James Forrester - Sacred Treason

“I know all the ways in and out of this city by night. Perhaps it was along the ditch on the back of the Ludgate tenements you came in? Or over the top of one of them, onto the walls? Maybe you took a small boat to the wharf at Dowgate, or somewhere else along that stretch of the river. Yes?”

“Sergeant Crackenthorpe, you are not speaking to some petty thief. I would be grateful if you would accompany me to Ludgate. I need hardly remind you that my lantern has gone out.”

“Mr. Clarenceux, I will accompany you back to your house. I would like to know exactly where it is.”

***

Clarenceux leaned against his front door. “Here.”

“Good,” growled Crackenthorpe, holding up his lantern to see as much of the house as he could. “We will know where to come. Good-bye, Mr. Clarenceux. I have no doubt that we will meet again.”

Clarenceux said nothing but turned and walked down the alley beside his house. He felt for the handle on the back door and went in. He took off his hat, hearing the splatter of drips on the floor, and walked along the passage past the kitchen. He fumbled for the latch on the door to the buttery, smelling the sweet scent of ale and wine. He was shivering. He cursed the night under his breath, throwing down his hat and untying his cope, letting it fall. He undid the laces to his sopping ruff and unfastened his soaked doublet: these too he left where they fell, together with his hose. In darkness he undressed down to his shirt and braies, and in these wet underclothes he stepped out of the buttery and walked up the stairs.

His legs ached. He paused on the landing, with the door into the hall on his left. Directly opposite were the doors to the parlor and the guest chamber. He considered sleeping in the empty guest bed. But no, he wanted to find his own room. And see his wife.

A faint light reached him as he neared the second floor. He could see the door to his elder daughter’s chamber. It was shut; there was no light around the edges. He nodded quietly in the darkness. God bless you, Annie. Stay safe, my sweet. Then he turned around, and looked at the door to his own chamber. It was ajar, candlelight coming from within.

He pushed the door. It creaked as it swung.

The candle was burning in the alcove above the bed. His wife Awdrey was asleep, half propped up on a bolster. She had obviously been waiting for him. She stirred at the sound of the door but did not wake. Their younger daughter was asleep in her cot on Awdrey’s side of the bed, wrapped up well against the cold. Clarenceux smiled. Awdrey was a good mother, so dutiful to both their daughters. The candlelight cast a glow over both of them, allowing him to see his daughter’s face and the gold of his wife’s hair; she had fallen asleep without her nightcap. She looked at her most beautiful like that, when asleep and natural, he thought. Still not twenty-five. He liked to say her name in Latin, Etheldreda , and in Old English, Aethelfrith. She was his Saxon princess. When he looked at her he knew he was a lucky man.

It would be light in three hours. Then the serious questions would begin.

Henry Machyn stirred at the sound of the stable door opening. For a moment he thought he heard the stableboy, coming to see to the horses. Suddenly he was fully awake, his body rigid. Four or five men were down in the yard. He could hear voices. Through the opening where the ladder was, he saw a light. One of them had a lantern.

His heart was beating with fear and disbelief. How could anyone know he was here? But they were looking for him.

Clarenceux must have betrayed me.

The realization brought shock to his heart and tears to his eyes. He had trusted the man. He had given him his book. The book. Everything he still hoped for and cherished now lay in ruins. Twenty-six years of keeping a secret, wasted.

How could Clarenceux have done this?

He heard feet on the rungs of the ladder. A second later, he saw a man’s hat and the shadow of a head. The man lifted a lantern. A gold brilliance touched the harness hanging there, the piles of hay, several old apple barrels, and the stacked hemp sacks full of oats.

The man saw Machyn and smiled, revealing yellow teeth. “Sergeant Crackenthorpe,” he called down. “He’s here!”

Saturday, December 11

Clarenceux was sitting in his candlelit study with his robe close around him. He was alone again but for Henry Machyn’s chronicle, smelling the wood smoke of his study. He heard footsteps on the stairs. A moment later his daughter Annie appeared, holding an orange. Her brown hair was tied back, showing off her high forehead.

“Annie, you should be asleep. It’s very late,” he said, welcoming her into his arms.

“Yes, but Mother said I could show you this,” she replied, thrusting out the orange and smiling. “We buyed it in the market. It was priced a shilling.”

“You bought it in the market,” he corrected. “Not buyed it.” He took the orange and held it up, examining it. “A whole shilling? Do you know why it was so much?”

“Why?”

“Oranges grow on trees in a country far away, called Spain, where the sun shines all day long. Then they are picked and packed in barrels…”

Annie was not listening. She was looking at the chronicle that lay open on the table board. “What is this?” she asked.

“A book. A chronicle.”

“What does it say?”

“It says, ‘December the eleventh. On this day did Ann, daughter of Mr. Clarenceux-’”

Clarenceux stopped suddenly. The next words read: dye from her ateing of an orange fruyte.

“Go. Go downstairs, now,” he commanded.

He watched her go. She left the door open. He knew she would be crying; he had been too abrupt. But he had had reason: this was outrageous. How dare Machyn write such things! Did the man not hope to win his favor? How far had his wits wandered?

He turned back to the chronicle. The next entry read: Ye following daye dyed his wyfe Awdrey from the poysoninge appel gyven unto her by Mr. Clarenshux because hee dyd not anymoore love her.

He swept the book off the table board, sending his visitation, two other volumes, inkwell, and paper flying across the chamber. As it fell he stood up, rage filling his body, and turned the board itself over. Did he not love her? He bent down and lifted the chronicle, and threw it with all his force across the room. Did he not love them both? His daughter? His wife? The mother of his children? How could anyone have written…

“William, William!” he heard his wife shout. “William, stop it!”

He opened his eyes. It was light, the shutters were open. Awdrey was leaning over him, a loose strand of blonde hair hanging down.

Clarenceux rubbed his hand over his face, feeling his brow soaked with sweat. He lay back in his bed, warm and fresh, where the study in his dream had been smoky and cold. It seemed to him as if the malevolence of the previous night had come back with him, into his house.

That book …

It had been a prophetic dream, he knew. He had to give the book back to Machyn. But today was the day that Machyn had foretold was the day of his death.

“You’ve been thrashing about in your sleep like a man possessed,” said Awdrey, her voice tinged with fear. “Where were you last night? I waited after all that knocking on the door, but you didn’t come to bed. Thomas told me this morning that you went out. And now you are shouting in your sleep, shouting about me and about Annie like a man gone mad, beating your arms about. What happened? Where did you go?”

He sat upright and breathed deeply. Calmer now, he swung his legs out of the bed and sat in his shirt, looking at the open window.