James Forrester - Sacred Treason

Clarenceux shook his head. “I don’t know. But the bells will ring soon. Will you stay here tonight? I do not know if I have a bed left intact. But you are welcome to it if I do.”

“Mr. Clarenceux, thank you, but I will take my chances. I cannot stay here any longer. Not with you.”

Clarenceux wiped his face with his hand. “I know that it is selfish and unfair of me to say so but I cannot agree with you. I need you-”

“No, Mr. Clarenceux, you need your wife. You love her. Imagine she were threatened-nothing would stop you defending her. Whatever you may feel at this moment, you know you would never forgive yourself if you let her be hurt. I can see now that you never touched me because you were protecting her, your marriage, and everything else that you believe is right and good and proper; everything else which is part of the life you have built around you.”

Clarenceux suddenly knew that she was right. It struck him straight to the bone. He looked for some way to persuade them both that she was wrong but knew that he would be lying if he tried, and doing her a disservice as well as himself.

“Where will you go?”

“I will find somewhere. Home maybe. Or someone’s stable loft.”

“Stay here, Rebecca.”

“Is Thomas here still?”

“Yes, downstairs. I told him I would call if I needed anything. But-”

“Then he will look after you. You don’t need me.”

“Rebecca, please.”

She rose from the chair in the darkness and bent over him, and kissed his forehead. “Good-bye, Mr. Clarenceux.”

He looked up and saw the outline of her face. “Rebecca, I…” But he could not find the words. “I am sorry if I have hurt you. I never meant to upset you…I still want to make you happy.”

She put her hands either side of his face. “I know. That is the one thing I cannot forgive you for.”

And then, second by second, she was further from him, further away and leaving. She was walking across the room, feeling her way. He heard her steps on the stairs and then the front door opening and closing.

Clarenceux sat alone in his hall, in the darkness, his face wet with tears.

Lady Percy was sitting in her dark chamber at Sheffield Manor. She had been in the same chair all afternoon, looking across the park, hoping to see a messenger. None had come. A little rain had fallen, and the clouds were heavy in the sky as the evening drew on. Still she sat, waiting.

After a while Benedict Richardson came with a lamp. She was unresponsive and declined his suggestion that she should eat. After a few more questions, to which she made no reply, he reached out to close the shutters to the window.

“Leave them,” she commanded.

“But my lady-”

“You may go.”

He looked at her and at the empty fireplace, then bowed and withdrew.

Lady Percy’s thoughts had sunk into darkness with the passing of the day. No message had come. The Knights of the Round Table had been betrayed-she felt it. And with them she too had been betrayed. It seemed to her that the flame that had scorched her all her life, burning her through the years, had suddenly gone out.

She looked for her sticks by the light of the candle that Richardson had left. She set them before her, stood up, and walked to the window. Slowly she leaned forward and rested her head on the frozen leaded glass.

Out there, in the cold darkness, the queen of England’s rule held strong. Lady Percy knew it as a dark reign: a reign without true light. But it seemed to her at that moment that what lay beyond the window was less significant than what lay on this side.

“I am a Talbot and I am a Catholic,” she whispered to the glass, “and I will never give up hope. I swear by almighty God and this great darkness in which He has wrapped us, I will have my revenge. It is my destiny. That will be my changing from maiden to woman, not my marriage.”

She remained at the window for some minutes before turning and slowly shuffling along an unlit stone corridor toward her bedchamber.

Clarenceux remained in his chair for a long time after Rebecca left. Minutes turned into quarters of an hour, and the first hour came to its silent end in the darkness. Eventually Thomas came up to the hall bearing a candle.

“Thank you, Thomas.”

“Mr. Clarenceux, sir?”

“Yes, Thomas?”

“Will things return to normal now? Are you going to stay?”

“Yes, I am staying.” He sighed heavily. “When I have regained my strength, you and I will go down to Devon and bring back Awdrey and the family. Then things will be more or less as they were before.”

“That is good, sir. It would be good if things got back to normal. There is one mattress that was not too badly damaged in the guest room. I picked up all the feathers and stuffed them back in as well as I could before I sewed it up. It should suffice for a few nights.”

Clarenceux looked up at the old man in the candlelight. “Thank you, Thomas. Thank you for all you’ve done for me.”

The servant bowed his head. “Sir?”

“Yes, Thomas?”

“I was wondering, in my time going to Devon and coming back, what was the meaning of Henry Machyn’s chronicle? It has been much on my mind.”

“The meaning of the chronicle?” Clarenceux thought back to when he had received it, to Henry Machyn’s worried face. He thought too about the moment when he had seen his study wrecked, with parchment and paper all across the floor and his father’s portrait smashed. Then he had seen the wood of the door in a new real light, as if he had no possessions but was fighting his way through the world, and the whole world was a strange place. He thought too of Walsingham’s cellar and of searching for Rebecca in the cold churchyard. Finally his mind rested on the image of Rebecca herself, declaring to him that she was unimportant and had nothing, but still determined to go her own way.

“The meaning, Thomas, was esperance .”

“Sir?”

Clarenceux smiled. “It was the last word in the chronicle. It means hope. In all our struggles, the last word is hope.”