James Forrester - Sacred Treason

Clarenceux nodded. Some years ago a tonsured dead dog dressed in a priest’s dalmatic had been thrown into Queen Mary’s presence chamber after she had forced Parliament to ban the Protestant service.

“Mind you,” continued Thomas, “if there were to be another uprising, we would see more processions in the city.”

Clarenceux smiled. “Would that cheer you, Thomas? The Lord Mayor and the masters of the companies all decked out in their finery?”

“I mean for the lads and lasses. When I was a boy, it was like a holiday. The wardens of the companies would throw us pennies. The baker in our street would give us pies. My father, God rest his-”

Thomas stopped. Before them in the street, a crowd of about twenty people were staring at a door. Henry Machyn’s door.

“I don’t believe it,” whispered Clarenceux.

They were looking at the house with the low jetty. The door and ground-floor window were both barricaded with planks, and over them were painted large red crosses. A young man with a breastplate, helmet, and sword stood by the door.

“Not possible,” muttered Thomas, frowning.

“The last plague victim was buried three weeks ago,” agreed Clarenceux. He looked up and down Little Trinity Lane. He half expected to see Crackenthorpe but did not. He could see no sign of the man who, until a few moments ago, had been following them. “Thomas,” he said quietly, looking around. “Go back to my house and fetch a crowbar. I believe there is one in the loft above the stable. Wrap it in some cloth and bring it here.”

“Yes, Mr. Clarenceux. Shall I fetch help?”

“No, Thomas. These people want information. They won’t hurt us. Not without orders, anyway.”

Walsingham sat writing at a table by a window in his parlor, the morning light shining onto the page. A fire burnt in the large decorated hearth. He dipped his quill into the inkwell and paused, looking out of the window at the water in the Tower moat. It was not that he was unsure of his facts, but rather that he doubted whether he should commit this particular piece of information to paper. Perhaps it was safer to send a messenger? He could carry a double message: one real piece of news and one false, in case of capture.

There was a knock at the door.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Walsingham, there is a man to see you. He says his name is Crackenthorpe.”

“With a scar?”

“Over his right eye, sir.”

“Allow him in.”

Crackenthorpe entered, holding his hat. He bowed. Walsingham looked up at him. If Crackenthorpe had not found his niche working for me, he would have been hanged by now. It is understandable that soldiers in battle kill men and rape women; such are the natural consequences of war. But Crackenthorpe sees no difference between war and peace. If he were sent back to the north, his own people would kill him sooner than the Scots.

“I have arrested Henry Machyn.”

Walsingham’s eyes opened a fraction wider. “Arrested? Good. Where is he now?”

“He’s under guard at the brick house in Bishopsgate.”

“In the cellars, I presume?”

“In leg irons.”

Walsingham set down his quill and got up from the table. He went to the far side of the room and ran his fingers over a plate of sweetmeats. He took one and started walking back, biting it with his front teeth. Excellent. Trap the man’s legs. Crackenthorpe is learning. Men take the ability to walk too much for granted.

He saw the large man watching him chew and gestured for him to help himself. “Where was he? How did you find him?”

Crackenthorpe raised a sweetmeat to his lips. “I watched Machyn’s house all night, as you instructed.” He placed the morsel in his mouth and tried to speak and chew at once. “Very late…a man arrived and started…knocking hard on the door.”

“Who?”

“He said he was William Harley, a herald.”

Walsingham smiled. “Well, well. Yes, he is a herald. Clarenceux King of Arms, no less.” He saw Crackenthorpe glance back again at the sweetmeat tray. “Go on, Sergeant Crackenthorpe. Have as many as you want. Tell me more.”

Crackenthorpe took two sweetmeats. He chewed and spoke at the same time. “I escorted Clarenceux…back to Ludgate. He asked the guard there…to let us through. He said he had done it before but…I didn’t believe him. We crossed the bridge and went to his house…” He swallowed, looking at Walsingham, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “We waited. He went in by an alleyway along one side. I continued to wait in the rain for a further quarter of an hour. Then I left one man at the front and led the rest down the same alley, hoping to learn more of the layout of his house and yard, in case I needed to order that the house be watched. The back door was closed, but by the lantern light I noticed the stable door was ajar. One of my men found Machyn upstairs, in the hayloft.”

Walsingham picked up the piece of paper he had been writing on when Crackenthorpe had arrived. He took it to the fireplace and let it drift into the flames, like a leaf. He knew his next message to Cecil had to be spoken. He would go and see him in person.

“Her majesty will be pleased. Have you started questioning Machyn yet?”

“No, sir. But I did leave a guard at his house.”

“And what about Clarenceux’s house? Have you searched it?”

There was a pause. “No, sir. I thought it best to report back to you for further instructions.”

Walsingham saw the blackened fragments of the paper drift up the chimney. “It needs to be done,” he said, turning to face Crackenthorpe. “But first, tell me everything you know about Clarenceux, everything he said last night. I want to know every word.”

Clarenceux stood amid the crowd. There were about forty people now in Little Trinity Lane, their breath visible in the sunlight as they whispered to one another. They were looking at the red crosses on the barricaded door. The plague that summer had been horrendous but people had begun to believe it was over. These crosses spelled doom not just for the occupant but for everyone else in the neighborhood.

Clarenceux looked up the street. Now he spotted the spy who had followed them from Fleet Street; he was lurking fifty yards away, in the opening of a passageway. Thomas was walking toward him, carrying the crowbar. He had wrapped it in a horse’s sweat pad. Clarenceux waited. Sunlight sparkled off the puddles. In some places the mud had been churned up, like the ground around a cattle trough in winter.

He took the crowbar from Thomas and felt its weight, examined one end, and then pressed it back into Thomas’s hand. “Stay with the crowd.”

“Mr. Clarenceux, you ought to know, someone’s been in your stable.”

Clarenceux paused. “Who? Not one of the lads?”

“I do not know who, sir. But there’s a lot of hay scattered in the loft and more at the foot of the ladder. Looks like there was a fight, or a scuffle at the least.”

Clarenceux remembered the open gate in the night. He glanced at the guard, then at the spy, and put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “Show me later,” he said, and stepped up to the door of Machyn’s house.

The guard was young and scrawny, about eighteen. He had a freckled face and a thin, ginger beard. He was dressed in no particular livery, but the helmet, sword, and breastplate marked him out from the usual guards to be seen outside plague-infected houses.

“Godspeed,” said Clarenceux cheerfully. “What’s your name?”

The guard looked warily at Clarenceux. “My name is Gray,” he replied, rising to his full height as the crowd fell silent.

“Goodman Gray,” Clarenceux continued, in a loud and confident voice, “I have a question for you. How is it that a man who was in good health last night is now pronounced plague-stricken this morning?”