15

Noon had passed. Clarenceux had been poring over the chronicle for several hours. He rested his head in his hands, elbows on the table board, so very tired. Awdrey had brought him some ale, bread, and cheese on a wooden trencher an hour earlier but he had barely touched it. He was determined to find out why this book was more valuable to Machyn than his life.

He started again at the beginning and leafed through. Here and there entries caught his attention. On April 28, 1556, two gentlemen were taken from the Tower to Tyburn and hanged, cut down and quartered, and their heads set up on London Bridge. The following day a whoremaster was pilloried for delivering prostitutes to London merchants’ apprentices, the said apprentices paying with goods stolen from their masters. And on May 2, a man and a woman were placed in the pillory for perjury, the man’s ears being nailed to the wood but the woman’s not. It was all vividly related: London described in more detail than perhaps any other chronicler had managed. Machyn had every right to be proud of his work. But Clarenceux knew it was all a cover, a means to an end, and the end remained hidden.

His own name rang out repeatedly through the pages. Under the entry for December 2, 1562, he read about the burial of his sister and the dinner at his house afterward. Was that a year ago already? He had spoken to Machyn several times that afternoon. It was a peculiar thought: that Machyn had been taking notes on that occasion. His name appeared again in the next entry, at the funeral of the wife of Lord Justice Browne. A few pages earlier there was that long entry about his daughter’s baptism. He read it again, aloud, to make sense of the phonetic spelling.

“The twenty-eighth day of July was christened the daughter of William Harley alias Clarenceux King of Arms in the parish of St. Bride’s, the godfather Mr. Cordall, Master of the Rolls, Knight, and the godmothers my Lady Bacon, my lord keeper’s wife, and my Lady Cecil, wife of Sir William Cecil. And after unto Mr. Clarenceux’s house and there was as great a banquet as I have seen, and wassail of hippocras, French wine, Gascon wine, and Rhenish wine in great plenty, and all their servants had a banquet in the hall with divers dishes.”

He remembered the day well. Indeed, it had been a day to remember, with the important guests dining in the parlor and the servants all arrayed at two long tables in the hall. It had been a particular honor to have Mildred, Lady Cecil, as godmother to his younger daughter. Not only was she reputed to be the most intelligent woman in the realm; also, her husband, Sir William Cecil, was her majesty’s Principal Secretary. He was Elizabeth’s most trusted adviser and the most powerful individual in the country, notwithstanding his rivalry with her favorite, Robert Dudley. Awdrey had decided that they should have the baby baptized Mildred, in Lady Cecil’s honor.

He sighed, got up, and went over to the trencher of food. The bread was already beginning to go stale. He ate it anyway, with a piece of strongly flavored cheese, staring vacantly at his table board as he did so.

Searching the chronicle would take too long. Machyn was possibly facing death at that very moment. He had no option now but to follow the one clear instruction that Machyn had given him.

Find Lancelot Heath.