London - Edward Rutherfurd [314]
“You want me to persuade him to take the oath?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it too late anyway?”
“There still has to be an official trial with a jury. If he submits now, the king might accept it.” She made a sad little shrug. “It’s our only chance.”
“And you think my voice might make a difference?”
“You’re the one man he respects. And,” there was no mistaking the reproach in her voice now, “it was your opinion he was following when he refused the oath.”
He looked down at the floor for a moment.
“I think,” he replied softly, “he was also following his conscience. For the sake of what we all believe in.”
He could not blame her if she ignored this mild rebuke. However devout, she was after all a mother fighting for her family. But now she had a surprise for him.
“You don’t really understand,” she said. And she explained how she had met the king in the garden, and how Thomas had encountered him in the same place. “You see,” she went on, “those chance encounters, the fact that you are a Charterhouse monk: in a way, it is you and I who have brought this on Rowland. He was never meant to be given the oath at all.”
Peter sighed. Why did providence work in such strange and cruel ways? It was God’s plan, of course. But why, he wondered sadly, must the design be so obscure, even to the most faithful? “I will go to see him,” he said at last. “But I cannot tell him to disobey his conscience. I cannot imperil the man’s soul, which, I promise you, is immortal.”
She was not comforted, and he had not thought she would be. Yet, he had to admit, her final words had caused him pain.
“Do you know what they will do to him? Do you understand?” She gave him such a bitter look. “It is easier,” she had said coldly, “for you.” Then she had gone.
Easier? He doubted it. The word was that the three priors would be executed in days – not with a merciful beheading but in the most savage way. When the monks had had a chance to witness that, the king’s commissioners would come to the Charterhouse to offer the oath to the community. “These things are like phantoms, sent to frighten us and test our souls,” an old monk had said. But did Susan really suppose that, sitting hour by hour in his cell, he did not think of it?
It was evening when Thomas came.
At first, when he saw the worldly young courtier in the doorway, Peter could not help a feeling of irritation. True, Thomas looked distraught; but then, Peter thought, whatever his grief about Rowland, he was still Cromwell’s man.
“No doubt,” he said to Thomas quietly, “you have come on the same errand as our sister.” He sighed, and then added a little drily: “This combination of a brother in the Charterhouse and your sister’s husband refusing the oath cannot be very good for your career.”
Thomas only shook his head. “I’ve just come from court,” he said. “Even if Rowland takes the oath now, the king will not accept it. Treason has been spoken. He is going to destroy him.” He sat down, and buried his face in his hands. “And it’s all my fault.”
“Yours?”
“I brought him to court. I put him in this position.”
“He took a stand for his faith.”
“Yes,” Thomas agreed. “But only because, on a whim, the king decided to test my loyalty, not his. Henry wasn’t interested in him.”
“If he dies,” Peter said quietly, “he will still be a martyr, you know.”
But to his surprise, Thomas could not agree even to this.
“To you and to Rowland it is an act of faith. Of course. But I’m afraid it will not be seen to be. Don’t you realize, Peter? When the Charterhouse monks are executed, they will be martyrs. All England will know it. But Rowland is not important. No one has heard of him. They will quietly execute him one day with some common criminals – an obscure royal servant who committed treason. That is how it will be. A private piece of royal vengeance. That is all that anyone will know or care.”
“God will know and care.”
“Yes. But His cause is being served by the monks, I dare say. Poor Rowland is just an innocent, a loyal family man, who happened to be in the wrong place. It’s