“But, my lady, that is my whole point,” said Clarenceux. “We cannot locate it. The names of the Knights simply spell ‘Lord Percy,’ and their dates point to the month of his death. Nothing reveals the whereabouts of the document at all.”
The countess was silent for a long time. “Mr. Clarenceux, I have told you as much as I can about this document. I do not know where it is; I entrusted its location to Goodman Machyn. If his instructions are insufficient to find it, then perhaps it is lost to us. In which case his death will have been in vain.”
“But I still do not understand. How am I to interpret the chronicle?”
“I do not know the answer, Mr. Clarenceux. But one thing I can tell you is that the answer does not lie here in Sheffield. Lord Percy never liked coming to my father’s house. It was the only place where the servants refused to obey his commands over mine.”
Clarenceux stared at the old woman, unable to believe that she did not have the answer he sought. He looked down at the book, still cradled under his arm. Henry Machyn did not tell me what I need to know. He had too high an opinion of me. He thought I would see something that I simply cannot see.
Then a possibility struck him. “My lady,” he said slowly, “does the book of Job mean anything special to you?”
“From the manner of your asking, I am sure you already know the answer to that question. It means nothing to me—but to Lord Percy, it meant everything. He read from it every day.”
“His epitaph!” Clarenceux said. He looked from Rebecca’s startled face to Lady Percy’s. “Your ladyship, do you know what the epitaph on Lord Percy’s tomb is? Is it from the book of Job?”
“I do not know for certain,” she said. “I have never seen it. But on his second visit, Goodman Machyn did say that he was going to add some lines of scripture to the tomb.”
Clarenceux punched the palm of his left hand. “Now I see. We have come to the wrong place. The key lies not in the dates themselves but in another document, one written in stone. I was a fool, a blind fool. ‘Lord Percy, June 1537’—it was a direction to go to the tomb, not to come here. We need to return to London as quickly as we can.”
The countess put forward her sticks and walked toward Clarenceux. She looked at him. “I trust nonetheless that this visit has proved worthwhile. I strongly suggest you allow Goodwife Machyn a night to rest before you take her back to the south. She looks weary and I notice that she holds her wrist as if it pains her. In fact, you might find a slight delay profitable. Since I never did get my annulment, I took advantage of my status as Lord Percy’s widow to take his personal papers and account books. You will find several boxes of them in the muniment room.”
Clarenceux frowned. “I do not follow you, my lady.”
“Yes, you do. There are certain myths and legends about Lord Percy and Anne Boleyn that you might like to check for yourself. Some are true; some are not. You will know when you see the papers.”
60
Richard Crackenthorpe nudged the corpse with his foot. He put down the candle on the cellar floor and kicked the body harder. The candle flame guttered with the swirl of the air. He kicked the corpse again; this time it just moved like a heavy lump of meat.
He cursed and took a deep breath. How was he going to explain this to Walsingham? Daniel Gyttens had known where the chronicle was. Somewhere called “Summerhill.” It had to be near London. Gyttens had specifically said that Rebecca spoke about the need to go back there, to check the chronicle. But where was Summerhill?
Still unable to believe that the man was dead, Crackenthorpe knelt down and felt for a pulse. There was none. For a moment he rested his head on his arm. Then he stood up straight. He was bloody, tired, and dispirited.
Suddenly he decided to take out his frustration on the body. He kicked it again and again. He felt the ribs break beneath his foot as he stamped down on them, anger surging through his body. And then he thought of Clarenceux. The rush of hatred the thought brought on made him reach for the knife at his belt and plunge it through the eyes of the corpse, one by one, before slicing through the throat and breaking the vertebrae of the neck, so he could hold the eyeless head aloft in the candlelight.
“Behold the head of a traitor,” he snarled. The jaw hung slack. A little slow blood crept from each eye socket. It looked like a skull. Then he hurled the head as hard as he could against the wall of the cellar.
61
It was late. Clarenceux sat hunched over a table reading documents by candlelight in the second-floor chamber he had been assigned by Richardson. Paper account books bound in vellum lay in boxes on his left; piles of folded deeds lay in a chest on the floor beside him. On the table was a round-edged deed box containing a number of copies of letters.
He picked up a letter in Spanish. It mentioned another letter, one dated May 2, 1536, and a report by the imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, to his master, the Holy Roman Emperor. It stated that King Henry the Eighth had decided to rid himself of “his mistress” who called herself Queen Anne, because she had been married to Lord Percy more than nine years earlier and had consummated the marriage, as many people then at court were ready to testify. The letter added that the king would divorce her if she were not convicted of adultery.
Clarenceux unfurled another small roll of paper, bound with a faded ribbon. He read the address and the date: Eustace Chapuys to the emperor, May 2, 1536. This was a copy of the original report, in French, to which the other letter had referred. Chapuys had written:
I have not written sooner to your majesty on the particular subject of the divorce of the king and Anne Boleyn because I was naturally waiting for the issue of the affair one way or the other; but it has since come to a head much sooner and more satisfactorily than one could have thought, to the greater ignominy and shame of the lady herself, who has actually been brought from Greenwich to this city under the escort of the duke of Norfolk…The reason is that she has for a length of time lived in adultery with a spinet-player of her chamber, who has this very morning been confined to the Tower, as well as Mr. Norris the king’s most favored groom-in-waiting, for not having revealed what he knew of the said adulterous connection. Lord Rochford, her brother, was likewise sent to the Tower six hours earlier. I hear moreover, from certain authentic quarters, that before the discovery of the lady’s criminal adultery, the king had already resolved to abandon her, for there were many witnesses ready to testify and to prove that more than nine years ago a marriage had been contracted and consummated between the said Anne Boleyn and the earl of Northumberland, and that the king would have declared himself much sooner had not one of his privy councilors hinted that he could not divorce himself from Anne without tacitly acknowledging the validity of his first marriage and thus falling under the authority of the pope, whom he fears. This is certainly a most astounding piece of intelligence…
Clarenceux read through the passages again, his mouth open with astonishment. “Nine years earlier” was the critical point: 1527, when the king had decided to marry Anne Boleyn despite her previous “betrothal.” If the information that Chapuys had received from “certain authentic quarters” was correct, Anne Boleyn had lied to the king about not having consummated her marriage with Lord Percy. And if he divorced her, the king would have had to acknowledge Elizabeth was illegitimate, just as the dowager countess had said. So he had executed Anne instead.
Clarenceux exhaled slowly. Somehow, somewhere, the proof of all this was in his possession. It was important that he see the epitaph written on Lord Percy’s tomb in Hackney. If that gave him the key to the chronicle, and allowed him to find the original marriage agreement, he would have sufficient authority to go to Cecil and to bargain with him.
There was no time to waste. He would copy these letters and they would set out in the morning. But, late though it was, Clarenceux’s curiosity urged him first to reach for Lord Percy’s household account books. This would be his only chance. He lifted the pile and found the volume for the year beginning
Michaelmas 1532 and looked for the entries relating to November and December.
62
Thursday, December 23
The stay at Sheffield Manor had been extraordinary from almost the very moment of their arrival. The strangeness did not lessen at their departure. Lady Percy embraced them both in the hall and gave Clarenceux a purse containing more than twenty pounds to cover the expenses of their return journey— “including horse hire, should you need it.” A new riding horse was provided for Rebecca. The dowager countess put her hand on Rebecca’s arm just before she mounted and made a point of telling her that she could trust Mistress Barker—the purpose of which neither Rebecca nor Clarenceux could fathom. But when Clarenceux inquired as to her meaning, Lady Percy shook her head.
“Secrets are like daggers, Mr. Clarenceux—best kept hidden until you need to use them.”
“Then tell me, why you are helping us? What do you have to gain from this? Why are you still concerned, so many years after Lord Percy and Anne Boleyn died?”
“That is a simple question to answer, Mr. Clarenceux,” she said with a stiff expression. “Anne Boleyn ruined both my life and my chances of having children. She had a daughter; I did not. Her daughter is now queen—and a Protestant, an enemy of my faith. She not only has no place in my physical world, she deserves no place in my spiritual one either. I am an old woman now and doomed to purgatory, or worse; but if there is anything I can do to end the plague of vice and heresy that that godless woman Anne Boleyn spread across England, then I will do it. Dead or alive, my soul will not rest until England is once more within the fold of the true faith and its illegitimate queen and her ilk dead and buried. God does not approve of kingdoms ruled by heretics and bastards, Mr. Clarenceux.”
Clarenceux nodded, saying nothing more on the subject. He bowed his final farewell, then turned and led Rebecca out of the hall and into the courtyard, where the ostler and stableboy were waiting with the horses.
***
Their journey back south was much faster than that going north. The disappearance of the snow and a few dry days meant that the roads—although still thick with mud—were much easier. There were very few other travelers with Christmas almost upon them. Most people were at home preparing for the end of the Advent fast and the twelve-day feast. In addition, the moon was now past its first quarter, allowing them to consider riding beyond dusk, confident that they would find their way to the next inn when darkness fell.
The mood of their journey was a mixture of urgency and anxiety. To Rebecca it seemed ironic that their destination was a place of great danger and yet they were struggling to get there as fast as possible. But she too was eager to push on: to discover the whereabouts of the document that her husband and others had died protecting. There would be no peace of mind until it was found. And when it was in their possession—what then?
“What are you thinking?” she asked Clarenceux as they rode through a ford overshadowed by trees in a thickly wooded part of Nottinghamshire.
“How bitter Lady Percy was. I was contrasting her motive—hatred of Elizabeth and everything the queen stands for—with that of your husband. I remember when he came to me that night, he said to me: ‘One can only remain faithful to the queen and God if the queen herself is faithful to God.’ And I clearly remember him saying: ‘At some point you will have to decide whom to obey: the Creator or His creation. Are you prepared to live your whole life in fear of that moment?’ Your husband was not a bitter man. His motives were much more earnest, honest, and honorable than those of Lady Percy.”
Rebecca rode on a little way. “Henry wanted to obey what he thought was God’s will. Lady Percy wants to impose it on others. You and me included.”
He looked at her. “When we find this document, I am not sure I want to put it to the uses that Lady Percy hopes I will.”
“I can hear Henry saying that that makes you more of a coward than a Catholic. But he didn’t see the bitter creature she has become. He would only have seen the countess in distress all those years ago, when he came to her to ask for advice. Myself, I am glad you feel as you do.”
“What about you, Rebecca? What do you hope for?”
“For life to return to normal. I don’t want to start a revolution. I don’t want to be stopped from praying in my own way. But nor do I want to see a Catholic woman on the throne if she is going to set about burning people on account of what they believe. God moves all our hearts, and if He moves them in different ways, who among us has the right to burn a fellow Christian for it? The sin lies in the lack of understanding, not in the divergence of faith.”
“You are a good woman, Rebecca. Your goodness deserves respect.” But as he said these words he was thinking, Your goodness is a threat to those in power. It gives you the moral strength to refuse their orders. I pray that the Lord watches over us and saves us. For I do not believe this is going to end well.
63
Walsingham stood with a piece of paper in his hand, looking out of the window at the walls of the Tower. “Give me one good reason why I should spare you.”
Crackenthorpe was sweating, even though the room was not warm. “I have done my best. I have taken risks—but only because you wanted me to.”
Walsingham turned to face him. “Risks? You have no idea what you are talking about.” He noticed Crackenthorpe looking at the piece of paper. “You want to know what this says, don’t you? You are wondering whether it is a warrant for your execution.”
Crackenthorpe said nothing.
“Did Gyttens say anything useful before he died?”
“Mr. Walsingham, the man said everything—repeating what the other Knights said about the chronicle, about the Arthurian names, about his—”
“So why did you have to kill him?”
Crackenthorpe ran his fingers through his hair and felt his hand shaking. “He knew about the chronicle, where it was being kept. He said that the Machyn woman had mentioned that they had to go back to somewhere to look at it. The place was called Summerhill but he would not tell me where that was—which county or which town. It could be a dozen places. Please, Mr. Walsingham, I have not done anything but what I have done in pursuit of your instructions.”
“That’s enough. Don’t bleat at me. I know that you were following my orders. And personally I am glad you exceeded them. When a man is killed and someone has to take the blame, that person is you, not me. And when you have transgressed so far that I have to let you go to the gallows, I shall be glad that you are going to be hanged, because otherwise it would be me. The same will be true of your successor. It is a difficult balance—between a powerful instrument who is prepared to torture a man to death and one who is so fearful of the law that he is ineffective.”
Crackenthorpe simply stared at Walsingham.
Walsingham scratched his beard. “It is just possible—just possible—that that word Summerhill has saved your life.” Walsingham folded the piece of paper in his hand twice and placed it carefully in the fire. He remembered the days of his youth at Scadbury Park, and the old crumbling house on the side of the hill and its eccentric old-fashioned inhabitant.
“Has anyone visited Lord Percy’s house?”
“No, Mr. Walsingham.”
“What about the tomb in Hackney Church?”
“No one has been there, Mr. Walsingham. At least, not Clarenceux.”
“Keep your men watching. In both places. I am going to Chislehurst, to make some inquiries of my own.”
64
Sunday, December 26
It was late. They were tired, in the chamber of an inn in Bedford. They had spent four days riding, even traveling on Christmas Day itself after attending a church service in the morning. They had avoided the processions, with their antler headdresses, costumes, and mummings, and kept on, riding despite the cold in their hands and feet.
“Within two days we will be in London,” said Clarenceux quietly as he unfastened his doublet and hung it on a clothes rack before the fi
re.
It was a somber moment, the recognition of just how soon they would be at the end of their journey.
“I feel like saying that I want to run away from it all, that I just want it to be over,” said Rebecca. “But I suppose that’s not true. The last thing I want you to think is that I am a coward.”
“I would not blame you if you ran away,” he said. “But I cannot back out now. I don’t know whether it is a matter of pride or honor but there is no doubt in my mind. Too many people have died. People I love depend on me. And I need to clear my name.”
Rebecca continued to undress. “Pride, I think, is the way people see themselves. Honor is the way other people see them, no? I think you want to bring this dangerous time to a conclusion because you are an honorable man, not because you are a proud one.”
Clarenceux stood in his shirt, feeling the cold of the room. “Maybe.” He watched her as she removed her gown and stood in her shift. “There are plenty of things I do not feel proud of, and things I would like to do that would make me feel ashamed, but perhaps I can console myself that I have at least acted honorably.”
She picked up her gown and looked him in the eye. “You could have acted otherwise, less honorably. Many other men would have done. That is something you can be proud of.”
With that she came over to the bed and lifted the bedclothes and got in. She lay there watching him. His legs still showed signs of scratches and cuts, but he had regained his strength. His shoulders looked huge, his arms strong.
Clarenceux pulled back the bedclothes. She turned over onto her side, away from him.
He settled himself into the bed, aware of her motionless silence. “What is the matter?”
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