James Forrester - Final Sacrament

“Their first?” He blinked several times.

“The second great virtue is that they are not men. That was my mistake in the past: to trust men. Men are weak. Men let us down because they are too easily frightened. Men are unreliable-they can be seduced.” She noted the look in Buckman’s eye. “Yes, I hate to say so, Father, but even some clergymen can be swayed. The third great virtue of these women is that no one, not even Walsingham, imagines that I would choose women to cut the throats of my enemies. Walsingham’s men are too busy looking for soldierly-types. My women slip between them like smoke.”

“But how do you ensure their loyalty? If these women are all thieves, murderers, traitors, and witches-why do they not escape as soon as you send them on a mission?”

“They all have children,” answered Lady Percy immediately. “More particularly, they all have daughters, vulnerable daughters. If they defy me, their daughters will suffer the same fate that they would have suffered.”

Buckman nodded. “Have you yet hanged any of them?”

“It has not been necessary. One woman proved uncaring of her offspring from the outset-I used her as a test for the others, to see if they had the resolve to kill her. One did, the woman you have already met, and she did so admirably. But, rest assured, I will carry out my threat. The negligence of the mother and her defiance of my orders will be additional crimes to that for which she faced death in the first place.” She held his gaze. “Were you able to assist the first of my revenging angels?”

“It was not difficult. Widow Machyn’s house was directly opposite that of your sister. She left London two years ago and now nurses the injured soldiers in Portchester Castle. Her stepson told us where she was-for the price of a quart of wine.” He leaned forward and picked up his glass of sack. “You are right: some men are easily seduced-and not just by the pleasures of the flesh.”

A flicker of a smile crossed Lady Percy’s lips. “Do you hunt, Father?”

“No. It is not possible in the city.”

“As you spoke those words just now, I had an image of one of my hawks in flight, swooping in for the kill. And you are like my falconer, calling in and sending out my beautiful birds. They have the talons, and they can spiral high, looking for their prey.”

Buckman sipped from his glass. “One of them will drop silently from a great height soon and seize a small, frightened rabbit near Portchester.”

Joan Hellier lay on the hay in the darkness of a barn. An owl hooted outside. Everything seemed so precarious: her life, her daughter’s life-the next meal, even. She was cold but not as cold as she would be if John had not found this barn at dusk. He was her godsend-and yet being with him brought more problems. He had been known back in the north as “Egyptian John” or “John the Egyptian”-he being the illegitimate son of an English prostitute by an Egyptian vagabond. Those features were clearly to be seen in his face, which meant he was distrusted at best, and hated at worst, wherever he went. She could be arrested just for being with him.

She felt John behind her. He reached around and cupped her breast in his hand. She let it lie there for a moment, but when she felt him fondling her, she pushed his hand away.

“Not now.”

He moved his hand. “What then? You want to sleep?”

“I want to think.”

“About the woman?”

“About Jenifer. About the assizes. About Lady Percy. God’s breath, I wish I could wipe the smile off that judge’s face. And Lady Percy’s too. They sicken me. I wish it could be them that we had to kill and not this poor woman. What does she do except help sick soldiers?”

John moved, trying to dig himself deeper into the hay for warmth. “She is alone in the cottage. We could go back and do it now.”

“Too dangerous. If she cried out, the whole community would come running-and they know the lanes and alleys; we don’t. They will have lights; we’ll be hunted down. And remember, it’s not just a matter of killing her. Father Buckman gave us precise instructions.”

“Then we don’t let her cry out.”

Joan remembered how scared she had been when Lady Percy’s officers came for her in the prison. And how nervous she had been later, at Sheffield Manor. She and two other women, Jane Carr and Sarah Cowie, had been told to kill another condemned woman in front of Lady Percy. Sarah had proved weak-willed; Jane simply weak. Joan had done the killing almost alone, using the hem of the victim’s own skirt to throttle her. Then, slumped in the torment of what she had done, she had seen her seven-year-old daughter Jenifer carried into that same great chamber, and the other women’s daughters too, including the daughters of the woman she had just killed. The memories were horrible: the dead woman’s petticoat, the crying of the children. She had been told to go to London and call at a certain tavern, the Black Swan, where a priest in a dark attic room would give her instructions. Given what she had already done, the prospect of killing this middle-aged, lonely nurse had not worried her at the time. Only now, faced with the necessity of killing again, with these houses and these people around her-all of them southern, strange, and untrustworthy-did it unnerve her. Also, the sense of being someone else’s instrument made her feel as if she was owned. Like a slave.

She settled herself into the hay. The owl outside continued hooting. Soon afterward she heard John snore. When the memories of Lady Percy came into her mind she beat them back, each time saying a prayer for Jenifer, wishing her more and more good things-wishing her a smile.

Tuesday, December 24

The weather was a mixture of weak sunlight and gray cloud. Clarenceux looked at the sky and across the road, and pulled out his piece of paper. He marked “Greybeard” and “Tom Green” as the two men watching the house. However, today there was a third man too. He did not see his face clearly through the distorting glass, but he was tall and clean shaven, and wore a black felt cap, bright white shirt, and velvet jerkin. The last item was more the sort of garment that would be seen at court than at a house in Fleet Street. The way he carried himself reminded Clarenceux of a naval captain he had once sailed with on a diplomatic mission. This man had authority. There could be little doubt that the house of spies had a new master.

Clarenceux created a new column on his piece of paper and headed it “captain.” There were now eight men coming and going from the house. At some points there had been as many as five in the building at one time.

Turning from the window, he put the paper away and tried to concentrate on the preparation for his visitation of Oxfordshire. There were piles of bound books and unbound manuscripts all over the table and floor. His heart was not in reading them, however; he could think of nothing but the growing threat across the street. He chose instead to stack them away in the book press by the door. But in so doing he picked up the chronicle of Henry of Abingdon.

It was a most unusual volume. The best parts were all the things the author deplored. One concealment of two Lollard knights at Thame Abbey was particularly obnoxious to Henry and thoroughly entertaining for Clarenceux. Henry had not written to praise these men, who were Lollards and therefore heretics in his eyes, but to show what evils lurked in the Church. He had been appalled that the abbot of Thame-a Cistercian, no less-should have sheltered two such men and even facilitated their escape. He was no less outraged that the abbot was never prosecuted. Clarenceux made a note to point out the passage to Sir Richard when he returned the volume, for Sir Richard was now the owner of Thame Abbey.