London - Edward Rutherfurd [315]
“Which is?”
“I am a secret Protestant.”
“I see.” He tried to hide his disgust.
“That, and serving Cromwell make me feel doubly guilty, therefore. I abandon my family’s faith, then cause Rowland’s death.”
“Perhaps you should feel guilty, then.”
“Yes.” Thomas looked down at his hands sadly, but then suddenly gazed up, straight into Peter’s eyes. “And what am I, brother? A man who lives the evil life of the court and enjoys it? I hold my faith in secret because I am afraid. Henry burns Protestants. I cause Rowland’s death, I leave my sister alone, ruined, and with four children. And I ask myself, brother, is my own life worth a tenth of any of yours? I think not. I tell you frankly, if I could die in Rowland’s place, I’d do so. I wish to God I could.”
Peter saw that he meant it; and found that, for all his faults, he could love him again. “If only,” he said without any malice, “you could.” But there was nothing anyone could do for Rowland now.
Peter slept little that night. Time and time again he tossed and turned on his bed so that old Dogget, who had taken to sleeping by the door of his cell since he had been ill, more than once came in to see if he was all right.
He thought of Susan and her children. He thought of the terrible death that awaited poor Rowland and, no doubt, himself; and, despite all his attempts at prayer, Father Peter trembled, like any other man.
He was not sure what hour it was when he awoke from a fitful sleep with a new idea in his mind. As he lay there, staring up into the darkness, he wondered what to make of it. He went over it again, carefully, and it seemed to him that it might work, though with heavy risks for those involved. There was, however, another difficulty: was it a crime to deny God’s Church even one of her martyrs? For as a priest, Father Peter Meredith faced a terrible dilemma: he did not know if he was doing right or wrong. One thing was clear. He himself, now, was in danger of losing his immortal soul.
Nonetheless, shortly after dawn, he woke faithful Will Dogget, and sent him with a message to summon Thomas.
Thomas listened very quietly until Peter had finished.
“There are great risks for you,” the priest said.
“I accept them.”
“It would take a strong man,” Peter remarked. “Stronger than you or I.”
“That can be arranged.”
“Then the choice is yours.”
“But,” Thomas hesitated before continuing softly: “It is the final thing of all that I cannot do.”
“I’m sorry,” the priest said simply. “You must.”
That afternoon, Thomas Meredith met Dan Dogget. He had a debt to call in.
“I told you,” he said with a smile, “that I’d think of something.”
Susan watched Rowland as he stared out of the stone window and wondered how he could be so calm. Especially considering the scene taking place below.
He had not been calm at first. How terrible it had been, that Mayday morning, only three days ago, as they had approached the Tower. How his heart sank as the barge headed in, not to the ordinary dock by the old Lion Gate, but towards another entrance entirely – a small, dark tunnel in the very centre of the Tower’s long waterfront. The Traitors’ Gate.
A heavy portcullis creaked up to receive him as they passed under the wharf. They crossed a pool, then a pair of huge iron-barred watergates swung slowly open as they entered a dimly lit dock under a great bastion. The Traitors’ Gate. Abandon hope, they said, if you come to the Tower that way.
A few minutes later they had led him up through the great inner wall, to a chamber in the enlarged turret on its inner side that was known as the Bloody Tower.
And so he had made the acquaintance of the Tower of London. It was a strange place, a world of its own. Outwardly it had not grown much in recent centuries, except for the wharf which had steadily encroached on the river; but within its walls, over the centuries, there had been innumerable additions – a hall here, a new set of chambers there, additional wall-towers and turrets of brick