“Sir, if you would wait inside, I will speak to her ladyship straightaway.”
The front of the house was not quite as Clarenceux had expected. The door opened into a long, narrow reception chamber lit by glazed windows facing the street, with a fireplace at both ends and an elaborate plastered ceiling. There was a table large enough for about twenty servants, with benches on both sides and brass candlesticks and wooden and pewter drinking vessels in the center. About halfway down the long chamber was a staircase with elaborately carved newel posts. Although Clarenceux had been inside this house once before, he had only seen the rear corridor and a wine vault. This wide entrance and servants’ dining hall was a surprise. Nor was the layout the only unexpected thing. His eyes were drawn to the shields carved above the fireplaces: they were plain red and blue-no coats of arms were depicted at all. And now he saw that the arms carved on the newel posts similarly were plain silver. Whatever had been painted there before had been obliterated.
The short man was gone a considerable time. When he reappeared, he bowed respectfully. “I do apologize for the delay, Mr. Clarenceux. Mrs. Barker says she would be very pleased to receive you in her audience chamber upstairs. If you would follow me.”
Clarenceux followed the servant up the wooden staircase. It was perfectly made; the oak steps were solid, like stone. The servant led him along a short corridor to a large room, with another decorated plaster ceiling and linen-fold paneling. One wall was covered with a bright tapestry showing Dido and Aeneas hand in hand at the mouth of a cave, with nymphs and satyrs watching them. Another wall was almost entirely glass: a myriad of small diamond-shaped quarrels, allowing in some of the evening sunlight. A log fire was burning in the fireplace; a table and chair in front of this were arranged for Mrs. Barker to write, not far from a candelabrum. She was seated there now, with various papers before her. A thin man in his early forties was attending her, standing quietly to one side.
Clarenceux bowed and studied her. Her face was narrow and elegant although her skin was wrinkled with age. Sharp blue eyes followed his movements. Her gray hair was pinned back in a neat coiffure, and her deep-blue velvet dress, cut at the front to expose a white silk lining, was pristine; its silk sleeves bound in gold brocade. She had an elegant poise, as if her body was balanced on a pivot and she was in total control of every movement, every nuance of expression and manner.
“Good day to you, Mr. Clarenceux,” she said. “I am pleased to meet you.”
“Good day, my lady. You have heard of me then?”
She smiled. “Of course. Rebecca Machyn often spoke of you. You were the herald in whom she placed all her trust, in whom she could confide. She made you sound very attractive.”
Clarenceux paused. “I rather thought that you were her confidante. I confess, of late she has shown no trust in me.”
“Oh? What makes you say that?”
“She has gone.”
Mrs. Barker looked at him with a concerned expression. “Gone? Where? Do you know if she has other protectors?”
“No, I do not know. That is exactly what worries me.”
Mrs. Barker looked up at her companion. “Leave us, Father. I wish to speak to Mr. Clarenceux alone.”
Father Tucker caught Clarenceux’s eye, then turned and bowed to Mrs. Barker. “Godspeed, my lady,” he said and departed. The candles guttered at the closing of the door.
Mrs. Barker moved a loose strand of gray hair that had fallen across her cheek. “I know you and Rebecca were close.”
“And I know that she used to find shelter with you, here.”
“But you do not know where she has gone?”
“No. Do you?”
“I did not even know that she had departed. I get out very little. Most people who need to see me come to this house. If they do not come here, then I do not hear news of them, it is as simple as that. My limbs do not permit me to walk very far and, for reasons of religion, few people in this city invite me to visit.”
Clarenceux walked closer. “Rebecca Machyn-has she stayed here or sought refuge with you since Christmas?”
“No, not at all. What makes you ask?”
“Her disappearance.”
Suddenly a silence grew between them, as if neither knew how to continue the conversation.
“Why are the coats of arms in this house painted over?” asked Clarenceux.
Mrs. Barker coughed slightly. “I had the old arms covered up when I moved in and I never had my own painted. It is always hard to find good workmen.”
Clarenceux frowned. “But you live next door to Painter Stainers’ Hall.”
She looked down. The silence continued. It became awkward.
“Is there something you are not telling me?” he asked.
“That man who has just left us, Father Tucker, is a priest of the old religion. He has a price on his head. Does that concern you?”
“If Mr. Walsingham were to catch him, there would be little chance of him keeping his head, whether or not there is a price on it. But his losing it would be none of my will. You know that.”
“Rebecca attended Masses here several times over the past three or four months. In my chapel.” She nodded in the direction of the tapestry.
“Do you have any idea why she might have fled?”
“No.”
“Do you know about the document that her husband used to guard?” he said.
She said nothing.
“Do you, Mistress Barker?”
She started to get to her feet, holding the edge of the table. He watched her walk toward the fire. The roundedness of her shoulders and back struck him as more revealing of her age and frailty than her eyes and face. Except that her frailty was only physical. In spirit she was as lithe as a young killing beast.
“You know what I am talking about,” he said to her back. “Did she tell you? Or did her husband?”
“A mutual friend told me. Years ago.”
“Did you know that Rebecca was planning to steal it from me?”
She turned to face him. “I protected her, Mr. Clarenceux. When there were soldiers in the street, searching her house, I looked after her. When you killed a royal guard outside, I protected you too, in a manner of speaking. I know what happened that day I sent her to you in the street as you lay beside the corpse. I told her to arrange your escape.”
“But why did you protect her? And why me? Was it for our benefit or yours?” The question hung in the air, turning it sour. “Did you intend to steal the document from me? Are you in league with the Knights of the Round Table?”
There was a coldness in her eyes now. Her poise was no longer delicately held; it was defiant-as the thinnest blade is not just the most delicate but also the sharpest. “You never showed any sign of using it-or even proclaiming its existence.”
“You are one of them,” he said, his mouth dry.
“No, Mr. Clarenceux, but I know what the Knights are planning to do. You would not act, so they had to. You had a choice; you had a chance. They felt frustrated and envious-angry too. If Widow Machyn hadn’t been persuaded to take the document, I suspect the Knights would have taken your children. They might even have threatened to kill them.”
“And Sir Percival? Are you Sir Percival?”
“No, Mr. Clarenceux. I am not one of the Knights. I am a woman.”
“But…they meet here, don’t they? In your chapel.”
She paused for a moment and almost smiled. “Would you consider joining them?”
“I do not approve of the use of that document to foment revolution.”
She shook her head. “You are not so far apart. You are a Catholic, no? At least, you believe the old ways are best. If you joined them, you could make your protest directly to them, in person.”
Clarenceux looked at her. “After they have betrayed me like this?”
“There has been a misunderstanding, that is all. I suggest that you join us for Mass in my chapel on Thursday, Ascension Day, at dawn. My servant
s will prepare a chamber for you if you wish to stay tomorrow night. Or, simply come here before four of the clock.”
Clarenceux walked slowly to the tapestry and lifted the corner, seeing the door concealed in the wainscoting. He glanced back at Mrs. Barker. The Knights had arranged the theft. They had organized Rebecca’s departure. He had to put himself in their hands to find out where she had taken the document. “Very well. I will come for Mass on Ascension Day.”
27
Raw Carew stumbled on the stairs in the near darkness. For a moment he felt dizzy, and placed a hand on the wall. He breathed deeply, felt Ursula’s arm around him, and heard the fiddle and singing in the hall. With a candle in her other hand, she proceeded to help him up the stairs. “I need a bed,” he sang. “A bed. A bed. A place for my head.”
“And I thought you were the one man I could count on for a night of passion,” she sighed. She took her arm off Carew to steady the candle she was carrying and then clasped his hand, pulling him up the stairs. He came along willingly, reaching down and tugging at her skirt. She knocked his hand away. “Not now, not here. Later.”
Carew straightened himself and walked boldly and determinedly into her chamber. It was a small attic room, with a sloping ceiling, next door to her sister’s. It had a ewer in one corner, a chest, and a bed-and nothing else. The bed was plain and, when he sat on it, did not give. It was not slung with ropes but had a base of planks beneath the mattress. He lay back, with his head on the pillow, and started to lose consciousness-until Ursula brought him wide awake by slapping his face, lifting her skirts, straddling him, and kissing him on the lips. “If all you want to do is sleep, you can sleep downstairs. I need a man who is going to do his loving and paying. You just seem to want to drift off.”
At those words, still with his eyes shut, Carew put his arms out and hugged her to him. “Take your clothes off,” he growled in her ear. “If you’re going to preach at me, you can preach at me naked.”
She smiled and promptly began to undress.
The bed in the next room started knocking rhythmically against the wall. “Amy?” he asked, unlacing his soft leather shoes as he lay on the bed and throwing them across the room one by one.
“That’s my sister,” replied Ursula. “Why? Would you rather be in there than in here?”
Carew opened his eyes. “No, not at all. I have no desire to spend a night with one of Captain Parkinson’s men.” He took off his hosen, breeches, jerkin, and shirt and lay watching her in the candlelight, taking in her lovely nakedness. He was wearing nothing but his red scarf. She clambered over him, naked on all fours, and kissed him. He ran his hands over her hips and then moved them to caress her scarred cheek.
“Six days ago I was fighting below decks with Barbary pirates in the mouth of the Channel,” he said. “Two days ago I was fighting waves thirty or forty feet high and seeing the drowned bodies of friends float away. Moments like this are good. Touching you is all I want. You are every woman in the world to me now, every kindness, and every gesture of love. You are everything that is not the green sea of darkness.”
28
Wednesday, May 10
Carew awoke at the sound of voices in the next room. By the bright light creeping in between the shutters he could see that the sun was already up. Ursula lay naked beside him, still asleep. Blinking, he raised himself onto an elbow and looked around at the shadowy shapes.
The door to the next chamber closed. A moment later he heard a man’s footsteps going down the staircase. He thought about getting up, but was unwilling to break the spell of the night. Normally a night on land made him nervous and distrusting of his comfort; but this deep sleep had been different. He had come ashore without a boat and so none of the authorities even knew he was here. They would do soon, as rumors shifted from careful whispers to careless remarks. But not yet.
He pulled the sheet back slightly to look at Ursula as she slept. She stirred but her eyes remained closed. Her breasts were still rounded and young, her nipples pink and small. Her belly was not too thin, unlike so many whores in seafaring towns, whose lives were a struggle to make enough money to eat, nor did it show any sign of stretch marks from childbearing. But she had two scars on her arms as well as the one on her face. In her own way she had fought to survive in a world that was as dangerous and unpredictable for her as it was for him.
She opened her eyes and smiled at him. Then she reached forward and pulled him closer, to kiss him. “Would Mr. Carew like some more?” she whispered.
The door latch rattled. A voice called, “Is Raw with you?”
It was Amy. Ursula slipped out of bed, naked, and unlocked the chamber door. She immediately turned and nipped back into the bed.
Amy entered, dressed in a linen night-shift. Her long red hair swirled around her head and she turned to the door and locked it. Then, with a skip, she ran over to Carew’s side of the bed and, in a single swift movement, bent down and lifted the night-shift straight over her head.
“This is what I call a proper greeting,” said Carew, as he moved over on the bed to make room for her.
“Don’t do him for free, Amy,” said Ursula, putting her arm around Carew’s waist. “He hasn’t come back with a treasure-laden ship yet. In fact, he hasn’t come back with a ship at all.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Amy. She kissed Carew. He liked the softness of her lips and her skin, which smelt of apples. She drew away and looked him in the eye. “Pillow talk-that is our rich ship,” she said. Lying down beside Carew, she went on, “John Prouze spent all afternoon and all night with me. He’s gone now because he has to watch the quay. The truth is, he is expecting a consignment of treasure to be offloaded here, in Southampton.”
“What sort of treasure?” asked Carew, seeing the excitement in her eyes.
“Who cares what sort of treasure? Gold, jewels-I don’t know.” She kissed him again, more passionately.
“Tell us more,” said Ursula, putting her hand between their faces. Amy giggled. “No, tell us, truly.” Ursula put her arm around Carew. “No more kissing until you do.”
Amy propped herself on an elbow. “We were eating in my chamber yester evening, Prouze and me, and I asked him if he wanted an early night, in a joking way. And he said, ‘Yes, indeed, for I must be off early to watch the quay.’ So I replied, ‘Watch duty, is it? Extorting bribes for Captain Cutthroat?’ And he told me, ‘No, Captain Cutthroat is away, but an order has arrived from London to watch the quay for a ship with three St. George’s flags on its main mast. It will anchor out in Southampton Water.’ Prouze said that the ship’s captain will send a rowboat to shore with the treasure-he called it ‘the Catholic Treasure.’”
Carew felt Ursula kissing his shoulder. Her hand was moving down his body, stroking his midriff. He stayed her hand with his own. “When is this ship arriving? Today?”
“Maybe. Prouze said that he’d probably have to wait ages for it to come in and he’d rather be in bed with me.”
Carew pushed Ursula’s hand away. “What does Prouze look like? Do I know him?”
“Short tapering beard, young, a bit bad tempered. Nothing unusual. He has a high opinion of himself but actually is as frightened of Captain Parkinson as everyone else is.”
Carew clambered over Amy. He stepped across the bare boards of the chamber to the window and opened the shutters. There was early-morning sunshine across the roofs outside, seagulls were calling across the town. The roofs were all at uneven angles, as if they had been strewn there, and then the gaps in-filled with more roofs: most covered with wooden shingles, a few with slates, and some with tiles. Beyond, between two steeply inclined roofs, he could see a small section of the quay, where already the workmen and laborers were beginning to prepare for the day’s lading. A wooden crane was in position above a barge and two men were rolling a huge cask, avoiding a procession of men approaching another boat with sacks on their backs. Carew could see the tops of the masts of the larger ships moored there, but the a
ngle of the window prevented him from looking across Southampton Water itself.
He spotted a gully between two adjoining roofs overlooking the quay. Sticks and debris lay there with the seagulls’ guano. “Can one get down there, to that gap between the two houses?” he asked.
Amy slipped out of the bed and came and stood beside him. “Only with a ladder, from the gallery.” She pointed to a corner of the inn’s external staircase.
Carew leaned out further, estimating the drop and the size of the ladder needed. Then he came back in and looked at Amy standing there naked beside him. He saw the freckles across her shoulders and her blue-eyed smile. Then he glanced at Ursula watching him from the bed. Putting his arm around Amy, he kissed her neck and felt his desire stir. He pushed her back toward the bed and slapped her rump as she turned. “If that ship truly has gold aboard it, you women are in for one hell of a payday.”
29
Clarenceux opened his eyes. He was lying on his bed, fully clothed. A moment later the hell of his situation cascaded down on him, as if each individual worry had been a heavy volume and someone had tipped a whole press of books on top of him. The document…his wife in Chislehurst. Ascension Day morning. Mrs. Barker in league with the Knights of the Round Table. They had turned Rebecca against him. He was going to enter the lions’ den.
Crossing himself, he said a prayer, got off the bed, and opened the shutters. He then bent down to the basin where yesterday’s water still remained and splashed that over his face, rinsing his hands thoroughly and wiping them on a dirty linen towel nearby. There he paused, listening. He could hear nothing unusual. After reaching for the dagger under his pillow and the sword hanging from one of the bedposts, he went down to the kitchen at the back of his house.
The fire was cold. The bread on the worktable was old and hard. He forgot the basics of managing a household when he was by himself. Finding a piece of cheese, he started to eat.
The Roots of Betrayal c-2 Page 11
