by C. J. Sansom
‘I saw earlier that he got a rough reception at the Market Cross.’
His eyes narrowed as he looked east, towards the slowly setting sun. ‘And now he will ride back to London, to report to the Protector. And then we shall see. Fare ye well,’ he said abruptly, and walked back to the carts. A man with a bell was walking round the marketplace now, calling out loudly, ‘The market reopens tomorrow for an extra day’s trade, and will be open on each regular market day from now, and some extra days besides. Bring your goods, from town and country! Remember, you will have customers from the camp again!’
Chapter Fifty-nine
We walked up to Tombland. Barak complained that we had already had one of the most testing days of our lives, and suggested we just visit Josephine and go home. But I was in obstinate mood, perhaps because he had said I was moonstruck with Isabella. Plenty of people from Mousehold and the poorer parts of Norwich were abroad, in celebratory mood, but we attracted no attention, apart from a call from someone to ‘Join us fer a drink, old granfer!’
The Reynolds house was shuttered and bolted. A terrified-looking maid answered my knock, opening the door just a crack. I asked, ‘Is your mistress at home? My name is Overton.’ I gave Nicholas’s name rather than mine, which might be known to her, and spoke in my most cultivated tones to impress her.
I knew I was taking a chance, that Gawen Reynolds might appear and make us go. But the girl said, ‘She in’t here. She and the master have gone to visit the Sotherton house. It’s been raided, sir, those black-hearted rebels were looking for Master Leonard Sotherton, he that rode to London and came back with the Herald.’ The maidservant added, ‘It’s not far, in St Benedict’s Street off Pottergate.’ Then she closed the door.
I knew the Sothertons were another of the wealthy, long-established merchant families in Norwich. I was not surprised the rebels were after Leonard. Gawen Reynolds and his wife did not strike me as the sort to visit neighbours in distress, but doubtless the rich men of the city were sticking together now.
The Sotherton house was magnificent even by the standards of the Norwich merchants; I remembered Edward Brown telling me about the vast amount of work that had gone into building the flint walls. The outer courtyard wall, flush to the street, was indeed built of flint bricks, that hardest of materials knapped with such care and detail that the whole wall was smooth as actual brick.
The courtyard door was open, the lock smashed. We crossed the courtyard and climbed the steps to the main door. This time a steward answered. He had a black eye and looked as though he had been in a fight. He seemed relieved it was only a white-haired hunchback and a one-handed man who had come. ‘Yes?’ he asked warily.
‘I was told Mistress Gawen Reynolds is here. Might I speak with her privily? I am a lawyer, Master Overton.’ Again I gave Nicholas’s name.
The man looked at the suspicious contrast between my dress and accent, then sighed and opened the door. ‘The rebels have been here,’ he said. ‘They were after master’s brother. They buffeted me about.’
He told Barak to wait in the courtyard and led me along a corridor, to one of the most magnificent dining halls I had ever seen, with a high hammer-beam ceiling of beautiful proportions. Portraits and a tapestry covered the walls, and the room looked over a carefully tended knot garden. Some of the pictures hung at an odd angle, however, and several chairs had been broken. A large, decorated porcelain vase had been knocked from the long polished table and smashed. Leaning over it, trying to pick up the pieces with her bandaged hands, was Jane Reynolds, as ever wearing a black dress, and a black French hood beneath which wisps of white hair showed. The steward said, ‘Master Reynolds is with Master Nicholas Sotherton. I cannot interrupt them.’ From a neighbouring room I could hear raised, angry voices. I said, scarcely daring to believe my luck, ‘It was Mistress Reynolds I wished to see.’
Jane Reynolds had stood up as the steward entered, introducing me as Master Overton. She stared at me with those cold, still blue eyes as I removed my cap and bowed. Her thin body held its usual rigid stiffness. She nodded to the steward to depart. She did not approach me, or ask me to sit, but put the shards of broken porcelain carefully on the table and stood beside them. ‘Master Shardlake?’ she asked in surprise.
‘Yes, madam. I am sorry to disturb you.’
‘Why did you pretend to be your young assistant?’
‘I thought otherwise you might not speak to me.’
I had expected her to be angry at my deception – most gentlewomen would have been furious – but she said only, ‘It would be better if you left.’ She cast a nervous glance at the door, behind which the argument seemed to be continuing.
‘It is about your poor daughter.’
She stared at me for a long moment, then something in her stance seemed to soften a little. ‘You care about what happened to her.’
‘I do.’
‘My husband is come to visit the Sothertons, to see what has happened to them. The city is falling apart around our ears, he says.’ She spoke evenly, as though she did not care. ‘He brought me to visit Mistress Sotherton, my relative, but, as with most people, a few minutes of my silent company were enough.’ For the first time I saw her smile, a bitter, crooked rictus. She continued, in the same cold, even tone. ‘It is said you have joined the rebels.’
‘I was taken prisoner on the road, and made to help Captain Kett with his trials. I have sought to ensure justice and mercy.’
She gave a bitter little laugh. ‘Mercy? In this world? You ask too much.’
I said, ‘You showed mercy to a poor boy I know, he told me the money you gave him saved him from starving. Simon Scambler.’
She nodded, though her face was expressionless again. ‘Ah yes, Sooty Scambler, the boys call him; they mock him around the town.’
‘Madam, Simon told me you said something to him, that echoed words you spoke in court. I remember them. “Edith, Edith, God save you, I wanted a boy – I wanted a boy!” I remember you running out of court in tears.’
She flinched slightly, and I thought she might break down, but she only stood more rigidly again, one hand playing with the broken porcelain on the table so that I feared she might cut herself. She said quietly, ‘My husband wanted a boy as his heir. If that had happened, or if I had had more children, none of the evils that have followed would have happened.’
‘You did not cause them, madam.’
She went on in the same monotone. ‘When Edith grew up, and John Boleyn showed interest in her, my husband saw a new focus for his ambitions. It was the talk of the country then that King Henry wanted to set aside Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. John Boleyn’s kinship was distant, but even remote kinship counts at the royal court.’
‘I know, madam. I well remember the crowds of distant relatives of the great men who thronged the public spaces of Whitehall Palace in the old King’s time.’
‘How do you know that?’ she asked, showing genuine interest for the first time.
‘I worked on the Learned Council of Queen Catherine Parr, God save her soul.’
‘Then you will know that to make your way at court you have to be clever, quick, know who to befriend and who to bribe. But John Boleyn was a child in that world – he never even got to meet Queen Anne, as she became. Oh, the fact that he had a connection to the Boleyns helped my husband’s rise in Norwich.’ She gave that bitter smile again. ‘But then suddenly Queen Anne was gone, executed, and King Edward’s mother Jane Seymour was Queen. My husband was much angered with John Boleyn and poor Edith.’ Venom suddenly infused her voice. ‘As though it were Edith’s fault the King tired of Anne Boleyn and cut her head off, or that young John Boleyn was a clumsy innocent.’
‘You are right, madam.’
She sighed. ‘It has been said since then that the Boleyn name is cursed, and I think perhaps it is.’ She fell silent, retreating inside herself again.
I took a deep breath. ‘Madam, I have to ask, have you any idea who killed
your daughter?’
She shook her head wearily. ‘No.’
‘Or know where she could have been during those nine years after she left her husband?’
‘I know only that she was right to leave John Boleyn and my pestilential grandsons. Where she went – who knows, perhaps far away.’ She sighed. ‘It does not matter now. None of it matters.’
‘Not the identity of your daughter’s murderer, or John Boleyn’s fate?’
‘England is crumbling all around us, Master Shardlake. Well, let it.’ She fell silent. Next door, the argument between Sotherton and Gawen Reynolds was getting louder. I heard Reynolds shout, ‘It’s only for a few more days, Nicholas! Our information from London is that an army is to be made ready in case the Herald failed, as he did.’
‘Those brutes almost found my brother in his hiding place and took him! What do you think they would do to me if they found –’
There was a knock at the door and it opened, making both Jane and me jump. But it was only a servant lad, bearing candles. He bowed. ‘Mistress Sotherton said to light the rooms.’
‘Are all the outer doors locked?’ Jane asked.
‘All except the courtyard doors, those dogs smashed the lock when they broke in. I will secure it.’ He went round the room, lighting candles, righting several sconces which had been knocked over. When he left, Jane asked me, ‘Were many killed when the rebels attacked Norwich this morning?’
‘Some dozens, I think.’
She looked out onto the garden. ‘Perhaps the prophets are right, and the end of the world is nigh. Then we shall be judged. I wonder whether it will be heaven or hell for me. I remember the story of Job in the Bible; God granted him peace at last after all his trials. I hope it is the same for Edith and me.’ For the first time her voice shook, and she turned her head away.
Then the door opened, and Gawen Reynolds limped in with his stick, the thin face beneath his black cap thunderous. He was followed by an expensively dressed man in his forties, with a bad cut on his cheekbone. Reynolds glared at his wife; at first he did not see me. ‘Mistress Sotherton had enough of your company, Jane?’ He laughed. ‘This frightened rabbit won’t help us any more, he’s sent the steward—’ He broke off, eyes widening as he finally noticed me. ‘Christ’s bloody nails!’ he shouted. ‘What in the name of the Virgin’s tits are you doing here with my wife?’
‘I wanted to ask a few more questions about your daughter’s murder.’
Reynolds turned angrily to his wife. ‘What have you been saying?’
She shrank back a step. ‘Nothing, Husband. I know nothing.’
Reynolds turned back to me. ‘I heard there was a hunchback lawyer in the camp. So, it was you. I’ll see you hang before this is done.’ Overcome with anger, he raised his stick and crossed the room, clearly with the intention of striking me. Nicholas Sotherton dashed forward and grabbed it, wresting it from the old man’s hand. ‘In Christ’s name, Gawen, if this man is one of Kett’s people, leave him alone! You seem to want to bring ever more trouble down on me!’
Reynolds took back the stick. He leaned on it, breathing heavily, looking at me with hatred. But Nicholas Sotherton’s reaction to Reynolds’s attempt to assault me made me realize I held some power here. I said, ‘It is you that must take care, Master Reynolds. I am at Mousehold, my task to ensure judgements are arrived at in a proper legal manner. As for your grandsons, they will be indicted for the attempted murder of the boy they struck at Brikewell, whose mind is gone. By me.’
Reynolds almost snarled at me, showing a set of yellow teeth. ‘When the Protector sends his army to deal with you and those dogs on Mousehold, none of you will be left to indict anybody. My friends and I will ensure the leaders are hung from that Oak of yours, and I shall see that includes you.’
‘Fine words,’ I replied, ‘but who controls Norwich now? I could soon arrange for more “visitors” to come to this house, yours, too, though I hear you bought your way out of trouble this morning.’
At that Reynolds fell silent. Sotherton said to me, ‘Sir, please leave my house now, unless you have business with me.’
‘No, I came only to speak to Mistress Reynolds, though she had naught to tell me. I will leave gladly,’ I said.
Then everyone turned at the sound of thunderous footsteps on the staircase outside. Gerald and Barnabas Boleyn banged open the door and strode angrily into the room. They wore rough leather jerkins, their muscular arms bare, and each carried a long knife. They were dirty, their yellow hair and straggly boys’ beards full of grey dust, Barnabas’s scar standing out.
Sotherton closed his eyes. Gawen Reynolds set his mouth hard. Jane retreated to the darkest corner of the room. Instinctively, I followed her.
The twins looked at Reynolds. ‘What the fuck’s going on, Granfer?’ Gerald asked loudly. ‘That fucking steward came and lifted the floorboards in the attic, told us we had to go. Why? We’re well enough hidden! They didn’t find us when they came for Leonard Sotherton!’
Reynolds said in biting tones, ‘Master Nicholas Sotherton has had an attack of nerves since his house has been buffeted about.’
Gerald turned to Sotherton and shouted, ‘You’ll get your house properly broken about, you cowardly pissing-woman, unless you give us the refuge you promised!’
‘Yes,’ Barnabas agreed. ‘There’s a few vases outside, and Venetian glassware hidden in the kitchen, I’m told – what the fuck?’ He broke off, for he had seen me standing near his grandmother. The twins ignored her, but approached me, shoulder to shoulder, knives lifted. ‘You!’ Gerald shouted. ‘You’ve been trying to fuck up our lives since London.’ He turned to his grandfather. ‘How did he find out we were here?’
‘He wouldn’t have done if you’d stayed quiet instead of rampaging down the stairs like wild bulls!’
Gerald asked quietly, ‘Is he alone?’
‘His one-armed friend is outside. The insolent dog came to talk to your grandmother, more nonsense about your father’s case.’
Gerald smiled nastily. ‘Then nobody will know if we kill him. Deal with the other freak outside, then cut this one up nice and slow with our knives.’
‘Yes,’ Barnabas agreed. ‘We’ve a big score to settle with you, hunchback. Lend us your kitchen, Master Sotherton, the blood can be mopped up easier there. Just give us half an hour.’
‘Say an hour,’ Gerald said, in a quiet, considering tone that chilled me to the bone. ‘We’ll start with his nose, go on to the fingers and then his cock and balls, if he’s got any.’
‘I want to do the eyes,’ Barnabas said.
‘No, no, no,’ Jane Reynolds said pitifully, then buried her face in her hands.
‘What’s matter, Grannykins?’ Gerald asked in a tone of mock solicitude. ‘Don’t you want us to rip up the nice old hunchback?’ I looked at his knife, glinting in the candlelight.
Jane collapsed slowly to her knees, burying her face in her hands. Her husband and grandsons ignored her. It was Nicholas Sotherton who stepped forward, suddenly authoritative. ‘No! If you kill him, he’ll be missed at the camp and those dogs will come searching for him.’
‘They will,’ I said, trying to keep my voice even. ‘I was with a senior man from the camp earlier this afternoon, and I told him I was coming to visit Master Reynolds.’ In fact, I had not told Edward, but the twins did not know that. ‘And the serving woman at your grandfather’s house directed me here.’
I knew Gerald and Barnabas dearly wanted to kill me, but their grandfather stepped forward, pushing Gerald’s knife-hand away with his stick. I thought, Nobody else could get away with doing that. He said, regretfully, ‘The hunchback’s right, lads.’
‘He’ll say he’s seen us,’ Barnabas said. ‘Then the rebels will be after us.’
‘That won’t matter if you’re on the road out of Norwich, which you should have taken earlier.’
Sotherton said, ‘You can hide in one of my carts of wool, the driver can get out by Ber Street Gate, say he
’s taking it to be finished by weavers at Wymondham.’
‘It’s a bit late for that,’ Gerald said, looking out at the gathering dusk.
‘He can say we were delayed because of the fighting. They’ll let him out of the city, they are keen trade should continue in Norfolk.’
‘Go on, now,’ Reynolds said. ‘You said you wanted to be in on the fighting – there will be an army coming soon, you can join it; once you’re out of Norwich leave the cart, find some horses and head for London. And for God’s sake, Barnabas, rub some ashes into that scar, it gives you away.’
‘Shit!’ shouted Gerald, always the less controllable one. He glared at me. ‘I want to kill this cunt.’
‘You’ll get your chance. But now, go. At once.’
‘I’ll take you to the yard at the back,’ Sotherton said.
Reluctantly, the boys followed him. In the doorway Barnabas turned, ‘We’ll get you when the army comes, have no doubt.’
I asked quietly, ‘Tell me, where is John Atkinson? He helped you kill the apprentice boy Walter out at the Sandlings, didn’t he?’
The twins looked at each other, then at me, in what seemed like genuine surprise. ‘What the fuck are you talking about now?’ Gerald asked impatiently.
‘Come on,’ their grandfather said, waving a hand. ‘Leave. Now!’
The twins left with Reynolds and Sotherton. There were voices from the yard behind the house, then creaking, heavy wheels. I swallowed hard, remembering the cold, vicious eyes of the twins as they said what they would do to me, and realized I was shaking. I heard Jane move and saw that she was painfully rising to her feet, one bandaged hand on the table, tears streaming down her face, spots of red in her white cheeks. I moved to help her, but she waved me away with her free hand, casting her head down.
The two men returned, Sotherton mopping his brow with a handkerchief. ‘There, they’re gone.’
Reynolds looked at me. ‘You’ll forgive me if we lock you in here for an hour, just so Gerald and Barnabas have time to get away.’ He smiled nastily. ‘It will be an easier hour than they would have given you.’ He turned to Jane. ‘Come on, you. Stop snivelling, we’re going home.’