James Forrester - Final Sacrament

He tried to take a deep breath and struggled to fill his lungs. The air was warming up now. From the great bonfires he had watched on Maydays in the past, he reckoned that the most intense burning would be over within four hours. He would just have to wait for a short while more. But waiting was getting difficult. He squirmed in the darkness, trying to fill his lungs again, and although he managed it, it left him feeling uneasy. He started to turn around in the room, taking his foot off the thick oak door for a moment. A red glow filled the space, which he could see was beginning to let in smoke. Hurriedly he slammed the door shut again with his foot. He felt himself start to panic. The chimney was designed so that the heat would drive the smoke upward; he had nothing to fear from a small amount trickling into the chamber through the gaps in the door. That was nothing. But his fear rose, despite his attempts to reason with himself. He was finding it harder to breathe.

He did not know it, but the outside of the ancient door was beginning to burn. Such was the heat coming up the chimney that the oak, which had dried out thoroughly over the last two centuries, was beginning to smolder. Its antiquity would be the death of him. The tar that blackened the outside of the door was now burning; the outside of the door itself was a sheet of flame. The air rushing up the chimney contained hardly any oxygen; and little by little, sip by sip, the flames were drawing the oxygen out of Clarenceux’s hiding place. The chamber that had no difficulty sustaining two men when there was a small hearth fire below now became less and less inhabitable. He felt his lungs tightening; there was no chance of him taking a deep breath. He tried to calm himself and started to pray, silently, so as not to use too much air, but the shortage of oxygen in his lungs made him more desperate with each breath. Eventually, terrified, he turned, keeping the door shut for the moment with his foot, hoping to open it just a little and suck in some of the air that he believed would be rushing up the chimney. He did so-and he saw the front of the door blaze furiously. He slammed it again, tears running down his face, smoke in his eyes and lungs. He could not breathe. He could not leave his place of suffocation.

He began to pray that the fire would die down, that God would help him in this, his hour of greatest need. But an image came to his mind. He had asked the question ever since the days of the old king, Henry VIII, how one man-albeit a king-could command the faith of another. He had wondered no less with the accession of Elizabeth. And now it was being shown to him. He began to understand. Fire needs air to breathe, and when he pinched out a candle he deprived it of air. The Lord Almighty was pinching out the candle of his life. The Church would pass to the next generation, and they would accept the new faith; his generation would be pinched out, one by one, like so many candles of the Catholic Church.

He could not breathe now. His lungs fought to open and to inhale the glorious air of nature, but there was nothing he could do. He could choose to suffocate or he could choose to burn. Many before him had chosen the latter; he could remember the screams. He chose not to move, despite the pain in his lungs. He was like a fish on land, flipping in agony, its gills struggling for the water. It hurt; his lungs were burning within him.

“Calm yourself,” he said. “The Lord Almighty will protect and preserve you.” As he struggled to breathe, he realized that the voice he had heard was not his own. It was a woman’s voice. He was dizzy and felt sick, but the nausea passed, and he heard the woman’s voice again. “There is a way out, through the back of the chamber.”

So real did her voice seem to him that he opened his stinging eyes and looked into the darkness. The chamber went back farther than he had realized. He moved away from the door, which fell slightly open, flames lighting the way. It was easier to breathe now, on account of a draught of air from the back of the chamber, and he was glad for that. More red light entered, letting him see the shades of a woman’s face in the darkness. He began to crawl toward the rear of the chamber, tracing the path of the fresh air. Someone took his hand and lifted it, gently pulling him to his feet. Although the chamber was low he found he could stand quite easily here. Still he could only see vague movements in the darkness of the woman who had spoken, who was leading him away.

Suddenly he stepped into brilliant light-glaring sunshine. The fresh air washed his face; even his wound no longer hurt. He was on the roof of the chapter house, in the afternoon sun. He saw the thick billowing smoke and the men around the building. Further away he could see Awdrey and Mildred with Thomas, setting out on the road to Oxford. He turned to the woman beside him, who was dark-haired and smiling. She was familiar-he had always known her. She was his conscience, his soul, his second self. It seemed strange he had never noticed her before. She had always been with him throughout his entire life.

He did not know what to say, but he did not need to speak. The breeze raised ripples across the surface of the lake, which caught the sunlight. Looking further, he could see the road to London, where he knew his daughter Annie was playing in the garden of the London house with Robert Cecil.

“This is a good way to die,” he said eventually.

“Are you ready to let go now?”

“Yes, I am ready.” He looked back over the trees of the parkland to where Awdrey was riding with Thomas for Oxford, with Mildred in the saddle with her. “In all our struggles, the last word is hope,” he whispered.

“But in the final struggle of all?” she asked.

He smiled. “In the final struggle, the last word is love.”