She turned away from Clarenceux and began to remove her own wet clothes. Clarenceux sat on the edge of the bed and simply looked at her as she wrung them out over the basin and hung them on the rail. She must have convinced the landlord that she really is the wife of a gentleman.
“Don’t waste the hot water of the footbath,” she said, not turning around. “And take off that shirt so it can dry.”
Clarenceux did as he was told. He got into the bed naked and lay on his side, listening to her arranging their clothes around the room. After a few minutes he fell asleep. He did not feel her slip into the bed beside him, also naked.
57
Sunday, December 19
You have no idea how tired a man can be,” said Sir William Cecil as he sat at the wide table in the study of his house. “Believe me, no one wants the queen to marry more than me. The country might want an heir, but I just want her to have a husband who takes her to bed at a decent hour and keeps her there until morning. I am exhausted. Policy until three hours beyond midnight, and then a messenger at dawn to tell me I am required at court immediately—two days running.”
“I am sorry to hear of your exertions,” said Walsingham, placing a sheet of paper on the table. “I have some sympathy. This problem of the Knights of the Round Table has been commanding my sleeping hours as well as my waking ones in much the same way as the queen has been commanding yours.”
Cecil pulled a candle closer and studied the page that Walsingham had put in front of him. He squinted, reading the lines of secretary-hand. It contained Arthurian names, dates, and here and there a dotted line across the page. He put it down. “I’m sorry, Francis, my wits are dull. You are going to have to explain.”
“Daniel Gyttens still refuses to speak. But we know his Arthurian name. We also know that Lancelot Heath is one of the Knights, and that the name for William Harley is King Clariance, as it was for Henry Machyn when he was alive. So we have the identities of eight of the nine knights, all but one of their Arthurian names, and five of their dates.”
“I presume none of them gave this information freely?”
Walsingham smiled briefly. He pointed to the sheet of paper.
“All the details are there, Sir William. I have laid them out to show the pattern in the dates; as the day increases by one, so too does the year. No doubt this relates to a series of hidden entries in the chronicle. It is a clever system: each date by itself appears innocuous but together they spell something potent and no doubt treasonable.”
“But—forgive me, Francis—you still don’t have the chronicle. So you cannot hope to determine what those entries are.”
“No. But the pattern means we can establish what all the dates are—or are likely to be.”
Cecil looked at the paper again. “The dotted lines show the missing dates in the sequence?”
“As I see it, yes.”
Cecil kept looking at the paper. In particular, his eye concentrated on the first three names and dates.
Robert Lowe (Sir Owain)—1551, June ye 14th
Nicholas Hill (Sir Reynold)—1552, June ye 15th
William Draper (Sir Dagonet)—1553, June ye 16th
------------------------1554, June ye 17th
Michael Hill (Sir Ector)—1555, June ye 18th
------------------------1556, June ye 19th
------------------------1557, June ye 20th
James Emery (Sir Yvain)—1558, June ye 21st
xxx
William Harley, Clarenceux (King Clariance of Northumberland)
Daniel Gyttens (Sir Reynold)
Lancelot Heath
“But there should be nine names and dates, you said?”
“According to Michael Hill, there is one Knight whose name and identity is not known to any of the other Knights except the commander, King Clariance.”
Cecil stared longer at the paper. So one of the dotted lines represents the ninth Knight. Or perhaps he has another date altogether, either at the start of the sequence or at the end. He remained silent, thinking. Eventually he asked, “Why do you suppose the name chosen for the king was King Clariance of Northumberland?”
Walsingham shrugged. “I suspect Clarenceux adopted ‘Clariance’ to match his heraldic title. Perhaps vanity played a part.”
Cecil looked at Walsingham. “You are still presuming he is the instigator of this affair.”
“Clariance is the so-called ‘king’ of these men. He is the only one who knows the identity of one of the Knights. And who else of rank is there to organize them? It is not Draper. He is rich and well connected but he is a coward. And his Arthurian name is that of a jester.”
“Yes, Francis, I know all that. But don’t you think that the similarity of Clarenceux and Clariance is a little obvious? Clarenceux is no fool; he would rather go out of his way to conceal his identity than suggest it. I suspect that you think he is in command because he is a gentleman. If so, you are narrowing your mind.”
“How else should I think of him? He is a gentleman.”
Cecil got up from his seat. He walked across to the fireplace and rubbed his hands together, looking into the flames. “Think of him as just a man. He might be a ringleader and he might not. You think in terms of hierarchy, that the most superior being always commands. But ideas are not the preserve of the richest or the socially elevated. Rebellious ideas rarely come from above. More often they come from lesser men…” Cecil turned and looked into Walsingham’s emotionless eyes. “Even from women.”
“Are you referring to Rebecca Machyn?” Walsingham remembered his self-recriminations for overlooking her in the past.
“I am saying nothing, just suggesting possibilities. But consider this. If the title of King Clariance was previously used by Henry Machyn, it stands to reason that Clarenceux did not choose it to reflect his heraldic title. Quite obviously, he did not choose it at all.”
“Do you have a better theory?”
“Oh, come on, Francis. I am a tired man but my wits are not so slow as to agree that a theory is good simply because it is the only one you have. If we all thought like that, half of London would be locked up by now. But, as you ask, I do have a better one.”
“Well?”
“You pride yourself on solving this problem—you almost treat it as a game. So you tell me. I’ll give you a clue. The key is not in the word ‘Clariance’ but in ‘Northumberland.’”
“The duke of Northumberland?”
“No. The earl.”
Walsingham looked away, his small eyes darting around the plasterwork and gold-painted corners of the great chamber, searching for some hint, something to trigger his thinking. But none was to be seen.
Cecil walked back over to him. “My theory is this: there has to be some reason for King Clariance of Northumberland rather than simply King Arthur. Now, the family name of the earls of Northumberland is Percy. Let us presume—for the sake of experiment—that the name Lancelot is actually Lancelot Heath’s Arthurian name. Put his name first in the sequence: the first four names spell LORD. I’m not saying that that is the correct interpretation, but I do think we should consider it. Especially as the other two options don’t make sense. So, if the pattern of the first letters of the name is indeed correct, then the remaining letters constitute a five-letter word with the second letter E and the last letter Y, including an R and a C somewhere. If the one unknown name begins with a P, then you have ‘Lord Percy.’”
Walsingham was skeptical. “The present earl, Thomas Percy, was made a Knight of the Garter earlier this year. Do you think he might turn traitor?”
“Do you believe he has turned to the new faith? I do not. Queen Mary restored the title to him just before she died, twenty years after the Pilgrimage of Grace, when his uncle and father had turned traitor. The question is: what connects Lord Percy and the chronicle?”
“Sir William, you are speculating without reason. We need evidence—”
“Calm yourself, Francis. You have the evidence befo
re you. And sometimes you have to speculate to make sense of it. When was the last time Clarenceux was seen in the city?”
Walsingham took a deep breath. “On Tuesday night. Five days ago. He tried to escape through the backyard of Robert Lowe’s house.”
“And do you think he has been able to lie low for so long? While you have managed to round up almost all the other Knights?”
“No. But I do not see…”
“A different Lord Percy, perhaps?”
“Sir William, I do not follow you.”
“Well.” Cecil cast a glance into the fire. “I am, as you say, just speculating. And I am tired. But Henry Machyn must have been writing his chronicle for some years to incorporate all these dates, yes? So, he must have woven this plot together over a long period of time. As the present Lord Percy has only been earl for six years, and some of these Arthurian Knights’ dates are earlier than that, we might be talking about the last Lord Percy.”
“Henry Percy?”
“Yes, Henry Percy. Of course, Machyn might have retrospectively written false entries for all these dates.”
Walsingham was quiet for a long time. “Henry Percy died at his house on Newington Green. He is buried in St. Augustine’s Church, Hackney.”
“Close to London, you see.” Cecil took his seat once more. “I feel confident about the identification of Lord Percy, whichever one we are talking about. Have the present earl watched. Have the late earl’s widow watched too—she resides at Sheffield Manor, one of the houses of her late brother, the earl of Shrewsbury. I will have a writ made out in the queen’s name and sent to the sheriffs of the South Riding and Northumberland for every Percy house and castle to be searched. But just as importantly, if I am right with regard to Lancelot being the first in the sequence, then we have eight names and all nine dates. All we need now is the chronicle itself.”
“Sir William, with due respect, that is not all we need. We also need to bring the perpetrators of this Catholic obscenity to justice. The man who keeps the chronicle must be destroyed. You know that. Let not your fond heart dissuade you—he may surrender the chronicle and yet continue working to capsize the ship of State.”
58
Monday, December 20
The fifth day of their journey was by far the hardest. The road was a muddy slush from the moment they set out from Uppingham. A strong wind sent the gray clouds scudding, and the wind blew the rain against the sides of their faces. The streams were swollen from the melted snow as well as the rain, and in several places rivers had burst their banks. Fields were often completely under water. As for the roads, they became even more difficult. Rather than solid frozen mud ruts, there were deep puddles to watch out for. When the ground had been frozen their horses had been able to walk over these. Now that they had thawed, or were thawing, the larger puddles—some as much as two or three feet deep—proved a danger. Clarenceux and Rebecca took to leading their mounts and the packhorse around the wider ones.
When disaster struck, however, it was not due to a slip or a deep puddle. A carter trying to lead a heavy four-wheeled wagon loaded with oak trunks down a muddy slope had tethered his team of five horses behind it, to slow its descent, and was steering it carefully when the rearmost horse fell and broke its leg. Its anguished whinnying startled the other horses who began to skitter in fear—and the wagon picked up momentum through the mud, dragging the horses, which all lost their balance, one by one, as the heavy wagon thundered down the hill, faster and faster, to the corner where Clarenceux and Rebecca were riding, heads down against the weather.
They heard the sound of the horses’ screams and the carter’s shouts as he threw himself clear and looked up to see the wagon careering toward them. Instinctively, Clarenceux spurred his horse out of the way of the wagon, and the packhorse went with him, not having a rider. But Rebecca’s rouncey, seeing the packhorse turning suddenly in front, lifted its head, looking frantically for a safe way forward, and hesitated for a moment too long. The wheel of the heavy wagon struck its hind leg and sent it tumbling down, over and over, legs and neck thrusting, and Rebecca found herself thrown into the mud.
The wagon went on, plunging through the timber-frame and cob frontage of a cottage and smashing down the internal walls before it came to rest. Thatch hung limply and then fell from the scarred front of the house. Clarenceux dismounted hurriedly and helped Rebecca to her feet. She was bruised but otherwise fine.
Her rouncey never got up. It made several frantic attempts, but its snapped leg bone only dragged a wider and wider gash in the skin. Clarenceux knelt beside its head, looking at its large, dark eye, seeing the resignation of a fatal wound as he stroked its neck. He turned and unpacked his sword and cut its throat himself and afterward tethered the corpse to his own horse to drag it out of the road. He left it on a grass verge and told the men of the village, who had gathered to survey the damage to the cottage, that they could do with its meat and hair as they saw fit.
The accident cost them dearly: three hours of precious daylight. Refusing all entreaties from the villagers to stay the night, they went on, with Rebecca riding the packhorse and their saddle bags stuffed with those necessities that they could not afford to leave behind. They were soaked, muddy, and exhausted when they rode into Melton Mowbray. Clarenceux was tense too: so far it had taken them a full five days to travel a hundred and twenty miles. Normally a man could ride to Sheffield in four days from London. But then he reflected that almost all his long-distance traveling had been in summer, when forty or even fifty miles a day was possible, with twice the daylight and good roads. The weather had proved a formidable challenge.
That evening Rebecca insisted on having a bath at the inn, to scrub away the memory of the accident as well as the mud of the road. It was expensive, on account of the huge amount of water that had to be heated and the number of servants required to carry it, but Clarenceux was not going to deny her, not after such a horrendous day. She asked him to join her, and he did so, concerned lest she think him dirty by comparison. But he was preoccupied and hardly spoke.
We still have two days’ journey ahead of us. And what is it all for? What are we going to find out? Only something that will incriminate us further and perhaps hasten our executions.
Where is Awdrey? How is she managing? Did Thomas find her in Devon? And how are my daughters, my Annie and little Mildred? How many babies do not survive their first cold winters—do I have two daughters now or just one? Is either of them still alive?
He thought of Walsingham and Crackenthorpe. Have they caught Nicholas Hill and Michael Hill? Lancelot Heath and Daniel Gyttens? And the other Knights? If they have, and Crackenthorpe has interrogated them, what could they tell them? Their names. Their dates. Just as they told us.
Rebecca saw the change in his expression. “What is it?”
“If we can work out the pattern of the names, so can Walsingham. The longer we take, the greater the chance we will arrive at Sheffield Manor to find Crackenthorpe has got there first.”
59
Wednesday, December 22
They rode through the open gates of Sheffield Manor in the early afternoon. The previous day they had ridden hard for as many hours as they could and covered no less than thirty-three miles. It had been a stoic effort from Rebecca, who had finally admitted her wrist was sprained from her fall. Today they had left at first light and covered the twenty-four miles at a similar pace.
As if in welcome, the clouds that had lowered over them for so much of the last week now parted and a weak winter sun shone through, gleaming off the wet bark of the trees that grew alongside the approach to the house. The parkland was a wide swathe of green grass dotted with oaks and elms. A herd of deer was feeding beneath the spreading boughs of a large oak. Further on a cart loaded with firewood was being hauled across the park. As they came in sight of the house, both Clarenceux and Rebecca admired the impressive proportions of a substantial three-story stone mansion with a large number of elegant mullioned win
dows and a tall entrance porch. The sun shone across the face of the building, reflecting off the panes of glass and giving the stone a welcoming, warm hue.
The gatekeeper approached and inquired who they were and the nature of their business, and then led them to the front of the house. He ordered a boy to hold Rebecca’s horse as they dismounted. Clarenceux untied the chronicle, still wrapped in its canvas-covered boards, and put it under his arm. As the boy led both horses away to the stables, the gatekeeper gestured for them to follow him through to the hall.
Servants were setting up two long trestle tables for supper, covering each table with white linen cloths. Tapestries surrounded the dais but were cut away to allow access to the doors that led to the private apartments. A fire was burning on the central hearth, gray-white smoke rising in the sunlight that entered by the tall windows on the south side. On the walls at the lower end of the hall were racks of bows and pikes, and a few long-barreled guns. The arms of the earl of Shrewsbury were painted on a huge cloth that hung high on one wall.
A fresh-faced young gentleman in a high collar and smart, narrow ruff came through one of the doorways on the dais and bowed to Clarenceux. “God speed you, Mr. Clarenceux, Goodwife Machyn. My name is Benedict Richardson, her ladyship’s chamberlain. Her ladyship has consented to give you an audience immediately in the great chamber.”
Richardson led them along a corridor and up a handsome wooden staircase, well lit by the tall windows. At the top, on the first floor, the ceiling was high and the space light and airy. Through into the first chamber they went, and then into the next: a warm room, wrapped in brilliantly colored tapestries, with a blazing fire.
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