Tombland (The Shardlake series Book 7)

by C. J. Sansom

  I looked at him. ‘You should have been with them. I’m sorry.’

  He shrugged. ‘Glad to be shot of them all. Anyway, Tamasin doesn’t know I’m not with them. I’ll stay with you the rest of the week. You can’t go back to London yet, can you?’

  ‘Jack’s sharing my room here,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’ve spoken to the innkeeper. And the doctor spoke to him, too. He’s agreed to Josephine visiting – so long as there’s a chaperone, and she comes by the servants’ entrance. I made free with your purse, I’m afraid.’

  I waved a hand gingerly. ‘You have done very well.’

  ‘Fortunately, the innkeeper is among those who think you a hero for saving a gentleman from the gallows.’

  I smiled ruefully. ‘Not all think so, Dr Belys says.’

  ‘It’ll be a nine days’ wonder, you’ll see,’ Barak said.

  Nicholas looked at me. ‘The twins left with their friends when their father was cut down. That pair are –’ He shook his head, lost for words.

  ‘What of Isabella? Is she safe?’

  ‘She’s just gone back to Brikewell with Chawry, I saw them off this morning. She will be returning to visit her husband.’

  I thought, She’s gone to get rid of the horse, and to get the gold hidden in the stable. If it is still there. I leaned back with a sigh.

  Barak rose. ‘I’ll fetch Josephine back in, shall I?’ he said diffidently. ‘To attend your back?’

  *

  FOR TWO DAYS I stayed in bed, spending much time looking through the window at the tree and the church outside, too tired to think much due to the medicine Belys had given me to ease the pain. The weather had cooled, there was cloud and a little rain spattered on the diamond-paned windows.

  At first it felt shaming to have Barak and Josephine carefully turn me over in bed, then have my nightshirt raised so that Josephine could rub in the ointment Belys had given her, richly scented with lavender. Her hands, though calloused from hard work, were gentle and dextrous. She told me her father had sometimes got her to massage his back, and Edward, too, if he had had a hard day moving stones. She said she had spoken to Edward about returning to London, and he was considering it. I asked whether her husband was happy with her doing this service for me and she replied he was; he trusted her absolutely. Most times she brought Mousy with her.

  Lying there, I remembered the evening I had overheard Edward, with Vowell and the stranger called Miles, talking of a rising at Attleborough, which had indeed happened, and of further action to come. Barak told me that the Attleborough landowner, an enclosing farmer named Green, had not dared reinstate his fences and had moved his sheep away. The order for the enclosure commissioners to begin their circuits of the countryside would soon be issued, he told me, while Josephine was working on my back.

  ‘They are needed,’ Josephine said. ‘Edward is right, the poor commons suffer greatly, this is not the godly Commonwealth it should be. Perhaps when the commissioners come, justice will be done, in the countryside at least.’ The Josephine I had known would never have ventured an opinion, let alone a radical one, so forcefully. I wondered if her husband’s opinions had become hers – or whether both had been changed by poverty.

  Nicholas, who had never seen my bare back, tactfully stayed away from these sessions. I asked him to try and discover what he could about the apprentice Walter. I had given Toby the task, but did not expect him still to be in Norwich. I also dictated a statement to Nicholas, which I signed for him to lodge with the court, stating that the twins had threatened Scambler outside the court. I had a copy sent to their grandfather. That, I hoped, would make them leave the boy alone.

  I asked Josephine more about what she remembered of Grace Bone and her siblings from the time she had lived near them. All three, she said, were well liked. Peter was known as a skilled man and a fair employer. While both sisters were jolly, bawdy girls, Peter was more serious, a reader and a Commonwealth man. Grace and Mercy had been in their thirties, and Josephine had wondered why neither had married. Perhaps their loudness and confidence put suitors off.

  *

  BY WEDNESDAY, I was starting to walk with a stick, Barak and Nicholas at my side. I still had to move carefully to avoid spasms, but I could feel that my back was more relaxed. By Thursday, again with Nicholas or Barak to hand, I was shuffling around the room and managed carefully to straighten my back.

  The next day, Nicholas came to my room bearing three letters. Two bore the seal of the Lady Elizabeth; the third was in Guy’s writing.

  ‘Those answers have come quick, within the week,’ I said.

  ‘There was one for Jack, too, from Tamasin, I think, and I have one from Beatrice. And I have a message from Isabella Boleyn; she would like to come and see you tomorrow morning. She is visiting her husband at the castle.’

  ‘Good.’ I smiled. ‘By the way, I thought I might go outside later today. I feel – looser. I will take my stick, and you can accompany me. Just out to the street and back.’

  Nicholas looked dubious.

  ‘Go and read your letter from Beatrice,’ I said.

  I first opened the letter from Guy. His writing, once firm and clear, was now an old man’s tentative scrawl.

  My dear Matthew,

  I have had Nicholas’s letter, and was sorry to hear of your injury, and the horrible event which precipitated it. I pray for you every night. I fear I am still abed and troubled with fevers. I have had a letter from Dr Belys and have replied. I agree with his suggestions for your treatment. Get moving as soon as you can, whilst taking care. He sounds a good, practical man; I had to tell Tamasin, who still helps Francis and me, of your injury, for she brought me Nicholas’s letter and recognized his writing. Please write soon and tell me how you progress.

  Your loving friend,

  Guy Malton

  I felt a pang of conscience. Guy was obviously still sorely ill, yet here was I, again troubling him. I unsealed the letter from Parry. Its tone could not have been more different.

  Serjeant Shardlake,

  It was with great concern that I learned Boleyn was found guilty and the Lady’s command for a pardon request had to be put in motion. I had hoped for a better outcome. There will be much publicity, and it will do the Lady no good. I fear Boleyn will have to wait a goodly time for his answer. I have it from Master Cecil that the Protector and Council are much vexed, for the rebels in the West are now besieging Exeter, and there is fresh trouble in Kent. There has also been trouble in Sussex, and the Protector has issued a pardon to the rebels there – he was ever too soft, and only encourages them. Meanwhile, the senior men of the shires have been called to attend him in London to prepare an army to go to Exeter. On top of that, the Lady Mary still refuses to follow the new service in English, and men sent to Kenninghall to argue with her got nowhere. Protector Somerset will be displeased to hear of this other event in Norfolk, and Cecil believes it politic not to show him the pardon request yet, although on behalf of the Lady I have arranged for a goodly sum to be offered in due time, to whet Somerset’s palate, which ever cherished gold. I wish you to return immediately to Hatfield, so I may receive your full explanation.

  Thomas Parry

  I had not expected a warm response, but this was unusually sharp. And I would have to reply telling him of my injury, that I could not return for a week or more. I turned to Elizabeth’s letter:

  Master Shardlake,

  I am much grieved to learn that despite your finding evidence casting doubt on his guilt my relative was found guilty. Master Parry tells me the pardon request is lodged, though given the current problems in the country it may be some time before it is considered. I have also ordered Master Parry that enquiry now be made around Hatfield to see whether anybody knows of a poor woman answering Edith Boleyn’s description being seen around the district. If the true murderer be found, the gossiping pamphleteers Parry so fears may be silenced.

  I await seeing you, and I hope again that your evidence indicating Master Bole
yn’s innocence can be shown to be justified.

  I put the letter down. The Lady Elizabeth obviously had the bit firmly between her teeth. She would be making Parry’s life difficult – hence perhaps the tone of his letter. Her final sentence also seemed to carry a veiled warning, that if I was wrong about John Boleyn, the blame might be shifted onto me. Elizabeth, I thought, is becoming a politician. I ran my hand vigorously through my white hair, until a spasm from my back made me gasp and lean helplessly back in my chair.

  *

  NICHOLAS VISITED ME early in the afternoon. I was again hobbling around the room, pleased to find I could do so now without the stick. ‘Come to help me walk downstairs?’ I asked. Then I saw his face was troubled. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I have just come back from visiting Simon Scambler’s aunt, Goodwife Marling.’

  ‘How is Scambler?’

  ‘Gone,’ he answered flatly. ‘The old crone has thrown him out of her house.’

  I sat down carefully. ‘Why?’

  ‘Apparently Simon was upset when he heard what had happened at the hanging. Someone from their church told them all the gory details. So far as they knew, you were very badly hurt. Apparently, Simon started shouting that God was cruel to allow such things. It shocked his aunt. She got their vicar to visit and put the fear of God in him, but she told me Scambler gave him the same treatment, telling him how God allowed wickedness and injustice, even said he thought God was cruel himself. So she threw him out, saying she would allow no blasphemy in her own house. She fears her nephew is possessed.’

  ‘Does anyone know where he has gone?’

  ‘No. She said she has washed her hands of him. Went on about how she had only taken him in out of Christian charity when his father died, because he was her dead sister’s boy.’

  ‘The old bitch,’ I said, gripping the handle of my stick.

  ‘I told her about the statement you had lodged with the court, and she said she was glad at least he was safe from those young Boleyn devils. It was strange, she was sour-faced and sanctimonious as ever, blamed you for indulging him and his ways, yet looking in her eyes I think she felt some shame, too.’

  ‘I wonder what has happened to him.’ I sighed. ‘Another unemployed beggar in Norwich, probably. Look out for him, and ask Barak to do the same.’

  Nicholas was silent a moment, then added, ‘I have made some enquiries at the locksmiths’ guild too. Gave the clerk some money. He checked the records. Walter’s last name was Padbury, and he did come from a district called the Sandlings, on the coast down in Suffolk. He was an orphan, but his father had Norwich connections. And Walter had no problems with his vision that anyone knew of. They wouldn’t have taken him as an apprentice if he had.’

  ‘We must send Toby over there. I hope he gets back in touch soon.’

  ‘I could go.’

  ‘No, it should be someone familiar with the country.’ I reached for my stick. ‘Come, I am going outside. Stay by me.’

  Slowly and carefully, I manoeuvred my way down the inn stairs. It was a relief to reach the stone-flagged hallway. A servant opened the main door with a bow and I stepped out into Magdalen Lane. It was good to feel fresh air on my face once more; the sky was blue, the weather warmer again.

  ‘Accompany me down to the Tombland corner,’ I told Nicholas. I kept close to the wall, passing the place where the dead beggar had lain. I realized I had not thought of him in days.

  I asked Nicholas, ‘What did Beatrice say?’

  ‘It was a most gentle letter. She hopes to see me back soon, and at dinner with her parents.’

  ‘Nothing more of this young barrister?’

  ‘No.’ He hesitated. ‘I think perhaps you were right, her dangling him in front of me was just feminine wiles. Yet I suppose women have but few cards, they must play what they have.’

  ‘Yes, that is true.’

  ‘But after reading the letter, I found myself thinking of Isabella Boleyn, her force of character. Beside her Beatrice seems somehow – pale.’ He coloured. ‘I do not mean to be disloyal.’

  ‘Isabella is a striking woman.’

  ‘Yet not possessed of Beatrice’s social accomplishments.’

  I tried not to smile. ‘No.’

  *

  BARAK JOINED US for dinner. Early as it was, I could tell from his flushed face he had been drinking. His hair and beard were unkempt and he wore an old doublet, unbuttoned, the linen shirt beneath in need of washing. What surprised me most, though, was that he was not wearing his artificial hand. He joined us at the table, throwing himself into a chair. He saw Nicholas and me looking at his empty sleeve. ‘I’ve had enough of the bloody thing. It was aching like fuck this afternoon.’

  Nicholas asked, ‘Can you manage your food with one hand?’

  ‘’Course. I’ve done it before. You can manage anything if you have to.’

  I said carefully, ‘Nicholas said you had a letter from Tamasin.’

  He looked at me evenly. ‘Yes. D’you know what she said? Guy told her what happened to you, and that you were stuck here for now. She said’ – he launched into a sarcastic imitation of his wife’s voice – ‘ “Maybe now Master Shardlake will know what it feels like to be badly injured; perhaps it is God’s justice on him.” ’ He clenched his good hand. ‘Maybe all this radical Protestantism is getting to her, I thought she had more sense. Well, I’m going to write back telling her the truth, that I’ve lost my job, I’m not sorry, and I’m staying here a few days longer to help you. If she doesn’t like it, she can lump it.’

  I had not heard Barak speak in such terms of Tamasin since the time when they had nearly broken up after the death of their first child. Nicholas said, quietly, ‘That is unfair on Master Shardlake. Could you not wait until just before you set out for London, and say you are writing from Suffolk? Otherwise she will vilify Master Shardlake all the more.’

  Barak shifted in his chair, looked at me, then nodded. ‘All right, I’ll wait till the end of the week, pretend I’m writing from Suffolk. But it’s the last damned fib I’ll tell her; when I get back I’m not sitting under her thumb any more.’

  *

  THE NEXT DAY, SATURDAY, Isabella Boleyn visited us in the morning, accompanied by Daniel Chawry. I had made my way downstairs again, and we met in the parlour. Isabella looked pale and drawn, and Chawry glanced at her with concern, occasionally fingering his red beard.

  ‘I am so glad to see you up,’ Isabella said. ‘I was shocked to hear what happened.’ She looked at Nicholas. ‘I thank you both heartily for saving my poor husband’s life.’

  Chawry said, ‘My mistress has been to see Master Boleyn. His neck is sore injured. Dr Belys says it will be another week before he is able to speak. He can only eat soft pottage.’

  Isabella said, ‘But he wishes you both to visit when you can, that he may in some manner express his gratitude.’

  ‘I am sure I shall be fit to do that soon,’ I said. ‘I am recovering well.’ I hesitated. ‘I have had a letter from Master Parry. He says that in view of present political troubles the Protector’s secretary, Master Cecil, recommends that he not be troubled with the pardon just yet. He and I both know Master Cecil,’ I continued reassuringly, ‘and he is a friend to the Lady Elizabeth. But I fear your husband will be in the castle a while yet.’

  ‘Those damned rebels,’ Chawry said. ‘I hear rumours of some trouble in Kent now.’

  I looked at Isabella. She had lowered her head, and I saw tears at the corners of her eyes. But then she looked up again, chin thrust forward. ‘Then I must ensure he is kept in good spirits.’ She turned to Chawry. ‘Daniel has managed to sell that wretched horse Midnight.’

  Chawry said, ‘I got more for him than I thought. Some men like a difficult horse to train.’

  ‘The stable is empty.’ Isabella gave me a quick look. ‘I cleared it out myself.’ I nodded. That meant she had found Boleyn’s money. I wondered if she had told Chawry.

  ‘You will not be able to ride y
et?’ Isabella said.

  ‘I hope to be able to ride to the castle to see your husband, perhaps by Monday.’ I ignored a dubious look from Nicholas. ‘And perhaps leave late next week.’

  She looked a little downcast. ‘I will be sorry to see you both depart.’

  ‘We will keep in touch,’ Nicholas promised.

  *

  I WROTE BRIEFLY TO Parry and the Lady Elizabeth, explaining that I would be delayed because of my injury. I sent a longer letter to Guy, stressing how much improved I was.

  The rest of the weekend I spent walking, with increasing confidence, and exercising my back under Dr Belys’s direction. He was pleased with my progress and agreed I might make a short ride on Monday, provided I was careful.

  On Sunday, from the window of my room, I witnessed a clerical marriage at the church across the road, the first I had seen since the clergy were permitted to marry last year. The couple, both in early middle age, left the church and walked with bright faces to the lychgate. The husband wore his clerical cassock, his wife a modest dress and coif. A cheering group, perhaps from his congregation, had gathered outside, together with several onlookers. Someone in the street called out, ‘This is fornication in the eyes of the Lord!’ but the marriage party ignored them. I stood and went over to my table, where I had been going over the case documents again. I still had not heard from Toby; it had been over a week and he would surely have heard about events at the hanging. I thought, Perhaps not, perhaps his mother’s health is worse; but still I felt uneasy. After we left Norwich, our hopes of finding the apprentice Walter would rest on him.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Monday came, the first of July. I was walking now without my stick, but was nervous at the thought of mounting a horse again. Nicholas, who was to accompany me to the castle, helped me onto the animal’s back. We had spent the previous evening visiting Barak at the Blue Boar, and he had seemed less angry, saying little, but still drinking more than he should. I told him that if my riding went well, we might leave Norwich by the end of the week. ‘Just as well,’ he replied. ‘I’m running short of money.’