The Roots of Betrayal

by James Forrester

  70

  Rebecca Machyn watched Mr. Wheatsheafen, the surgeon, as he drew the specially sharpened small knife from his set of tools. He was a kindly man, a little too portly to be able to move around the confined space with ease. She knelt by the wounded sailor’s bed and set the bowl beneath his elbow, pulling away a loose piece of straw that was poking through the old mattress. The patient’s shirtsleeve had already been rolled up and pinned so it would not be made dirty by the bleeding. His inner arm was punctuated with the scars of earlier cuts. He was about twenty years of age and bearded. His head was in a bandage.

  “You’ve been bled a good few times before, William,” said Mr. Wheatsheafen.

  “Those were precautionary,” the sailor replied, blinking. His eyes were bloodshot. “My father used to say that to be bled once a moon was the best way to be sure of a long life.”

  Wheatsheafen smiled. “Yes, well, we’re not living in the dark ages now. I don’t believe in bleeding unless it’s necessary. Are you ready, Nurse Machyn?”

  Rebecca nodded. William tensed his muscles and looked at the roof beams. His toes squirmed as the surgeon carefully felt for the basilic vein and pressed deeply, cutting through the skin. Blood seeped rapidly into the cut and then began to flow steadily into the bowl Rebecca held.

  “How was his urine this morning?” asked Wheatsheafen as he watched the blood. He dabbed a finger in the bowl, raised it to his lips, and tasted it.

  “Still cloudy and brown, but not as brown as yesterday,” Rebecca replied.

  “And the smell?”

  Rebecca hesitated. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wheatsheafen. I do not know how to describe it. I’ve kept the flask, as you suggested. I will get it for you after this.”

  “Good. Yes, I will have a sniff. Now, just a minute more and then this sacrificial lamb will have shed quite enough blood to improve his health.” He looked at the patient. “Get those humors back in balance, eh, William? Calm those turbulent brown waters of yours.” Wheatsheafen lowered his voice and bent closer to Rebecca’s ear. “Have you looked at that dressing on Brownjohn’s leg this morning?”

  Rebecca did not look away from the bleeding. “I know it is unhealthy to move a dressing unnecessarily. So I left it as it was.”

  Wheatsheafen nodded. “I agree. And I understand. I would not want to move it either. But you know what we are likely to see?”

  “I fear so, Mr. Wheatsheafen.”

  “You’re a good woman, Nurse Machyn.”

  “Indeed she is,” said William, looking at her as she staunched the flow and wound the bandage around his arm. “There is something about a pair of brown eyes that makes being bled much sweeter.”

  “Quite,” replied Wheatsheafen. “The medicine of beauty is a wonderful thing. I hope you can stay here, Nurse Machyn. Or may we call you Rebecca?”

  “You may call me Rebecca, if you wish,” she said, getting to her feet. “As for staying…I have no pressing commitments elsewhere. If you need me here for another week or another month, then let us see. I never meant to come here but, now I have employment, I feel more at home than I have done since my husband died.”

  “There you go, William,” said Wheatsheafen. “Your prayers are answered. You are bound to be cured of that blessed head wound of yours, with both Rebecca’s loving care and my surgical knife.” Then to Rebecca he said, “Come, we must attend to Brownjohn.”

  Rebecca followed Mr. Wheatsheafen along the hall, past the hearth and five other beds to where a young man of seventeen lay. He was lying on his side, shivering with fever; his chin covered in stubble, his dark hair a mess, his brow covered in sweat.

  Mr. Wheatsheafen gestured to Rebecca to remove the bandage that covered his right leg. “How are you feeling, John?” he asked.

  John did not stir or look up. “Chilled as a reptile, hot as a fire. More in pain than the dead. More dead than in pain.”

  Rebecca started cutting the bandage with a pair of scissors. The smell of the necrotic flesh was nauseating: Wheatsheafen watched her out of a corner of one eye. She gagged with the smell but continued cutting. Slowly the bandage came away to reveal a horrifying sight. The flesh of the young man’s lower leg had rotted away on the outer side, leaving a greenish-yellow mess around the bone. Lower, the blackness of gangrene had consumed the foot. The two smaller toes were shriveled and blackened, and looked like those of a long-buried corpse; the larger ones simply were not there. Flesh, bones, tissue—everything had rotted away, leaving a suppurating indent of green slime in that part of the blackened foot.

  Rebecca closed her eyes, struggling with the smell and the urge to be sick.

  “I’ve seen worse,” said Wheatsheafen brightly, looking hard at the area of the lost toes and the rotten leg. “But that is too far gone to use either leeches or maggots. It seems to me best, John, if we take you through to the fire in the clerks’ hall. You’d like some mutton, wouldn’t you? And some chicken broth. Rebecca, would you go and fetch Robert and Christopher from the castle, to help carry John? And fetch two quarts of sack from the store for our young friend, to ease his pain.”

  He gave her a knowing look. She understood. They were going to have to cut off the young man’s leg, and it would take three of them to hold him down after they had got him drunk and tied him to the chair. Few men could stay calm while a surgeon sawed through the bone. Still holding her breath and looking white as a sheet, she stood up and walked down the center of the hall past the beds, to the door, and out into the bright light.

  There was a girl waiting there, about ten years of age, with long brown hair and a slightly grubby mulberry dress. Rebecca recognized her as one of the villagers’ daughters. “Are you Widow Machyn?” the girl inquired.

  Rebecca was still feeling ill. She did not want to speak. She took a deep breath and looked at the girl. “I am. Why do you need to know?”

  “There’s a man come to see you,” she said nervously. “He said to tell you, if you be still at liberty, please to meet with him immediately.”

  Rebecca glanced across the rutted mud and grassy tufts of the outer bailey to the gatehouse. No one was rushing toward them; there seemed no immediate danger. Why say “if you be at liberty”? She began to walk toward the castle in the corner of the bailey. “Did he tell you his name?”

  “Clarion…Clarying—something like that.” The girl was walking beside her.

  Rebecca stopped. “Clarenceux?”

  “Yes, that’s the name,” the girl said, pleased with herself. Then she saw the look on Rebecca’s face. “Have I said something wrong?”

  For what seemed a long time, Rebecca did not move or say anything. Then she asked, “No, no…What color hair does this man have? Is he bearded? What is he wearing?”

  The girl looked back toward the gatehouse, as if she wanted to run away.

  “His hair is curled, black, and he has a beard the same color. He is a very tall man, and very dirty and wet, from the river.”

  “Oh my God.” Rebecca looked back at the long barracks building that served as the hospital hall, where she had just been. She could not leave now, whatever the problem. She knelt down beside the girl, holding her hand. “This is important. Take Mr. Clarenceux to Widow Baker’s house, as quickly as you can. If Widow Baker is there, tell her that I need to speak to Mr. Clarenceux and that she should look after him until I am free of my duties here. If she is not there, tell Mr. Clarenceux to conceal himself in the yard. I will come as soon as I can. Go now, quickly.”

  Rebecca was distracted throughout the operation on young Brownjohn. He had not reacted well to the news that he would lose his leg. Mr. Wheatsheafen had explained how the gangrene would kill him if the leg was not taken off. “It is a very simple choice,” he told him. “You can either live with one leg or die with two.”

  What followed was a half-hour of trauma. They forced Brownjohn to drink too much wine, tyin
g his body and leg to the seat and his gangrenous foot to a small trestle. They applied a tourniquet, gagging him, and then tying him tighter. Then there had been the waiting—the awful waiting—while the knives and saws were revealed and arranged. Mr. Wheatsheafen had made a deep incision, to slice through the good flesh, well above the knee. Blood had flowed. Brownjohn had bucked and struggled in his bonds while the two men held him with ropes and Rebecca pressed her face to his, trying to comfort him in the only way she knew. Then, when Wheatsheafen finally had sliced through the flesh, exposing the muscle, sinew, veins and fat, he picked up the saw. This terrified the young man even more than the slicing through his flesh. The men from the castle were hard pressed to hold him still and the sound of the blade grating through the bone was terrible; but they were strong and experienced. Rebecca put her hands over John’s eyes and kissed him, trying to soothe him while the sawing was in progress. When it was done, and the severed limb was lying in a bucket, she dressed the wound as Mr. Wheatsheafen directed, although her hands were trembling. Later, when Brownjohn was more at peace and drowsy, and the gag had been removed, she cleaned the sweat and grime from his brow.

  She turned away from Brownjohn and looked at Mr. Wheatsheafen, who was washing his hands in a bucket of water. She waited until he had finished, then washed her own hands. As she did so, and he dried his on a towel, she said to him, “I have to go now.”

  “Was it the cutting? There are other patients to see to; attending to them will help you forget this.”

  “No, it’s not me. It’s not the cutting. I have to see someone urgently, at Widow Baker’s.”

  Wheatsheafen said nothing at first. “Come back as soon as you can, Rebecca. You know how much you are needed here.” He handed her the towel. “I appreciate your work. Most good women only want to look after their own kin, or attend to babies and children. Few and far are the kind souls who really care for others.”

  Rebecca put down the towel and turned toward the door. Opening it, she stopped and drew back. Striding toward the long hospital hall from the outer gatehouse were two men. One of them was Captain Parkinson.

  “Rebecca, is everything all right?” asked Wheatsheafen.

  “Those men,” she said. She turned to him and spoke urgently. “I need to get back to the village, Mr. Wheatsheafen. I need your help. Please. Those men out there are looking for me.”

  “You have a past that is not yet past. I thought you were too good to be true.”

  “No, believe me—I am going to come back here. I mean to stay and help with the hospital. But the man who is waiting for me—it is complicated. I need to talk to him. I cannot begin to tell you how serious this is. I must hide…”

  “There is a path around the walls,” said Wheatsheafen, “from the Watergate.”

  “I’ll show her the way,” said Robert. “There’s a door that leads out of the back of this building; the path will take us to the churchyard. From there it is easy to reach the gate.”

  “Thank you. Quickly, I must go now,” she said.

  “When will you be back?” asked Wheatsheafen.

  “Later today, I hope.”

  “Good luck. I look forward to your return. Your past is mysterious—I am intrigued.”

  71

  Rebecca was nervous as she followed Robert through the churchyard. She knew that at any moment she could be called back by Parkinson. What then? Robert was from the castle garrison, a royal soldier; he could not disobey Captain Parkinson. But no one did call her. They passed the far side of the church and approached the gate facing the water. No one stopped them as they went out that way and walked between the old walls and the beach, eventually finding the path that led into the village.

  Widow Baker lived in a cottage on a bend in the lane leading back to Fareham. She also assisted in the naval hospital in the castle, where Rebecca had been helping for the last week. Hers was the only house outside the walls Rebecca had visited; it was more in hope than in confidence that she had directed Clarenceux there. Hence she felt doubly nervous as she approached. She bade Robert to return to the castle when she was within sight of the cottage.

  It was not a pretty building. The thatch needed attention and there was a shirt hanging from an open upstairs window. The door was locked, which suggested Widow Baker was out. Rebecca knocked with her knuckles; there was no answer. She walked around the side of the house across the dusty yard, toward a hen house and a partly collapsed, ivy-covered cart house at the rear.

  Clarenceux saw her approaching and stepped out slightly from where he was hiding, behind the cart house. He looked awful. His hair and beard were filthy, his shoulder covered in blood, his forehead cut, his clothes torn, and his legs covered in mud. He was clutching his side, where his ribs were causing him pain. His clothes were all wet and he was shivering. His hands were covered in dried blood. Everything about him was changed from the proud herald she had known in London. Only the intense dark eyes were the same.

  He said nothing. He looked at her dowdy clothes, her blood-flecked smock and gown, her coif and plain leather shoes. She had always had an air of tragic beauty about her, a terrible sadness that made the expression in her brown eyes seem all the more moving; but now that sadness seemed also to speak about other people’s suffering.

  “You are wet,” she said at last.

  He swallowed and felt the tears well up in his eyes. “I had to swim the river. I was lucky—Carew killed all Parkinson’s men and destroyed his boats at Calshot, so he had to—”

  “Carew? Who is he?”

  Clarenceux was about to explain but suddenly the recent past did not seem important. Looking into her eyes he saw the same affection, the same loveliness he had always seen in her. He longed to hold her but he knew he looked and smelled disgusting. And under it all there was the knowledge that she had betrayed him.

  “I need to know what happened—about the document,” he said hoarsely. “I need to know why you agreed to take it.”

  Rebecca looked away. “I wish there was somewhere we could go to talk.”

  “Tell me here. Now, right now.” There was more force in his voice than he intended.

  She looked back at him. “Very well. My life has been hell ever since last December. First my husband died. You remember that? They tortured him to death. Then there was that sheer panic as you and I struggled to stay alive. And then, when all was well again for me, they started to use me…”

  “Who?”

  “The Knights of the Round Table and Mrs. Barker. By God’s love, was I mistaken about her. I was so grateful for her care and attention when Henry died, but all the time she was just trying to get close to me, to get the document from me. After I told her you had it, she changed. She became more insistent. She would send a man for me and entertain me with rich food and give me money, and always she would slip in questions about you and your family. She wanted to know whether we had met, whether we had been intimate, whether I had seen the document in your house. She asked where you kept your books, how often you entertained friends and guests, and how often you went down to the country. When I stopped going to see her, in March, she sent two men to demand I come to her. When I refused, they hauled me there. You can guess the rest.”

  “No, no, I can’t. Tell me.”

  Rebecca sighed and spoke with her eyes closed. “Mrs. Barker and the three men who were always there demanded that I steal the document from you. At first they asked kindly, then they tried to bribe me. They offered me two hundred pounds for it, then two hundred and fifty, then three hundred…”

  “Why did you not tell me?”

  “Because they said if I told you, they would have to resort to a different strategy. They were going to take your wife and daughters and threaten to drown them in front of you unless you gave them what they wanted. And no doubt they would have used me similarly. They knew I loved you and that you were fond of me. They
knew that.”

  The words she had just spoken, so long whispered in Clarenceux’s mind, words of love, touched his heart.

  Rebecca raised her hands in desperation. “What could I do? Eventually I had to give them something, so I said I would help. They told me they had a plan. On a certain day, my brother was to help me break into your house—blacksmiths are good at these things. The other Knights were to come with us too, and some of their helpers, to distract you or to overpower you and anyone else who might be in the house. The next morning, Robert and I would be taken by ship to the north. We were to be lodged at a place that had been arranged, and then we were to go on into Scotland by road, when it was safe, to meet the Queen of Scots and give her the document in person. The day set for the theft was a Saturday, in the afternoon. But that morning my brother came to me and told me to go with him immediately, and to bring nothing but the clothes I was standing up in. He led me to the docks, where we boarded a boat, the Davy, which took us to Southampton.”

  Clarenceux was dumbfounded. “You did not steal the document?”

  Rebecca looked at him, puzzled. “It was taken? I did not know.”

  “I thought that you would be able to tell me who had taken it from you.”

  “Surely it was Mrs. Barker and the Knights?”

  “No. They interrogated me, wanting to know where it had gone and where you…” He raised his hands slowly. “O, Lord Almighty—it was Cecil.” Clarenceux struck his forehead. “Cecil gave the instructions for you to be brought to Calshot. He preempted the theft by removing you and took the document himself. Such duplicity…What happened to your brother?”