Sacred Treason

by James Forrester

  “Not possible,” muttered Thomas, frowning.

  “The last plague victim was buried three weeks ago,” agreed Clarenceux. He looked up and down Little Trinity Lane. He half expected to see Crackenthorpe but did not. He could see no sign of the man who, until a few moments ago, had been following them. “Thomas,” he said quietly, looking around. “Go back to my house and fetch a crowbar. I believe there is one in the loft above the stable. Wrap it in some cloth and bring it here.”

  “Yes, Mr. Clarenceux. Shall I fetch help?”

  “No, Thomas. These people want information. They won’t hurt us. Not without orders, anyway.”

  13

  Walsingham sat writing at a table by a window in his parlor, the morning light shining onto the page. A fire burnt in the large decorated hearth. He dipped his quill into the inkwell and paused, looking out of the window at the water in the Tower moat. It was not that he was unsure of his facts, but rather that he doubted whether he should commit this particular piece of information to paper. Perhaps it was safer to send a messenger? He could carry a double message: one real piece of news and one false, in case of capture.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Walsingham, there is a man to see you. He says his name is Crackenthorpe.”

  “With a scar?”

  “Over his right eye, sir.”

  “Allow him in.”

  Crackenthorpe entered, holding his hat. He bowed. Walsingham looked up at him. If Crackenthorpe had not found his niche working for me, he would have been hanged by now. It is understandable that soldiers in battle kill men and rape women; such are the natural consequences of war. But Crackenthorpe sees no difference between war and peace. If he were sent back to the north, his own people would kill him sooner than the Scots.

  “I have arrested Henry Machyn.”

  Walsingham’s eyes opened a fraction wider. “Arrested? Good. Where is he now?”

  “He’s under guard at the brick house in Bishopsgate.”

  “In the cellars, I presume?”

  “In leg irons.”

  Walsingham set down his quill and got up from the table. He went to the far side of the room and ran his fingers over a plate of sweetmeats. He took one and started walking back, biting it with his front teeth. Excellent. Trap the man’s legs. Crackenthorpe is learning. Men take the ability to walk too much for granted.

  He saw the large man watching him chew and gestured for him to help himself. “Where was he? How did you find him?”

  Crackenthorpe raised a sweetmeat to his lips. “I watched Machyn’s house all night, as you instructed.” He placed the morsel in his mouth and tried to speak and chew at once. “Very late…a man arrived and started…knocking hard on the door.”

  “Who?”

  “He said he was William Harley, a herald.”

  Walsingham smiled. “Well, well. Yes, he is a herald. Clarenceux King of Arms, no less.” He saw Crackenthorpe glance back again at the sweetmeat tray. “Go on, Sergeant Crackenthorpe. Have as many as you want. Tell me more.”

  Crackenthorpe took two sweetmeats. He chewed and spoke at the same time. “I escorted Clarenceux…back to Ludgate. He asked the guard there…to let us through. He said he had done it before but…I didn’t believe him. We crossed the bridge and went to his house…” He swallowed, looking at Walsingham, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “We waited. He went in by an alleyway along one side. I continued to wait in the rain for a further quarter of an hour. Then I left one man at the front and led the rest down the same alley, hoping to learn more of the layout of his house and yard, in case I needed to order that the house be watched. The back door was closed, but by the lantern light I noticed the stable door was ajar. One of my men found Machyn upstairs, in the hayloft.”

  Walsingham picked up the piece of paper he had been writing on when Crackenthorpe had arrived. He took it to the fireplace and let it drift into the flames, like a leaf. He knew his next message to Cecil had to be spoken. He would go and see him in person.

  “Her majesty will be pleased. Have you started questioning Machyn yet?”

  “No, sir. But I did leave a guard at his house.”

  “And what about Clarenceux’s house? Have you searched it?”

  There was a pause. “No, sir. I thought it best to report back to you for further instructions.”

  Walsingham saw the blackened fragments of the paper drift up the chimney. “It needs to be done,” he said, turning to face Crackenthorpe. “But first, tell me everything you know about Clarenceux, everything he said last night. I want to know every word.”

  14

  Clarenceux stood amid the crowd. There were about forty people now in Little Trinity Lane, their breath visible in the sunlight as they whispered to one another. They were looking at the red crosses on the barricaded door. The plague that summer had been horrendous but people had begun to believe it was over. These crosses spelled doom not just for the occupant but for everyone else in the neighborhood.

  Clarenceux looked up the street. Now he spotted the spy who had followed them from Fleet Street; he was lurking fifty yards away, in the opening of a passageway. Thomas was walking toward him, carrying the crowbar. He had wrapped it in a horse’s sweat pad. Clarenceux waited. Sunlight sparkled off the puddles. In some places the mud had been churned up, like the ground around a cattle trough in winter.

  He took the crowbar from Thomas and felt its weight, examined one end, and then pressed it back into Thomas’s hand. “Stay with the crowd.”

  “Mr. Clarenceux, you ought to know, someone’s been in your stable.”

  Clarenceux paused. “Who? Not one of the lads?”

  “I do not know who, sir. But there’s a lot of hay scattered in the loft and more at the foot of the ladder. Looks like there was a fight, or a scuffle at the least.”

  Clarenceux remembered the open gate in the night. He glanced at the guard, then at the spy, and put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “Show me later,” he said, and stepped up to the door of Machyn’s house.

  The guard was young and scrawny, about eighteen. He had a freckled face and a thin, ginger beard. He was dressed in no particular livery, but the helmet, sword, and breastplate marked him out from the usual guards to be seen outside plague-infected houses.

  “Godspeed,” said Clarenceux cheerfully. “What’s your name?”

  The guard looked warily at Clarenceux. “My name is Gray,” he replied, rising to his full height as the crowd fell silent.

  “Goodman Gray,” Clarenceux continued, in a loud and confident voice, “I have a question for you. How is it that a man who was in good health last night is now pronounced plague-stricken this morning?”

  “The house is closed by order of the constable, sir.”

  “Of course it is. But which constable? And when did he send in the women to do the searching of the sick bodies?”

  “That I cannot tell you, sir,” replied Gray. He shifted a hand on the hilt of his sword for reassurance, looking from Clarenceux to the crowd, which was growing.

  “No, of course you cannot tell me. And I dare say that neither can the constable. For I was here but six hours ago, and there was no cross on the door then. Did you know that?”

  Gray looked worried. “No, sir.”

  Clarenceux turned to the crowd. In the voice of his office, he called, “Has anyone seen the searchers enter this house this morning?”

  The words echoed off the buildings opposite. One or two windows opened. Faces looked out and there was muttering among those in the crowd, but no one responded.

  There were over fifty people in Little Trinity Lane now and more were approaching. Clarenceux turned back to the young guard and stared at him, saying nothing.

  “Sir, what do you want?”

  “I want to know if there is anyone actually in that house.”

  “Goodman Machyn and his household are in there, I presume, sir.”

  “You presume? You mean y
ou do not know?”

  Gray said nothing.

  Clarenceux breathed the fresh air of the morning again and looked around him. “Then let me put it this way,” he said in his loud voice. “There is no one in that house, young Gray. There was no one in there last night and there is no one in there now.” He paused, watching, listening to the mood of the crowd. “Let me tell you something. When a plague house is marked out, if it is necessary to leave a guard—and it is not always so—he serves two functions. The first is to make sure the inhabitants do not leave. The second is to make sure they are fed. Through which window, exactly, are you meaning to feed Henry Machyn and his family?” Clarenceux pointed upward to the first floor. “Through that window? The only one you have left unblocked?”

  Gray remained silent.

  “Thomas,” called Clarenceux, not taking his eyes off the guard.

  Thomas stepped forward. Clarenceux took the crowbar and unwrapped it.

  “Sir!” Gray shouted, drawing his sword, “I must caution you not to try to open—”

  Clarenceux put a firm hand on Gray’s arm and pushed him backward. The lad stumbled.

  “Sir, I have orders to arrest anyone who tries to make contact with those inside.”

  “Anyone?” demanded Clarenceux, taking his hand off the young man. “Anyone? What about the apothecary’s man who will bring them dragonwater and methridatum? What about the women who will nurse them in their final agony? What about the priest? Have you no pity? You would arrest such God-fearing good people, would you?”

  “Yes, sir, I would.”

  “Well then, you’ll have to arrest me too,” Clarenceux declared, stepping right up into Gray’s face and grabbing his sword wrist. He toyed with the idea of forcing the lad to drop his blade but then decided that would only injure his pride. He let go, carefully. If the guard had been serious, he would have gone for his dagger by now. He was too young, too worried.

  Clarenceux saw he had silenced the boy and lifted the crowbar. He turned to the door. He fixed it under the topmost plank and began to lever it away.

  “Sir, I order you to desist,” said Gray.

  Clarenceux did not even turn around. “Thomas!” he shouted, continuing to pull at the plank. Thomas stepped forward, looked the guard in the eye, and slowly raised a finger to his lips. Gray saw Thomas’s lined old face and the iron determination plainly visible beneath the wry smile.

  The first plank came away easily and soon Clarenceux was levering the second. A couple of sharp wrenches, and soon that too was joined to the frame only by a single nail. Soon all four planks were lying in the street and the door was clear.

  Clarenceux took the crowbar and swung it against the oak door. It thudded.

  “Henry Machyn! Goodwife Machyn! John!” he yelled up at the front of the house. “Are any of you at home?”

  No answer.

  Again Clarenceux hammered on the door with the crowbar and shouted. More shutters and windows up and down the street opened.

  He set the edge of the crowbar in the doorframe and pulled. It did not give way. He pulled harder and harder, testing his weight against the wood, putting his foot against the timber frame of the door. After a few seconds, there was a loud crack and the nails holding one of the oak timbers of the door came out, allowing the plank to break out of the frame, into the house. He quickly moved the crowbar to the split and pressed the loosened plank further back inside.

  He had to work fast. The crowd behind him was growing. They would attract the attention of the authorities. He pushed the head of his crowbar through the gap in the door and shoved the split plank to one side.

  He looked through the gap: there was nothing to be seen inside, just the shadowy entrance corridor. He put his mouth to the gap in the door and shouted.

  “Henry! Goodwife Machyn! This is William Harley, Clarenceux King of Arms. If you are within, reply. Tell me if you are here.”

  Nothing.

  Clarenceux turned. Thomas was still standing between him and the guard. People were leaning out of the windows, watching. More were arriving. The spy was there too, standing at the edge of the crowd. Including the people in the houses, Clarenceux had now about a hundred witnesses.

  He stepped toward the guard. “Tell me: do you answer to a man called Richard Crackenthorpe?”

  The guard did not reply.

  “Tell him Godspeed from me, Goodman Gray,” said Clarenceux, putting a friendly hand on the boy’s shoulder before he walked away.

  15

  Noon had passed. Clarenceux had been poring over the chronicle for several hours. He rested his head in his hands, elbows on the table board, so very tired. Awdrey had brought him some ale, bread, and cheese on a wooden trencher an hour earlier but he had barely touched it. He was determined to find out why this book was more valuable to Machyn than his life.

  He started again at the beginning and leafed through. Here and there entries caught his attention. On April 28, 1556, two gentlemen were taken from the Tower to Tyburn and hanged, cut down and quartered, and their heads set up on London Bridge. The following day a whoremaster was pilloried for delivering prostitutes to London merchants’ apprentices, the said apprentices paying with goods stolen from their masters. And on May 2, a man and a woman were placed in the pillory for perjury, the man’s ears being nailed to the wood but the woman’s not. It was all vividly related: London described in more detail than perhaps any other chronicler had managed. Machyn had every right to be proud of his work. But Clarenceux knew it was all a cover, a means to an end, and the end remained hidden.

  His own name rang out repeatedly through the pages. Under the entry for December 2, 1562, he read about the burial of his sister and the dinner at his house afterward. Was that a year ago already? He had spoken to Machyn several times that afternoon. It was a peculiar thought: that Machyn had been taking notes on that occasion. His name appeared again in the next entry, at the funeral of the wife of Lord Justice Browne. A few pages earlier there was that long entry about his daughter’s baptism. He read it again, aloud, to make sense of the phonetic spelling.

  “The twenty-eighth day of July was christened the daughter of William Harley alias Clarenceux King of Arms in the parish of St. Bride’s, the godfather Mr. Cordall, Master of the Rolls, Knight, and the godmothers my Lady Bacon, my lord keeper’s wife, and my Lady Cecil, wife of Sir William Cecil. And after unto Mr. Clarenceux’s house and there was as great a banquet as I have seen, and wassail of hippocras, French wine, Gascon wine, and Rhenish wine in great plenty, and all their servants had a banquet in the hall with divers dishes.”

  He remembered the day well. Indeed, it had been a day to remember, with the important guests dining in the parlor and the servants all arrayed at two long tables in the hall. It had been a particular honor to have Mildred, Lady Cecil, as godmother to his younger daughter. Not only was she reputed to be the most intelligent woman in the realm; also, her husband, Sir William Cecil, was her majesty’s Principal Secretary. He was Elizabeth’s most trusted adviser and the most powerful individual in the country, notwithstanding his rivalry with her favorite, Robert Dudley. Awdrey had decided that they should have the baby baptized Mildred, in Lady Cecil’s honor.

  He sighed, got up, and went over to the trencher of food. The bread was already beginning to go stale. He ate it anyway, with a piece of strongly flavored cheese, staring vacantly at his table board as he did so.

  Searching the chronicle would take too long. Machyn was possibly facing death at that very moment. He had no option now but to follow the one clear instruction that Machyn had given him.

  Find Lancelot Heath.

  16

  Sir William Cecil strode through the Painted Chamber in the Palace of Westminster. Scenes of battles fought in Old Testament times were visible in the gloomy shadows high on unseen walls, the paints faded now from their ancient glory. He held the fur of his robe close to his chest as he walked—the palace was empty and cold. Once parliaments used to gather in this
vast chamber. Not anymore.

  “Have you dined?” he called out to Francis Walsingham, who was waiting at the far end, seated on a bench. His voice echoed.

  Walsingham quickly got to his feet. “Godspeed, Sir William. No, when I work, my diet is meager.”

  Cecil held up a finger over his lips to indicate that Walsingham should say nothing. Walsingham’s eyes narrowed a little as he walked toward him. Cecil waited for Walsingham to catch up with him and then led him down the stairs, out into the great court.

  The sun earlier in the day had given way to a cloudy afternoon. In the absence of the court, there were very few servants to be seen. A light breeze chilled their faces. “Tell me your news,” Cecil said, walking across the wide yard.

  “Machyn has been found.”

  Cecil’s pace did not alter. “Has he talked?”

  “Not yet. He denies everything. Says he only knows Draper as a fellow merchant taylor.”

  “So? What have you got?”

  Walsingham looked around and nodded to the windows. “Will it matter if we are seen?”

  Cecil understood his caution. Despite the cold, two windows were open. “We are discussing your parliamentary instructions, of course. But you’re right.” He pointed to a gate that led toward one of the more private yards of the palace and began to walk in that direction. The sun unexpectedly broke out and cast a shadow across the quadrangle.

  Walsingham cleared his throat and spoke quietly. “Machyn was found hiding in the stable of a house in St. Bride’s. The house belongs to your wife’s friend, William Harley, the Clarenceux herald. You might recall that your wife and her sister stood as godmothers to—”

  “His daughter, last year. Yes, thank you, Francis. When I forget the details of my own family connections, I will ask you to pray for me.” Cecil began to walk along the edge of a small courtyard, in line with a high wall. There were no overlooking windows.”This does not mean he is involved, of course.”