The Final Sacrament

by James Forrester

  He went back out to the cloister and walked through a side door into the church. Timber was stacked in here, waiting to be reused or burned. The choir stalls had been dismantled—chopped up and piled against the wall of the north transept, and so had almost all of the rood screen. Only one part at the northern end still separated the nave and the chancel. The whole building was huge, more than two hundred feet in length from the west end to the smashed stonework of the east window. Clarenceux stopped and listened; there was a whistling of wind through the carved tracery of the windows, nothing more. The graves of benefactors lay still, their colored stone effigies covered with paint that was rubbing away or washed off. Here a one-legged alabaster effigy of a knight lay on a table tomb, with his hands together in prayer; his fingers were broken, and the leg that had been removed lay in pieces on the tiles of the floor. Looking at his shield, Clarenceux could make out some red and a martlet in the dexter upper corner but that was all.

  Once, this place had symbolized fidelity to God—eternity. It had been a place where people could make their prayers and leave their bodies, secure in the knowledge that forever, here, their deeds would be remembered and priests would pray for their souls. No more. It felt as if this were a cadaver of his religion and he was picking through its skeletal remains. Strands of flesh were hanging on to these ribs, to be examined by carrion eaters; and yet at the same time it was strangely beautiful, hauntingly so. The arches were no less graceful than when they had contained glass. The sculptures of birds and leaves no less lovely for their weathering. And everywhere was an overwhelming silence, an enormous emptiness.

  He went back out to the cloister. On his left, the half-rotten door of a wooden book press hung from a single rusted hinge, its red and green paint faded. An image of the Risen Christ painted on the wall had almost been obliterated. Yet there were still things here from which the experienced antiquary could learn. He could maintain his half lie to Sir Richard about why he had come. There were inscriptions in the stone that confirmed entries in Henry of Abingdon’s chronicle and enough fragments of painted heraldry for him to say something of the people buried here, and their dates and epitaphs. There was the unusual layout of the buildings too. Normally Cistercian houses were built according to a strict plan. This one was unusual. The refectory was adjacent to the chapter house and the kitchen was on the south side of the cloister, so all the food had to be transported through the cloister to the refectory. Another unusual feature was the abbot’s lodging to the south of the kitchen, angled off the lower end of the lay brothers’ dormitory, creating a separate southern courtyard. Oratories, empty buildings, and stone rooms stood at junctures of the cloister and other corridors: echoing, cobwebs wafting from their corbels in the dusty silence.

  Passing the door to the chapter house, Clarenceux walked up the stone stairs to the refectory. The door was ajar, the old key in the lock. It did not move. Decades of abandonment meant that it had seized, unlocked, open forever.

  In its day, the refectory had been a great room. The wooden floor was strewn with old stale rushes and there was still one long trestle table in here. At the far end was the stone lectern where one of the monks would read to the others while they ate in silence. Not far from it was a narrow opening in the wall, leading to what had once been the latrine. But the windows were the chief glory of the room; they were the same shape as the windows in the main church and almost as wide. Four of them faced south; the last faced east. Hardly any of the glass had been broken. Sir John Williams must have preserved them against their reforming attackers. Even in this gray weather they let light flood into the room, illuminating the wall on the opposite side, the north, where lines from the New Testament had once been written. As Clarenceux walked up and down the room he could see black letters and words under the whitewash that had been daubed over the paintings. The whole room was so elegant, so wonderfully bright, it felt very modern, like a nobleman’s house, covered in glass. There was even a fireplace in here, albeit one littered with sticks and fallen fledglings that never saw their first summer. Peering up inside, he saw daylight at the top of the flue.

  For several minutes he stood in silence in that room, hearing the wind batter flurries of rain against the glass, imagining the words of the lessons, the slurping of soup and hand gestures as the monks asked soundlessly for this or that to be passed to them. He crossed himself and prayed until he heard Sir Richard enter the room.

  “This building, the kitchen, the cloister between them and the abbot’s house will be retained—I don’t intend to keep any of the rest. So if you want to record any of it for posterity or your visitation, I should study those parts now, while you can.”

  Clarenceux nodded. “If it is not displeasing to you, I would like to remain here awhile, a few minutes more, and compose my thoughts on the place.”

  Sir Richard looked around the room. He pointed out a boss in the ceiling which still preserved its paint. “I love the detail in here. Look at those hares, with their ears all joining. Sir John used to say that that was a symbol of the Trinity.”

  “You find it in many old churches.”

  Sir Richard paused, staring up. Then he clapped Clarenceux on the shoulder. “Take as long as you want. I don’t intend leaving here until the storm is over.”

  Clarenceux looked out the window at the abbot’s house and the courtyard, and the clouds swiftly chasing each other across the sky. He heard Sir Richard shouting outside. It was time. He would hide the document in here.

  24

  The weather did not improve. At dusk, Clarenceux and Sir Richard were still sitting beside a fire in the abbot’s lodging, the only comfortable part of Thame Abbey. When it started to grow dark, they abandoned shelter and rode the mile into the town of Thame, to call at the Saracen’s Head. The landlord was an amiable balding fellow called Simeon, who started telling Sir Richard stories about the abbey before the Dissolution. As a lad, he said, he had often been paid a penny to guide travelers there after dark. With many tales to tell and with no other guests staying that night, Simeon had accepted their invitation to join them drinking wine by the fire. Late into the night they drank, Simeon growing more effusive with the wine and the hour. Eventually Sir Richard drank himself into a stupor and was helped up the stairs to his bedchamber.

  Clarenceux suggested that Simeon share another pint or quart with him. He wanted the evening never to end. Tomorrow he would start riding back to the city and the torment of waiting for the attack on his family. By the light of the fire, the talk moved on to epitaphs and what a man should choose to put on his tombstone. Clarenceux was drunkenly mulling over some words he had read in Sir William’s copy of Gratarolus: Judge me as I am worthy. Simeon had ruled that out, on the grounds that an educated man like Clarenceux should not use words written by another writer. Simeon went on to philosophize that literary men should not be allowed to select an epitaph. Someone else could select a line for them from their work, on the understanding that the author had encapsulated something of his essence. That led on to the matter of literature. When Simeon revealed that he was the proud possessor of a dozen books: poetry, history, medicine, and theology, Clarenceux was impressed and ashamed that he had presumed his host was illiterate. But his amazement was even greater when he learned that Simeon had never even been to school. How had he learned? Simeon held up his copy of the Bible. “This,” he said proudly. “God taught me to read.”

  ***

  The next morning, Clarenceux was awake at first light. He roused himself and splashed water over his face, washed his hands and mouth, and went downstairs. Simeon was about, as bright and breezy as if he had had a full night’s sleep. Sir Richard was still snoring. Clarenceux settled their bill and called for his horse. After saying his farewell to Simeon, he started out for London.

  The following evening he ate alone at an inn in Denham. The innkeeper here was quite unlike Simeon: an illiterate bore. The herald slept little, despi
te it being a comfortable bed, and awoke feeling anxious.

  25

  Tuesday, December 31

  The weather remained cold and wet all the way to London. Beside the road, ivy crowded the bare trees, reaching out along the skeletal branches. He looked for greenness, a sense of spring, but there was nothing to give him that uplifting feeling of renewal. It was just the hard knife-edge of winter, cutting deeper and deeper. A raven sounded out ka-ark as it flew over him, and the sound was as desolate as he felt. He had achieved nothing, he told himself. He had simply moved the document—and left his wife and daughters unguarded in all the time he had been away.

  He did not feel he was coming home but riding into a strange town. People seemed to be looking at him oddly. He told himself he was being overcautious; these people did not know him, or only knew him by sight. At Charing Cross he looked toward the gray river, the cold muscle of the city. It did not look welcoming. Passing Cecil House, the windows with all their glass quarrels seemed to frown at him—so many eyes watching, so many ears listening. And then, clopping through the mud of Fleet Street, the desire to see his family was like a flame burning quietly in the dark cave of the night.

  Immediately, he saw that the windows of the house opposite had changed. All but one were closed.

  Clarenceux dismounted and led his horse down the side passage to his stable yard. He tried the latch on the gate; it was locked. “Nick! Thomas! Is anyone here?” he shouted.

  After a moment he tied the reins to a post by the gate and walked back to the front of the house. He did not have the key with him so he hammered on the door. He took his knife out and knocked with the hilt of that too. No one came.

  The cold wind bit into his face and hands.

  He hit the door again, harder, more out of frustration than hope that anyone would answer. The noise of his striking echoed away inside. He went back down the alley and climbed over the gate into the yard. The back door was bolted and the shutters barred. Even the stable door was locked. He could hear Maud inside stamping in her stall. But at least this lock was breakable. He unbolted the gate, led Brutus into the yard, and went back outside into the street to search for a suitable stone. As he went along the passage, however, he glanced at the house opposite, and its closed shutters.

  They know there is no one to watch.

  He went across to the house and drew his knife again, and was about to hammer on the door when he thought to try the door without knocking, to take them off their guard. After all, why would a house of spies have anything to fear? He tried the handle and went inside. It was almost wholly dark in there—lit as far as he could see only by the light behind him. He paused and listened: nothing. As his eyes adjusted he could see two ground-floor doors and a narrow staircase. The open window he had seen from outside had been on the first floor. He walked carefully to the staircase and ascended. On the landing there was one door open, one source of light. He walked toward it.

  John Greystoke was lying on his bed in a loose white shirt, reading a book, when Clarenceux walked in. The rest of the room was empty except for a table where there were three swords, a pile of clean linen shirts and a couple of doublets, and four more books. Greystoke’s shoes were neatly arranged beside the bed. He did not look up until Clarenceux was in the room.

  “I’m glad you’re safe,” he said.

  Clarenceux recognized the white-haired man from church. He now realized that this man and the captain he had seen were one and the same.

  “Where are my wife and daughters? My servants? What have you done with them?”

  “Me?” laughed Greystoke, getting off the bed and walking over to place the book on the table. “I have done nothing with them. I am simply here watching your house on behalf of Mr. Walsingham. Your wife left on Sunday, not long after returning from church. As to where she is now, I have not heard that she has removed herself from Cecil House, which is where she has been ever since.”

  “Why are you watching us?”

  “Mr. Walsingham is very keen to know where you are at all times. He asked me to help look after you, to watch over you as it were. He knows how great the danger is.”

  “I do not need protection.”

  “Mr. Clarenceux, you do not know what you face. Do you not realize Lady Percy has been planning your downfall now for the last two years? When you did not use the document in your possession, she swore to make you pay for it. When you betrayed her sister, Mistress Barker, she swore that she would make you pay with your life. Now her sister is dead, she wants nothing more than to make you suffer—and to use the document to start a war to rally all the Catholics in England to the cause of Lord Henry Stewart. To that end she has sent a small army after you.”

  “I did not betray her sister. And Lady Percy is an adherent of the queen of Scotland, not her husband.”

  Greystoke shook his head. “That may have been the case, sometime before the marriage. But Lady Percy is a great friend of Lady Margaret Douglas, Lord Henry’s mother, who is, as you know, a prisoner in the Tower. Lord Henry now has a son who is the unquestionable heir of both kingdoms. Together Lady Percy and Lady Douglas seek to rid England of Elizabeth and have Charles James Stuart proclaimed king of England, uniting the whole of Great Britain under one Catholic monarchy.”

  “This should have nothing to do with me or my wife, let alone my daughters.”

  Greystoke picked up his swords. “Don’t play the fool with me, Mr. Clarenceux. You know well why it affects them too.”

  “No. Tell me.”

  “They are your greatest weakness.”

  Clarenceux was silent. He thought of Awdrey: her face, her voice, her touch. He thought of Mildred and her round cheeks and bright eyes, and her funny expressions. He recalled her childish prattle, saying that she loved him more than God. He remembered Annie running around the house and arguing with him whenever she was told anything with which she could disagree.

  “I must go to them,” he said, turning back to the stairs.

  “One more thing,” called Greystoke after him. “The army she has sent is made up of women. You might find that information useful—when they come after you.”

  ***

  “Father!” exclaimed Annie when she saw the door open to the second-floor chamber. “Dad!” shouted her sister, who was standing beside the fire. “Look, Mam, it’s Dad.”

  Awdrey had not slept. Her eyes were rimmed with tears, and her hair was hanging down, awry. Clarenceux knelt, hugged his daughters, and waited for the servant to leave the chamber before going across the room to embrace his wife. He held her for some long moments before breaking away.

  “What happened?”

  “Rebecca Machyn is dead. We came back from church and…It was awful. Her head was on a pole in the middle of our yard.”

  Clarenceux stared at her, open-mouthed. He could not believe what he had just heard. He looked down at his daughters, both of whom wore worried faces. “What was she doing in London?” he asked, a lump in his throat.

  Awdrey shook her head. “I do not know. You told me she was happy in Portchester. I hoped she would stay there.”

  “Have some pity,” said Clarenceux. The memory of her brought tears to his eyes. He felt hollowed, winds of emptiness howling through the broken-windowed hall of his soul. He longed to hear her voice again.

  Awdrey looked sharply at him. “Pity? I don’t have the time for pity. What is going on? Who is going to be killed next? That white-haired gentleman stopped me in the street as I was on my way to church. His name is John Greystone—he has been spying on us for Walsingham.”

  “I met him just now. He told me where to find you.” The pain of Rebecca’s death tore at him. He tried to put it out of his mind.

  Awdrey plunged her face into her hands. “Oh Christ, I feel sick. It will never end.”

  Mildred started to cry. Awdrey ignored her and walked away
, toward the window. Clarenceux lifted Mildred, saying, “Shhh,” to soothe her.

  “You have got to bring this to an end, William, once and for all. You have got to get rid of that document. Give it to Sir William. Get it out of our lives!”

  Clarenceux held Mildred tight, pressing her against his breast. “Do you think that that would make any difference? It does not matter whether we have the document or not. We are the ones who are known to have it. It will not save us, to give it away.”

  She looked at him as though he were speaking lies to her face. “What do you mean? You will endanger our lives! Sir William will help us.”

  Clarenceux put Mildred down and smoothed her hair. He stepped close to Awdrey, so the children would not hear him. “Awdrey, our lives are at risk but so is the safety of the State—and if Sir William has to choose between the two, then he will prefer the State over our safety. Sir William and I have already spoken about that document, and he has already asked me to hand it over. I refused—”

  “Then you are cruel and selfish and you do not love us!” she cried. “You will get us all killed!”