Read Online Sacred Treason by James Forrester - Free Book Online Page B

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.”
    â€œMr. Clarenceux, you ought to know, someone’s been in your stable.”
    Clarenceux paused. “Who? Not one of the lads?”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œGodspeed,” 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.
    â€œGoodman 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?”
    â€œThe house is closed by order of the constable, sir.”
    â€œOf course it is. But which constable? And when did he send in the women to do the searching of the sick bodies?”
    â€œThat I cannot tell you, sir,” replied Gray. He shifted a hand on the hilt of his sword for reassurance, looking from Clarenceux to the crowd, which was growing.
    â€œNo, of course you cannot tell me. And I dare say that neither can the constable. For I was here but six hours ago, and there was no cross on the door then. Did you know that?”
    Gray looked worried. “No, sir.”
    Clarenceux turned to the crowd. In the voice of his office, he called, “Has anyone seen the searchers enter this house this morning?”
    The words echoed off the buildings opposite. One or two windows opened. Faces looked out and there was muttering among those in the crowd, but no one responded.
    There were over fifty people in Little Trinity Lane now and more were approaching. Clarenceux turned back to the young guard and stared at him, saying nothing.
    â€œSir, what do you want?”
    â€œI want to know if there is anyone actually in that house.”
    â€œGoodman Machyn and his household are in there, I presume, sir.”
    â€œYou presume? You mean you do not know?”
    Gray said nothing.
    Clarenceux breathed the fresh air of the morning again and looked around him. “Then let me put it this way,” he said in his loud voice. “There is no one in that house, young Gray. There was no one in there last night and there is no one in there now.” He paused, watching, listening to the mood of the crowd. “Let me tell you something. When a plague house is marked out, if it is necessary to leave a guard—and it is not always so—he serves two functions. The first is to make sure the inhabitants do not leave. The second is to make sure they are fed. Through which window, exactly, are you meaning to feed Henry Machyn and his family?” Clarenceux pointed upward to the first