“Now, there is a long sequence repeated toward the end. I’ve underlined the letters already hypothesized from the words ‘the’ and ‘that.’” He placed a third sheet over the top of the second. It had just a section of the text:
TCCCICCCCCCCCE+CCCCEMMME,
TATXIEMMMMMMCCEIIXMMMMMMEAIELCCCC
CCCMM, /, AT/AII,, THEMMMEIE,
THTHATIIECCCACIIIEMMMICCCCECIIIXMMMMMMME,
/CICCCCCCCCE+CCCCEMMME, TATXIEMMMTH
“What jumps out is the deciphered sequence of letters ‘tat.’ It appears twice—and both times they are preceded by the letters ‘CICCCCCCCCE+CCCCEMMME,’ and followed by ‘XIEMMM.’ But the interesting thing is that the first time they are followed by two ‘MMM’s and the second by only one. As one cannot have a triple letter, ‘MMM’ is probably a single letter. Now, going back to the section we identified earlier”—Richards pointed back at the second sheet—“the ‘MMM’ in ‘MMMEIE,TH’ must also be a single letter. There is only one seven-letter word that fits that pattern: ‘seventh.’ And finally”—he placed his last sheet of paper on the table—“if you test this hypothesis, the message does start to read more coherently, because that repeated long word that I mentioned becomes decipherable: ‘VCCCCCCCCE+CCCCESENTATXVEST.’ You can see the word ‘representatives’ so ‘CCCC’ must be an R and X is the cipher for I.”
Walsingham looked at the last page, which Richards now placed before him. It read:
RI>HTHICCCIIIMMCIIE
CSHIPIIEHAVERE
CCCSIRPER
IIHATSCCE
VSSTHATCVAN/IIET>ETHERCCCI>HTELLE<
TITSTRVTHSHEIIIMMMMIIIE/ESPAT
CCCPANCLRIIIERTMMIIELRCCCMMN/NTSAN/
III
RS
NLICCCCCCCHERARRIVAMMIIITCCC
VRREPRESENTATIVESSHEIIIMMMMMMEAVELR
CCCMMN/NAT/AIIN
NTHESEVENTHTHATIIECCCACIIIESVREC
IIIIMMMMSEN/CVRREPRESENTATIVESTHMMCCCCC\/
IIEIIIE>CVSEN/IIR/IIICTHISSACCCECCCESSEN>ER> /
SPEE/CVRMMA/CSHIPCVR/EVTE/SERVANTSPER
“I can see the word ‘treasure,’” said Walsingham. “I can also see ‘servants’…yes, and I can see the word ‘instructions’—look, that diagonal line must be an O.”
“And the first word is ‘right,’” declared Richards, reading over his shoulder.
“Which means that ‘essenger’ appears near the end, so ‘CCC’ is an ‘m.’ This is excellent, Richards.” Walsingham nodded at his protégé approvingly. “Sir William will be very pleased.”
24
Clarenceux’s stride grew faster as he walked along Lombard Street. He was angry. He looked up at the tower of St. Mary Woolnoth and frowned, despite the pleasant blue sky, patched with white clouds. Hours were passing and he had nothing to show for the day. His enemies had betrayed him and now they were stealing his time as well. Minute by minute he was losing the chance to trace Rebecca.
He walked across wide Gracechurch Street and stepped over a pile of dung. Refusing to wait for a stream of carts to pass, he dodged between two of them and walked on swiftly past St. Benet’s until he could see St. Dionis Backchurch on his left. Here the city shrank in scale. There were tiny alleys barely wide enough to walk along two abreast and places where houses’ first-floor jetties were so low you could bash your head if you were not careful. There were paths so intertwined and twisting that you could easily get lost, especially when the London fog descended. Old sites had been divided at every rebuilding, each old messuage turned into three or four merchants’ houses. Half of those had been turned into single-room tenements, so that a merchants’ house of six chambers might now be home to twenty people. The other half had been pulled down and were ugly one- and two-story cheap wooden tenements put up by unscrupulous merchant landlords, who did not care that their tenants lived in close proximity to a communal cesspit and had to walk all the way to the conduit at the corner of Gracechurch Street and Cheapside to fetch a bucket of water.
In these gloomy alleys—more like paths through a forest than streets in a city—the wardens and parish officers did not walk alone but only in twos and threes. The fetid mud stank of feces and urine, and the water dripping from the overhanging eaves gave the whole area a dismal feeling. The smoke from the wood of the cooking fires was a blessing; it was the only wholesome thing about the place. Clarenceux worked his way through the maze of houses by the occasional patch of sunlight on the lanes and the church towers and spires. He knew if he continued walking north from the parish church he would come to a narrow alley on his left that split into two, one side wider than the other. The wider one had a two-story building on the right with scallop shells above the door.
Five minutes later, there it was. The piece of carved wood covering the lintel was coming away and hanging down slightly, and there was no doorframe. But the four irregularly spaced scallop shells, nailed above the door and green with age, were clear enough.
Clarenceux drew his knife and hammered on the door. It opened: a woman in her late twenties with her hair tied up in a dirty white scarf answered. She looked shocked to see Clarenceux. The door swung open into a dimly lit living space with a stone fireplace and old baskets hanging from the ceiling. A small cooking fire was on the hearth, with a chafing dish set into the ashes on one side and a small cauldron suspended above the flames. Nicholas Hill was standing beside the stairs, unshaven, his belly proud before him, his jerkin loose over his shirt. He was dressed in the same fawn doublet he had been wearing when Clarenceux had first met him last December.
Clarenceux walked straight in. “Did you think the Knights of the Round Table could just take that document and that I would do nothing about it?” he demanded. “Well—did you?” Without thinking or pausing to check his rage, Clarenceux found himself aiming a fist straight at Hill’s jaw. Hill, however, saw the punch coming, and stepped to one side, leaving Clarenceux to lurch off-balance.
“You should not have come here, Clarenceux. You should have proclaimed that marriage agreement while you had the chance.”
“I was charged to look after that document with my life.”
“Then you value your life more highly than the True Faith,” said Hill. “And that is bad. But not as bad as the fact that you betrayed us.”
“I did not betray you. I saved you from Walsingham. You would still be in his prison if—”
“You led Walsingham’s men to our doors! You stood by and waited for us all to be arrested. For what? So you could keep that document as if it’s an heirloom, a grant of arms or some historical treasure. Shame on you, Clarenceux, shame on you! You did not act as Henry Machyn told you to. You withheld us from our purpose.”
Clarenceux glared at Hill. “Where is Rebecca Machyn? Where is the marriage agreement?”
Hill leaned forward, as if taunting Clarenceux. “My…lips…are…sealed.”
Clarenceux lashed out again. This time he was faster than Hill and his fist connected with the man’s nose. Hill staggered backward, turned, and reached for a sword that hung on the wall. He swept around with it, drawing it from its scabbard, and moved to stab Clarenceux, but as he came forward, Clarenceux leaped aside and drew his own blade.
Hill’s terrified wife let out a scream.
Clarenceux shouted, “How is it that your father has died and you are still here in this slum? Did he write you out of his will—for being a fool?”
“How dare you speak of my father!”
“He had more sense than you. He advised you to give up the document.” As he spoke, Hill thrust. Clarenceux easily parried the blow. “To whom did he leave his house in St. Mary Woolnoth? Not to you, clearly. Is tha
t what disturbs you?”
Hill’s wife moved to the stairs. “Stop it, Nicholas,” she cried. “You can’t kill him. He’s a gentleman. They’ll hang you if they catch you.”
“They won’t. No one knows he is here. No one is waiting for him—he acts alone. At least he does now, since Rebecca Machyn chose to side with us.”
Clarenceux knew how to use a weapon better than Hill. He had been trained. He could play with the man. He swept the blade across Hill’s line of vision, then darted forward and cut him in the shoulder, drawing blood. He then drew the point back across Hill’s face as the latter winced with the pain, moving forward and catching the wrist of the man’s sword hand. “Drop it!” he commanded, holding the point of his sword at Hill’s throat. “Drop it or I’ll fight you in earnest.”
Hill stopped. But he did not drop the sword.
“When did your father die?” Clarenceux demanded. “Was it in February?”
“He did not leave me his house because it was not his,” Hill said. “He rented it. It was his way out of these alleys. I always hoped that religious change would be mine.”
Clarenceux reached forward and took the sword from Hill’s hand. He gave it to the man’s wife, not taking his eyes off him. “Put it away somewhere safe until I have gone. I do not want to harm your husband but he is dangerous. I would sooner run him through than have him do the same to me.”
Hill’s wife took the blade and ran upstairs, the wooden soles of her shoes sounding loud on the steps.
“Does she know what this is about?” Clarenceux asked.
Hill nodded.
“And your children?”
“What children?”
Clarenceux paused. “None of you have children. You do not, nor does James Emery, nor Rebecca Machyn—all three of hers died. Henry Machyn’s only son has turned into a drunkard and Robert Lowe has no children. Maybe if you had children you would be more mindful of the future and the necessity of protecting your offspring, not feeding them to religious fires.”
Hill looked like an animal about to pounce. Clarenceux kept his distance, taking no chances. “Now tell me—when did your father die?” he repeated.
“February the sixteenth.”
“So who is Sir Percival?”
“I do not know.”
“Yes, you do. Mr. Emery told me four of you are left. None of you would trust William Draper. Lancelot Heath’s whereabouts are unknown. Daniel Gyttens and your father are both dead. That leaves Lowe, Emery, yourself, and Sir Percival. Who is he?” Clarenceux looked Hill in the eye and lifted his sword to his throat, holding the point about two inches away. “I know Sir Percival brings and sends messages to and from Lady Percy. But who is he?”
“I will not tell.”
Clarenceux darted upward with the blade and slashed Hill’s cheek, surprised at how easily the sharp point sliced into his skin. Blood rushed to the surface and ran down his chin.
“I asked: who is he?”
Hill felt the blood with his fingers. “He is a holier man than you.”
“Who is he?” Clarenceux insisted. “Where can I find him?”
“You will never find him. None of us knows his name, do you not remember?”
“But you have met him. And he knows who you are. How can I find him?”
“So you can chase after Goodwife Machyn?” the man sneered. “She has gone, Clarenceux, gone. And so too has the marriage agreement.”
There was a single knock at the door. Hill stepped back and opened it: two men stood outside, in rough working clothes, both as muscular and grim looking as Hill himself. Both were openly wearing side-swords.
Hill looked back at Clarenceux. “Go, herald. Either go now, peacefully, or fight us three. I may not be able to match your swordsmanship alone, but I have more friends than you, and together we are stronger.”
Hill’s wife slowly descended the stairs. He continued, “When you live this close to so many, you can just knock on a wall to summon help. The rich and the poor all have their friends. Only those in the middle are alone. Which is where you are, Mr. Clarenceux.”
Clarenceux stayed calm. “Stand away from the door. I will leave in peace if you give me space.”
Hill gestured to his friends. Clarenceux slowly walked toward the door, his sword still at the ready, his left hand on the hilt of his dagger. The two men drew away, backing into the street. Clarenceux looked at Hill once more, then turned and marched back the way he had come, listening carefully in case he was followed.
25
Pieter Gervys, landlord of the Two Swans at Southampton, was half Flemish. Like many proprietors of houses of ill repute, he and his Flemish wife Marie lived on the fringes of society. In the old days, many stews and bordellos had been run by Flemish women, but then the great pox had come to England. One by one the stews were closed and the whores driven out of the cities. Those who had worked in Southwark had almost all left by the end of Henry VIII’s reign. The city officials never gave a thought to where they went. Many citizens saw the pox as a purifying thing, for they presumed the women had all turned to more honest occupations. In reality they had either turned to crime—organized theft—or removed themselves from the city to carry on their trade elsewhere, in less rigidly controlled towns. Thus Pieter and Marie had come to Southampton in 1555.
The inn they ran, the Two Swans, was on the quay. Behind its respectable-looking front building was a second hall, the “long hall” as it was affectionately known. In fact it was a barn that Peter and Marie used when the occasion demanded. The return of Raw Carew was just the sort of occasion. By eleven o’clock, they had been told he was in town. By twelve, two casks of ale had been opened in the long hall and a pig set to roast in the kitchen. By four o’clock, the real festivities were beginning. There were bagpipes playing, and Luke Treleaven was playing a fiddle, his green eyes dancing between his fellow survivors as they sat on long benches and guzzled their way through the feast of pork and ale. Hugh Dean was plucking a lute in time to the bagpipes and Francis Bidder was lying on the floor, half wishing he was asleep and half wishing he could get up and dance some more. Harry Gurney was in a corner, laughing, with his hand up the skirts of a fat young woman, and Stars Johnson and Skinner Simpkins were dancing with another woman, who darted her kisses between the two of them, teasing them. George Thompson—a young man known as Swift or Swift George to his fellow mariners—had his arms around a woman in a corner, as she helped herself to ale from his flagon. John Devenish was leading a dozen others and their newly found womenfolk in a drunken line of dancers. Charity Pool had tied her hair up in an extravagant style, complete with ribbons and flowers, and was dancing with a dark-haired lad from the ship, Nick Laver, who had a soft spot for her. Alice had in her clutches two young men: one was an apprentice shipwright whom she had taken a liking to on the quay, and the other had heard the dancing and come in from the street. A third woman from the ship, dark-eyed Juanita, known for her fierce temper, was dancing alone in her native Spanish style, four or five men clapping and cheering around her as she lifted her skirts, jumped, and swirled in time to the music. With a hundred people laughing, singing, and dancing, with meat in their stomachs and ale in their flagons, it was a heart-warming sight.
Raw Carew was sitting on a table with a half-full ceramic flagon of ale. He was keeping one eye on the door. His attention was mostly on Ursula. Tall and blond—but sadly now afflicted with a long scar across her face—she was the elder sister of Amy, the woman with whom Carew had spent two whole days and nights in this inn, nine weeks earlier. Ursula was dancing with Hugh Dean, who grinned at her from under his mop of black hair as if she had wholly bewitched him. He put down the lute, stood behind her, and cupped her breasts in his hands; she wiggled her hips provocatively, pressing herself into his hose. Hugh was beginning to feel the effects of the ale on top of the two days without sleep, and she slipped away from hi
m, holding her skirts.
“Amy not here?” Carew shouted at her as she spun around and another bearded sailor, Cleofas Harvy, a Breton, seized her and ran his hands appreciatively over her hips.
“She has a customer. One who pays good money,” she shouted back, succumbing to Cleofas’s groping hands and moving her neck as he almost slobbered over her with his ardent kisses.
“Who is he?”
“A watchman. From the fort.”
Carew nodded and said nothing more. It was a wise thing to do, to keep Captain Parkinson’s men happy. He turned back to the dancing. He had lost a ship, a number of friends, and a large amount of money—but with the help of Stars Johnson’s knowledge of the skies, he had saved many and steered them back to safety. The end of the evening would be as usual—a lot of drunken men and women, a lot of mess to clear up, and an argument about the bill. Pieter Gervys was generally tolerant but he could prove a stickler for money, and even if he was content to let the bill mount up, it made him grumpy. Gervys would add sums here and there because he knew that Carew had nowhere else to go. Here a debt on the shop book would never be written off, and it would never be cheap; but it would not lead to a covert attempt to bring the constables to him in the night. For his part, Gervys knew that when Carew had money he did not stint but spent it generously.
The dancing stopped and the bagpipes and fiddle began a merry jig, accompanied by a horn blown by a drunken woman from the ship and a tabor played skillfully by Kahlu. Carew laughed as John Devenish tried to lift Harry Gurney and then both men fell headlong, crashing into a trestle table that promptly collapsed, sending flagons flying and two men and their women sprawling on the floor. Recovering, Devenish lifted one of the women and turned her upside down, and danced with her that way until her would-be bedmate raised a fist at him. At that he put the woman down and started dancing with her lover instead.
The Roots of Betrayal Page 10
