by C. J. Sansom
‘What did Vowell do to you?’ Nicholas said.
I told them of how my earlier talk with Peter Bone had made me deduce that Vowell, with Gawen Reynolds, was responsible for Edith’s murder, and that Vowell had realized I knew. As I recounted our conversation in the hut, Nicholas and John Boleyn listened, wide-eyed and horrified, while the nearest men in the line of chained prisoners bent sideways to eavesdrop; even in the face of imminent death, human curiosity persists. At the end Boleyn lowered his head with a sigh. ‘Gawen Reynolds, I always knew he was a villain, but never guessed he could be capable of that. Poor Edith. If only she had turned to me, I would have given her money to resume her imposture.’ Two tears rolled down his thin, dirty cheeks. At last, he had shown some pity for his dead wife. He said quietly, ‘So Barnabas and Gerald had nothing to do with her death?’
‘Nothing. They were used by Vowell and your father-in-law to get the key, that is all.’
He closed his eyes. I waited, then said, ‘Vowell indicated your lack of an alibi was connected to Sir Richard Southwell,’ I said quietly. ‘You might as well tell us the truth about that now, John; likely we will all be dead tomorrow.’
Boleyn leaned back, resting his head against the wall, his face utterly miserable. ‘You know I have been in debt. I bought my London house with a loan, and have been unable to service it from the rents and produce from Brikewell and my other manors. Even back in May the signs were this would be a bad harvest, less money would come in than ever before. But with the way my Isabella was treated by the local gentry, to say nothing of the twins’ behaviour to her, I wanted to move to London, though I wanted to keep Brikewell, and I took a mortgage on my land from Southwell. It was stupid, stupid, I know he has coveted my estate, among others, to run his sheep.’ He sighed. ‘The rate of interest was high; I think he had been into my affairs and knew things would reach the point where I could no longer pay.’ Boleyn laughed. ‘Yet I was reluctant to have him call in the mortgage and take my estate. What an obstinate fool I was. As I fell behind, Southwell put greater pressure on me. He told me to meet him on the road just outside Brikewell at half past nine on the fourteenth of May. He warned me to tell no one. It was an odd request, but Southwell is not a man to be refused.
‘When we met, he told me he wanted the estate, now. I asked for more time, but he insisted, and added that if I did not do as he asked, something bad would happen to Isabella. That was why I said nothing, and persisted in my pretence that I was at home that evening.’ He sighed. ‘No doubt he had cooked this all up with Gawen Reynolds to ensure I had no proper alibi. The day I was imprisoned I got a message from him to say that if I ever spoke of our meeting, Isabella would be made to disappear. Given my arrest, nobody would question her vanishing suddenly from Brikewell. I am sorry, Master Shardlake, that I did not tell you the truth. But Isabella means more to me than life itself.’ He lifted his head and laughed bitterly again. ‘And she was the only one who believed my alibi. Dear Isabella.’ He looked at me with a sudden wildness. ‘What will happen to her now, alone out there in that city?’
‘I wish I knew. But few women are more resourceful.’
Nicholas clenched his hands, making the chain rattle. ‘The three of us are guilty of nothing against Kett. We have been checkmated by Reynolds and Vowell and made to face death. If only Barak were here. If only we could get the truth to him.’
I said quietly, ‘We do not know whether Jack is even still alive. And as Vowell knew, there is no point appealing to the guards here. They seem keen to take us all to our deaths, I think they have been chosen for that reason.’
We fell silent. Hours passed. Along the line of chained men some began praying together, while another group – they must have been Catholics – produced rosaries and prayed over them, again and again, in Latin. Dusk came, and the blue sky outside the big window turned dark. A thin crescent moon rose. From the camp we began to hear voices, thuds and the sound of creaking wheels. Although we were all tied closely together, Nicholas, at the end of the line, had a little more space to move and with difficulty he got to his feet and looked through the window. He said, ‘There are lots of torches lit. It looks like men, equipment and weapons too, are being moved from the camp.’
Just then the door opened with a crash, making everyone jump so that the long chain clanked heavily. A young soldier in helmet and breastplate entered, accompanied by guards. He looked at us with contempt.
‘Well, gentlemen of Norfolk,’ he said, ‘I have come to tell you our final attack on the city has failed. We have been driven out of the northern parts. All Norwich is now under Warwick’s control, we are cut off from the market. We cannot survive long without supplies, so we are evacuating the camp where’ – his voice broke for a second – ‘where we have lived these seven weeks. But we are not defeated. We are moving everything to the site where, tomorrow, we shall give battle to Warwick, his mercenaries and gentlemen, and we are about to send them a signal that we are ready to fight. You will all be taken to Mousehold Heath and tomorrow, chained together, you will be in the front line facing the enemy. It will be a nice dilemma for Warwick, whether to fire on you or not.’
One man put his head in his hands and began to howl. He was told brusquely to ‘stop winnicking!’ Another gentleman shouted out, ‘You promised us justice under the Oak of Reformation. Robert Kett said nobody would be killed. He’s broken his word!’
The man next to him asked, ‘Does he even know of this?’
The soldier did not answer directly. ‘Hundreds of our men have died in Norwich. It is the King’s Council, and Warwick, who have forced us into this. Now shut up, aren’t you supposed to be gentlemen, ready to face your end with dignity? You will be called for later.’ And with that he left the room, the guards locking the door behind him.
More time passed. Some men wept, others resumed their prayers, but most sat in shocked silence. It was quite dark in the room now. But presently we saw a faint red glow outside. It grew brighter, and we heard the crackling of flames. Even though the window was closed, a faint smell of smoke came into the room. Someone said in horror, ‘They’re setting Surrey Place on fire.’
Again, Nicholas got carefully to his feet and looked out of the window. ‘Holy Jesus Christ,’ he said in an awestruck tone.
‘What are they doing?’ someone asked frantically. ‘Is the house afire?’
‘No. They’ve fired the camp, that must be the signal they are ready to fight or die.’
I staggered to my feet, Boleyn leaning into me to make it easier. Through the window I saw a sight I shall never forget. The whole camp was ablaze, as far as the eye could see. All the little huts where we had lived were now fiercely burning circles of turf and bracken. Smoke billowed up, blown towards Norwich by an easterly breeze. I said quietly, ‘The end of the Mousehold camp.’
Nicholas said, ‘But if they win tomorrow, where will the rebels go?’
‘Into Norwich, I should think, through the northern gates they have been firing on. And then – try to spread the rebellion again.’ I groaned, for my back had been wrenched as I stood up, and Nicholas and Boleyn helped me back to a sitting position. Someone shouted out, ‘Will you stop moving up there? The chain’s pulling our arms.’
We sat in silence again, the room now lit by a bright, flickering redness. I saw Nicholas lean forward, looking towards the far end of the room. He said quietly, ‘Can you see who the man is at the other end of the chain? By the opposite wall?’
I screwed up my eyes and looked down. ‘A small man, old, I think, yes, with white hair.’
‘Damn,’ he said. ‘All may depend on the strength of the man at each end of the chain.’
I looked at him. My eyes were stinging now, for the room was full of smoke. ‘What do you mean?’
He muttered, ‘Maybe nothing. I doubt it will be possible.’
*
MORE HOURS PASSED. At one point, through sheer exhaustion, I fell asleep. Then the door crashed open again and the same o
fficer entered, this time accompanied by a dozen soldiers, all young and strong, swords at their waists. ‘On your feet!’ he shouted. ‘Time to go!’ He nodded, and one of his men unlocked the padlock securing the chain to the wall beside Nicholas, wrapping the chain firmly round his wrist. Another soldier did the same at the other end of the room where the old man was. The soldiers took positions along the line. Their captain said, ‘You go to Dussindale now.’ As I stood up painfully I looked from the window; the fire seemed to be dying now. The sky was a little less dark; soon it would be dawn. The captain said, ‘Mind your feet outside. Anyone tries to escape, they’ll be gutted on the spot. Now, out.’ The guard at the opposite end of the room pulled on the chain. The old man swayed slightly, then found his feet and staggered out of the room, the rest of us following in a macabre procession behind him.
Outside in the Great Hall another twenty or so ragged, chained gentlemen prisoners had been taken from other rooms. A further group of a dozen was being led down the stairs, slowly lest they slip. At the bottom their chain was secured to the end of the one holding the other group, then to ours, with heavy padlocks. Nicholas deliberately hung back so that he, Boleyn and I were right at the end of the long line of about fifty haggard, frightened men. Another young captain walked along the line, checking each man’s padlock was secure. One gentleman began pleading frantically for his life, saying he had money hidden. He was ignored. The doors of Surrey Place were thrown open, grey smoke billowing in.
‘Now, gentlemen,’ the captain said, ‘make a line and start walking outside. Slowly, don’t anyone dare trip.’ We began to move, the long chain rattling and clanking as the first men shuffled outside.
The courtyard was empty, the tents and other supplies stored there gone. The gates were open, and we were led outside. There, the smoke was thicker, and through it I could see countless huts glowing red. One collapsed, then another, sending showers of fiery sparks into the slowly lightening sky. Patches of grass had caught and sent their own billows of smoke skyward. I thought of our hut, the Swardeston people who had welcomed us, poor dead Hector Johnson and Simon, and of Natty and Barak. Had they survived the fighting in Norwich? It suddenly occurred to me that I had never asked Natty what his last name was.
It was a long, slow, horrible march. The guards on each side of us carried horn-lamps, but the light which they and the burning camp provided was obscured by the smoke. We were led past St Michael’s Chapel, which was deserted but had not been set alight, then some way uphill and along trackways between the dying fires of the huts. We looked down at our feet as we walked, but even so some men stumbled and fell, risking the balance of the whole line; the fallen prisoners were hauled roughly to their feet.
Oddly, the man next to Boleyn, a middle-aged fellow with greying hair, took to treating our terrible situation with humour. He said his name was Dale, and he owned a couple of manors in the south of the county. ‘All I did was put one of them to sheep, I would have compensated the tenants, but I don’t live there and my bailiff got together with a local lawyer and turned the tenants out, saying their leases were at the landlord’s will. I remember you were at my trial, sir, you said the steward should be brought as a witness, without him everything he was supposed to have said was hearsay. You tried to get the trial postponed till he was found, and I am grateful for that, but my tenants said he had fled, which I imagine he has, so it fell back on me. Now he’ll be living somewhere quiet, on my money, while you and I face being killed by our own side. What a jest and confusion life is, hardly worth the trouble in the end.’
‘Keep quiet,’ Boleyn said roughly. ‘Concentrate on keeping your balance.’
We turned northward, walking roughly parallel to the bend of the river, then west, now in a line close to the city’s northern walls. We were moving slowly downhill. Many campfires burned on the open ground in the northern part of the city; Warwick’s army.
At length we passed the northern perimeter of the camp, beyond the smoke from the huts. We began to encounter groups of camp-men, walking purposefully westward, all carrying weapons; halberds and spears, twelve-foot-long pikes, sharpened pitchforks, scythes fixed to the end of long poles, and a great number of archers carrying longbows. All looked at us with contempt, some spitting on the ground as we passed. We heard snatches of conversation:
‘They say an adder jumped out of a rotten tree into Mistress Kett’s bosom; some take it as a bad omen, but it didn’t bite her –’
‘There’s some deserted in the night –’
‘Good riddance, there’s over six thousand of us fit and trained men left, and we’ll fight to the end –’
‘Wait – I have to hulp –’ A man stepped aside and was violently sick.
‘Don’t shit your pants like young Hunter –’
And then, as the sky began to lighten properly, we reached the crest of the spur of land projecting from Mousehold Heath named Dussindale, which I had visited with Peter Bone two days before. The gun-platform was complete, a flattened area onto which a couple of dozen cannon had been pulled. Below, being drawn up in battle array by their officers, were the thousands of men from Mousehold camp, horsemen, foot soldiers with pole weapons raised, parish banners flying alongside the red banners of war. Halfway down the hill supply wagons had been turned on their sides, and behind them thousands of archers were taking up positions. Some had armour, others quilted jackets, but many had only their ordinary clothes.
At the bottom of the hill, facing a flat area, the last of the wooden stakes were being hammered into the ground, sharp points facing outward towards the enemy. In front of them the long trench was complete, the excavated earth thrown up in front to form a low barrier, while to the north the new earthworks stood high. A little way to the south stood the city walls, many of the towers bombarded into ruins by cannon over the last few days. If the rebels won, that was how they would re-enter Norwich.
Forced to descend, we came parallel to the gun platform. I saw Captain Miles there, walking to and fro, shouting orders to the gun-crews. I thought of his wife and children in detention in London, and realized it must have been Michael Vowell who betrayed him, too. I saw Peter Bone, standing behind a cannon, and I thought he looked at me, but he was too far off for me to be sure. Some way to the left I saw a group of men in helmets and bright clothes standing together, looking down the slope of the hill. The commanders, awaiting the start of the battle. Robert Kett was there with his brother; he glanced at our pathetic line being dragged along, then quickly looked away again.
We continued slowly downhill, past the main body of soldiers. Boos and catcalls sounded as we passed, from these men among whom I had lived peaceably all these weeks. We were brought to a halt just behind the stakes and ordered to stand in a line parallel with them. ‘Merciful Christ,’ someone muttered, ‘they’re going to do it.’ Some of the men who were hammering in the last of the wooden stakes brought two exceptionally large ones across to us. Boleyn and Nicholas and I were at the southern end of the line, and we watched as, next to us, our end of the chain was looped and padlocked tightly to a stake, then the stake hammered into the sandy soil. At the other end of the line another stake was being dug in. We stood, shackled and helpless, facing the coming enemy.
And they were coming; Warwick’s army, slowly, in a seemingly endless line through Coslany Gate, first horsemen in armour, a great many of them, the white cross of England emblazoned on their chests, then seemingly endless lines of men, foot soldiers and more horsemen, this time big men in battle armour, but with brightly coloured hose and huge feathers fixed to their helmets. The landsknechts. Many carried heavy arquebuses with apparent ease. Warwick’s army began slowly to move into position, only a few hundred feet from where we stood, as more soldiers continued marching through the gate behind them; English soldiers now, I recognized Captain Drury at their head. There seemed to be nearly as many of them as there were of the rebel forces, and they had many more horsemen, our only advantage being that of height and
a greater number of cannon. As more and more came and took their places dust rose in clouds.
And now we were alone, standing chained together in a line, between the two armies. I felt the chain start to rattle and shake, slowly but steadily, all along its length, and realized many of the prisoners were trembling, as I had begun to do myself.
Chapter Seventy-eight
No more than six hundred feet before us, Warwick’s army formed into battle array, men called to take their places by shouts from their captains. Cannon – fewer than ours – were rolled into place flanking the main body of troops. Landsknecht arquebusiers, enormous, bull-like men, stood right at the front, hundreds spread out in two lines, one behind the other. Little fires were lit at various points beside them, reminding me of Simon’s terrible end, and then of the demonstration at Mousehold where a bullet had pierced armour as though it were butter. The big men stood there waiting, faces set but eyes constantly roving, big guns by their sides, the gaudy feathers in their helmets stirring in the light breeze. I glanced up at the sky; it was cloudless, the start of a perfect late summer day. As Vowell had noted, the rebels had the advantage that Warwick’s army were facing the rising sun. Some landsknechts raised their hands to shade their eyes.
Behind the arquebusiers more landsknechts formed up, holding up their twelve-foot pikes. And behind them horsemen, then foot soldiers. Apart from the shouting of orders from the captains of each army all was extraordinarily silent. Although even Warwick’s foot soldiers wore breastplates and helmets, many of the rebels – I realized I was suddenly no longer thinking of them as ‘our men’ – lacked armour.
A man on horseback rode up the side of Warwick’s men and halted beside the landsknechts. He carried a standard, the emblem of a bear chained to a tree-trunk; the bear and ragged staff, Warwick’s emblem. And then I saw the earl himself, riding through the lines, in glittering armour and helmet; I had seen him briefly four years before in Portsmouth, and recognized the hard sallow face and pointed black beard. Then, he had played a crucial part in preventing the invasion of Hampshire by the French fleet; he was known as a great commander both on land and sea. He halted near the front of his lines, looked at the ditch, the stakes, and at us standing chained behind, all with the same hard, calculating gaze. Then he looked up the slope at our army, before turning and riding back. I thought, When the warship Mary Rose sank it had all happened in a matter of minutes, while this slow forming up seemed endless. I tried to control my shaking legs. Next to me, Nicholas grasped my arm. ‘Courage,’ he whispered.