James Forrester - Final Sacrament

“Who was your husband?” asked the blond-haired woman.

For this question she was given a stare of contempt. “I was married to Lord Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland.” Lady Percy turned her attention to the freckled woman, who was still lying across the table. “You, Helen Oudry, sit down. The surgeon will see to your wounds later. First, grace.” She raised a hand and, without turning around, beckoned the priest forward. “Father, if you would be so kind.”

The priest bowed and uttered a short blessing in English, appending a short Latin grace. He bowed again and stepped back.

“Thank you, Father. You may leave us.” She looked at Mary. “Are you going to stand there all day? Let us eat.”

Mary took her place on the bench opposite the other two women. She began by helping herself to some chicken breasts that were on a nearby dish. But she hesitated. Like the freckled woman who breathed through her mouth, Lady Percy ate very noisily, as if she was putting as much effort into opening her mouth as closing it. The noises distracted her for a moment until the juices of the roast meat proved too pleasing.

“I want to forgive you,” Lady Percy said. “You don’t have to answer. But I do expect a modicum of gratitude for saving your lives.”

“A modicum?” asked the blond-haired woman.

“I do not expect more. I do not expect your love, Ann Thwaite. Besides, what I have done for you in sparing your miserable lives is nothing by comparison with what I hope you will do for me. Succeed, and I will give you gold as well as your liberty.”

“And if we fail?”

Lady Percy stretched over to a plate on which a roast partridge lay. She picked it up and broke it in half with her fingers, put half back, and sliced some meat off the half she had taken, picking up the pieces and dipping them in the nearest sauce. “That depends on how you fail. You all have children. Ann, six; Helen, three; Mary, two. They are the reason you are still alive. If you give your life trying to fulfill my request, then I will release your children and entrust them to those who will look after them. If you deliberately fail-that is to say, if you desert the cause-I will hang all of your children in those woods you can see over there.” She pointed through the window.

“But they are children!” exclaimed Ann Thwaite.

“And you are felons. The cause of the Holy Catholic Church is greater than that of the children of felons. Your lives are forfeit, and the lives of motherless children are short. I want that document, and I want the traitor who hides it dead. England has a new heir in Charles James Stuart of Scotland. I will have his grandmother Lady Margaret Douglas released from her wrongful confinement in the Tower. And I will have the Catholic religion restored to every altar of every church in the realm.”

Mary had stopped eating. The countess’s words had suddenly made the food in her mouth taste dry and unappealing. Lady Percy noticed. “Mary Vardine. I know you have already killed a man, and that you are sentenced to burn. I have a special plan in mind for you.”

Clarenceux stared at the piece of paper by the light of the candle on the table in his study. Even though he was wearing a thick robe he was cold, shivering. The fire in the hearth was almost out, and apart from a few loose sheets of paper, he had put nothing on it for an hour. He should have fetched a Yule log, he thought, and lit it with the remains of last year’s log for luck. Instead, he had burned the carefully saved remains of last year’s log downstairs at suppertime, with nothing for next Christmas.

He heard footsteps ascending the stairs. The door creaked open and he saw Awdrey’s face, golden in the light of her candle.

“You are not working now, are you?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Dethick wants me to complete this visitation of Oxfordshire by the end of February. He expects me to start as soon as the Christmas feast is over. Part of me says I should go, and you will be rid of me and the risk, and part of me says exactly the opposite: that I should stay because you will be vulnerable.”

“Have you considered coming to bed?”

“I cannot sleep.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that you should sleep.”

He smiled, then closed his eyes. He did not know what to say. In truth, he did not desire her at that moment-he desired her safety more. But she came toward him and set her candle down on the table. She leaned over him and kissed the side of his face, his ear, then his cheek. “We have to live,” she whispered, “and there is much more to living than constantly avoiding death. Besides, you’re worrying so much you’re almost killing yourself. Soon there will be nothing left of you but an epitaph. ‘Here lieth William Harley, a worried man.’” She kissed the side of his face again. And again. After several more kisses she started to kiss the other side of his face and saw the tear in the candlelight. She kissed that too.

“If we are to be parted,” he said, “whether that be through your death or mine, I want you to know that I love you. I know I have not always been the most faithful husband, and that I have at times been distracted. But they were, and are, just other stars in the firmament. You are my Pole Star, and you always have been. You are the guiding light of my life.”

She kissed his hair. “We Pole Stars have difficulty making you sailors follow our light. You wander about until you are threatened by darkness, then you look for us. I know you. You are a man, and men lie in their words-but not in their deeds. I want you to show me that you love me more than everything you fear out there. Show me, do not tell me.”

He put a hand to her face. “Bless you, Awdrey, my Etheldreda, my love.”

John the Egyptian reached out in the darkness and felt Joan lying beside him. He ran his hand over her clothed body, over her breasts. She lay awake, not moving, not wanting him. She wanted only to sink in the straw and find herself anew, somewhere else. She turned away from him.

“What is the matter?”

“What do you think?” she replied.

“I was the one who killed her. I did it for you. You owe me something.”

She turned back over, angrily. “I owe you? Do you mean…Oh, let me not waste my breath.”

John reached out and held her wrist tight. “I used to break into houses, lift clothes through windows with hooks, and trade stolen goods in markets. I used to take horses, play with false dice, and trick travelers out of their money. I did not kill women just because some haggard old countess wanted them dead.”

“Don’t pretend that you were an innocent. It makes no difference-theft or murder, you’ll still swing for it one day.”

“I had no reason to kill that woman. Jenifer is not my daughter. You owe me.”

Joan lay motionless on the hay. Suddenly she reached down, lifted the skirts of her kirtle and smock up high, above her waist, reached for his hand, and pulled it violently toward her, placing it between her legs, which she spread wide. “Go on, just do it, since you feel that I owe you. Get it over with. Me, I am thinking of my daughter. I am also mindful of that woman we killed. I can’t forget that her head is in a sack over there. You might have killed her, but it was me who cut her head off. Now do you still wish to use me for pleasure?”

John grabbed her thigh. He pinched it tightly as he moved over her. He put his other hand around her throat. “Yes, I do. Because I want you to know I am not just your tool in this matter. You are my doxy and you’ll stay that way, even after all this is done. Your daughter is your business, but you are mine. I am helping you, am I not? That is because I want you. I’ll help you all I can-but I will have you when I want you…” He let go of her neck and thigh to unfasten his breeches and push them down. Forcing his left arm under her back, he grabbed her left arm and pressed himself against her, pinning her right arm as well. Then he entered her. He was not violent in his movements, but she felt him bruising her left arm with his grip.