The Roots of Betrayal (6 page)

Thomas opened the front door and Clarenceux let Annie step in first. She took her muddy shoes off as instructed, and ran up the stairs. Joan, who had been carrying Mildred, put her down on the bottom-most stair and let her start climbing. Clarenceux followed behind Mildred, patiently. When she reached the top, he clapped at her achievement, smiled at Awdrey, and then went up to his study.

He looked at the manuscript on his desk, to remind him of where he was in his heraldic work, and crossed the chamber. He lifted the
chitarra
in one hand and strummed the strings with the other. A discordant series of low notes rang out.

All his thinking froze. It cracked, like a mirror, into jagged edges.

He struck the strings again, only to hear the same discordant noise. Lifting down the instrument, not caring for its delicacy, he pulled off the grille that covered the sound hole and felt for the document. It had gone.

He trembled, uncertain what to do. Then he threw the instrument to the floor and stamped on the rounded wooden back. Sinking to his knees, he turned the pieces over.
Oh
Lord! Have mercy upon me! Jesus Christ, Lord, restore to me this thing, I implore Thee. If I have ever sinned against Thee in any way that deserves punishment, please let it be in some other manner
.

He crossed himself. All the people who knew he owned the document were Catholics. That included all the Knights of the Round Table—all the men whom Henry Machyn had given a knightly identity and enlisted to help guard it. Two of their companions had died for the cause: Daniel Gyttens and Henry Machyn himself. Five of them had been imprisoned for protecting it. Several had demanded that he hand it over to them. Nicholas Hill had been one of these, or “Sir Reynold” as he had been known. James Emery, “Sir Yvain,” had been another. Rebecca Machyn's brother, Robert Lowe, “Sir Owain,” had similarly been unhappy at the prospect of Clarenceux holding on to the document.

Then he remembered Rebecca Machyn. Upset and dismissive. Running away. He crossed himself again.
No, no, let it not be
. But even as he whispered, he knew he was deceiving himself with prayer. Of all the people who knew he owned the document, she was the most vulnerable—she had said so herself. The Knights of the Round Table all knew she was very close to Clarenceux. They knew that he would confide in her. She knew the layout of his house—the whole idea of hiding the document in a stringed instrument had been hers. And she had mentioned that people had suggested to her that the document be stolen.

Clarenceux clenched his fist and hit the floor. She had not just taken something and given it away; she had destroyed their mutual trust. She had set aside the decision that they had reached together—that this document was too dangerous to fall into the hands of Catholic plotters. It would result in civil war, in the burning of men and women for heresy. But she had given in to the pressure of others. She had put them above him. The protection he had offered her—that was nothing. No wonder she had said she did not want to see him again.

He shook his head in disbelief. The Knights of the Round Table would expect him publicly to endorse this document and declare it authentic in his capacity as a herald. Even if they failed in their plot to remove Elizabeth from the throne, they would implicate him. They would name him in their confessions. He could see his house being searched again, his possessions destroyed. He could see Walsingham demanding that he be tried for treason. He could see his wife forced to go into hiding with their daughters.

I
cannot
do
it. Not again. I am not strong enough. Not now
. Tears began to form in his eyes. He hated this weakness in himself but it was undeniable. He was crying. He struck the floor again, nausea growing in his stomach.

But
how
could
she
have
broken
into
this
house? She must have had help. Where was Thomas?

Clarenceux got to his feet. He breathed deeply, wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and walked to the staircase. He descended rapidly. At the foot he pushed the door open and stepped into the hall.

“Thomas!”

A few seconds later he heard the old man's footsteps. Thomas entered. “Yes, Mr. Clarenceux?”

“Who came here this morning? While I was at church?”

“No one. I can assure you.”

Clarenceux struck the wall with his fist, fury rising within him. “No, someone did!” Then he recalled that he had not checked the manuscript the previous night because of his argument with Awdrey. “Who came here yesterday, while I was out?”

Thomas frowned. “Sir, after you left in the morning, no one came here. Mistress Harley went with the children and Joan to call on Lady Cecil. When they had gone, I went with the stable boys to order a delivery of new hay.”

“No one called?”

“I was not here, sir. But as far as I know—”

“How long was this house unattended?”

Thomas considered his answer carefully. “An hour at most.”

“Could somebody have entered during that time?”

Thomas did not answer. His face was growing whiter. “Sir, I made sure everything was locked, as per your instructions. The front door and the back.”

“I am asking, could somebody have broken in?”

“Sir, if someone wanted to break in, they could have picked the lock. A good locksmith has no great difficulty opening a warded lock.”

“I know that, Thomas—I know about skeleton keys. But something has been stolen from this house. Something very precious.”

“Is it one of your books, sir?”

“No! It is not one of my books. I was keeping a…a document.” He put his hands to his head. “All our lives are at risk, Thomas. We must disappear again, all of us—like last December. I thought all that was over. But I…I am going to be involved in a treasonable plot. If I am alive in another week's time, it will only be by the grace of God.”

Clarenceux glanced at the end of the hall. Awdrey was standing there. “Does that mean we are not going to Antwerp?” she asked.

“Damn it, woman, no, we are
not
going to Antwerp. We are going to run for our lives.”

In a chamber of his house near the Tower, Francis Walsingham sat studying the code. Being a man who felt the cold, there was a fire in the hearth beside him.

He had begun systematically, noting the number of times each letter appeared. But then he had realized something. The letter C appeared by itself, and in twos, threes, fours, fives, sixes, sevens and eights. Four C's might be a single letter or they might be a combination of two double C's. But eight C's could not be four CC's. These eight combinations represented four separate letters or words at most. And given that DCC- appeared so often, CC was probably a letter. But he had written down a list of all the three-letter and four-letter words he could think of, and none of them fitted in a way that allowed him to make sense of any other part of the message.

He started to see more problems. Had this been written by someone who spelled more phonetically than he? Was it even in English? This was a Catholic plot, after all: Latin was more likely, or French. Castilian was possible too. The commas did not seem to make sense either, being too close together in places. Indeed, that suggested the letters were words, which rendered his theory about the various combinations of C void.

Frustrated, he screwed up the piece of paper he was working on and threw it into the fire. He closed his eyes and tried to remain calm. After a minute he reopened them, took another piece of paper, and started again. This time he wrote a list of all the short Latin words he knew.

Clarenceux walked to the window. “It is not all over,” he exclaimed. He looked out at the other people in the puddle-filled street: a milk girl with pails on a yoke across her shoulders coming into the city. A water carrier followed her, leading his tired pony, mud being flung from the wheels. A man with a cart full of dung was heading in the opposite direction. There was no sign of anyone watching the house.

He turned back to face Awdrey. “I did not want to alarm you or worry you unnecessarily, but a document was left in my possession. A valuable document—one that proves that our current queen is illegitimate and an unsuitable woman to be on the throne. Needless to say, there are those who would very much like to take possession of it. Someone now has.”

“But who? Who would dare to come into this house and steal it? Who knew you had it? And how did they get in?”

“I am asking myself the same questions. And I have only one answer: Widow Machyn. She knew I had the document; she even knew where I kept it—in that Italian
chitarra
in my study. Her late husband gave it to me. I am sure that it is his surviving friends who are behind this, not Rebecca herself. They call themselves the Knights of the Round Table. They have not forgiven me for not using the document to start a revolution against Queen Elizabeth.”

“Why did you not tell me these things?”

“Because I did not want you to be in danger, or even to know we had such a dangerous thing in our possession.”

Awdrey shuddered. “I can't go through all that again. Not again. Our house wrecked, our possessions…” She turned to the old stern-faced servant. “Thomas, did you see anything? Were you not here?”

The man shook his head. “Mistress Harley, if I had been here, they would not have entered. At least, they would have had to kill me first. I took the boys to Snow's tenement to buy hay for the stables. I had no idea that anyone would even think of entering, still less steal from Mr. Clarenceux. But locks are easy to pick. If the thief came in by the back door, if he knew what he was after, he could have been out within a few minutes.”

“Not ‘he'—‘she,'” Clarenceux frowned. “I saw Rebecca Machyn yesterday, and she was not at all normal. She told me she was going away—even said that people had been encouraging her to steal the document.”

“Sir, with respect, she might simply have told those same people where to look. She did not necessarily steal it herself or even sanction the theft.”

Clarenceux nodded. He glanced at Awdrey and knew what she was thinking.
You
should
not
have
trusted
Rebecca
so
much
. He knew because she had been proved right.

“What now?” she asked.

“Well, I am now a traitor in the eyes of those who would have Mary Stuart proclaimed queen, and a traitor in the eyes of Elizabeth's Protestant supporters. It is likely this house will be searched as soon as the authorities realize where I stand. Most searches take place after dusk, when people are at home and alone. We need to be prepared.”

“I cannot believe this is happening,” muttered Awdrey.

“Awdrey, it
is
happening. I am going to be arrested and tried. Our possessions, goods, and chattels will be forfeit. If the searchers come this evening…” Clarenceux paused. “The Lord preserve us. Thomas, I want you to leave now. Go to your nephew's house. You cannot stay here.”

“Mr. Clarenceux, I intend to stand by you.”

“Thomas, the best outcome to this situation I can imagine is that you and I are alive in a month's time. I can ensure that that will be at least partly the case by sending you away now. There is nothing you can do for me here.”

“Sir, I am disappointed to hear you say that.”

“Thomas, old friend. I want you to live. The theft of that document may well cost me my life.” Clarenceux looked him in the eye. “One day you may serve me again. But not now.”

“I am not going, Mr. Clarenceux,” Thomas told him obstinately. “I will always serve you.”

“If you are so determined, then look after my wife and daughters.” He glanced at Awdrey. “I want you to go to your sister's house in Devon.”

She looked at him steadily. “So far? I would rather stay with Lady Cecil. Or even your friend Julius.”

“You do not understand how serious this is. People will use you and the girls to get to me. Walsingham knows about Summerhill—he has sent men to search Julius's house in the past. And what reason are you going to give Lady Cecil for seeking Sir William's protection? That I have lost a politically valuable document? Sir William himself charged me with guarding it with my life. You must go further.”

“I am not going further than one day's ride,” Awdrey declared.

Clarenceux stared at her. He thought of all the dangers in the city and how he needed to confront certain people and how they might retaliate against his family. Julius was at least wholly trustworthy. “Very well. Thomas will escort you down to Chislehurst tomorrow morning. Take Joan with you. Take all the horses too. If I need a mount, I will hire one. Pack in readiness now. I will write to Julius and explain. I'll tell him I will join you when I can.”

That afternoon, Clarenceux took down his sword from above the fireplace in his study. He often said that guns were of little use: fire them once and you have to spend the next five minutes reloading them, during which time your assailant might run you through with the meanest weapon. It was easy to say that in a tavern conversation. Now, considering the danger, he wished he had the equal of the armaments that people might use against him. If someone drew a loaded pistol on him, he would have no defense but to hope the wheel did not ignite the gunpowder or that the person aiming it missed.

He put the sword back regretfully. He had to walk across London. Carrying a sword would be foolish, enough to get himself arrested by a constable. Instead he fastened a sheathed dagger with a foot-long blade onto the left-hand side of his belt, and a shorter-bladed knife to his right. They would be concealed by his cloak. He took a deep breath and mentally braced himself for what he had to do, then went downstairs and out of the house.

He walked quickly across the Fleet, stepping between the puddles, toward Ludgate. Normally the center of the street was a packed line of horse dung, trodden into the mud; now, after the heavy rain, it combined with the clay soil to give the street a rich, earthy smell. Cartwheels had churned up the surface. In such conditions anyone of quality would normally insist on riding or being carried in a chair, to preserve their clean clothes. Clarenceux was too anxious for such niceties. When a cart passed, flicking up mud, he simply walked faster.

Passing under the old stone arch of Ludgate, he wanted to run to his destination. But he knew that would draw attention to himself. He threaded his way between the people, walking through the lanes and alleys, beneath rows and rows of houses, all darkened with the upper stories projecting out over the lower ones. The barrels that were meant to be full of water in case of fire were mostly full of refuse, empty, or leaking out into trampled muddy patches of ground. Some alleyways were littered with detritus where people passing along had dropped parts of pies or bones, and the local householder had not cleared up outside his front door. In places people had strewn old rushes from their halls across the street. Clarenceux carried on through the noisome foulness toward Little Trinity Lane, mainly along the back streets, always avoiding the eyes of people walking toward him.

At the door to Rebecca Machyn's house, he drew his day-to-day knife and banged hard with the hilt three times on the oak. He waited barely twenty seconds and then knocked again. And again. There was no sound from within. He stepped back into the street and looked up, to see if anyone was watching from upstairs. But if so, they avoided him. He knocked on the door again.

He knew that, when watchmen had gone looking for Rebecca in the past, she had taken refuge on the other side of the road, at Mrs. Barker's house. He glanced at that proud building, wondering if she was over there now—perhaps even observing him.

Still no answer.

After another minute he walked to the end of Little Trinity Lane. Then, counting his steps—one hundred and fifty—he turned right at the end and then right again, counting the same number of paces down Garlick Hill. When he reached the correct spot, he found the nearest passageway through to a backyard tenement. Many of the old merchants' properties here were subdivided, due to the heavy overcrowding, with ramshackle houses built in adjoining yards, each containing one or two rooms. He went down an untidy alley, with an overflowing trough of water and puddles beneath the eaves of the shingle-covered roofs. An old woman was sitting spinning in the doorway of a single-story lean-to. He nodded to her politely.

“My good woman, is that the back of the Machyn house?”

She looked at him suspiciously. “What do you want to know for?”

“My name is William Harley, Clarenceux King of Arms. I am a friend of Rebecca Machyn. She is sick, taken to her bed, and no one is looking after her. Her stepson is a wastrel, so I am worried that the front door is being left unanswered.”

“'Tis indeed Goodwife Machyn's. And I know the young man. Drunkard, he is. It sounds as if it is a good deed that you do—and I can see you're no thief, sir.”

Clarenceux thanked the woman, then shifted a barrel to enable him to climb over the wall and up on to the roof of the outhouse, making sure the weapons underneath his cloak remained concealed. After jumping down into Rebecca's yard, where he was greeted by the stench of the privy, he unlatched the rear door and entered the house.

It was silent. The storeroom at the back was where the food was kept: a sack of oats, another smaller one of flour. There were turnips and apples, leeks and onions. Hanging up on a hook were the thin remains of a flitch of bacon, most of which had been consumed.

“Hello? Rebecca? John? Are you here?”

He went into the hall. The ash on the hearth was not even warm. An empty wooden tankard and bowl stood on the table, with crumbs of bread strewn across the surface. There were two old candle pricks there too, and a rushlight holder. A pottery wine flask, covered in wicker, lay on its side on the floor. The rushes needed changing.

Clarenceux started to look around the hall systematically. There was no proper paneling, only a section in one corner that had remained when most of the original wainscoting had been removed. The walls had been whitewashed and were bare, except for Henry's painted cloths and a crucifix. There was a lidless chest of cookware by the fireplace, full of old chafing dishes and skillets, brass pans, and bashed pewterware. Apart from that there was only one other chest. He lifted the lid and looked through the contents: a rolled-up old shirt, a blanket, several towels and tablecloths, and two old books in which Henry Machyn had written some heraldic notes. In addition, there were some old wooden toys, a linen sheet painted as a St. George's flag, some dice, a couple of wooden board games, and a pipe. A cursory inspection was enough for Clarenceux to be sure that the document was not in this chest. Nowhere else in the hall looked likely.

He went through to Henry Machyn's old workshop at the front of the house. Nothing had changed since his visit the previous day. The four large chests were still there, in the dim light. Clarenceux pulled back the shutters and lifted the lid of one. He had presumed they were Rebecca's possessions, ready for her departure; but inside were the old tools of Henry Machyn's trade as a merchant tailor. There were scissors and knives, rulers and various scraps of cloth. The next chest he opened contained rolls of black cloth and tenterhooks for hanging the same. There were also a couple of books showing the heraldic designs used by members of the nobility and gentry, whose arms Henry had been paid to depict at their funerals. A third chest was full of candles, many of wax and good quality. The last held rolled-up lengths of linen.

Clarenceux climbed the stairs and went into the front chamber, above the workshop. It was almost empty, except only for a large old featherbed, unmade, with sheets that were so creased and soiled they were disgusting. There was also a sea chest in the corner, which obviously belonged to John Machyn. Clarenceux ignored it and went into the back chamber, directly above the hall. Here there was a small fireplace with firedogs and some skillets and other cooking apparatus. A small bed was set against the whitewashed wall opposite the fire; a table and a chair stood next to the rear window, which was unglazed. Candlesticks and pewterware adorned the table, and bellows, tongs, two low stools, and andirons were neatly arranged in front of the fire. The shutters were ajar, and Clarenceux could see out over the yard. A chest in the corner was full of neatly folded, clean bed linen. Another chest held Rebecca's personal linen and dresses. On the topmost sheet in the clothes chest was a book—a copy of the New Testament in English. He recalled that her late husband had taught her to read. In a small wall cupboard was a box containing needles and thread.

Clarenceux was perplexed. The house was not well kept but nor was it falling down. Many families were crammed into single rooms in and around this part of the city. Here, Rebecca and John Machyn both had space. Her living quarters seemed to have shrunk to this single room: she cooked and ate, read and slept in here. Downstairs had been largely abandoned to John Machyn and the chest full of memories of another era. But there were signs of a modest wealth, such as the books and pewterware—all of which were worth money. There were candles and a great deal of linen: these too could have been sold. It gave Clarenceux the impression that Rebecca had not been entirely honest with him, for she was not as short of money as she claimed.

He felt the mattress of the bed for any sign of the document but found none. He then embarked on a thorough search of her chamber; it was not there. Eventually he gave up and went up to the top floor. This was dim and did not contain much. There was an old cradle, an old broken bedstead, a loom, some worn-out curtains for a bed, a broken chair, and a cot. A chest in a corner turned out to have nothing but old coverlets and blankets in it: a spider crawled across the topmost one as Clarenceux opened the lid.

There was nothing here. She had abandoned the house. She had abandoned everything.

She had abandoned him.