James Forrester - Sacred Treason

The man must be mad to come out on a night like this.

He shook his head and walked briskly back into the hall to light some candles, so he could properly receive his visitor. But as he did so, the darkness of the hall reminded him it was very late. It was pouring outside. Machyn had called despite the alarm he would undoubtedly cause. Most of all, Machyn’s house was at a considerable distance, within the city walls, in the parish of Holy Trinity the Less. What on earth was he doing here, after curfew, in St. Bride’s, outside the city?

Clarenceux stopped. He turned and looked back at the doorway, lit up by the cresset lamp burning in the staircase wall.

This was not right.

He heard the slow footsteps and the stick of the old man on the stairs, and Thomas sliding the bolts home on the front door.

He walked over to a large elm table that stood by the shuttered windows. He placed his sword on it carefully and picked up two more candlesticks. One candle was askew. He righted it thoughtfully and lit both. For a moment he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the round mirror to his left. Brown eyes; short dark hair with a few streaks of gray; short beard trimmed neatly. A kind, inquiring face. He was tall and fit, despite his forty-five years. Riding, walking, and sheer intellectual energy had kept him physically as well as mentally strong.

The man who now shuffled into the candlelit room was of an altogether different appearance. Henry Machyn was short and moved slowly with the aid of his stick, a white-haired hollow of a man. He was drenched from his collar to his shoes. His old-fashioned jerkin dripped onto the rushes, as did the leather-wrapped parcel he carried beneath his right arm. He was fat-faced; his clothes hung from his shoulders as if they had been piled over him. But it was his expression that shocked Clarenceux. He usually had an amiable, avuncular countenance, one belonging to a man who would cheerfully regale drinkers in a tavern with a tall story. But that face, surrounded by a circle of receding white hair, now looked simply bewildered. Two milky blue eyes looked out at Clarenceux, imploring, yet without hope, as if Machyn had just watched the hanging of a dear friend and was now wishing for death himself.

“Goodman Machyn, what in the name of heaven brings you here at this time?” Clarenceux gestured to his servant, who had followed Machyn up the stairs. “Thomas, fetch some towels.” He looked again at the deathly face of his friend. “You know it is perilous to be alone in the streets at night.”

“I need your help, Mr. Clarenceux,” Machyn said in a hoarse voice. “I trusted the wrong man. Everything is gone. It is over for me. The end. And my dearest Rebecca…” His voice began to crumble; his whole face broke into sobs. “…my wife, my son, my friends, everyone…”

It was as if Machyn’s very character had been caught in a trap and sliced in two, and each half was dying separately, in lonely sorrow, unable to reassure the other.

“Goodman Machyn, my friend, what do you mean? Who would want to harm you?

But Machyn did not answer. He was crying openly, his cheeks and beard glistening wet in the candlelight.

Clarenceux stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. “Come now, sit down.”

Machyn shook his head. It took a few seconds for him to regain his composure. “No, I do not need to sit. I need to talk, to tell you something.” He took a deep breath. “I know you think you do not know me very well, Mr. Clarenceux. But I believe I know you. I have met you many times over the years, and I have always paid attention to your deeds and your achievements, your integrity. And that is why, now, at the end, I know I can trust you.”

“The end? What do you mean, Henry? The end of what?”

Machyn hesitated, clutching the object under his arm. “Will you do me the honor of looking after this book for me? It is my chronicle.” He lifted the parcel to draw attention to it.

Clarenceux removed his hand from Machyn’s shoulder and took the package. He carefully peeled off the wet leather covering and let it fall to the floor. The volume itself was mostly dry. He turned it over: it had a fine, thick vellum binding, stamped in the center on both sides with the design of a whale surrounded by a circle of waves.

“It has been my work for thirteen years,” said Machyn, wiping his face. “Every event I have witnessed with my own eyes, every funeral for which I provided the black cloth and trappings, every sermon at St. Paul’s Cross, every execution at Tyburn, every burning of a reformer or a heretic at Smithfield, every procession I have seen through the city…everything, everything.”

“It sounds like a monumental achievement,” said Clarenceux. “Bound in vellum too.”

“Like the volumes in your own library.”

Clarenceux nodded and smiled briefly. “Some of them.” His collection of books was probably the most extensive that Machyn had ever seen, but even he had few bindings as fine as this. “Of course I will…” he began. Then he stopped himself.

He paused. The room was silent. He could hear the rain outside. He felt uneasy again, as he had when he had heard the knocking.

“Why do you want to give it to me?”

“Because you are the most noble man of my acquaintance. You value old chronicles, and this one is so very precious. It will still be valuable after I am dead. In fact, far more so. I need you to look after it.”

Clarenceux looked away, toward the candles on the table. So very precious . Those may have been the words of the man standing in front of him, but they had not been composed in this room. Most of all, it was the word need that caused him to think. Machyn needed to tell him something. He, Clarenceux, was Machyn’s last resort.

“But you have other friends, Henry, and you have a son.”

Machyn shook his head. “John is not interested in our history or the perilous state of our faith. He is impetuous and still has the hunger of youth. He wants to see the world. Maybe one day he will not return from one of his voyages. I want this book to last for centuries, like the chronicles you use when checking your visitations. I always intended that it would come to you in the end. I have bequeathed it to you in my will.”

“You have made a will?” Clarenceux was surprised. Most men waited until they were dying before setting their affairs finally in order.

Machyn raised his right hand. It was shaking. He made the sign of the cross over his face and chest. “I only ask one thing of you, Mr. Clarenceux. Promise me, please, if anything does happen to me, you will go to Lancelot Heath, the painter-stainer…”

“Henry…”

“No, no. Please,” said Machyn, shaking his head. “Please listen, for this is most important. If anything happens to me, you must go to see Lancelot Heath, in the parish of St. James Garlickhithe. Tell him your name is King Clariance of Northumberland. And tell him I have given you a date. But do not tell him what it is. He will understand.”

“What date?”

“June the twentieth 1557. Exactly like that. June the twentieth.”

Clarenceux looked at Machyn, standing dripping before him. The man was clearly asking him to do much more than look after a chronicle. He could see his lip trembling.

He glanced away. He looked at the light of the candles burning on the table and thought for a moment about Awdrey upstairs, in the glow of her candlelight.

“Henry,” he said gently, turning back to face the old man. “What meaning has this date? Why need I remember it?”

Thomas returned with the towels. He passed one to Machyn, who wiped his face slowly and dried his shaking hands.

Clarenceux continued. “Look, my friend, we have known each other for fifteen years at least, maybe twenty. But you have never before come to my house in the middle of the night, without a lantern, breaking curfew. How did you get past the city gates? The city watch? You have never asked me for a favor before, except to borrow a book occasionally. But now you come here in the middle of the night and ask me to look after this, your own chronicle, and you start talking about its importance after you are dead? And you tell me you have made a will. You are either losing your mind or you are not being honest with me.”