by C. J. Sansom
‘We have the whole story. How your daughter left her husband and took on the identity of her servant Grace Bone’s dead sister, and lived with Grace and her brother peacefully for nine years. The brother, Peter, gave me his testimony, up to the point this spring when poverty drove Edith first to seek succour from the Lady Elizabeth, and when that failed, this last May, from you.’
‘Oh!’ The loud exhalation of breath from Jane Reynolds made us all turn. She stared at her husband with an expression of horror and disgust, then said quietly, ‘That letter that came, in the spring. Vowell took it, but I was sure I recognized my daughter’s handwriting, though you denied it.’
Reynolds took a step towards her, leaning heavily on his stick, and now, as I had anticipated, he lost control. ‘So, your precious daughter lived with another woman for nine years,’ he shouted, ‘and we can guess what they got up to in private, probably with the brother looking on! She deserved what she got, she was no natural woman, she could not bear the normal attentions of a man.’
Jane backed away, against the wall, causing a small portrait of some Reynolds ancestor from a hundred years ago to drop from the wall, the frame shattering on the floor. ‘Now see what you’ve done!’ Reynolds snapped angrily. I think it was then I realized he was insane.
I continued, calmly. ‘The testimony as to Edith’s visit to your house seeking help, and what happened next – your decision to murder her and seek to blame John Boleyn, and the involvement of Sir Richard Southwell – all this came from your steward and confederate, Michael Vowell.’
Reynolds may have been mad, but he was sharp as ever. ‘Vowell would never give such testimony, it would send him to the gallows.’
‘Not given that he is in the service of the government,’ I answered. Reynolds, of course, did not know that Vowell had been a spy, so would never be allowed to give evidence. The old man changed colour again, going pale. I pressed on. ‘Vowell told me you were going to bury your daughter in a shallow grave on your neighbour’s land, where she would be discovered quickly, but then you insisted on leaving her in that ditch, her body exposed in that vile way. You damaged your leg doing it.’ I shook my head. ‘Your plan might have worked but for your mad action, which cast doubt on John Boleyn’s guilt.’
I thought the old man might begin ranting again, but instead the eyes in his pale face narrowed. Then he inclined his head towards the wall connecting to the next room, and shouted, ‘You must have heard all that, Barney! If Shardlake succeeds, I will be executed, and the family fortune will go to the King. It’s up to you now, boy! You came back here after your brother was killed, now strike in his memory!’
I heard the door of the next room open, the tread of slow footsteps. Barnabas Boleyn entered the room. His short fair hair stood on end, his face was haggard and unshaven, his scar standing out amid his blond fuzz; he wore only a shirt and hose. But he carried the weapon he had had at Dussindale, a razor-sharp sword, held high in his short, muscular arm. The blue eyes in his pale face were alive with fury. As he entered the room, I noticed he staggered slightly to the left, then corrected himself. I remembered how the twins had always stood shoulder to shoulder; instinctively he had sought to lean against his dead brother.
Reynolds smiled, his expression triumphant again. ‘Kill them, Barney.’ He raised his stick. ‘I’ll deal with the hunchback, you get the other two. Look, the one-handed one’s been hurt, he’s leaning on a stick.’
Barnabas had been staring between the three of us, ignoring Jane as usual, but now he turned to his grandfather. He said, quietly, ‘Gerald was the only one I let call me Barney.’
His grandfather glared back at him. ‘What?’
‘Only Gerald.’ Then he said, ‘You – you killed our mother. Our mother, who we only wanted to love us!’
From the corner, Jane spoke quietly. ‘He did more than that. He interfered with your mother when she was a child.’
Barnabas’s eyes widened. His grandfather yelled, ‘It’s what women are for, you blockhead, I thought I’d brought you up to see that! You and your brother have been fucking women since you were fourteen.’ He waved his stick at us, his voice shaking a little now.
‘Deal with them, do you want me executed and the family fortune lost?’
‘I don’t care!’ Barnabas shouted suddenly. And then, the sword held out before him, he ran straight at his grandfather. The old man raised his stick helplessly, but Barnabas thrust his sword with the full might of his short, strong body, straight through his grandfather’s heart. The force of his charge sent the old man back against the window, and then, with a crash of breaking glass, right through it. Barnabas could have withdrawn the sword, but he did not – alone, I think he no longer wished to live. He, too, crashed through the window, and the two fell together to the street three floors below. Nicholas and Barak and I rushed over. Grandfather and grandson lay dead on the flag-stones of Tombland, blood spreading from their shattered bodies as people gathered round, looking down at them, then up at us.
I turned to Jane. She had not moved from her corner, and her white face wore the same stone-cold expression as when I had first seen her in June.
‘God’s bones,’ Nicholas said.
Barak said, ‘There goes our last living testimony.’
‘No.’ We all turned as Jane spoke from the corner. She stepped forward a couple of paces. ‘I heard it all, his confession,’ she said quietly. ‘And I know the things he did to my daughter, God rest her. My marriage has been hell on earth, I have no wish to hold anything back. I shall prepare a deposition in support of my son-in-law’s freedom.’ She raised her bandaged hands and gave a grim smile. ‘Someone will have to write it for me, but I can sign, just about.’
Chapter Eighty-three
The deaths of Gawen Reynolds and Barnabas Boleyn meant there was business with the coroner in the following days, and we did not manage to leave Norwich until the third of September, nearly three months since we had first arrived. Post-runners were back at work, and Barak wrote a letter to Tamasin saying he was safe and had been held at the rebel camp with Nicholas and me, while I wrote a very long but carefully worded letter to Thomas Parry, telling the story of what had happened but leaving out the role of Richard Southwell – that was something for private discussion when we met. I hoped the letter arrived before we did; I knew the Lady Elizabeth would be sixteen on the seventh of September, and Hatfield busy with celebrations.
I spent a good deal of time with little Mousy. She was thriving under the care of Liz Partlett, who combined efficiency with a natural kindness. It was a strange thing, at my age, to find myself playing with a little child, running my fingers along the floor as she chased them on all fours. Occasionally, I looked up at Liz with embarrassment, but she offered only smiles of encouragement. Once or twice Mousy became fretful, and once she wept and called for ma-ma. It cut me to the heart.
I went into the city as seldom as possible, but got all the news from Barak and Nicholas, as well as gossip at the inn. The Earl of Warwick was staying in Norwich another week, to preside over more trials, set others in train, and put Norfolk back in order. There had been, I heard, an argument between him and some of the gentlemen, who called for a huge swathe of rebel executions such as was taking place in the West Country, where the rebellion was finally over. Warwick had called, though, for a policy of killing the leadership but leaving the rank-and-file alone. Apparently, he had asked them sarcastically whether, if they would kill so many, they would end up walking behind their own ploughs, which settled the matter; though the daily hangings continued.
There had been, it was said, three thousand rebels killed at Dussindale, in the battle and the pursuit of those who fled afterwards – almost half those who had fought. It was given out that the number of dead on Warwick’s side was under two hundred, but having seen the savage close-quarter fighting myself I knew the number must be far greater. On the Saturday, the last day of August, I stayed in all day, avoiding the market, where all manner
of goods taken from the rebels’ bodies were up for sale – piles of clothing, shoes and even, according to Barak, wedding-rings pulled from the fingers of the dead. I realized that Edith’s wedding ring might well be among the articles for sale.
I had taken a full deposition from Jane Reynolds in the presence of a notary. She gave some account of her life with her husband, his pursuit and sometimes rape of the women servants, as well as his own daughter. She gave her account in the house in Tombland, in a toneless, unemotional manner, even when relating how her grandson had thrown himself and her husband from the window. Her thin face was always white as a tallow candle. Later, the notary before whom she painfully signed the document told me her miserable life with Gawen Reynolds had been common gossip in Norwich for years, and she was generally pitied. Nothing could be done, of course, he said, to interfere in relations between man and wife.
I said farewell to Jane, telling her I would see her again, as later I must return for the inquests on Reynolds and Barnabas, but there was so much official business to be done in the city that might not be for months. I asked whether she was going to stay in the house. She answered bleakly, ‘Where else would I go?’ Her eyes filled with tears and she turned her head away, dismissing me with a wave of a bandaged hand.
The day before we left, on a mellow early autumn morning, I went to lodge the depositions of myself, Barak, Nicholas and Jane with the court at Norwich Castle. I had to brace myself on the way in, for I knew the heads of several rebels had been placed on stakes along the path to the entrance, as at the Guildhall and the city gates. But what almost unmanned me was that I saw one head was that of John Miles. The crows had taken his eyes, but there was enough left of his face to recognize it, his jaw slack and open, a stinking ooze running from his severed neck. I closed my eyes, wondering what had happened to his wife and children in London. Inside, my hands shook as I deposited the documents with the senior clerk who had had Barak sacked. He acted as though he had never met me. I believed he had a part in the disappearance of the document cancelling Boleyn’s hanging back in June, but I knew that question would never be resolved, though I suspected Southwell was behind that manoeuvre, too.
After leaving the papers I went to say farewell to John and Isabella Boleyn. They were in his cell, Boleyn looking stronger, the marks on his wrists faded to light bruises as they had on me. Once again he thanked me profusely for all I had done. Isabella, ever practical, asked me when I thought the pardon might come.
‘Soon, I would think, when copies of our depositions reach the Protector.’ My smile was a little forced after what I had seen at the gates. ‘What will you do when John is released?’
‘Sell Brikewell and my other estates, and move to London,’ Boleyn answered. ‘That house I bought in London is too large, I shall sell it and buy something smaller.’
‘Will you sell your estate to Southwell?’
Boleyn shrugged helplessly. ‘He has the mortgage. If he wants to connect his other parcels of land together and run sheep, I cannot pay the mortgage off other than by selling him the land.’
‘He will have the tenants out.’
‘It is the way of things.’ He looked away.
There was a moment’s silence. Isabella broke it, asking, ‘Do you still plan to adopt the little girl?’
‘Yes. The wet-nurse is coming with us to London.’
She patted her stomach. ‘Perhaps when my baby is born you can bring the child to visit us in London. In more peaceful times.’
‘Yes, indeed.’ I exchanged a glance with John Boleyn, and somehow knew that visit would never happen, he would wish only to forget all that had happened in Norfolk. Besides, we had nothing in common. We conversed a little more; he did not mention the twins, and I had a feeling he never would again. Shortly after I took my farewell.
*
I WAS LEAVING the castle, preparing to pass that dreadful row of heads again, when I heard my name called. I turned to see John Flowerdew, like me in his black serjeant’s robe, a thick folder under his arm. His thin face wore a hard, triumphant smile. He walked towards me.
‘Well, Serjeant Flowerdew,’ I said. ‘So you have returned to Norwich now it is safe. I hope your wife and sons that you ran off and left are well.’
His expression hardened. ‘No thanks to you. I only got back two days ago, but already I have heard much news. I gather you surrendered yourself to the rebels, and made yourself of service to Robert Kett. Be thankful the behaviour of some gentlemen is not to be investigated too closely.’
‘Be grateful you escaped from Wymondham,’ I said.
‘I remember that day, when you told Kett you had come to get Boleyn’s money from me.’
‘As I had. It has kept him and his wife fed and well in the castle, and soon his pardon will be granted.’
Flowerdew smiled and tapped his folder. ‘Well, I have other fish to fry now. I am on my way to the courthouse. The gentlemen of Norfolk seek compensation for the livestock and other goods stolen by those wretched rebels; they are drowning the Earl of Warwick with petitions. Well, they will be compensated, one way or another. There will be good profit in it for me.’
‘You are a monster,’ I said, my voice shaking.
He laughed. ‘You call me that, you hunchbacked enemy of the right order of society ordained by God? Oh, by the way, Robert Kett and his brother are to be taken from the castle to the Guildhall prison tomorrow, then to London for trial. Afterwards there will be an inquisition post-mortem, and I shall be present, to give evidence as to the value of Robert Kett’s land and goods. They will go to the King, and, who knows, some of them may be used to remit the losses of the gentlemen.’ He smiled. ‘I look forward to that day.’
I turned in disgust and walked away, hearing his creaky laughter as again I passed that row of severed heads.
*
THE FOLLOWING DAY, another mellow autumn morning, we prepared to leave Norwich at last. But there was one more grim sight to endure. The horses that Master Theobald had duly supplied for us had been brought round from the stables and as we were about to mount I noticed an unusual number of soldiers in the marketplace. Then I saw a horse-drawn cart, surrounded by more soldiers with halberds, making its way up to the Guildhall. Standing in it, hands tied behind his back, was Robert Kett. He wore a cheap smock, and his face was bruised and filthy, but he stared defiantly ahead, chin lifted, his bearing still proud. He was taken to the Guildhall, past the gallows and the heads staked outside, then the tail of the cart was lowered and he was roughly taken down and led inside. Beside me I heard Liz mutter, ‘God save you, Captain Kett.’
*
AND SO WE RODE out of Norwich, Mousy secured to Liz’s front with tight swaddling. Her late father had been a blacksmith’s assistant, and she knew how to ride. None of us spoke as we rode down St Stephen’s Street and through the gate. On the outside the emblem of the bear and ragged staff were nailed, together with the arm and upper body of another rebel, where black crows fluttered and pecked. We lowered our heads. Once out on the road, though, I took a last look back at Mousehold Heath in the distance, black from the burning of the camp, bare and empty now. For a moment I seemed to hear poor Simon Scambler again, and the song he had sung round the campfire, as sparks flew up to the night sky:
my life will change utterly
since my sinful eyes saw
this noble land so much admired
Gone, I thought, all gone.
Chapter Eighty-four
We arrived at Hatfield on the afternoon of the sixth. There, all was quiet and peaceful, yellow leaves beginning to drift down from the trees in the gardens, peacocks calling, the red-brick mansion beautiful in the mellow autumn sunshine. When I had told Liz Partlett during the journey that I was to visit the Lady Elizabeth’s Comptroller, who was my client, her eyes had widened in surprise, as they did again at the sight of Hatfield Palace. I gave my name, and the guards at the gate sent for the big Welshman, Fowberry, who had accompanied us on our journey
from London that rainy June day, which now felt like years ago. I was admitted, but Nicholas and Barak and Liz were told to stay at the gatehouse with Mousy. Fowberry looked in surprise at Liz and the baby, and Barak’s artificial hand. Barak gave him a cold stare in return. A mounting-block was fetched and I dismounted, stiffly after the long ride, brushing the dust of the road from my robe as I accompanied Fowberry to the house.
Thomas Parry was in his office. He invited me to sit and gave me some beer, then sat and stared across the desk at me for almost a minute, as though I was some strange animal arrived from the Indies. At last he said, ‘I had your letter. A remarkable story.’
‘I never expected events to turn out as they did.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘That I can imagine.’
‘Has the Lady Elizabeth seen it?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘I hope she is well.’
‘She is. Though vexed that she has not yet received her birthday gift from her brother, the King. I have told her it will arrive later today. It galls her all the more since she has had her present from the Lady Mary.’ He raised his bushy eyebrows again. ‘Can you imagine what Mary sent her? A book of prayers in Latin!’ He shook his head and laughed, then turned to me, eyes suddenly hard and sharp. ‘You said you were called to Mary at Kenninghall, just before the rebellions reached Norwich.’
‘I was. She tried to sound me out as to whether the rebels might be sympathetic to traditionalist religion. I knew nothing of that then, and told her so.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Sir Richard Southwell was there; there are things I should tell you about him, that I thought better not to commit to paper.’ Parry inclined his head, and I related the story of Southwell’s involvement in the murder of Edith Boleyn, the locksmith and his apprentice. I said also that I was sure he had given money to Robert Kett, I suspected in return for a promise to leave Mary’s, and his, estates alone.