost fell with the shock; her arms and legs felt suddenly heavy. She did not know what to do.
There was a fight going on. Something metal hit stone. A man yelled “Get him down!” and then there was just silence punctuated with the occasional crashing sound.
Christ, help me! Mr. Clarenceux made me promise to retrace my steps. But what if he needs me? Where is Robert? I must wake him—he can help. Only then did it dawn on her that her brother was not in a position to help. He had not left the house even to investigate the noises in his own yard. Whatever they had done to him, whether they had killed him or tied him up somewhere, she was on her own.
Another minute passed and Rebecca remained motionless, half expecting Clarenceux to come limping out of the fight. But all was quiet now. Retrace your steps, she told herself. It is all you can do. You promised you would. But still she did not move. Go back—for what? To wait and starve until Clarenceux is hauled off to…I don’t know where. The Tower. Or Walsingham’s house. I must wait and find out where they take him.
Suddenly the gate of the yard banged open. There were hurried footsteps on the snow and shadows moving toward her. She pressed herself against the house, praying that the men would not see her.
And then they were gone, running westward across the snowy lane.
Eventually she felt her way back to the stable loft, shivering, with her arms wrapped around herself for warmth. As she found the ladder and started to climb she carried a hope that somehow Clarenceux would have escaped and be here. But he was not. There was nothing of comfort except the hay where they had so recently lain.
51
The first sign of danger that Clarenceux noticed was the smell of coal smoke in the darkness. He paused. Suddenly someone grabbed him from behind and pressed a knife to his throat.
“Don’t move. There are four of us,” his assailant hissed.
Clarenceux did not try to struggle, feeling the blade against his windpipe. He sensed other men gathering around him, coming from the workshop at the back of the yard. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a glow: they had the forge burning.
“The woman?”
“She ran from the house in Basinghall Street. I have not seen her since.”
“Liar,” growled the voice. But short of actually cutting Clarenceux’s throat there was little he could do to force him to speak the truth. “Tie him up. We’ll take him to the sergeant straight away.”
Clarenceux sensed that his last opportunity to escape was about to disappear. He tried to remember the layout of the yard from when he had felt his way around here before. He could remember the gate in the wall and the low roof of the forge. And there had been a stone cistern, full of water. He felt the knife blade sharp against his throat and a second man trying to tie his hands. If he succeeded, then Clarenceux was as good as dead, with only the agony of torture in a dank cellar between him and the gallows.
“For God’s sake, man, hold your hands steady.”
Clarenceux sensed that they were tired and nervous. He twisted again in the darkness and his fingers brushed the exposed hilt of a weapon. O Lord, help me now.
One instant he was standing with his chin up and a blade against his throat. The next he had dropped and turned his body suddenly: he felt the knife cut into his cheek as he grabbed the hand holding it and twisted the man’s arm. He threw himself against the man holding the rope and seized the hilt he had touched—it turned out to be a long dagger, not the sword he had hoped for—and slashed down in the darkness, striking an unseen arm and causing a man to scream in pain. For a moment he was off balance, stumbling, with two men reaching forward; but in his falling he managed to push himself away from them, toward the forge. By the faint red light he could see the silhouettes of the cistern and the low roof. He placed a foot on the cistern, hauled himself up onto the roof, and scrambled across the snow-covered shingles to the center, where the snow had melted with the heat coming from the forge below.
“Get him down!” yelled one of the men as Clarenceux strained to look around. Behind, two shadows were hauling themselves up in pursuit across the dim white of the roof. Ahead there was a rim of ice around the dilapidated walkway of the city wall. He decided that that would be his means of escape—until he had to turn and fight.
I will not be taken. I am not going to be a prisoner again. They will need to overpower me if they want me alive.
They were not far behind. He stepped unsteadily across the slippery shingles, hurrying to the wall. There he placed his gloved hands on the edge of the wall-walk and tried to haul himself up, but he failed to lock his arms and fell back. He kicked out, knocking the first pursuer off balance, sending him tumbling from the roof in the darkness. But two men remained: he could see their shadowy figures against the snow, advancing toward him. He turned and prepared to meet them, the dagger drawn.
He had the advantage of the wall behind him, to steady himself. But they might have swords. The dagger in his hand was anything but reassuring.
They hesitated. They felt precarious on an icy, sloping roof, facing a man whom they knew to be armed. The wall is behind me—they cannot see me at all, not even an outline. He fumbled with his left hand for a better grip, searching with his fingers for a gap in the stones where the exterior mortar was weak. O God, please! They will attack soon. His hand touched a projecting, rigid nail. It was perfect.
It was more than perfect.
Without waiting a second more, Clarenceux turned and jumped, stamping his left foot onto the nail at the same time as placing his hands on the wall-walk. The nail held. The soldiers heard him—and suddenly saw his shadow against the thick ice piled on the walkway. “He’s on the wall,” shouted one, running forward with a blade and stabbing at him as Clarenceux pushed himself to his feet and started to run. “He’s heading to Aldersgate.”
It took the men behind some time to find the projecting nail; when they had, Clarenceux was already thirty seconds ahead, gasping as he scrambled over the old walkway. The surface was broken and uneven beneath the snow. He slid the dagger into his belt, needing both his hands free to balance. Several times he stumbled before he reached the corner and turned southward with the wall. No one walked along here these days. Cracked stones and split surfaces constantly tripped him. In some places the flat stones of the wall-walk had simply been removed, leaving a snow-covered gap into which Clarenceux’s foot plunged. He cursed as his foot fell into another deep fissure and the ragged stones tore at his shin. At this rate, I am going to break a leg. He struggled back to his feet.
On he went, soaked, gasping now for breath in the night’s cold air. After a minute he looked behind. At first he could not see his pursuers but then realized they had waited for one of their
number to fetch a lantern; he could see its small light in the distance coming along the wall-walk about a hundred yards behind.
After nine or ten minutes of struggling along the snow-covered rubble of the walkway, he paused and looked ahead, panting for breath. He saw the kink in the snow-covered wall near Noble Street. Beyond rose the dark spire of St. Anne’s Church. He heard a shout from Aldersgate and then saw torches appear on the wall-walk, coming from the gatehouse ahead. His heart sank. One of the men from the blacksmith’s house must have taken a message. I am trapped here. I must get down.
Clarenceux hurried ahead to the kink in the corner of the wall: a right angle where it turned west for about fifteen feet before turning southward again. If I wait, they will see where I fall. He crossed himself, and then got down into a sitting position on the edge of the wall. He knew the drop here was about twenty feet; he placed one hand on either side of the right angle made by the stones and began to lower himself. But then he heard his pursuers. He remained, hanging by his hands as the men from the blacksmith’s house came closer. If I drop now, they will surely hear me. But he could not hang on—already his gloves were slipping on the ice.
He fell.
Clarenceux had intended to roll on hitting the ground, but not being able to judge the drop he winded himself. He lay in the soft snow in the backyard of a house, choking, trying desperately to regain his breath, and praying that he would be able to get out into the street. He looked up. The torches were coming along the wall; there were men above him: he had to move. He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled across the unseen obstacles in the yard to the fence.
“There! See him against the snow, down there!”
Clarenceux started striking the fence with his hand, hoping to find a gate or a door. It seemed there was none. But the fence itself was only six feet high. Now, breathing again, he placed his hands on the top of it, and jumped. He straightened his arms and swung his legs over, one after the other, letting himself drop on the other side just as the first man fell to the ground from the wall-walk behind him.
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