The Roots of Betrayal c-2

by James Forrester

  “It was at Boulogne, was it not?” said Sir Peter.

  “Indeed. I was with the duke of Suffolk’s men. I am a herald now-Clarenceux King of Arms.”

  “I realize.” Sir Peter’s eyes moved over Clarenceux’s scorched and scarred figure. “But you have not entirely given up the sword for the pen, I see?”

  Clarenceux said nothing.

  “Leave us, Gardiner,” said Sir Peter. The man by the door bowed and left the cabin.

  When the door was latched, Sir Peter walked over to it and pushed the bolt across. He paused and then said, “You owe me an explanation-at the very least.” He returned to the table and took the top off the wine flask and poured a draught into the mug. He resealed the flask.

  “Is it not straightforward? You attacked the Davy because she had been taken by your nephew, Raw Carew…”

  Sir Peter held up a hand. “Stop right there. The man who calls himself Ralph Carew may have been the fruit of my late brother’s loins, but that was simply recreational. Not procreational. Don’t presume that I recognize him as a member of my family.” He looked Clarenceux in the eye. “If I see a reflection of my own youth in his exploits, then that is a private source of amusement. Publicly, you understand, he is nothing but a common thief and a pirate.”

  Clarenceux remembered Sir Peter had come very close to being a renegade in the past. He had been expelled from various schools and had ended up serving at the court of the French king and in the service of the Marquis of Saluzzo, an ideal education for a courtier. But character aside, he had just sustained terrible losses at the hands of his illegitimate nephew. Why is he not angry? Why is he not seeking explanations?

  Sir Peter took a draught of his wine. “I received a letter from Francis Walsingham two days ago telling me to intercept the Davy and to take you prisoner. He instructed me to sink the ship rather than let you get away.”

  Clarenceux looked around the room, his brain struck with the surprise. How had Walsingham known? “I thought you were patrolling against pirates and that I just was unlucky,” he replied.

  “Think again. Ralph of Calais is a dangerous adversary-he has both imagination and courage. If he had chosen a different path in life, I would be glad to acknowledge him. But I held back in this ship during this morning’s encounter for good reason. I was not certain that four ships would be enough to capture you while he was in command of the Davy. So I count this a great success. I only lost two vessels and my men either killed or captured the whole misbegotten crew sailing with Ralph-and that will include the rare bird himself, when he comes down from his perch. On top of that, I succeeded in my main mission.”

  Sir Peter picked up a stool and placed it near the table. Just as he did so, a larger wave tipped the ship slightly further than usual and he had to steady his wine mug. The flask fell off the table. He picked it up and sat down, facing Clarenceux. “I know Walsingham from Parliament. He is a devious man-I knew the letter came from him, even though he sent it in Sir William Cecil’s name, because there was no seal. Cecil, as the queen’s Secretary, would have applied the queen’s seal. So I am intrigued that Walsingham did not explain the meaning or purpose of this mission. Men who are physically weak, as he is, are always wary of how military men see them, so they tend to explain everything at tedious length. But he did not. That makes me curious. It makes me hopeful that you will tell me.”

  “It is a long story.”

  “Then sit down and start telling it. It will while away the time until Ralph of Calais considers his position. Be careful you leave nothing out.”

  Clarenceux sat down. He placed his left hand on the table and explained about the Percy-Boleyn marriage agreement and how Sir William Cecil had entrusted it to his keeping. He spoke of Rebecca Machyn and how she had taken it on the instructions of the Catholic Knights of the Round Table and then betrayed them. He spoke about how Nicholas Denisot had paid for her to go to Southampton in the Davy, and how he, Clarenceux, was even now trying to track her down. He mentioned his being tortured in the house of Mrs. Barker, knowing that the indication of his opposition to a Catholic cause would appeal to Sir Peter; and he told him about the scar in his right hand, where Kahlu had cut him three days earlier.

  “Show me,” demanded Sir Peter. Clarenceux placed his right hand on the table. Sir Peter looked at it and grunted. “What happened to that man, Kahlu?”

  “Your men killed him on the deck of this ship.”

  “You have been avenged then,” said Sir Peter.

  “I am not looking for vengeance. If I were, I would spend all my time fighting old battles.”

  “A wise man. What are you looking for?”

  “The woman who betrayed me.”

  “Not so wise after all.” Sir Peter scratched his bearded chin. “I still do not see why Walsingham is so desperate to capture you.”

  “Hatred. Distrust. I don’t know-you would have to ask him yourself. But this much I do know: if that document stays in the hands of Catholic leaders, there will be a war. Walsingham believes that my purpose is to ensure it reaches them. In truth, I am trying to reclaim it and stop that war. You know from your own experience how damaging a Catholic conspiracy can be.”

  Sir Peter did not like to be reminded of the fact. His suppression of the rebellion in 1549 had led to a massacre so that his name was a byword for horror in his native county.

  “There are reasons not to trust you,” he said. “You escaped from Cecil House-very much to Sir William’s embarrassment, I imagine.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “And you consorted with pirates.”

  Clarenceux looked into Sir Peter’s eyes. “Again, I had no choice.”

  “And, finally, you yourself are a Catholic.”

  Clarenceux hesitated. “In that too I have no choice.”

  Sir Peter rose to his feet. “You cannot pass all your faults on to God, Mr. Clarenceux. You cannot blame Him for your sins, for your misdeeds, saying you have no choice. You cannot blame those who locked you up for the fact you escaped. You cannot blame the man who orders you to commit a wrong; you can always rebel. That is why Protestantism-to protest-is the only way.”

  Clarenceux watched as Sir Peter walked to the window, looking out to sea. “You too could protest,” he said to the man’s back.

  “What do you mean?” asked Sir Peter.

  “You could rebel. You do not have to take me to Walsingham. You could set me ashore in Southampton-and tell Walsingham I was still on the Davy when she sank. You know what is at stake.”

  Sir Peter shook his head. “I do not need to disobey orders. I have lost too much even to entertain the idea. You are going to come with me and face Sir William Cecil. If you are as well intentioned and as innocent as you claim, he will let you go.”

  At that moment Clarenceux heard the loud report of a musket shot. Suddenly there were many shouts of alarm from outside. There was a second musket shot.

  Sir Peter reluctantly turned away from Clarenceux and unbolted the door just as there came a loud knocking. “What?”

  “One of the pirates has jumped. He climbed to the top of the mast and jumped into the sea.”

  “Stay here,” Sir Peter said to Clarenceux, shutting the cabin door behind him.

  Clarenceux clenched his fist in frustration. He could see no way out of this situation. He would be taken back to London. No one would stand up for him now. He felt so tired-too tired even to shed tears. He heard the shouts and stood up to look out of the window on the landward side of the ship. It was a good six miles to the shore. He had no doubt that it was Carew who had jumped; but even so, he had not resurfaced. The sea was rough and there was no sign of anyone swimming. Even if Carew could swim the six miles, doing so against the currents would have been nigh on impossible, especially in heavy seas. He had made a final, desperate bid for freedom-and that desperation would be his end. It was a reflection of the man’s spirit. No one could destroy him-only he could destroy himself.

  Clarenceu
x crossed himself and said a short prayer for the pirate, lest his atheistic soul spend eternity in damnation. He forgave him for kidnapping him. He looked at the wound in his hand and forgave him that too. He forgave him for leading him into the disaster he now faced. He forgave him everything.

  The seas rolled, green and gray-blue. A seagull swooped low, fighting against the breeze, before turning and flying northward. In the distance, pieces of broken timber from the Davy and the other sunken ships bobbed about on the water. No one was bothering to rescue the dead bodies from the sea. They were just floating, to be glimpsed for a moment at the swell of a wave, then to disappear.

  He turned from the sea where Carew had plunged and looked east, from the rear of the galleon. There was no debris. Maybe battles would be fought there one day and for a brief hour or two it would be a blood-soaked, timber-littered place of fear and sorrow. When the guns fell quiet, it would gradually clear itself and return to being just another stretch of water, rolling for eternity.

  Running his hand across the window he moved around and looked toward the south. Here an even wider stretch of water, unbounded by land, presented itself. He knew the Channel here was sixty miles wide. Apart from a ship on the horizon, there was nothing to see at all but the waves. Sky and sea: a simplicity that reminded him again of the Creation story. And on that sea there was nothing: no birds, no flotsam, nothing. Just that one tiny, distant ship.

  As he looked across the great swell of the sea, however, he noticed a head. A wave rose and the head rose and fell with it. He looked harder and saw it again.

  Raw Carew was swimming-toward France.

  60

  Clarenceux was placed in the hold with the other captured men. Skinner had given himself up shortly after Carew had leaped from the masthead. He had been soundly beaten, so that his face was bloody and one eye swollen; and then he had been whipped, so that his back was cut and sore. Eventually he had passed out. After lying on deck for a short while, he had been woken and dragged down into the ship and dropped into the hold, joining the others. All eight of them were hungry and thirsty, having had nothing to eat or drink since the previous day. All were despondent-and certainly no happier for knowing that the captain of the ship was the indomitable Sir Peter Carew.

  Clarenceux lay against the side of the ship, feeling it rolling. Everything had gone wrong. It even seemed that Raw Carew had abandoned them to their fate. The man’s instinct, Clarenceux decided, was self-preservation. That allowed him only a limited scope for saving his companions. Besides, what could he do now? He had no ship, most of his men were dead, and the few who were not were prisoners aboard a ship captained by Sir Peter. The only stroke of luck that they had had was that Sir Peter had not hanged them immediately. He was inclined to take them to London to be hanged on the dock. He wanted an audience.

  The bilge water had long since soaked Clarenceux’s feet. But his extreme tiredness meant that every so often he would drowse. When he did, he dreamed of being in a battle and lying on the ground, tied up, waiting for the victorious enemy to put a bullet in his brain. He also dreamed of being at the top of the mast of an extremely tall ship, hundreds of feet above the deck, swaying from side to side in a huge storm, trying to time his jump so that he missed hitting the boat. Lightning was striking around him. Then, at the moment of jumping, he would wake himself with a jolt, leaving his dream-self forever falling into the turbulent sea.

  “I wonder where is Raw now,” muttered Johnson. “And the others.”

  “Being eaten by fish,” replied Francis. “We are all that’s left-except Alice and Juanita.”

  “You don’t think Raw got away?”

  “How high is the main mast? He must have fallen seventy feet. He didn’t come up again.”

  “He did,” Clarenceux said in a parched voice. “I saw him. He started swimming toward France.”

  Francis laughed. “France is nearly sixty miles away.” Then he realized the truth of his words and stopped.

  There was silence.

  “He’s abandoned us then,” said John Dunbar.

  “What else could he do?” replied Francis. “He can’t rescue us all, not singlehanded.”

  There was a groan.

  “Skinner? Are you awake?”

  “He timed it-the jump,” said Skinner.

  “What was his plan?” asked Johnson.

  “Just to jump. A musket ball had gone through…through his leg,” said Skinner. He coughed and choked, and vomited. “The shot had smashed the bone and he was in a lot of pain. He reckoned he had to go then, before he grew more tired.”

  Clarenceux was amazed. “He jumped seventy feet with a broken leg? And swam away?”

  “You saw him.”

  There was a long silence as the men appreciated the courage and determination and the probable futility of the act. After a while Johnson said, “He’ll be back. He’s probably already planning how to rescue us.”

  “Clarenceux, have you spoken to the captain?” asked Francis.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Is he going to let you go?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? You told him you’re not one of us?” said Johnson.

  Clarenceux did not want to admit that he himself was the reason the Davy had been attacked. “I took part in the fighting too.”

  “You could tell him about his family history,” said Skinner, who was now trying to sit up. “I bet he has…more than seven acres.”

  “He’s penniless. He owes the Crown more than two thousand pounds. Last year he sold Mohuns Ottery, the estate in Devon that his family had owned for two hundred years.”

  “He should join us then,” said Francis.

  Clarenceux gave a mock laugh. “There’s not much distance between him and piracy. He knows that… That’s why he’s so wary. We all know it takes a pirate to catch a pirate, so the only way he can stay on the right side of the law is to keep hauling in you lot.”

  “He must have done something wrong in the past,” said Francis.

  “He was attainted for treason along with Thomas Wyatt in the last reign. For some reason, though, only Wyatt was executed. Sir Peter was given a reprieve.”

  A long silence followed. Clarenceux shifted his position, trying to make himself more comfortable. The scratch on his arm stung with the salt encrusted on the wound. His injured hand also hurt. He tried to remember the hours at Mrs. Barker’s house. That had been a hell of a different sort, a drugged hell. He shifted again in the stinking darkness. This could not be attributed to a drug. There was no doubting its reality.

  “No money, a pirate at heart, and capable of treason. He sounds like a man who would be open to a bribe,” said Francis.

  “It would need to be a very big bribe,” answered Clarenceux. “Two thousand pounds would disappear straight away. I do not have that sort of money.”

  “Raw does,” said Johnson. “He keeps it buried in a secret location on an island.”

  “That’s a lie,” replied Bidder. “He’s always without money.”

  “He told me,” Johnson insisted. “He buried a lot of treasure from the old days. On an island.”

  “And you believed him? He’s a storyteller but you are an even better dreamer.”

  “Ireland,” muttered Clarenceux aloud.

  “Island or Ireland?” asked Francis.

  “Ireland-the barony of Idrone. The lands in Meath and Cork too.” Clarenceux sat up, trying to recall his heraldic notes on Devon and his conversation earlier in the year with John Hooker about the family of Carew of Mohun’s Ottery. Tiredness made images and ideas tumble through his mind-a cascade of knights and horses, blazons, caparisons, breastplates, surcoats, castles, women in ermine-trimmed tunics, parchments, documents…But there was something in there, something Hooker had said about Carew and Idrone.

  “Why do you say ‘Ireland’ particularly?” asked Johnson.

  “Some treasures are made not of gold or silver,” replied Clarenceux, now remembering clear
ly. “Some are made of the skin of a dead sheep. Vellum can be more valuable than gold.”

  He leaned forward to the piles of cold, wet stones that served as the ship’s ballast, found a rock that was large enough, and stood up. Then he started hammering on the boards above his head. After about ten minutes someone on the orlop deck heard and shouted through, “What do you want?”

  “This is William Harley, Clarenceux King of Arms. Tell Sir Peter Carew I wish to speak to him urgently.”

  61

  Friday, May 19

  Sir Peter Carew gestured to the stool and Clarenceux sat. Sir Peter himself continued to stand, the early-morning light through the eastern windows of the cabin silhouetting his robust figure. His poise was like that one might see in a portrait-chest out, proud.

  “I am a man of instinct, Mr. Clarenceux, and my instinct tells me that you are no fool, no charlatan, and no friend of the government. Most of the Catholics I have met have not deserved a moment of my time, but you-you seem to be, how should I put it? Sharper. More realistic. Yes, there will be bloodshed. But you cannot expect that I will release you on such speculation. I have orders from Cecil to return you to London.”

  “Walsingham. You know that letter came from Walsingham.”

  “But the orders were in Sir William’s name. And if Sir William has reasons to want you back in London, then make no mistake-I will do my duty. Your admission that you escaped from his house only confirms the need for that duty to be performed.”