James Forrester - Sacred Treason

Up the road toward Summerhill they rode, with the moon silvering the trees, the road and the old battlements of the great tower. Reflecting in the glass of a high window. Highlighting the wood of the gate.

Clarenceux’s pulse was fast. Still he waited, each step the horses took being one step nearer the time of his revenge. He thought of touching the cold corpse of James Hopton the previous night, the man whose neck had been sliced. The killer was riding beside him-so close that he had to be vulnerable.

Another hundred yards to go, another fifty.

“We have searched this house already,” said one of the men. “Just yesterday.”

“The heretic murderer has been back here since,” answered Crackenthorpe.

Then all of them began to dismount. Clarenceux draped the reins of his horse around the post to one side of the gate.

“You, knock on the door. Rouse the gatekeeper,” ordered Crackenthorpe.

“No,” said Clarenceux. “No. That will not be necessary. The chronicle is not in the house. Follow me.”

Crackenthorpe’s huge figure remained by the side of his horse, silhouetted by the moonlight. He considered the risks.

“Very well. Stephens, you will guard the horses, keep them ready. You other two will come with us. But first I want to fasten this rope tighter around the prisoner’s neck.”

Clarenceux stopped and allowed Crackenthorpe to tighten the noose. He held his hands close against his body, so as not to let the rope around his wrists fall away.

“This way,” he said, leading the three men to the left of the gate and alongside the stone wall. He listened to the sound of their footsteps behind him in the frost-covered grass.

He was trembling. Here the path alongside the house was in shadow, and he could hardly see it. Nor did he know exactly where he was heading. All he knew was that the overgrown access to the tunnels beneath Summerhill was somewhere near, forty feet beyond the corner of the outer courtyard, as Julius had said. He trampled through the undergrowth searching for the darker shades, moving first this way, then that, following every possible pattern that might indicate the exposed rock and the tunnel entrance.

“Where are you leading us?” asked one of the men, stumbling through the bracken.

“To the chronicle.”

And then he saw it. Beneath the silhouette of a pair of trees there was a patch of complete blackness and overgrowth. The vague trail of a flattened path led in that direction.

“This way.”

Clarenceux walked onto the old path and approached the opening. Sir John Fawcett…sixty-seven paces… He reached for the side of the tunnel and brushed away some loose brambles and bracken. “It’s in here.”

“We need a light,” said Crackenthorpe. “Do you two have a lantern?”

Neither of them did.

Crackenthorpe turned in the moonlit wood, sensing something was not right. “Why did you not say that the chronicle is underground? We could have brought lanterns.”

Clarenceux’s heart was beating fast. “You did not ask. I do not need a light. I know where I am going.”

Crackenthorpe stepped closer to him. “If you try anything, I am going to break your neck. I’ll find the chronicle when I come back-and then I will have a light.”

Clarenceux felt the rope bite into his throat and turned into the tunnel.

Sixty-seven paces …

The three men were following him. The tunnel’s width-it was about six feet wide-prevented them all walking together: two were immediately behind him and another at the rear. He guessed that Crackenthorpe was the one at the rear as there seemed to be very little slack in the rope around his neck. He tried to control his breathing, which was rapid and heavy; it seemed to echo against the chalk walls. He moved over to the right-hand side of the tunnel and in the darkness allowed the ropes to fall from his hands, trying to leave them where the guards would not step on them.

Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three …Carefully he reached up and took hold of the rope around his neck and drew it a little forward. Thirty-nine, forty, forty-one …One man was now very close behind him. Clarenceux began to cut through the rope, sawing with the blade. Fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two …

Crackenthorpe stopped suddenly. “What’s that noise?”

In the suddenness of his stopping the last strand of the rope broke and fell from Clarenceux’s hand.

He had to run. Into the darkness. Now.

“He’s cut the rope-after him!” roared Crackenthorpe. Raising his right arm Clarenceux pushed himself forward, feeling for the stone protruding from the chalk at head height. He heard the unsheathing of swords and the sound of feet pounding on the tunnel floor. They were so close, and they were running unafraid, not knowing what lay just a few steps beyond. Where is the stone? He had lost count of his paces-but knew that he had covered more than sixty-seven since entering the tunnel. How many more? Is the stone still there? A foot from behind knocked Clarenceux, and he stumbled, stooped, and ran on. Have I missed the stone? There was no time; he lunged for the wall itself, risking the fall.

And then he felt the stone and his other hand felt the opening. He flung himself to the right and into the narrow passage. Immediately two screams of terror filled the tunnel, echoing in the shaft as the men plunged straight over the edge and fell into the nothingness of the drop, their eyes suddenly opened to death, their bodies sounding like slabs of meat as they smashed down onto the rocks at the base of the shaft.

Two screams echoed in that tunnel. Only two.

Clarenceux could hear heavy breathing in the darkness nearby. He sensed a man getting to his feet and heard the ting of a sword as he picked it up off the stone floor.

“Fraser!” shouted Crackenthorpe. “Ridley!”

No answer.

Clarenceux’s hands trembled as he felt the chalk. He inched further around, feeling for the continuation of the main passage, listening for the sounds of his pursuer but able to hear only his own heavy gasps for air. Down he crept, hands feeling the clammy walls, until he sensed that he had found the spot where he had stood with Rebecca on the day that Julius had shown them the tunnel for the first time.

Rebecca. Eyes with the love of a starlit night. Beloved. Hanged.

A scrape of cloth against stone alerted him. He crouched down, leaning against the corner of the passage floor, listening. He heard Crackenthorpe’s sword scratch the rock; he heard his footsteps. The man paused.

Clarenceux tried to calm his breathing. He could run down into the deeper passages and risk being lost, or he could tuck himself against the wall of the passage further down and hope that Crackenthorpe missed him. But the passage was not wide enough; there was a good chance that he would be noticed. And Crackenthorpe would stab down with his sword. He felt for his boot knife; he had dropped it somewhere. He had no blade at all.

He heard footsteps again, this time more purposeful. He listened. But it seemed that Crackenthorpe was going back up the tunnel.

Still he did not move. As the footsteps faded, Clarenceux lay on the cold chalk thinking about Rebecca. He could not control his thoughts-he lay there for ten minutes or more, dwelling on the memory of her face, his own face wet with tears. Not until he remembered that he had betrayed Julius’s family secret was he able to break his cycle of thoughts about her. And that new thought made him no happier. He had revealed the knowledge of the tunnel to a stranger and an enemy. Moreover, he had to take the chronicle to Walsingham, to force him to give up the other men. By noon. And Crackenthorpe knew that. He would probably ambush him on the way.