Clarenceux’s pulse was fast. Still he waited, each step the horses took being one step nearer the time of his revenge. He thought of touching the cold corpse of James Hopton the previous night, the man whose neck had been sliced. The killer was riding beside him—so close that he had to be vulnerable.
Another hundred yards to go, another fifty.
“We have searched this house already,” said one of the men. “Just yesterday.”
“The heretic murderer has been back here since,” answered Crackenthorpe.
Then all of them began to dismount. Clarenceux draped the reins of his horse around the post to one side of the gate.
“You, knock on the door. Rouse the gatekeeper,” ordered Crackenthorpe.
“No,” said Clarenceux. “No. That will not be necessary. The chronicle is not in the house. Follow me.”
Crackenthorpe’s huge figure remained by the side of his horse, silhouetted by the moonlight. He considered the risks.
“Very well. Stephens, you will guard the horses, keep them ready. You other two will come with us. But first I want to fasten this rope tighter around the prisoner’s neck.”
Clarenceux stopped and allowed Crackenthorpe to tighten the noose. He held his hands close against his body, so as not to let the rope around his wrists fall away.
“This way,” he said, leading the three men to the left of the gate and alongside the stone wall. He listened to the sound of their footsteps behind him in the frost-covered grass.
He was trembling. Here the path alongside the house was in shadow, and he could hardly see it. Nor did he know exactly where he was heading. All he knew was that the overgrown access to the tunnels beneath Summerhill was somewhere near, forty feet beyond the corner of the outer courtyard, as Julius had said. He trampled through the undergrowth searching for the darker shades, moving first this way, then that, following every possible pattern that might indicate the exposed rock and the tunnel entrance.
“Where are you leading us?” asked one of the men, stumbling through the bracken.
“To the chronicle.”
And then he saw it. Beneath the silhouette of a pair of trees there was a patch of complete blackness and overgrowth. The vague trail of a flattened path led in that direction.
“This way.”
Clarenceux walked onto the old path and approached the opening. Sir John Fawcett…sixty-seven paces…He reached for the side of the tunnel and brushed away some loose brambles and bracken. “It’s in here.”
“We need a light,” said Crackenthorpe. “Do you two have a lantern?”
Neither of them did.
Crackenthorpe turned in the moonlit wood, sensing something was not right. “Why did you not say that the chronicle is underground? We could have brought lanterns.”
Clarenceux’s heart was beating fast. “You did not ask. I do not need a light. I know where I am going.”
Crackenthorpe stepped closer to him. “If you try anything, I am going to break your neck. I’ll find the chronicle when I come back—and then I will have a light.”
Clarenceux felt the rope bite into his throat and turned into the tunnel.
Sixty-seven paces…
The three men were following him. The tunnel’s width—it was about six feet wide—prevented them all walking together: two were immediately behind him and another at the rear. He guessed that Crackenthorpe was the one at the rear as there seemed to be very little slack in the rope around his neck. He tried to control his breathing, which was rapid and heavy; it seemed to echo against the chalk walls. He moved over to the right-hand side of the tunnel and in the darkness allowed the ropes to fall from his hands, trying to leave them where the guards would not step on them.
Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three…Carefully he reached up and took hold of the rope around his neck and drew it a little forward. Thirty-nine, forty, forty-one…One man was now very close behind him. Clarenceux began to cut through the rope, sawing with the blade. Fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two…
Crackenthorpe stopped suddenly. “What’s that noise?”
In the suddenness of his stopping the last strand of the rope broke and fell from Clarenceux’s hand.
He had to run. Into the darkness. Now.
“He’s cut the rope—after him!” roared Crackenthorpe. Raising his right arm Clarenceux pushed himself forward, feeling for the stone protruding from the chalk at head height. He heard the unsheathing of swords and the sound of feet pounding on the tunnel floor. They were so close, and they were running unafraid, not knowing what lay just a few steps beyond. Where is the stone? He had lost count of his paces—but knew that he had covered more than sixty-seven since entering the tunnel. How many more? Is the stone still there? A foot from behind knocked Clarenceux, and he stumbled, stooped, and ran on. Have I missed the stone? There was no time; he lunged for the wall itself, risking the fall.
And then he felt the stone and his other hand felt the opening. He flung himself to the right and into the narrow passage. Immediately two screams of terror filled the tunnel, echoing in the shaft as the men plunged straight over the edge and fell into the nothingness of the drop, their eyes suddenly opened to death, their bodies sounding like slabs of meat as they smashed down onto the rocks at the base of the shaft.
Two screams echoed in that tunnel. Only two.
Clarenceux could hear heavy breathing in the darkness nearby. He sensed a man getting to his feet and heard the ting of a sword as he picked it up off the stone floor.
“Fraser!” shouted Crackenthorpe. “Ridley!”
No answer.
Clarenceux’s hands trembled as he felt the chalk. He inched further around, feeling for the continuation of the main passage, listening for the sounds of his pursuer but able to hear only his own heavy gasps for air. Down he crept, hands feeling the clammy walls, until he sensed that he had found the spot where he had stood with Rebecca on the day that Julius had shown them the tunnel for the first time.
Rebecca. Eyes with the love of a starlit night. Beloved. Hanged.
A scrape of cloth against stone alerted him. He crouched down, leaning against the corner of the passage floor, listening. He heard Crackenthorpe’s sword scratch the rock; he heard his footsteps. The man paused.
Clarenceux tried to calm his breathing. He could run down into the deeper passages and risk being lost, or he could tuck himself against the wall of the passage further down and hope that Crackenthorpe missed him. But the passage was not wide enough; there was a good chance that he would be noticed. And Crackenthorpe would stab down with his sword. He felt for his boot knife; he had dropped it somewhere. He had no blade at all.
He heard footsteps again, this time more purposeful. He listened. But it seemed that Crackenthorpe was going back up the tunnel.
Still he did not move. As the footsteps faded, Clarenceux lay on the cold chalk thinking about Rebecca. He could not control his thoughts—he lay there for ten minutes or more, dwelling on the memory of her face, his own face wet with tears. Not until he remembered that he had betrayed Julius’s family secret was he able to break his cycle of thoughts about her. And that new thought made him no happier. He had revealed the knowledge of the tunnel to a stranger and an enemy. Moreover, he had to take the chronicle to Walsingham, to force him to give up the other men. By noon. And Crackenthorpe knew that. He would probably ambush him on the way.
Clarenceux wiped his face, gasping for breath in the musty air. He could hear nothing now except a distant moaning somewhere far off. One of the men who had fallen into the shaft had not died instantly. Then the moaning stopped.
Clarenceux stood up in the tunnel and listened. He started to move back up the slope, toward where he guessed the staircase must be which led up into the house. He moved forward carefully, slowly running his hand along the left wall, mindful that from this side there was nothing to stop him falling into the shaft if he lost count of his steps.
Suddenly a burning torch appeared in front of him, having come dow
n the stairs from the house. Clarenceux froze. Can this be one of Julius’s men? He crouched, praying wordlessly with all the will in his heart that it was someone from the house come to find him. The figure was advancing. Still all Clarenceux could see was the flaming point of light. On it came, bobbing up and down with each footfall.
If that is a friend, his gait shows he is keen to find me.
But that is not the way a man walks normally.
That is not a normal man.
And with that thought Clarenceux realized he was looking at the dark hair of Richard Crackenthorpe in the torchlight, just fifty feet away. The man had gone through the house and terrorized the old servants within into giving him a light and revealing the staircase. Now he was striding down the tunnel, sweeping the torch from one side to the other with his left hand, a drawn sword in his right. His gait was bold and spoke of fury. But he was not reckless. Clarenceux could see him slowing and inspecting the ground carefully.
Crackenthorpe moved the torch up and down the walls on either side. Then the torch swept around the passageway—and he saw Clarenceux crouched ahead of him.
Clarenceux rose, turned, and ran. He rushed straight down to the foot of the passage, reaching out for the rock, hearing the heavy footfall of Crackenthorpe running behind him. The light of the torch behind was too weak to see the cavern wall at the foot of the tunnel, and he crashed into it hard, twisting his fingers and hands, scraping his shin and bashing his head against the rock. But he pulled himself to his feet and pushed himself toward the right, remembering that there were several passageways leading off.
He ran down another tunnel in total darkness, hands outstretched, feeling the curve of the chalk wall and hoping to find a turning. On he went, tripping here and there on the uneven floor, realizing that there was no hope of remembering his way back. The tunnels curved—he did not know whether he had turned a corner or simply followed the passage. Soon he was hopelessly lost, running and turning without reason or logic until he slowed and stopped, and struggled to calm his panting, listening out for footsteps.
He heard them. Crackenthorpe had been able to run much faster by the light of his torch. He was not far away.
Clarenceux stretched out his arms again and started running—running endlessly, it seemed, in a dream-like darkness. Patterns appeared of shapes and colors, as if he had pressed his fingers into his eyes. And still he heard the chasing steps. On he went, knowing he could run faster if he did not play the blind man with his hands out, bashing into walls as he went, twisting in the tunnels as if escaping from a devil in a labyrinthine hell.
He turned a corner. Suddenly Crackenthorpe was there in front of him, and Clarenceux was blinded by the torchlight. “Halt!” yelled Crackenthorpe, as he lunged toward him, sword at the ready. Clarenceux turned and started running back the way he had come, hearing Crackenthorpe’s heavy footsteps close behind. With the torchlight so near, he could see the mouths of tunnels curling away into the unknown; but then he would take a turning and be plunged into the dark until Crackenthorpe caught up.
Turning after turning he took—splashing through the cold water of a shallow underwater stream at one point—only to hear Crackenthorpe keep up the chase.
When the man with light meets the man with the sword, the man with the sword always has the advantage—but here the man with the light is the man with the sword. If only I could find my way out of these tunnels. O Lord, save me. Christ have mercy! He is almost on me again. I cannot carry on much longer.
Water. Julius never mentioned that there was a stream down here. That was a landmark. I should remember, so I can use it to navigate.
He hastened down a tunnel and decided he would return to the stream. He had run on ahead in darkness now for a minute or more, with the torchlight appearing only at intervals behind him. Now he dived into another tunnel and felt a sharp corner with his hand. He hid immediately around the turn, in the shadow. He waited, breathing heavily. Too heavily. Crackenthorpe would hear him and stab around the corner with the sword.
But Crackenthorpe did not come.
Clarenceux listened fearfully. There was no sound of footsteps. Just the slow drip, drip, drip of water.
He looked back around the corner.
Darkness.
I cannot even hear him. Could he have fallen and let the light go out?
Clarenceux went around the corner and crept back along the way he had come, sniffing the air for signs of the burning pitch of the torch. He tensed himself, fearful that Crackenthorpe had put out his light on purpose and was waiting for him, sword drawn.
He felt another corner with his fingers and turned, heading back through the tunnel he had run along only a moment before. Again he paused, listening. More dripping water, this time falling not onto rock but into an underground pool or lake. And then he heard something else, like a faint shuffling of feet. The sound of two pieces of metal knocked together.
Clarenceux took a deep breath and moved in the direction of the sound. He stepped carefully, not wanting to trip and fall. There ahead, perhaps forty yards away down a tunnel, was just the faintest hint of light. Quietly he inched forward toward it, listening, prepared to run at the slightest sign of Crackenthorpe’s being aware of his presence.
The light was growing stronger. It is coming from around that corner. What would I do in Crackenthorpe’s position? I would place the light somewhere to attract my enemy, like a moth, and then I would hide where he cannot see me. In the darkness of one of the adjacent tunnels.
But at that moment Clarenceux heard the clang of something metal hitting another metal item. It was followed almost immediately by the sound of another metal item striking the floor, hard.
He crept closer, coming to the opening, his back pressed against the wall of the passageway. The flickering light was just around the corner, illuminating the far side of the passage. He crouched down, listening, fearing the darkness at his back but fearing the light even more.
He inched forward until one eye could just see around the corner.
Crackenthorpe had found the long, chapel-like chamber. Clarenceux recognized the columns of chalk and the aisles on either side: the shadowy niches around the long nave. Crackenthorpe was examining a gold or gilt-silver flagon on the altar at the far end of the room. He had lit several candles and propped his torch against a carved crucifix in the middle of the hall. He looked at the jeweled crosses on the walls and the chests of treasure saved from the monasteries, lost in a golden glow of his own. Then he set down the flagon, returned to the torch, picked it up, and saw Clarenceux.
Clarenceux did not run. Instead he slowly entered the nave. He stood there openly, bold and unarmed.
Crackenthorpe’s eyes were fierce in the torchlight. “You have no sword.”
Clarenceux took another step forward, along the stone nave, and then another and another. And as he walked forward, creeping from the shadows in the aisles around them came men on silent feet. Several of them were bearing swords, others holding knives. There were servants in old doublets, grooms in old tunics, and two men wearing breastplates.
Then Julius stepped forward in his black robe. “He cannot be allowed to leave. He must be killed.”
“Julius,” said Clarenceux grimly, not turning away from Crackenthorpe, “I will do the killing, if you will give me a sword. Would you ask your men to light the rest of the candles?”
“I will not have you risk your life.” Looking at Clarenceux, he added, “Besides, you have already been blooded, it seems.”
“Julius, this is Richard Crackenthorpe, the man who killed your servant James Hopton, my friend Henry Machyn, and my servant William Terry. He has sworn to kill me too. As it is his fate to die in these passages, I urge you to let me do the killing.”
“It is safer for us to do it together.”
“Julius, I need to kill this man—for revenge, for my own sake.”
Julius considered for a moment. Then he unbuckled his own sword, stepped forward, and
handed it to Clarenceux.
Still Clarenceux did not take his eyes off Crackenthorpe. He took the weapon, unsheathed it, and threw aside the scabbard. He stepped forward.
Crackenthorpe did not back away. He and Clarenceux circled in the light of the candles and torches. The only sounds were their footsteps as they moved in the almost still air of the underground nave. Candlelight glinted off the treasures around them but they saw none of it. Neither man allowed his gaze to shift from the other.
Crackenthorpe made the first sudden lunge, aiming high, hoping to catch Clarenceux off guard and dart in with a slash to the ribs; but Clarenceux was not off guard. He was concentrating on the man shifting before him. When the high lunge came, he was able to swipe it away.
Frustration will be his downfall. Take your time. Beat off his attacks until he makes a mistake.
Crackenthorpe raised his sword, willing Clarenceux to second-guess his target; but Clarenceux was quick enough to escape the threatened cut. They circled again. Crackenthorpe darted forward a second time, going first for Clarenceux’s sword-arm shoulder, then slashing at his throat. Clarenceux was slower to avoid the second cut. The blade just nicked his skin; its closeness was a warning. Crackenthorpe was younger, stronger and faster than he was, and he had no less reach.
Again they circled. Crackenthorpe grimaced with intent as he thrust forward to Clarenceux’s chest. Steel edge met steel edge, sparks flying in the candlelit nave. Clarenceux hurled his weight into the blows, seeking to knock the blade out of Crackenthorpe’s hand by striking it with force at an angle. But although their blades struck seven, eight, nine times, Crackenthorpe retained a firm grip. He almost strolled around the cave, so consumed by the fight that he seemed to have forgotten it would be his last.
The candles on the altar guttered as the two men swirled around and attacked again. Crackenthorpe—now moving with his left arm outstretched, hoping to catch Clarenceux’s sleeve or collar—rushed forward suddenly and thrust his blade toward Clarenceux’s chest. Clarenceux parried the blow, stepping to one side, drawing his own blade back across Crackenthorpe’s cheek, slicing through the soft skin and exposing the teeth and gums for the instant before the blood welled and started to flow. Encouraged, he brought his sword down with a clang on Crackenthorpe’s as the man lunged for revenge. With another blow Clarenceux tried to strike the blade out of the man’s hand. But Crackenthorpe was not beaten yet and, seeing an instant of opportunity, darted forward with his blade and stabbed Clarenceux in the left-hand side of the abdomen.
Sacred Treason Page 33