The Roots of Betrayal c-2

by James Forrester

  Yes, thought Clarenceux, Cecil had almost pulled it off. But he could not afford to risk the herald telling anyone else what had happened. That messenger who had gone off to Cecil-he would certainly return with a death warrant. It would be an unwritten one. They were the most deadly kind.

  67

  Carew pressed his face to the shingle, tasting the saltwater as the waves lapped around his face.

  He was hiding behind an upturned rowing boat. His left leg and sword were in the waves and his right one was stinging as if the Devil’s claws were fastened in it, but he dared not move. It was not quite dark enough. Two men were talking to a woman in front of the cottage only twenty feet ahead of him. If he stood up now, they would probably hear him on the noisy shingle. They would certainly see him.

  He listened intently. He heard the waves beside his ear and the rain falling around him. The men at the door to the cottage spoke about a butcher in Southampton and the amount of gristle that one of them had had in a meal. He heard that a man called Paul was on the roof in John’s place because John was “taking an urgent message to the queen’s Secretary.” That told him enough. Clarenceux had been detained but Parkinson was not bold enough simply to kill him without authority. The herald was a lucky man.

  A little later, he heard the woman close the door to the cottage and watched the men return to the fort. He was alone in the near-darkness, with only the waves and the rain for company. Just as he wanted.

  Creeping forward to the drawbridge, he knelt at the foot and tested the strength of the ropes that connected it to the beams above. An instant later he was climbing one of them. Swinging his wounded leg over the edge of the beam, he bit his lip to control the pain in his thigh. But he was up. He shifted along to the gatehouse wall and took the rope from his shoulder. Looking up, he carefully swung the muffled grappling iron; it landed beyond the crenellations on top of the gatehouse. Even if the man on the tower roof had heard that dampened noise he would be unlikely to see anything. Nevertheless Carew waited, listening. After a minute he climbed; twenty seconds later he was on the roof of the gatehouse, crouched down inside the darkened battlements.

  He took the rope and coiled it again, deciding his next move. He had thought initially that he would use the grappling iron to get on to the roof of the tower, but even a muffled grappling iron would be bound to alert the guard. Swinging hard across the gully would mean a loud landing against the tower wall and a hasty climb, with the certainty of an unfriendly greeting at the top. A better plan was required.

  He climbed over the battlements of the gatehouse and, holding on to the parapet, lowered himself down as far as he could. He let himself drop the last two feet onto the top of the perimeter wall, then moved to a point directly above one of the embrasures, through which the cannon fired, and climbed down onto one of the cannon, which he could just make out in the darkness. From there he slipped soundlessly onto the courtyard flagstones. Flat against the wall, he moved in a clockwise direction, crossing the gatehouse passage, until he was facing the door to the tower. He moved closer, listened, heard nothing, and tried the door. The two men he had seen earlier had left it unlocked.

  Inside it was completely dark. But he had been here before, when he had had his last run-in with Captain Parkinson, and knew that there were a few steps and then the passage turned forty-five degrees to the left. The door to the magazine was on the right, and that was where Parkinson would have put Clarenceux. It was where he himself had spent three tedious nights a few years ago. There were no other places in the small fort where a prisoner could be secured.

  Carew looked up the stairs. No light, not even the flicker of a candle. The gunners must have closed the door to the guard room at the top of the stairs.

  Inside, Clarenceux had found a sack and had emptied it of its contents to have something softer than the stone to sit on, but even when he had doubled it over, the hemp gave him little comfort. He shifted again, thinking of Awdrey at Summerhill, talking to Julius. If truth be known, they were probably boring each other. She did not share Julius’s antiquarian interests and he had scant concern for anything that was not connected with the chivalric past, theology, or the management and improvement of farming land. He imagined her tucking their daughters into bed by the light of a candle and sighing with relief that Julius would have gone off to his study with a pint of sack and a pile of papers. She would be worrying about where he was, never thinking of this darkness, this smell of sulfur, or the corruption in the government that she so trusted. She would not have believed the duplicity of Sir William Cecil, nor the double standards of his wife Mildred. Lady Cecil’s offer of an ambassadorial post must have been part of Sir William’s plot to get us out of London. Lady Cecil must have known.

  Suddenly he heard a soft knocking in the darkness: three short taps on a piece of wood. Was that a rat? Or a noise from upstairs? “Who’s there?” he said quietly, testing the silence.

  Three more quiet knocks. That was all.

  Clarenceux’s heart leaped. “Carew?”

  One knock.

  Clarenceux scrambled to his feet and felt his way to the steps that led up to the door. He pressed his mouth to the jamb. “Can you get me out?”

  There was a pause. He heard the sound of Carew kneeling down beside the door. Then a whisper: “There is no key, but I will do my best.”

  Clarenceux was so surprised that he hardly cared that the man had no means of freeing him. Someone knew where he was. He sat on the steps and said a prayer for Carew. Even though the man was a godless creature, he had shown faith-in him, Clarenceux.

  “What is your plan?” he whispered again. But there was no answer. Time started to flow slowly through the darkness, as if it had been frozen and was now melting.

  68

  The six men in the guard room played cards, argued, and drank late into the night. Only once were they alerted to something unusual; two of them noticed a distant clatter of metal on stone. William Knight went over to the window nearest the noise, opened the wooden shutter, and examined the embrasure; there was nothing to see. The guttering candlelight only showed the blank space and the flagstones of the embrasure-a wide space in the thick wall designed to allow the cannon the widest possible range and elevation. Had he crawled into the embrasure itself and looked up, he would have seen the cause of the disturbance, for Carew was hanging by his hands from the edge of the second-floor embrasure, pulling himself up. But Knight did no such thing. He closed the shutters and rejoined the card game.

  “Lock the door to the tower,” said Parkinson, who was more alert to the possible dangers than the rest of his men.

  Carew pulled himself up slowly into the darkness of the embrasure on the second floor. He found the edges of the shutters and tried to open them. There was a fastening in place, stopping them from banging in a high wind. Pulling out a knife, he ran it up the central crack between them and lifted the catch. Hearing nothing but the wind and the waves, and laughter from the men on the floor below, he opened the shutters and crept in. He closed them behind him and made his way across the chamber toward the stairs, where the single flame of a wall-mounted candle was burning.

  Paul Coad was huddled in the most sheltered corner of the roof, as Carew knew he would be. Over the wind Coad heard a voice call him from the direction of the door. “Paul? Captain says you’ve done your shift. You can go in. William will take over.”

  Coad did not recognize the voice. Nor could he see anyone in the darkness. The clouds concealed the half-moon that had risen earlier. Nevertheless the message was welcome and he rose to his feet and made his way to the dark silhouette of the door. He reached out with his left hand and turned inside. Carew was waiting with a knife. Coad opened his mouth but never spoke. A hand clamped over his face and the blade slipped through the skin and muscle of his neck. He struggled and kicked for barely a second before all the life force drained out of him with a spurt of blood that splattered against the wall of the staircase. Then he slumped, a dead
weight in Carew’s arms.

  Carew hauled the corpse back onto the roof and dragged it across to the point where Coad had been sitting earlier, in the concealed lee of the battlements. With the body stowed in the darkness, he fastened the grappling iron over the battlements and let himself down the outside of the wall to the first floor. He tucked himself into one of the embrasures, to wait and listen to the conversations within.

  Half an hour passed. He cursed the cold of the wind but knew it was his safety. None of the men within would open the shutter and allow a gale to blow through the warm room. He heard bets placed and coins dropped into the pot. He heard one man accuse another of cheating and the shouts of Captain Parkinson bringing them to order. He heard John Prouze’s name and the comment that he had probably got no further on his journey than the Two Swans, where he had a sweetheart. “He had better be halfway to London by now,” said Parkinson in a serious voice. “No time for common women.”

  “You should have let him have a go at that one he brought here,” replied Lewis Fletcher. “If you had, he wouldn’t be so desperate for Amy.”

  “Where is she now, that dark-haired one with a mole?” asked William Knight. “She was good.”

  “She was good because she was scared,” added Serres. “When they’re scared they really want to please you-they’ll do anything.”

  “She was supposed to be protected, not molested,” Parkinson snapped. “She was sent here by Sir William Cecil. If I had been here it would not have happened. And I seem to recall saying that the condition for forgiving the incident was forgetting it-and that means not mentioning it.”

  “Where did you send her?” asked Turner.

  “Somewhere she is safe from you,” replied Parkinson, “so you will be safe from Cecil.”

  “I bet she’s at Southampton Castle,” said Serres, looking at Parkinson. “I bet you sent her to your own chamber.”

  “No, she’s not at Southampton,” answered Turner. “She’s at Netley.”

  The drunk men laughed. But then Knight added, “No. Kimpton took her to Portchester where she’s a nurse-servicing mutilated soldiers.”

  The four gunners burst out laughing.

  “No, in truth, she is,” said Knight, himself laughing.

  Parkinson was not drunk. Carew heard the laughter stop. Suddenly there was a great clatter of objects as he kicked the cups and mazers aside and struck out at those nearest to him. “You laugh!” he shouted. “You laugh at the orders you fail to follow. You drink and laugh at your own stupidity. I know it is tedious here and I turn a blind eye to your indiscretions, but you shame me. You have no loyalty. You have no values. You are weak, all of you!”

  There was a long pause. Carew imagined Parkinson glaring at the men and he smiled to himself. “Knight, you fetch Kimpton. Serres, you summon Coad. I want to speak to all of you.”

  “Sir, have a mercy, it’s late,” ventured Fletcher.

  “I swear, by these hands, that if you so much as utter another syllable before morning, I will strangle you and dump your body in the Channel.”

  Carew crept away from the shutter, back to the rope. Suddenly this was not going the way he had hoped. His plan had been to wait until the men were asleep and then challenge Parkinson, alone. Now there were just seconds to spare before the body on the roof would be discovered. There was no time now to think or plan.

  He grabbed the rope and swung out, pulling himself up as fast as he could, despite his wounded leg. He was too late. As he hauled himself over the parapet between the crenellations he heard Serres call for Coad and saw the black figure of the man beside the doorway. “Who’s there?” Serres shouted. “Paul? Paul! Damn it-speak, man.” As Carew drew near, with a dagger drawn, Serres sensed him and backed away. Carew went after him, limping. Serres started running. Carew lunged and caught his sleeve near the staircase. He raised his knife, meaning to cut his throat but Serres threw himself sideways, into the stairway. He missed his footing and fell with a shout. He tumbled halfway down to the point outside the room on the second floor, where there was an angle of the staircase.

  One moment Carew was looking at Serres’s prostrate body halfway down the stairs, in the light of the wall-mounted candle. The next he saw Captain Parkinson, sword in hand, come up the stairs and step over the injured man. Parkinson glanced up-and they looked into each other’s eyes. There was one moment of recognition in the small golden light, one moment of them both understanding the depth of their mutual hatred. Then, like a huge bull preparing to charge at a small man, Parkinson started to climb toward Carew.

  Carew drew his own sword and waited.

  It was a mistake. As Parkinson came closer, his body blocked out the light. All Carew could see was a silhouette against the candlelight. When Parkinson made his first lunge, for Carew’s stomach, the latter only managed to deflect the blow by watching his attacker’s shoulders; he could not see the blade. He tried to dislodge Parkinson’s sword with a flick of his own, desperate to end the fight before the other man realized his advantage. But Parkinson gripped his weapon too firmly. Carew’s sword darted up, to cut the captain around the face or neck; Parkinson saw the move, parried the attack, and started thrusting at Carew’s legs and body, all the time drawing closer, a rising shadow. Carew had to step back. He drew his dagger with his left hand and held it ready, more out of desperation than a feeling of opportunity. Again he had to parry a thrust as Parkinson’s sword swept up to his throat.

  Serres began to cry out from where he lay on the staircase. “Christ Holy, Lord God, I cannot move my legs, sweet mother of God, I cannot move my legs!” Over and over again he called out. Parkinson came up another step, ignoring the man’s cries.

  Carew felt his mouth dry. The staircase was too narrow-there was no room to move. Nor could he see the man’s eyes-he could not read Parkinson’s face or predict his thrusts. It was like fighting smoke. He parried another thrust and tried to come forward again, jabbing at the left side of Parkinson’s face with his sword. He almost reached Parkinson’s neck but Parkinson reacted in time, smashing Carew’s blade against the wall. Immediately Carew drew it back across his line of vision and jabbed the other side. Parkinson dodged the cut, tried to grab Carew’s sword hand with his left hand, and lunged with his own blade at Carew’s abdomen. Carew did not see the thrust coming. He felt Parkinson’s blade pierce his skin, sinking deep into the flesh above his left hip. When it was suddenly withdrawn it felt as though his guts were slithering out through a hole of pain.

  Carew’s face creased but he dared not look down at the wound. He fended off another downward slashing cut, and another, as Parkinson tried to finish him there. Suddenly, with a chilling clarity, he realized he might very well die here on these stairs. It was not the pain so much as the new feeling; the thought of his entrails slipping, his nerves sparklingly cold. How disappointing it would be, to die here! How mundane. All his life he had believed he was indestructible. Now, through a simple mistake, everything was undone. Everything he had ever learned was going to be unlearnt, unknowable, unknown.

  Gasping, he looked at Parkinson. The captain took another step up and paused for a moment, looking at him. Carew sensed the man was smiling.

  The pain, the thought of dying in Calshot Fort and his adversary’s smile were all too much for Carew. Fury seized his mind, hatred took hold of his body, and his spirit lifted him. Suddenly everything was so simple. He only had one enemy-one enemy in the whole world. The rest of his life could be spent killing him. He took a step down toward the captain and whisked the tip of his sword across his gaze, drawing it back and just touching the man on the head for an instant before withdrawing it to parry the man’s next thrust. All the things he had hoped for and fought for-they were all gone now. All there was, was this dark staircase and this murderous black shape.

  Taking another step forward, he remembered the war cry that Clarenceux had told him was what his ancestors used to shriek in Ireland. It was his birthright, no matter that he was a basta
rd. If ever there was a time to use it, it was now. “A Carew! A Carew!” he yelled, his face twisted with anger and the desire to kill. He advanced three more steps. Parkinson lifted his sword and hacked at him hard, once, twice-but the third time he saw Carew’s blade suddenly coming straight into his face. He stepped back and prepared to lunge at the oncoming pirate, but he was not prepared for the ferocity of the attack.

  Carew cut furiously, bellowing “A Carew! A Carew!” over and over again. He could see better now-he could see the shape of his enemy’s face. And he cut harder and faster.

  Serres screamed again on the stairs. Men started shouting on the floor below. Parkinson shouted back. “Damn you! Knight, Fletcher, Turner! Come-now!” He redoubled his efforts and put his foot on the step above, stabbing at Carew’s bleeding thigh, but Carew twisted his sword before his eyes and unexpectedly cut sideways, catching the captain above his left eye, then cut down, slicing open two inches of the man’s left cheek. Blood flowed straight into Parkinson’s eye and down the side of his face, forcing him to retreat several steps while he wiped it away. He felt the wide cut of the wound. Down came Carew’s sword again, forcing him to lift his sword and look through the red cloud of blood. “Knight, Fletcher-fetch weapons!” he roared again. “Come up here and fight!” He wiped his eye and tried to come forward, the side of his cheek hanging loose. “Curse your soul, Carew. This is where this ends.”

  The blades clanged together as Carew’s steel met Parkinson’s. A second time he met Parkinson’s cut, and a third. Then he made an attack of his own, catching Parkinson’s shoulder and slicing his tunic open, cutting his skin. With blood in his eyes, the captain had to give up yet another step and stumbled on the hysterical Serres, who cried out again. Surprised to find flesh beneath his feet, he retreated two more steps.