41

At Summerhill, Julius’s wife, Lychorus, joined them for supper. She was a pleasant, round-faced woman who wore a wide ruff, elegant gold-embroidered clothes, and a radiant smile. It was difficult for Clarenceux and Rebecca to make a meaningful contribution to the conversation, or even to answer all her questions fully and openly. The principal topic was the two Fawcett sons, one of whom was at Oxford and the other in Venice. Rebecca smiled at Lychorus and spoke occasionally but felt awkward, knowing she was behaving falsely, like a woman acting above her station. They retired early, Rebecca to go to bed, Clarenceux to drink wine with Julius.

Rebecca and Clarenceux were assigned adjacent chambers in the great tower. Hers was as comfortable a room as she could imagine. There was a fire already alight when she was shown to her bed, and the maid helped her undress in front of it. The walls were paneled and covered with bright red, blue, and gold tapestries. The shutters were closed, and the hangings around the bed were clean—newer than almost everything she had seen in the house. The silver ewer was full of fresh water, the basin recently polished. The candles on the table made everything in the room glow in the winter dark. She undressed, snuffed the candles out as was her custom, and got into bed. She lay between clean sheets, listening to the crackle of the fire.

Clarenceux stayed up drinking sack with Julius until late. The drink made him vulnerable to his sadness. His entire life lay in ruins, he explained. He had lost his home and his wife, his children and his friends. He began to lose himself in wine-soaked self-recrimination.

“William, I know why you are talking like this. I can see that these are your honest feelings. But I must be honest with you too. You sound full of self-pity. Tomorrow I want you to reflect on this moment and to realize that this was when you were at your lowest—lower even than when you believed you were going to be killed, for then you did not know what you had lost. I am prepared to shelter you and to guard your chronicle. But you must be yourself: your bold, intelligent, well-meaning self. I have no desire to shelter a self-pitying wreck or to risk myself for the sake of a traitor awaiting his own betrayal. But a man who has lost almost everything and is still fighting a holy Catholic war because he truly believes he is in the right—he has my respect and my unquestioning service.”

Clarenceux was left speechless. Julius was exhorting him to be himself, but that now seemed impossible. What Julius was referring to was a man he had been in the past, not the man he was now. He felt hollow. He mumbled a reply: “Believe me, Julius, I am willing to fight…” But his voice trailed off. It was not that he was lying—it was simply that he could see that Julius was right. He was becoming a self-pitying wreck—if he had not already become it.

Julius gently urged him to go to bed. He stood up, embraced his friend, and walked unsteadily toward the stairs.

As Clarenceux climbed to his chamber, Rebecca sighed in her bed, trying to breathe deeply. A heavy weight seemed to have settled on her chest. She put back the blankets and tried to breathe again. Nerves racked her body—or, rather, the feeling of being so alone. Her life was like a street with houses on either side, and every house was someone else’s home. She just had to carry on walking until she came to the end of that long street, when there would be no more houses, no more people.

She heard the sound of footsteps on the tower staircase.

Clarenceux lifted the candle and crossed to the door of his chamber, the old floorboards creaking as he walked. He looked at the door on his left, which he knew was Rebecca’s. He stared at it for some few minutes.

Inside, she listened, aware of his presence.

In his mind he saw her looking at him, speaking to him with her eyes. Gradually, the outward reminders of his life came back: Will’s dead body, the smashed furniture of his house, Crackenthorpe’s scarred face, the man he had killed in the street. He thought of Awdrey’s vulnerability and Rebecca’s need for his protection…His life was being torn between the opposites of fear and love. He wished he had been able to see it when Julius had spoken to him but then he had been too dismayed to see anything clearly. Julius had been right to castigate him—but he had been looking from the outside. On the inside, his life was simply a matter of fear and love. And he could embrace either all his fears…or everything he loved.

Rebecca heard him take another two steps, lift the latch to the adjacent chamber, and close the door.