The Roots of Betrayal c-2
Page 36
Awdrey noticed the deep scar in his hand. “It is a pity that you had to go so far to realize that,” she said. She looked at his forehead and at his shoulder. “It is a pity you had to suffer for all the lessons you have learned. And it is a pity that you had to lose your beard. I liked you more with it.”
“We have these passions, don’t we, Awdrey? We feel things and we act. I am sorry if I have offended you. I am sorry if you lost trust in me.”
She took his right hand and looked at the scar. “I too am sorry. I apologize for putting my trust in Sir William and not in you. It would be better to go to the Devil with you than live in Heaven alone. Without you it could not be Heavenly.”
Clarenceux raised an eyebrow. “That is a very secular thing for you to say, Mistress Harley.”
She gave a smile. “We are just human, whatever it says in the Bible.”
Clarenceux smiled back at her. “I heard those very words not long ago from a washerwoman in a house of ill repute in Southampton.”
“Then it must be true. What were you doing there, may I ask?”
“I’ve got a lot to tell you, my love.”
***
Almost three weeks later, Clarenceux was sitting in his hall checking his cook’s account when his servant Thomas announced a visitor.
“Show him in,” said Clarenceux, not looking up.
“Sir, I think you might want to receive him at your door. It is Sir William Cecil.”
Clarenceux leaped to his feet. “He said he did not want to see me again.”
“He must want to see you, sir, for he has come in person.”
Clarenceux went downstairs and greeted Sir William at the front door of the house. Sir William stood there very formally, with his hand on a small staff. He asked to come in and speak to Clarenceux privately. The herald showed him up to the hall and closed all the doors.
“I have come for two reasons,” Sir William began. “The first is that I have been thinking a great deal about our last conversation, at Wapping. I said things then that perhaps-no, definitely-were better left unspoken and, better still, unthought. I said them because I was angry and anxious. And I was guilty. I did come between you and your wife like an interloper in the dark. I did try to steer her trust away from you, and you were quite right in the boat to ask me if it preyed on my conscience. I maintain that my answer was right: for the safety of the State, I would do it all again, and send all those people to their deaths-but personally I was in the wrong. I should not have doubted your loyalty, nor should I have come between you and your wife.”
Clarenceux did not know what to say. Cecil’s morality had long ago left him perplexed. But there was no denying that the man was here, in person, and apologizing to him in his own home. He had no wish to be Cecil’s enemy. He bowed his head. “Sir William, your apology is most warmly received and heartily accepted. If in my speech I did offend you, in my accusations, I apologize in return.”
Cecil seemed happy. “You have made things well again with your wife?”
Clarenceux nodded. “We are administering loving medicine to each other.”
“Good.” Cecil put his hand inside his mantle and felt for something in a pocket of his doublet. “This other thing may be of interest to you. Either way I am obliged to ask you to respond. I have heard from Southampton by way of Captain James Parkinson’s man, John Prouze, whom I believe you know. Yes?”
“I know his name.”
“Apparently Carew’s body was washed ashore several days after he went missing. It had been badly eaten by sea creatures and had to be identified by the ring on his finger. Prouze said that you would be able to confirm it was his.”
Cecil held out the ring of the Carew family. Clarenceux took it. He nodded when he saw the familiar arms. “There were only three of these made. One was given to Sir Philip Carew, who was killed in Malta. One was given to Sir Peter Carew, who still wears it on his finger. The third was given to the eldest son, Sir George Carew, and taken from him by his mistress when he abandoned her, so she could give it to her son by him.” Clarenceux remembered seeing it for the first time, in this very room-just after he had escaped from Cecil House. He closed his eyes and recalled once more-as he had so many times-the last conversation in the tower at Calshot, and those final requests. He was glad now he had delivered them. Silently, in his mind, he said a prayer for the pirate.
“So it is definitely his?”
“He would never have let it go-he would rather have died. It was the only thing that bound him to his true identity. If it was found on a corpse near Calshot Fort, there is no doubt that the corpse was his.”
Cecil nodded and took the ring back. “It is certainly not Sir Peter’s,” he said. “He saw me yesterday. He is going to set sail for Ireland shortly.”
Clarenceux felt sad. A part of him had hoped that Carew would have survived. “Could I have the ring?” he asked. “Raw Carew left a son who would benefit from knowing which ancient heraldic line sired him. With this, one day, I will be able to tell him of his more illustrious ancestors.”
“Raw Carew had a son? Was he married?”
“No. The child is a bastard. But he will learn who his father was either way. Maybe giving him this heirloom will make him mindful of his more noble heritage.”
Cecil thought about this. “I suppose I have no further use for it.” He handed it to Clarenceux. “Now, I thank you for listening to me. I bid you good day, Mr. Clarenceux. Perhaps, having gone through this together, we will be closer friends in future?”
“I hope so, Sir William.”
Only after Cecil had gone did Clarenceux properly think about Raw Carew. A life had been lived and lost-but how rich a life it had been. He cast his mind back over the men aboard the ship, and the life experience of men like Hugh Dean with his black hair and grin, and Kahlu coming from Africa and making his way through life without speech but so much knowing. He thought too of the women that Carew had loved and those whose lives he had touched-Alice, Ursula and Amy, even Juanita. No doubt there were many others, unknown to him. Most of all, he remembered that moment in Calshot Fort when he realized that Carew had come back for him. A godless man had indeed done a blessed thing.
He looked at Carew’s ring and its three black lions. Old Sir William Carew must have thought three rings for his three sons would bind them forever. He could never have known that membership of that confraternity would pass to the son of a Calais maid and from him to the son of a Southampton whore. He felt the weight of the ring; it was floating on the deep ocean of the human spirit, passing from hand to hand as if those hands were waves.
And then he noticed something. There were nine words carved in tiny letters around the inside. He took it closer to the window and examined it carefully. As he read the words, the most powerful emotion rose in him and overwhelmed him. Tears flooded to his eyes. He started to smile and weep at the same time as a great joy broke open and flowered in his heart. Someone had put this ring on the corpse, someone who wanted to deceive Cecil and at the same time let Clarenceux know the truth. The name of Raw Carew did not just live on in legend-the name was dead and the man himself lived on. For there, inside the ring, Clarenceux could clearly read the words that he had spoken to Carew at Calshot.
In all our struggles, the last word is hope.
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