by C. J. Sansom
It was unusual for Barak to praise someone so unequivocally. I smiled. ‘Remember, he is an enterprising businessman and landowner himself. Perhaps angry he has never been allowed gentleman status.’
‘Well, it’s the commons he wants to help now. And he’s no man of violence. And that’s not easy in the circumstances. His plans to hold these trials prove that.’
I nodded. ‘I wonder what his religious views are?’
Barak shrugged. ‘Protestant, I’d guess. Much of Norfolk is.’ He looked down at the city. ‘The councillors and aldermen must be shitting themselves down there.’
‘Yes.’ Looking down, it struck me that Norwich, bounded by the walls and the river, had the shape of a great teardrop. I thought again of those we knew down there – Josephine and Edward Brown, Isabella and Chawry, Sooty Scambler, John Boleyn in Norwich Castle. What would happen to them all now?
Away to the west, I heard church bells start to ring, then more, out across the countryside. I saw a beacon lit, then another further off, and another. The whole commons of Norfolk were being rung to Mousehold.
Part Four
MOUSEHOLD HEATH
Chapter Forty-three
It was late on Sunday afternoon, two days later. I sat with Nicholas and Barak in the doorway of a lean-to hut built of fresh-smelling wood planks, roofed with turf and with bracken for bedding. Here, at night, the three of us had to ‘croodle up’, in the Norfolk phrase, to sleep. The hut was only four feet high, too low to stand, but provided basic shelter. Hundreds of such huts had been erected in the last two days, stretching across the heath. From Thorpe Wood to the south came the constant sound of sawing, dozens of carpenters busy cutting newly felled tree trunks into planks. There were numerous carpenters among the rebels, and many members of the Norwich carpenters’ guild had come up to help.
The huts were grouped in circles accommodating a village or hamlet or group of men who had come to Kett’s camp, within larger organizations representing the old divisions of Norfolk, the ‘Hundreds’. Ex-soldiers had supervised their physical placing, together with ‘governors’ elected by members of the camp on the basis of each Hundred, usually people with experience of local politics. Pathways had been left to allow access. Barak and I, joined the day before by a newly released Nicholas, had remained with the people from Swardeston, along with young Natty and the ex-soldier Hector Johnson. Those two stayed with us, I thought, partly to keep an eye on us, but also because they were alone, with no local group of their own. The villagers were friendly with Barak but reserved towards me and even more so towards Nicholas, who had been uncharacteristically quiet since he had been passed into my care.
Each group of huts had a central cooking area, flints placed round it lest fire spread across the tinder-dry yellow grass of Mousehold. Water had been brought up from the Wensum and even ferried on horseback from the River Yare some eight miles distant. Our cooking pot had been set to boil and we had learned that this evening our dinner was to be, of all things, swan.
I got up carefully to stretch my legs. Our Swardeston camp was sited near where Barak and I had stood looking out over Norwich two days ago. He rose and joined me, though Nicholas stayed where he was, sulkily pulling the yellow flowers off a stalk of ragwort. We walked a little way towards the escarpment. Behind us, huts continued to go up as far as the eye could see across the flat plateau of the heath, stretching miles to the east. Each evening beacons were lit on the fringes of the camp, to guide new people arriving, and more were coming in, and setting up their camps, all the time. Mousehold was alive with movement, the bright colours of parish banners marking individual encampments, carts bringing in fresh supplies trundling along the sandy tracks. One of the amateur prophets who had come to the camp stood in a cart nearby haranguing a crowd about the imminent coming of the Kingdom of Christ. Peddlers had also been drawn to the camp, some with donkeys, others with trays round their necks, calling, ‘What d’ye pick, from my pack!’, and passing on news of other camps. Some way off, people were unloading bricks from a cart, together with the implements of a blacksmith’s forge. There were cheers as a cart full of barrels of small beer appeared. Mousehold, apparently, was bone-dry, even the old gravel and lime pits dotting the landscape. Rainwater simply soaked into the sandy soil.
There had been a church service that morning, but afterwards, despite it being Sunday, the camp-men worked in the heat as hard as any I had ever seen. I turned and looked over the escarpment, at that extraordinary view down to the river and Norwich. That morning men and boys had descended the steep hill to swim in the river – everybody was filthy, and stank – and some city constables on the Bishopsgate Bridge gatehouse had shot arrows at them, making them move downstream. All the city gates were closed against us.
‘How many do they say are in the camp now?’ I asked Barak.
‘With all the new people arrived from the country, five or six thousand now.’ He laughed incredulously. ‘Remember the old king’s Progress to York? Puts that in the shade, doesn’t it?’
‘It puts everything I have ever seen in the shade.’ I smiled, adjusting the brim of my broad hat. ‘Not that there’s much shade up here.’ Barak and I both now had deep tans and wore wide-brimmed hats and dirty shirts; Barak had removed his artificial hand for comfort today and one sleeve hung empty; physically, at least, we now blended well into the camp. Nicholas, though, stood out with his pale skin, now peeling with sunburn, and his yellowing bruises. Together with the growing number of gentlemen who had been brought in as prisoners, he had been held in the Earl of Surrey’s old palace, Surrey Place. It stood on the crest of the hill a little way off, next to the road leading up from Bishopsgate, near a few ruins that remained of the dissolved priory it had replaced. It was guarded by Kett’s men now, the Ionic columns of the great house and the temple-like pavilions at each side visible through the open gates, looking more incongruous than ever beside the camp. The Boleyn twins were in there, and Flowerdew’s sons. The gardens between the ornamental gateway and the house were occupied by camp-men who had brought out canvas tents from the palace. The great building was being used for storage, too, and as I watched, a large cart trundled up the drive, full of assorted weapons – bills, halberds, swords and crossbows.
‘Why so much emphasis on weaponry?’ I asked Barak quietly. ‘If they think the Protector and the commissioners will grant their demands?’ I looked along the escarpment, where groups of armed men had been placed at strategic posts, as well as a couple of cannon.
‘Maybe they fear the gentlemen who escaped their clutches will return with armed men. Besides, if you’re negotiating, it’s good to have steel at your back. Apparently, an area’s being set aside for archery practice.’
I frowned. ‘Who’s running this camp, Kett or the ex-soldiers?’ I looked to where, some distance away, another man in half-armour – the mark of the soldiers – was supervising the digging of a latrine pit, the sun glinting on his breastplate. It was necessary work; with all the remains of slaughtered sheep, and the piss and shit of thousands of people, if precautions were not taken disease could spread fast, and I had seen before what dysentery could do to an armed camp.
‘Kett, I’m sure,’ Barak answered. ‘Remember last night, when a bunch of people got pissed? Some soldiers stopped them running wild, but when Kett came over and told them keeping order and discipline was the way to show they could govern themselves, you could see it put them to shame.’
Surrey Place was right on the edge of the escarpment, next to the road leading up from Bishopsgate. A little way along the escarpment stood St Michael’s Chapel, survivor of the old Priory, Kett’s headquarters. It was there that messengers riding across the country had headed frequently these last two days.
Barak touched my arm. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Coming up the hill.’
A small party of men was riding up the road from Bishopsgate Bridge. As they approached the escarpment I recognized the short, plump figure of Mayor Codd. Beside him was a thin, w
hite-haired man in aldermanic robes who, for a second, I thought might be Gawen Reynolds come to plead for the twins, until he came closer and I saw that he was more strongly built, his expression one of watchful calm. Behind them rode two surpliced clerics. One was Robert Watson, whom I had seen preaching in the marketplace in favour of social order. They were accompanied by half a dozen men in the uniform of city constables. They looked apprehensive as they reached the crest of the hill, but were obviously expected, for some men from the nearest watch-post approached and, after a word with Codd, led them to St Michael’s Chapel. People from the camp turned to look at these brightly robed city fathers, standing out among the camp-men. One called out, ‘Leeches on the city poor!’ and one of Kett’s guards raised a hand to silence him. The little party passed into the chapel. The constables, left outside with the horses and a couple of Kett’s men, crouched in the shade of the building looking nervously about them.
‘So the city leaders are visiting Kett,’ I said. ‘Not demanding he come to them.’
‘They know the thousands here could come down the hill and take the city if they wanted. And that many in the city support us, too.’
Us, I thought. ‘Well, let’s see what happens.’ I turned back to our group of huts, where a bright green banner showing St Sebastian pierced by swords had been brought from the church at Swardeston, which was dedicated to the saint. Barak had been told he was to start assisting Kett as a scribe the following day: men who could write were at a premium.
A few people sat in the low doorways of the huts, seeking what shade they could. The able-bodied men were absent, most working on chopping down the trees and sawing planks in Thorpe Wood. Only the old woman who had welcomed us at Eaton Wood, a widow called Susan Everneke, who seemed to be the village matriarch, a young woman in the early stages of pregnancy who had accompanied her husband, and a little boy were left. Nicholas sat quietly nearby looking at the ground, near Hector Johnson, who was polishing a rusty sword. We went and sat beside them.
I said, ‘The mayor’s come, to see Captain Kett. We saw him go into St Michael’s Chapel.’
The old soldier grinned. ‘One or two are calling it Kett’s Castle.’
Mistress Everneke lifted her head from her sewing. ‘For shame, bor, to yag like that about Captain Kett that’s done all this for us. He wants no castle, only right-doing for all.’
Johnson shifted uncomfortably. ‘’Twas just in jest, gal.’
‘Have some small beer, and stop talking squit.’ Goodwife Everneke had a large jar at her side, and she passed it around. Everyone took a drink gratefully.
I lowered myself carefully to the ground, resting my back against the wooden door frame of our hut. ‘Are you comfortable, sir?’ Goodwife Everneke asked.
I gave her a sharp look; some in the camp, like the little boy, often looked askance at my back, but I saw only kindness in her eyes. ‘Yes, thank you. I worried sleeping on bracken might bring discomfort, but it seems to support me well.’
There was the crash of another tree falling in Thorpe Wood. Barak said, ‘Those men are labouring mightily.’
‘They are,’ Goodwife Everneke said proudly. ‘They’ll keep a’doing till sunset. And more and more are coming in to help.’
‘Are many come from Norwich?’ I asked.
‘A good few skilled men, but I hear Captain Kett wants the poor of the city to stay to support him there.’
The pregnant woman looked up from her sewing. ‘I saw some women yesterday, tiddidolls that looked like city whores.’ She sighed. ‘Still, it’ll keep the men from getting ruffatory with us few women that are here.’
‘Your husband will protect you, dear,’ Goodwife Everneke said. ‘He’ll be back come sunset.’
‘The amount done in just two days is astonishing,’ I said. ‘The huts, the provisioning –’
The old woman nodded. ‘We country folk can turn our hand to most things. Build our own houses, grow our own crops, tend our animals. Given the chance,’ she added meaningfully.
The pregnant woman looked at me. ‘Perhaps my child will have a chance to live and grow up healthy. Despite the wiles of lawyers,’ she added pointedly.
I smiled ruefully. ‘’Tis true I was a lawyer, but I worked for people like you, at the Court of Requests. Until my job was taken away by Richard Rich.’
Johnson turned to the women. ‘At least your people have some lands left, gals. Mine are gone. I served with old King Henry’s army in France two years while my wife and son ran our little piece. I wrote letters, but never got any back. So many of the men’s letters were lost. By Christ, I saw some things that made me sick of war. When it ended I came home to find Sarah and John had been evicted. I never found them, though God knows I’ve tried. I’ve laboured on farms when I can these three years. Then I started hearing people in taverns murmuring about the common people taking things into their own hands, and I joined ’em.’ He clenched his fists. ‘And now we’ve done it. Maybe now I’ll get revenge for my suffering.’ I saw tears on his wrinkled cheeks. Goodwife Everneke put out her hand to him. Abruptly, Nicholas got up and went into the hut. Wincing a little, I got on my hands and knees and crawled after him, waving to Barak to stay where he was.
Nicholas had wedged himself into a corner of the lean-to, sitting with his hands on his knees. It was dim in there, the only light coming through the door. I sat beside him. He sighed and looked at me. ‘These people’s stories,’ he said. ‘I never knew English people endured such things.’
‘And now they have reached their limit.’
‘The world turned upsy-down. Yes, I saw that in Surrey Place.’ It was the first time Nicholas had mentioned his imprisonment. He looked at the doorway, where Johnson and Barak and the two women were still talking quietly. In the distance we could still hear the prophet. ‘This is the coming of Christ’s kingdom, the masters will be put down and all things held in common, and justice done. Christ’s elect will rule, and we shall have true religion!’
‘I wish that man would shut his mouth,’ Nicholas said wearily. ‘He’s been ranting on for hours!’ He sighed. ‘Before, when we were riding around Norfolk and I used to argue with Toby, it was just words, but now it’s real. Even so, this is wrong. Society is like a body, and the head must rule – is that not what we have always been taught, is it not what the Bible says?’
‘You were never one for the Bible,’ I mocked gently. ‘What happened at Surrey Place?’
He looked at me. ‘We were taken out of the carts, all in chains. Everyone was quiet, afraid we might be killed. Even the Boleyn twins were quiet. Some of the rebels made pretend lunges at us with their bills and pitchforks. Then they opened the doors and took us in, to cheers from the men camped outside. It’s a magnificent palace, pillars and decorated ceilings, elaborate carvings on the walls, but just a shell; all the grand furniture must have been taken away when the Earl of Surrey fell. We were split into groups and put into empty rooms, left to sit on the floor with our feet bound. Thank God I wasn’t with the twins, but Witherington, Boleyn’s neighbour from Brikewell, was with me. When the rebels left us, he started railing and shouting about how the Protector and the council would have all these rogues hanged. I thought he would have a seizure. More gentlemen were brought in later, we had a gaoler who brought in food and said we were lucky to have it, the way we’d starved the commons. Once I heard shouting from another room; I recognized those twins’ voices, heard men running and then there was silence, I think they got a beating.’ He was silent a moment, then he looked at me and asked, ‘Who are these people anyway? They’re not all peasants.’
‘From what I’ve seen, there are yeomen, husbandmen with a little land, cottagers and labourers, and a lot of village craftsmen – butchers, carpenters, tailors, thatchers. A cross-section of the villagers. A few have brought their wives, but I think most women have stayed with the children to keep their farms going. And, of course, there are the soldiers.’
‘Deserters from the Scottish war
. No wonder the redshanks are winning,’ Nicholas said bitterly.
‘The war is a disastrous mistake. The Protector should never have started it.’
‘Yet it is the duty of all to follow and assist the ruler in the waging of war.’
‘Even if the war does not meet the criteria of a just war? A sudden and brutal invasion to take over another country? Does the authority of the ruler mean we must abandon all conscience and reason?’
Nicholas shook his head. ‘Rebellion in time of war must be wrong.’
I said seriously, ‘Nicholas, I had you released on my word of honour that you would not cause trouble.’
He frowned. ‘I know, and I won’t.’
‘Well, keep your mouth closed, and remember your manners. Look, why don’t you have a walk around the camp with me and Jack?’
‘Among those men who beat me? No.’ He looked again towards the doorway. ‘Jack seems happy enough.’
‘I think it’s partly a way of escaping his own troubles, though yes, he sympathizes with Kett.’
‘And you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you think the Lady Elizabeth would say, if she knew you were here?’
I said uneasily, ‘I was brought here by force.’
Footsteps sounded outside, and a shadow darkened the entrance to the hut. Toby Lockswood knelt in the doorway, his black beard longer and thicker than ever. He gave Nicholas a cold glance, then turned to me. ‘Captain Kett requires you, Master Shardlake,’ he said. ‘Now.’
Chapter Forty-four
As we walked the short distance to St Michael’s Chapel, I asked Toby, ‘How long have you known this was going to happen? All the time you were working with us?’
‘No,’ he answered in a cold, brusque tone. ‘I’d heard rumours, but it was only after my parents died and I lost the farm that I decided to seek out those who would rise against the gentlemen, and join them. Captain Kett is glad of literate men.’