The Final Sacrament

by James Forrester

  Know that I love you and always have loved you, and I weep to think that I shall not see you again. You have been the greatest joy of my life. You are young and beautiful; you can make a new life for yourself. When you feel the time is right, it is my will that you marry again—a gentleman suitable to take charge of our daughters’ upbringing. And when they marry, on their wedding days, kiss each of our daughters for me, and know that in their bodies, my blood mingles with yours still, and, in their kisses, I am kissing you.

  Farewell, my love,

  William

  Awdrey let the paper fall from her fingers. The world was cold, and only shadows moved in it; the only color was gray and the only sound was silence.

  84

  Friday, February 21

  That afternoon, as light was beginning to fade, Cecil passed under the arch of King’s Gate at Whitehall Palace and saw the boy there, Ralph Cleaver. The boy bowed low, backing out of Cecil’s way. “I see you have gloves, young Ralph,” he called.

  “Her majesty ordered them for me,” replied the boy enthusiastically.

  “Excellent,” replied Cecil, continuing on his way. “May they last you many years. If you see Mr. Walsingham, tell him I have been expecting him for two hours now.”

  Walsingham was waiting in the paneled parlor at Cecil House.

  “You have a considerable amount of explaining to do,” said Cecil sharply when he saw him. “First to me, then to Mistress Harley and, depending on your answers, to the queen. What were you thinking?”

  Cecil hobbled across the room, his gouty foot causing him great pain. He poured himself a glass of sack and sat on a turned wooden chair near the fire, pushing his foot out in front of him. He did not offer a drink to Walsingham.

  “I am sorry. I knew Greystoke would betray Buckman. I knew he had no love for Lord Henry Stewart—”

  “You just did not think he would betray you as well.” Cecil knocked back his sweetened wine. “I trusted you. I defended you against Clarenceux.”

  “I am sorry. He was right. What more can I say?”

  Cecil shouted with fury. “You could damn well tell me that he need not have paid for being right with his life! You can tell his widow that she need not have lost her husband, and his daughters their father.” He took a deep breath. “The truth I have learned is this: it took a loyal Catholic to stop the damage that a loyal Protestant was about to do.”

  “I had the queen’s best interests in mind.”

  “You always do. Fortunately for us, the late Clarenceux was similarly high-minded—and he was the better man. Have you caught the priest, Buckman, yet?”

  “I have men working on it.”

  “Oh, God’s wounds, Francis! Where is your sharpness, your attention to detail? You have become complacent. Find him, arrest him, and then haul him into the Tower and hang him by his hands every day until we know everything he knows.”

  Walsingham stood, waiting for Cecil’s next onslaught. When it did not come, he said, “I have sent men to search Sheffield Manor for the children that Mistress Harley said are imprisoned there, with instructions to restore them to their families, if they find them.”

  “That is a start,” replied Cecil. “You can also take this as an order from the Privy Council. Lady Percy is never to be allowed out of that house again. Inform her that she is under house arrest for the rest of her life. The income from her estates is to be confiscated. Her nephew Lord Shrewsbury is to be told to limit the amount he gives her to the bare minimum. She is not to meddle in his courts. Only specially designated servants may enter her house, showing a license on each occasion. All her present servants are to be dismissed.”

  “What shall I do about the girl—the one found in the abbey?”

  “Let her go. Clarenceux trusted her. He employed her—she can return to his house.”

  “She doesn’t want to return, she says. She wants to see her mother.”

  “Well, let her do so, if she has a mother. Help her, for Christ’s salvation!”

  “And after that—do I still have your confidence?”

  “Neither of us can be proud of the parts we have played, Francis. Neither of us. We both did our best and we both failed. But we are true and honest men: we learn from our defeats. At the very least we might know what to watch for next time—and be thankful to Mr. Clarenceux that the Percy-Boleyn marriage agreement is no more.”

  85

  Saturday, February 22

  Awdrey was sitting by the fire in the dark hall at home, staring into the flames. Fyndern had retired to the attic for the night, and both Annie and Mildred were long since asleep. Thomas came up the stairs from the kitchen, his slow footsteps creaking on the floorboards. Entering the hall, he looked at Awdrey. “Mistress Harley, may I speak to you about something?”

  Awdrey looked up at him. “Of course. You do not need to ask.”

  Thomas closed the door to the back stairs and pulled a bench over from the table. He sat beside Awdrey looking into the flames.

  “I know this is possibly going to add to your distress, but I feel obliged to tell you something about Mr. Clarenceux. He asked me not to tell you, but if he is dead now, my obligation, as I see it, is to you.”

  “What do you mean by ‘if he is dead’?”

  Thomas shuffled, uncomfortable. “On St. Valentine’s Day he and I were in the tavern on Cheapside by the sign of the Mermaid. It was to be Mr. Clarenceux’s last night in London. There were just the two of us, and no one was near. I pressed him on his plan, asking him to promise me that he was not planning to kill himself. And then he said something—but I promised never to tell a soul.”

  “Tell the flames,” whispered Awdrey. “Speak into the fire.”

  Thomas pulled the bench closer to the hearth. He leaned forward and talked, looking into the glowing red logs and flickering flames. “Mr. Clarenceux told me a story about two knights who had persuaded the abbot of Thame to shelter them from their pursuers. They knew of a secret chamber in the abbey that could not be found even if the building was searched. I believe that Mr. Clarenceux knew how to find that chamber.”

  Awdrey was quiet. Eventually she said, “What good would it have done? Nothing was left of that refectory but the four walls. Mr. Walsingham has assured us that only the girl was in the tunnels beneath.”

  “That is true,” admitted Thomas. “But Mr. Clarenceux has given you a trail of places to visit, heading to your sister. There is this farm belonging to John Beard in Wargrave, in Berkshire; then he urges you to go to Caswell, in Oxfordshire; then Exeter in Devon; and finally the table has to be delivered to your brother-in-law in Devon. Why did he specify those things? Sir William Cecil and Francis Walsingham, if they had seen that letter, would not have known where your brother-in-law is living. Heaven knows if Mr. Clarenceux survived, but he means you to follow that path…”

  “We made just such a journey two years ago,” said Awdrey, looking at Thomas. “We stopped at a house in Wargrave; I remember thinking how strange it was that we went there. I will think about this, Thomas. Thank you for telling me.”

  “Don’t thank me,” said the old man. “I just whispered it to the fire.”

  86

  Thursday, February 27

  Awdrey stood at the front window, looking out at Fleet Street as the rain slanted down. The light was a strange orange-pink, and the clouds dark gray, giving the houses on the other side of the street a lurid aspect.

  It was late in the morning, when the rain had finally subsided, that they set off with a hired cart and two Flemish horses. The elm table was wrapped in canvas and straw and tied upside down on the cart, and covered with another canvas sheet. The two girls traveled with Thomas on the front of the cart; Awdrey and Fyndern rode on Brutus and Maud.

  No sooner had they set off than it became clear that the cart would slow them up enormously. It took them all the
first day to reach Brentford, with the wheels of the cart sliding into ruts and puddles, and regularly requiring a shove or a levering out of a ditch. That night they stayed at an inn—which greatly excited Annie and Mildred—before continuing through more changeable weather to Wargrave, which they reached in the late afternoon. The lane to the cottage was mired in sloppy mud and standing water, and the cart rocked heavily as they tried to pull it down the lane. Eventually they gave up and left it under Fyndern’s watchful guard in a barn just off the highway. The girls traveled with Awdrey and Thomas on the horses down to the cottage in the valley.

  Awdrey looked at the moss-covered thatch and the low eaves of the place, and the pigs rooting in the mud-strewn yard. She chose the driest spot she could find to let Mildred down and then dismounted, by the wall of the house, beside a cart with a broken wheel. The cottage door was open for the light, and she knocked. A tired-looking woman in a brown dress smelling strongly of smoke appeared in the doorway, squinting. She took one look at Awdrey and bowed, averting her gaze. “Oh, Mistress Harley—good day to you. John’s away; he’ll be back soon, I assure you.”

  “You know my name?”

  “Of course,” she replied. “We heard from the vicar’s boy that you would come before long. No other gentlefolk come this way.”

  Awdrey glanced at Thomas.

  “Watch that sow, she’ll have your arm!” warned Agnes as she saw Mildred in the yard trying to feed a large black pig a handful of mud.

  “May we come in?”

  Agnes welcomed them both in and gave them a bench to sit on overlooking the fire in the middle of the room. “I can offer you fresh bread,” she said, “but we don’t have butter. It has been a long time since we have had butter. I have some apples.”

  “Apples for the children would be much appreciated,” said Awdrey, with a smile as the smoke from the hearth wafted in her direction.

  “The vicar’s boy told us we best be goodly behaved but he didn’t say when you’d be coming…” She went outside and called, “Girls, do you want an apple each? Oh, John’s here.”

  Agnes stood back as her husband entered the house. “Mistress Harley has arrived, John.”

  John Beard bowed to Awdrey. “We are honored.”

  Awdrey introduced Thomas.

  John looked at his wife in the smoky gloom. “We did hear you would be coming and we would have made better provision to entertain you—except we did not know when. Although your husband recently said he did not require the rent, we have been trying to gather as much as we can. I have sold the last of our chickens and—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Awdrey suddenly. “I do not want your money.”

  “But, Mistress Harley, it is your money.”

  Awdrey stood up. As she did so, so did Thomas. “Do you remember the old ways of the church, Goodman Beard? When we used to pray for the souls of the departed? Men used to found chantries so that priests would pray for their ancestors’ souls forever.”

  “Of course, Mistress Harley,” replied John, astonished. “But we are told now that we cannot pray for the souls of the deceased. They are either in Heaven or in Hell. Purgatory was never a place for souls except in the beliefs of heretics.”

  “Well, there are some of us who still put our faith in the old religion, and the old ways. My late husband was one such man. But as you observe, it is no longer permitted for Masses to be said or sung for the deceased. Therefore I would ask you to pray for his soul, silently, every Sunday. If you are willing to swear to do this, I will forgive you all the rent you owe.”

  John looked at Agnes. Disbelief mixed with joy was evident in their faces. “But your husband,” said John, “he was well and strong just a few weeks ago. We shared our broth with him. What happened?”

  “There was a fire,” she said simply, feeling in her pocket and trying to suppress the emotion rising in her. “William made a will of sorts. He bequeathed this to you.”

  She handed John a leather purse. He took it and felt the weight of the coins inside. He tipped them into his dirty palm to show Agnes; there were ten gold coins of various sizes, and sixteen silver ones. “Oh, sweet Jesus,” whispered Agnes, clutching her husband’s arm.

  “I will pray with all my heart and soul for his soul and your kindness of heart,” said John. “Thank you.”

  John and Agnes urged Awdrey to accept what little hospitality they could offer for the night, and the couple’s good humor and honest conversation won her over. Fyndern was told that the cart was safe; he and Thomas stayed in the barn while Awdrey and the girls slept in the inner chamber of the house.

  As feasts went, Awdrey had rarely had a more modest one. But everything tasted all the finer for it being so precious.

  ***

  Having crossed the Thames at Reading, they spent the next three days dragging the cart through the wet roads to Caswell in Oxfordshire. Arriving at the old moated house, they learned that Sir Richard and Lady Isabel were away. However, the chamberlain seemed happy for Awdrey and her family to stay at the house until the master returned the following evening.

  “What the devil did your husband do to my abbey!” exclaimed Sir Richard at supper with Awdrey, after she had given him the book. It was just the three of them—Sir Richard and Lady Wenman and Awdrey. Fyndern and Thomas were eating separately, with the servants. “Damn it, the refectory was one part I was meaning to keep. Why could he not burn down the rest of the old ruin?”

  Lady Isabel dabbed a napkin to her mouth. “Have a little more sympathy for Mistress Harley, dear heart. I am sure she regrets the loss of her husband more than you regret the loss of your windows.”

  “I am sorry if I offend you. He was a good man, William. I should very much like him to be dining with us.” Sir Richard drank from his cup. “It is altogether a morbid business, this losing one’s friends. It is the way of the world. You start out, you and your friends wanting this and that, wanting wealth and power, lands, horses, mistresses, hawks, exotic food—and then you wake up and you have got all the things you wanted, and are alone.” He pondered, his knife in his hand, his eyes not looking at the meat in front of him. “I will miss him greatly.”

  87

  Thursday, March 13

  It took them a full twelve days to bring the cart as far as Exeter. Near Chippenham they lost a wheel as a tire came loose, and the spokes and rim fell to pieces. Mending that took two days, as a wheelwright had to be brought out to measure the old one, and then he had to return to town to make a replacement. Awdrey and Thomas took the girls on to Bath, to show them the hot thermal springs where physicians recommended ill people bathe for their health, but when they arrived they did not like the smell or the look of the water—or the look of the ailing multitude who were already bathing. Fyndern remained with the cart, which gave him the opportunity to practice his card skills in the inns and make a little money, which he then squandered on entertaining a succession of women of various ages, some of whom fell for his charms and some of whom charged him for theirs. For her part, Awdrey began to worry about the amount of money she was spending.

  It was with relief they reached Exeter and found themselves at the house of another friend. John Hooker was deeply grateful for the manuscripts they brought and was both shocked and saddened to hear of Clarenceux’s death. He had received a note from him recently that gave him some information about the barony of Idrone. Clarenceux had also said that he hoped he would look after his wife on her forthcoming journey to see her sister. When Hooker expressed his regret and sorrow in the most heart-rending words, Awdrey was again conscious of how fortunate she had been in her marriage.

  “But of course,” said Fyndern mischievously, “Mr. Clarenceux directed us only to call on the people who would speak well of him—all the people he mentioned in his will. It was not as if he was without enemies.”

  “It is ironic that in death he has no enemies
when in life he had so many,” observed Thomas.

  ***

  The next and final day of their journey was the hardest, going west of Exeter. As Hooker had remarked, “Exeter is the edge of the civilized world. Beyond here you cannot travel by coach unless you are on one of the two principal highways, either to Plymouth or to Launceston. Cross the Tamar and the people don’t even speak English. The way you are going, I predict your cart will break a wheel or an axle on the granite-strewn tracks.”

  It was the perfect place to hide away, thought Awdrey, knowing that if her husband had survived the fire, this would be where she would find him.

  They proceeded into a mild drizzle for most of the day, and a wind from the west made that drizzle soak through their traveling clothes. Either side of them, the wind tossed the trees—and as they came to the boulder-strewn ford across the fast-flowing River Teign, they decided that Hooker had been right: the cart could go no farther. A miller was persuaded to shelter it and the table in a barn while they proceeded on the horses to find the house where Awdrey’s sister and her family lived.

  The road reached up a steep-sided gloomy valley, between trees that were ancient and wild. Such woods seemed mysterious and the girls were frightened. Even in the daylight shadows loomed. Few people took this road, and those they passed seemed unwilling to do more than nod acknowledgement and walk on. In many places oaks leaned over the track, their trunks and boughs covered in green lichens and moss. Fallen trunks were completely covered in moss, with last year’s bracken and dead leaves around them. The steep rise of the road between the granite boulders was also difficult, but once out of the wood, where the road leveled, the brightness of the place was noticeable. Snowdrops broke the ground here and there, and birds sang continuously above them. The hedgerows were green with grasses and brambles, and punctuated by rabbits’ burrows and holes large enough to be badgers’ setts. Ivy hung from the trunks of oak trees. For Annie and Mildred it was an adventure: a revisiting of the Garden of Eden—except with drizzle and a cold westerly wind.