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Sunday, December 12

Clarenceux was on his knees in the darkness, where he had been for hours, praying even after he had lost all feeling in his body.

Anxiety was simply a cloud he had flown through. A golden chariot, pulled by six white swans, was taking him up into a blue sky and showing him the world laid out beneath him. He could see the thousands of churches across Europe, all tiny, far below, as if he were an angel choosing which one he would visit. There were many more Catholic ones than Protestant, he realized. The sickness of faith lay here in England.

No, the woman who was holding the swans’ reins seemed to say, pointing to his own parish church, St. Bride’s, and all the people coming out of its doors. It is not a matter of which faith. All faith is righteous. It is unbelief that is the sin, warring against faith. This is the pattern of death: you will be lifted up into heaven; we will sing in the heavens. And those who choose not to be lifted—who choose to oppose God—will remain on earth, nothing but rotting food for worms.

They began to descend. Peering between the clouds he could see the River Thames, with its hundreds of boats moored on the sparkling water. The gatehouse on the bridge was opening for the day. The bells were ringing. And among the people leaving their houses early in the morning air was Goodwife Machyn, striding purposefully along the street to the market, which was just beginning to gather in Cheapside. Outside his own house a cart was passing. His family was all still indoors. They were happy there, even though they were without him. God’s blessing had come upon them all. They knew he had passed, or was passing, into heaven.

At that moment, as he turned to the beautiful driver of the swan chariot, he could not look at her. He did not dare. She was the Holy Ghost. She had been sent to guide him.

A shout somewhere in the house above jerked him out of his reverie. He felt the cold again and was in more pain than before.

Men were running upstairs. Perhaps it was the servants at daybreak? But if it was daybreak, then he had only a few hours to live. The creature inside him shriveled up, his fingers frozen, curled. He buried his face in his arms and placed one wrist across the other, making the sign of the cross with his arms.

Even though he could see nothing, he could feel the sign there, made with his own body. He raised his arms, keeping them hard against each other. This was the emblem of the faith. His faith. It was a dark sun that shone even in the deepest night.

The rebirth of the light. Despite his pain, he felt reborn. As sure as life was life itself, he knew that he, not Walsingham, was in the right. And nothing could ever make it any other way.