James Forrester - Final Sacrament

Walsingham stood, waiting for Cecil’s next onslaught. When it did not come, he said, “I have sent men to search Sheffield Manor for the children that Mistress Harley said are imprisoned there, with instructions to restore them to their families, if they find them.”

“That is a start,” replied Cecil. “You can also take this as an order from the Privy Council. Lady Percy is never to be allowed out of that house again. Inform her that she is under house arrest for the rest of her life. The income from her estates is to be confiscated. Her nephew Lord Shrewsbury is to be told to limit the amount he gives her to the bare minimum. She is not to meddle in his courts. Only specially designated servants may enter her house, showing a license on each occasion. All her present servants are to be dismissed.”

“What shall I do about the girl-the one found in the abbey?”

“Let her go. Clarenceux trusted her. He employed her-she can return to his house.”

“She doesn’t want to return, she says. She wants to see her mother.”

“Well, let her do so, if she has a mother. Help her, for Christ’s salvation!”

“And after that-do I still have your confidence?”

“Neither of us can be proud of the parts we have played, Francis. Neither of us. We both did our best and we both failed. But we are true and honest men: we learn from our defeats. At the very least we might know what to watch for next time-and be thankful to Mr. Clarenceux that the Percy-Boleyn marriage agreement is no more.”

85

Saturday, February 22

Awdrey was sitting by the fire in the dark hall at home, staring into the flames. Fyndern had retired to the attic for the night, and both Annie and Mildred were long since asleep. Thomas came up the stairs from the kitchen, his slow footsteps creaking on the floorboards. Entering the hall, he looked at Awdrey. “Mistress Harley, may I speak to you about something?”

Awdrey looked up at him. “Of course. You do not need to ask.”

Thomas closed the door to the back stairs and pulled a bench over from the table. He sat beside Awdrey looking into the flames.

“I know this is possibly going to add to your distress, but I feel obliged to tell you something about Mr. Clarenceux. He asked me not to tell you, but if he is dead now, my obligation, as I see it, is to you.”

“What do you mean by ‘if he is dead’?”

Thomas shuffled, uncomfortable. “On St. Valentine’s Day he and I were in the tavern on Cheapside by the sign of the Mermaid. It was to be Mr. Clarenceux’s last night in London. There were just the two of us, and no one was near. I pressed him on his plan, asking him to promise me that he was not planning to kill himself. And then he said something-but I promised never to tell a soul.”

“Tell the flames,” whispered Awdrey. “Speak into the fire.”

Thomas pulled the bench closer to the hearth. He leaned forward and talked, looking into the glowing red logs and flickering flames. “Mr. Clarenceux told me a story about two knights who had persuaded the abbot of Thame to shelter them from their pursuers. They knew of a secret chamber in the abbey that could not be found even if the building was searched. I believe that Mr. Clarenceux knew how to find that chamber.”

Awdrey was quiet. Eventually she said, “What good would it have done? Nothing was left of that refectory but the four walls. Mr. Walsingham has assured us that only the girl was in the tunnels beneath.”

“That is true,” admitted Thomas. “But Mr. Clarenceux has given you a trail of places to visit, heading to your sister. There is this farm belonging to John Beard in Wargrave, in Berkshire; then he urges you to go to Caswell, in Oxfordshire; then Exeter in Devon; and finally the table has to be delivered to your brother-in-law in Devon. Why did he specify those things? Sir William Cecil and Francis Walsingham, if they had seen that letter, would not have known where your brother-in-law is living. Heaven knows if Mr. Clarenceux survived, but he means you to follow that path…”

“We made just such a journey two years ago,” said Awdrey, looking at Thomas. “We stopped at a house in Wargrave; I remember thinking how strange it was that we went there. I will think about this, Thomas. Thank you for telling me.”

“Don’t thank me,” said the old man. “I just whispered it to the fire.”

Thursday, February 27

Awdrey stood at the front window, looking out at Fleet Street as the rain slanted down. The light was a strange orange-pink, and the clouds dark gray, giving the houses on the other side of the street a lurid aspect.

It was late in the morning, when the rain had finally subsided, that they set off with a hired cart and two Flemish horses. The elm table was wrapped in canvas and straw and tied upside down on the cart, and covered with another canvas sheet. The two girls traveled with Thomas on the front of the cart; Awdrey and Fyndern rode on Brutus and Maud.

No sooner had they set off than it became clear that the cart would slow them up enormously. It took them all the first day to reach Brentford, with the wheels of the cart sliding into ruts and puddles, and regularly requiring a shove or a levering out of a ditch. That night they stayed at an inn-which greatly excited Annie and Mildred-before continuing through more changeable weather to Wargrave, which they reached in the late afternoon. The lane to the cottage was mired in sloppy mud and standing water, and the cart rocked heavily as they tried to pull it down the lane. Eventually they gave up and left it under Fyndern’s watchful guard in a barn just off the highway. The girls traveled with Awdrey and Thomas on the horses down to the cottage in the valley.

Awdrey looked at the moss-covered thatch and the low eaves of the place, and the pigs rooting in the mud-strewn yard. She chose the driest spot she could find to let Mildred down and then dismounted, by the wall of the house, beside a cart with a broken wheel. The cottage door was open for the light, and she knocked. A tired-looking woman in a brown dress smelling strongly of smoke appeared in the doorway, squinting. She took one look at Awdrey and bowed, averting her gaze. “Oh, Mistress Harley-good day to you. John’s away; he’ll be back soon, I assure you.”

“You know my name?”

“Of course,” she replied. “We heard from the vicar’s boy that you would come before long. No other gentlefolk come this way.”

Awdrey glanced at Thomas.

“Watch that sow, she’ll have your arm!” warned Agnes as she saw Mildred in the yard trying to feed a large black pig a handful of mud.

“May we come in?”

Agnes welcomed them both in and gave them a bench to sit on overlooking the fire in the middle of the room. “I can offer you fresh bread,” she said, “but we don’t have butter. It has been a long time since we have had butter. I have some apples.”

“Apples for the children would be much appreciated,” said Awdrey, with a smile as the smoke from the hearth wafted in her direction.

“The vicar’s boy told us we best be goodly behaved but he didn’t say when you’d be coming…” She went outside and called, “Girls, do you want an apple each? Oh, John’s here.”

Agnes stood back as her husband entered the house. “Mistress Harley has arrived, John.”

John Beard bowed to Awdrey. “We are honored.”

Awdrey introduced Thomas.

John looked at his wife in the smoky gloom. “We did hear you would be coming and we would have made better provision to entertain you-except we did not know when. Although your husband recently said he did not require the rent, we have been trying to gather as much as we can. I have sold the last of our chickens and-”