by C. J. Sansom
‘Then come, Barak.’
‘You’ve taken something on there,’ Barak said as he followed me to the Guildhall steps. ‘Seems to me finding the killer is all she has to hold on to. I don’t know what would happen to her if we fail.’
‘We will not fail,’ I said firmly.
Outside in the paved square I saw the black-robed figure of Harsnet. He was talking to a tall, strongly built man in his thirties with a long, copper-coloured beard, richly dressed in a green jerkin with gold piping, a shirt decorated with intricate Spanish lacework showing beneath, and a red cap with a white feather worn at a jaunty angle. The scabbard for the sword he wore at his waist was leather decorated with gold. He carried a heavy coat. Normally I would have hesitated in challenging a royal official in public, especially when he was engaged with a man of obviously high status; but I was fired by anger as seldom before in my life.
The two men turned to us as we approached. The bearded man, whose long face was handsome yet with something harsh about it, turned to Harsnet with a smile. ‘He was right,’ he said. ‘Here he is.’
I looked from one to the other, noticing the younger man was sunburned. ‘What do you mean, sir?’ I asked. ‘I do not understand. Who told you what?’
Harsnet took a deep breath. Close to, he looked strained, burdened. ‘I was told you might to be unhappy with the verdict, Brother Shardlake.’
‘Told? By whom?’
The young man waved at Barak. ‘Get rid of your minion and we’ll tell you.’
Barak gave him a nasty look, but I nodded. ‘Jack, tell Dorothy I may be some time, she had best go home. I will visit her later. Go back with them.’
He went reluctantly back to the Guildhall. I turned to Harsnet, who eyed me keenly. So did his friend. I began to feel uneasy.
‘I dare say you have come to ask why I adjourned the hearing,’ Harsnet said quietly.
‘Yes.’ I took a deep breath. ‘It seems you do not want the killer discovered.’
The tall man laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, you mistake us there, lawyer.’ He spoke in a deep, musical voice. ‘There is nothing in this world we want more.’
‘Then why . . . ?’
‘Because this matter has political implications,’ Harsnet said. He glanced round to ensure nobody was in earshot. ‘I was told you would contest my decision. By Archbishop Cranmer.’
‘What?’
He fixed those keen blue eyes on me. ‘Do you truly seek to find Master Elliard’s killer, above all else?’
A chill had run down my back at Cranmer’s name. Somehow Roger’s death was involved with high politics, which I had sworn never to involve myself in again. But then I remembered Roger’s brutalized corpse, Dorothy’s ravaged face.
‘Yes,’ I said.
The richly dressed man laughed. ‘There, Gregory, he has courage after all.’
‘Who are you, sir?’ I asked boldly. He frowned at my insolence.
‘This is Sir Thomas Seymour,’ Harsnet said. ‘Brother of the late Queen Jane.’
‘So watch your manners, churl,’ Seymour growled.
I was lost for words for a moment. ‘If you questioned my actions,’ Harsnet continued, almost apologetic, ‘my instructions were to bring you to Archbishop Cranmer.’
‘What is this about?’
‘Much more than the death of Master Elliard.’ He looked me in the eye. ‘Something truly dark and terrible. But come, we have a wherry waiting to go to Lambeth Palace.’
Chapter Nine
ONE OF ARCHBISHOP Cranmer’s own boats was waiting for us at Three Cranes Stairs, four oarsmen in the Archbishop’s white livery in their places. Harsnet told the men to row fast for Lambeth Palace.
After the thaw the river was thronged with white sails as wherries carried customers to and fro; heavy barges pulled upriver, blowing horns to warn smaller craft out of the way, all under a pale blue sky, the river breeze light and cool. But I thought of the depths beneath us that had spewed up those giant fish.
Behind us I saw London Bridge with its crowds of houses and shops, the great bulk of the Tower looming beyond. Atop the arch at the south end of the bridge long stakes thrust into the sky, the heads of those who had defied or angered the King set atop them mercifully indistinct. Among them, still, those of my old master Thomas Cromwell and those of Dereham and Culpeper, alleged lovers of the executed Queen Catherine Howard. I remembered Thomas Culpeper at York, in all his peacock pride and beauty, and shuddered at the thought that now I was sailing back into the world of the King’s court.
‘Ay, ’tis still cold,’ Seymour said, mistaking my tremor. He had wrapped his heavy coat around him. I studied him covertly. I knew he was the younger brother of Henry’s third queen, Jane Seymour, who died giving birth to his heir Prince Edward. It was said she was the only one of his five wives that Henry mourned. Seymour’s older brother, Edward, Earl of Hertford, held high office at court, and had been appointed Lord Admiral of the Navy. Barak had told me that Sir Thomas was something of an adventurer; he would never be trusted with a place on the Privy Council, but he had been awarded a number of lucrative monopolies and had recently been ambassador in Austria where the emperor was fighting the Turks. Lord Hertford, with Cranmer, was one of the few serious reformers to have survived on the Privy Council after Cromwell’s fall three years before. He was known as a serious and capable politician, and a successful military commander who had led the campaign against Scotland the previous autumn; his brother Thomas, though, had the reputation of an irresponsible ladies’ man. Looking at his handsome face I could believe it: the way he wrapped his coat round himself, gently stroking the long fur collar while his eyes roved over the water, the full lips held in a half-smile under the heavy, fashionably long brown beard, all spoke of a sensualist. Harsnet, with his rugged features, serious eyes and worried expression, was an entire contrast. As the boat bobbed through the choppy water of mid-river I wondered fearfully what Thomas Seymour could have to do with poor Roger.
We reached the far bank in silence and sculled quickly down to Lambeth Palace. We pulled past the empty niche where the statue of St Thomas Becket had stood, that all the London boatmen bowed to; that image of an archbishop who had defied a king now removed and destroyed. We passed the Lollards’ Tower where heretics were held. I recalled Cranmer’s brutal gaoler whom I had met in York, and shuddered anew. Cranmer, knowing Cromwell had trusted me, had forced me into undertaking a dangerous mission there; yet his conscience had pricked him afterwards and led him to find me my position at Requests. Now, it seemed, I would meet that passionate, troubled, God-haunted man again.
I REMEMBERED the plain oaken door of Cranmer’s study from my last visit. Harsnet knocked and entered, and I followed him and Seymour inside.
The Archbishop of Canterbury sat behind a large desk, wearing a white robe with a black stole, his head with its greying dark hair bare. He looked strained and worried. The twin furrows on his cheeks had deepened in the last year, drawing the corners of his full mouth downward. Cranmer was far from an extreme reformer, but he was always under threat from the conservatives at court. Many of them would have had him burned if they could. The King’s long affection for him was all that kept him safe. His large blue eyes were as I remembered, full of passion and conflict.
Another man stood beside him, wearing a plain but expensive dark robe. His prominent nose, long face and athletic frame were so like Thomas Seymour’s that it could only be his brother. Yet where Thomas was handsome, the same elements, slightly recast, made Lord Hertford an ugly man. His eyes were large and protuberant, the face too long and thin, the long beard straggly. Yet I sensed a depth of character and purpose in the plainly dressed Hertford that his brother lacked. I recalled that it was he who, with Cranmer, had sent Adam Kite to the Bedlam when Richard Rich wanted a worse fate for him. Sir Thomas removed his cap with a flourish and seized his brother’s hand. ‘It is good to see you, Edward.’ He turned to Cranmer and bowed. ‘My lord. As you see, we have brought
him.’
‘Yes, Thomas.’ Cranmer’s tones were weary, and there was dislike in the look he gave the younger Seymour. He turned to me and gave me one of his characteristic sad smiles.
‘Well, Matthew Shardlake, we meet once again on strange business. Serjeant Shardlake,’ he added, reminding me of the rank I had gained through his patronage.
He turned to Harsnet. ‘Is it as we feared?’
Harsnet nodded. ‘Yes, my lord. Exactly the same as the other.’
Cranmer exchanged a look with Lord Hertford, then stared for a moment into the dancing flames of the wood fire burning in the grate. These, I realized, were worried men. The two most powerful reformers at court, working together. Cranmer turned to me, forcing a smile. ‘Well, Matthew, how is the Court of Requests?’
‘It flourishes, my lord. I thank you again for helping me to that post.’
‘You were owed it.’ He stared at me again. I was conscious that they were all looking at me: Cranmer, Harsnet and Lord Hertford seriously, Sir Thomas with a cynical smile. I shifted uneasily. It was Sir Thomas who broke the silence.
‘Well, can we trust the hunchback?’
‘Do not call him that!’ Cranmer looked genuinely angry. ‘I am sorry, Matthew.’ He turned to Sir Thomas. ‘Yes, I believe we can.’
‘He was after us like a rabid dog when the coroner adjourned the hearing.’
Cranmer looked at me intently. ‘Matthew,’ he said quietly, ‘you found the body, and you were a close friend of Lawyer Elliard and his widow, I believe. How deep are you in this?’
‘I promised Mistress Elliard to find her husband’s killer,’ I said.
‘Would you do that for yourself, or for her?’ The question came from Hertford. I turned and met his eye.
‘For both, my lord. But what I have promised Mistress Elliard is a debt of honour.’
‘And would you still work to redeem that debt, even if it turned out to be a matter of politics?’ Cranmer asked. ‘Think carefully before you answer, Matthew, for you once told me you wished never to be involved in such matters again. Yet you must be, if you are to help us fish out the bottom of this.’
I hesitated. Thomas Seymour gave a bark of laughter. ‘He has not the stomach for it! And you said he failed you last time, he never found those papers.’
I bowed my head. I did not want him reading my expression; in fact, that time I had not failed, only decided to keep secret the things I had found out. My heart beat faster, remembering what these men could do to me.
‘You have a fine mind, and much experience,’ Cranmer said. ‘And discretion.’
I took a deep breath. For a second I saw Roger’s face in my mind; smiling, animated, full of life. I faced the Archbishop. ‘If I can help you in this, my lord, I am yours.’ And now I had a sense of bridges crashing in flames behind me.
Cranmer looked at the other three. Harsnet and Lord Hertford nodded; Thomas Seymour shrugged. Cranmer frowned at him. ‘You are only here, Thomas, because your household may be useful and because of your particular association with - her.’ Seymour reddened and for a moment looked ready to burst out angrily. He looked at his brother.
‘The Archbishop is right, Thomas,’ Lord Hertford said seriously.
Sir Thomas set his lips, but nodded.
Cranmer turned to me.
‘You will wonder, Matthew, what the political link is to your friend’s murder.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
He took a long breath, holding in his secrets for a last second, then said, ‘Your friend was not the first to be killed in that terrible manner.’
My mouth fell open. ‘Another? The same?’
‘In every horrid detail. It was kept secret because of who the victim was.’ The Archbishop nodded to Harsnet. ‘Tell him, Gregory.’
Harsnet looked at me. ‘One morning a month ago, in late February, a labourer was walking to work along the river, past the mudbanks over on the Lambeth shore.’ He paused. ‘There was snow on the banks then, and the river was frozen a yard deep; but the tide still ebbed and flowed underneath the ice into the tidal pools along the south bank. That morning the labourer saw that one of the pools was red, with something floating in it.’ My eyes widened. Harsnet nodded seriously. ‘Yes. He found a man lying there with his throat cut. Exactly as Elliard was in that fountain, and again in a public place where he was bound to be discovered.’
‘Dear God.’
‘Our labourer went to the constable, who fetched the coroner.’ Harsnet’s look at me now was keen, probing. ‘My colleague the Surrey coroner is a good reformer and he keeps himself up on court news. When he realized who the man was, he came to me, as he knew of my connection with the Archbishop.’
‘Has there been an inquest?’ I asked.
‘No.’ It was Lord Hertford who answered. ‘It was vital the matter be kept secret.’ He looked at me firmly with those protuberant eyes. ‘It still is.’
Harsnet spoke again. ‘The dead man was a physician, Dr Paul Gurney. An eminent man.’ He paused. ‘And physician to Lord Latimer, late husband of Lady Catherine Parr. Dr Gurney had attended Lord Latimer since he sickened last autumn, and visited him constantly at his home by the Charterhouse.’
So that was the connection. ‘They say the King is courting Lady Latimer,’ I ventured.
‘They say right,’ Cranmer agreed.
‘We can’t tell him all,’ Thomas Seymour burst in. ‘If this leaks out it could be to the peril of that good lady.’
‘Matthew will not break a confidence,’ Cranmer said. ‘If he gives me his word to keep secret all we tell him, he will not break it. And I think he will have some sympathy for our position. Will you swear, Matthew, to say nothing of this matter, except to us? Remember, it means that if the killer is found you may not be able to tell your friend’s widow the circumstances.’
I hesitated, then said, ‘May I tell her the killer is caught and dealt with?’
‘Yes. And he will be,’ Lord Hertford said grimly. I caught a sense of this dour man’s strength, and ruthlessness.
‘Then I swear, my lord.’
Cranmer leaned back, satisfied. ‘Then continue, Gregory. Tell him everything. All.’
‘I investigated, quietly,’ Harsnet said. ‘But I found no clues. As with Master Elliard, Dr Gurney was a man respected in his profession, with many friends and no enemies. He was a childless widower, and we had his friends told he had died suddenly in his sleep. Diligent enquiry has offered no clues as to who killed him, or why. Nothing. According to discreet enquiries, he had left Lord Latimer’s house late the evening before. He was staying there, for Latimer was near his end - he had a great growth on his back. He told the steward he had an urgent “errand of mercy” somewhere in the town.’
‘Was a note delivered to him? As with Roger?’
‘Not that we know of, though one may have been. Dr Gurney too helped poor people in need of his advice. And died for it, perhaps.’
‘Was the body examined?’
‘No. Perhaps I should have had that done.’ Harsnet frowned. ‘That Moor gave us an important clue today, about the drug. It means we should look for someone with medical connections.’
‘Legal, too. A man of wide knowledge.’
Cranmer spoke again. ‘I consulted Lord Hertford, and we decided it was vital as few people knew as possible. Catherine Parr had been married to Lord Latimer for ten years. Both were well-known figures at court, and the King has long had an eye on her. When it became known in January that Lord Latimer would die soon, the King let his interest be known. He has now proposed marriage.’
‘Another older husband.’ Thomas Seymour spoke with bitterness in his voice. I recalled Barak saying there was a rumour that someone else was interested in Catherine Parr. Could it be Seymour? He and she would be of a similar age. ‘Latimer was past forty.’
Cranmer clasped his hands together. ‘This would be a sensible, safe marriage and Jesu knows we have had few of those.’ He hesitated before explaini
ng his remarks, then continued, looking straight at me. ‘The Lady Catherine has an interest in religious reform. She has kept it quiet, for Lord Latimer was a conservative. And God knows we need an ally now. Bishop Gardiner of Winchester is back in the King’s councils working with Bishop Bonner of London to crush the reformers.’ He looked at me. ‘Even I may not be safe.’
Hertford gave Cranmer a quick shake of the head, but the Archbishop raised a beringed hand. ‘No, Edward, if we are to tell him we should tell him all. And it will be public soon enough, heaven knows. Matthew, the conservatives are moving on a number of fronts. Bishop Bonner’s campaign against the London Bible-men will soon escalate. And a bill will be laid before Parliament shortly, restricting reading of the Bible to nobles and gentlemen only. No common folk, and no women.’
He hesitated. Harsnet interjected, quietly but bitterly. ‘They will pluck Christ’s holy word from the people.’ I looked at him; the phraseology was that of a radical. Cranmer frowned slightly.
‘And finally,’ he continued, ‘they seek to attack me. Lord Hertford too perhaps, but principally me. There have already been arrests of radicals among my staff at Canterbury, and among some of the junior courtiers at Windsor. They will be charged with heresy. Young men with foolish tongues, who may end by bringing me down.’ His cheek twitched uncontrollably, and I saw the Archbishop was afraid. He collected himself, looked at me again.
Lord Hertford spoke, quietly and seriously. ‘What protects us more than anything is that the King still has moderate reformers in his household, men he trusts. His physician, Dr Butts. His new secretary, William Paget. When those like Gardiner and Norfolk whisper venom in his ear, their private access to the King means they can counter it. A Queen of reformist sympathies could help us more than anyone.’
‘But would this marriage be safe for her?’ Thomas Seymour interjected. ‘Anne Boleyn pressed the King too far on religion and was executed. And Catherine Howard was beheaded not much more than a year ago.’ I remembered again that glimpse of Catherine Parr I had caught in the funeral procession, her expression of fear.