Sovereign ms-3

by C. J. Sansom

  ‘York Castle,’ I said.

  A girl was advancing towards us. I noticed her because a servant with the King’s badge prominent on his doublet was walking behind her. The wench wore a fine yellow dress and was exceptionally pretty, with soft features, a full-lipped mouth and healthy white skin. Fine blonde hair was visible below her white coif. She caught my eye, then looked at Barak and, as we passed, smiled boldly up at him. Barak doffed his cap from the saddle, showing his fine white teeth in a smile. The girl lowered her eyes and walked on.

  ‘That’s a bold hussy,’ I said.

  Barak laughed. ‘A girl may smile at a fine fellow, may she not?’

  ‘You don’t want any dalliances here. She’s a Yorker, she may eat you.’

  ‘That I wouldn’t mind.’

  We reached the barbican. Here too a crop of heads was fixed to poles, and a man’s severed leg was nailed above the gate. I brought forth my letter of authority, and we were allowed to pass through. We rode alongside the castle wall, beside a shallow moat full of mud. Looking up at the high round keep I saw it was in a ruinous state, the white walls covered with lichen and a great crack running down the middle. Ahead two towers flanked a gate where an ancient drawbridge crossed the moat. People were going in and out across it, and the sight of black-robed lawyers reminded me the York courts were housed within the castle bailey. As our horses clattered across the drawbridge two guards in King’s livery stepped forward, crossing their pikes to bar our way. A third took Genesis’ reins, looking at me closely.

  ‘What’s your business?’ His accent showed him to be another man of the southern shires.

  ‘We are from London. We have business with Master Radwinter, the Archbishop’s gaoler.’

  The guard gave me a keen look. ‘Go to the south tower, the other side of the bailey.’ As we went under the gate I turned and saw him staring after us.

  ‘This city’s nothing but walls and gates,’ Barak said as we came out into the bailey. Like the rest of the place it had seen far better days; a number of imposing buildings had been built against the interior of the high castle walls but like the keep many were streaked with lichen, gaps in the plaster. Even the courthouse, where more lawyers stood arguing on the steps, looked tumbledown. No wonder the King had chosen to stay at St Mary’s Abbey.

  I saw something dangling from the high keep. A white skeleton, wrapped in heavy chains.

  ‘Another rebel,’ Barak said. ‘They like to drive the point home.’

  ‘No, that’s been there a long time, the bones are picked quite clean. I’d guess that’s Robert Aske, who led the Pilgrimage of Grace five years ago.’ I had heard he was hanged in chains. I shuddered, for that was a dreadful death, and pulled at Genesis’ reins. ‘Come, let’s find the gaoler.’

  Another pair of towers flanked the opposite gateway. We rode across and dismounted. I was still stiff and tired despite the brief rest, though Barak seemed to have recovered his energy. I must do my back exercises tonight, I thought.

  A guard approached, a fellow of my own age with a hard square face. I told him we had come from Archbishop Cranmer, to see Master Radwinter.

  ‘He was expecting you yesterday.’

  ‘So was everyone. We were delayed. Could you stable our horses? And give them some feed, they are sore tired and hungry.’

  He called a second guard. I nodded to Barak. ‘Go with them. I think I’d best see him alone, this first time.’

  Barak looked disappointed, but went off with the horses. The first guard led me to a door in the tower, unlocked it, and led me up a narrow spiral staircase lit by tiny arrow-slit windows. We climbed perhaps halfway up the tower, and I was panting by the time he halted before a stout wooden door. He knocked, and a voice called, ‘Come in.’ The guard opened the door, standing aside to let me enter, then closed it behind me. I heard his footsteps descending again.

  The chamber was gloomy, more arrow-slit windows looking out across the city. The stone walls were bare, though scented rushes were scattered on the flagstones. A neatly made truckle bed stood against one wall, a table covered with papers against another. Beside it a man sat in a cushioned chair reading a book, a candle set on a little table beside him to augment the dim light. I had expected a gaoler’s slovenly dress but he wore a clean brown doublet and good woollen hose. He shut his book and rose with a smile, smoothly as a cat.

  He was about forty. There was a pair of deep furrows in his cheeks; otherwise his features were regular, framed by a short beard, black like his hair but greying around the corners of his mouth. He was short, slim but strong-looking.

  ‘Master Shardlake,’ he said in a melodious voice with a slight Londoner’s burr, extending a hand. ‘Fulke Radwinter. I had expected you yesterday.’ He smiled, showing small white teeth, but his light-blue eyes were hard and sharp as ice. The hand that took mine was clean and dry, the nails filed. This was indeed no common gaoler.

  ‘Did the stairs tire you?’ he asked solicitously. ‘You seem to breathe a little heavily.’

  ‘We had to ride through the night, Master Radwinter.’ I spoke firmly, I needed to establish my authority. I felt inside my coat pocket. ‘I should show you the Archbishop’s seal.’ I passed it to him. He studied it a moment, then handed it back.

  ‘All in order,’ he said with another smile.

  ‘So, then. My lord Archbishop has written to you, told you I am to have oversight of the welfare of Sir Edward Broderick?’

  ‘Indeed.’ He shook his head. ‘Though really, there was no need. The Archbishop is a great and godly man, yet he can become – overanxious.’

  ‘Sir Edward is in good health, then?’

  Radwinter inclined his head. ‘He had some rough treatment from the King’s interrogators when he was first taken. Before certain matters came to light, and it was decided to hale him to London. Most secret matters.’ He raised his eyebrows. He must know that the nature of those matters had been kept from me as it had from him; Cranmer would have told him in his letter.

  ‘So, then, he was tortured before you came.’

  The gaoler nodded. ‘He is in some discomfort, but nothing can be done about that. Otherwise he keeps well enough. He will be in London soon. Then he will be in far greater discomfort. The King wants him questioned as soon as possible, but it is more important that it is done by the most skilled people, and they are in London.’

  I had tried not to think of what must await the prisoner at the end of his journey. I suppressed a shudder.

  ‘Well, sir,’ Radwinter said cheerily. ‘Will you have some beer?’

  ‘Not now, thank you. I ought to see Sir Edward.’

  He inclined his head again. ‘Of course. Let me get the keys.’ He went over to a chest and opened it. I glanced at the papers on his desk. Warrants and what looked like a sheet of notes in a small, round hand. His book, I saw, was a copy of Tyndale’s The Obedience of a Christian Man, a reformist text. The desk was set beside one of the narrow windows, giving a good view across the city. Glancing out, I saw many steeples and one larger church that had no roof, another dissolved monastery no doubt. Beyond lay marshland and then a lake. Looking directly down, I saw the moat ran broader on this side of the castle, a wide channel fringed thickly with reeds. People were moving about there, women with large baskets on their backs.

  ‘They are picking reeds to make rushlights.’ I started at Radwinter’s soft voice beside me. ‘And see there?’ He pointed down to where one woman was pulling at something on her leg. I heard, very faintly, a little cry of pain. Radwinter smiled. ‘They’re gathering the leeches that bite them, for the apothecaries.’

  ‘It must be a miserable occupation, standing deep in mud waiting for those things to bite.’

  ‘Their legs must be covered in little scars.’ He turned to me, his eyes looking into mine. ‘As the body of England is covered in the scars left by the great leech of Rome. Well, let us see our friend Broderick.’ He turned and crossed to the door. I took the candle from beside his
chair before following him out.

  RADWINTER CLATTERED RAPIDLY up the stairs to the next floor, halting before a stout door with a little barred window. He looked in, then unlocked the door and went inside. I followed.

  The cell was small and dim, for there was but one tiny window, barred and unglassed, the open shutters letting in a cold breeze. The chill air smelled of damp and ordure, and the rushes beneath my shoes felt slimy. The clank of a chain made me turn to a corner of the room. A thin figure in a dirty white shirt lay on a wooden pallet.

  ‘A visitor for you, Broderick,’ Radwinter said. ‘From London.’ His voice kept its smooth, even tone.

  The man sat up, his chains rattling, in a slow and painful way that made me think he must be old, but as I approached I saw the face beneath its coating of grime was young, a man in his twenties. He had thick, matted fair hair and an untidy growth of beard framing a long, narrow face that would have been handsome in normal circumstances. I thought he did not look dangerous, but as he studied me I started at the anger in his bloodshot eyes. I saw that a long length of chain, looped through manacles on both his wrists, was bolted into the wall beside the bed.

  ‘From London?’ The hoarse voice was that of a gentleman. ‘Are there to be more gropings with the poker, then?’

  ‘No,’ I replied quietly. ‘I am here to ensure you get there safe and well.’

  The anger in his gaze did not change. ‘The King’s torturers prefer a whole body to work on, hey?’ His voice broke and he coughed. ‘For Jesu’s sake, Master Radwinter, may I not have something to drink?’

  ‘Not till you can repeat the verses I set you yesterday.’

  I stared at him. ‘What is this?’

  Radwinter smiled. ‘I have set Broderick to learn ten verses of the Bible each day, in the hope that God’s pure word in English may yet amend his papist soul. Yesterday he was obdurate. I told him he would have no more drink till he could say his verses.’

  ‘Get him some now, please,’ I said sharply. ‘You are here to care for his body, not his soul.’ I held the candle up to Radwinter’s face. For a moment his lips pressed hard together. Then he smiled again. ‘Of course. Perhaps he has been too long without. I will call a guard to fetch some.’

  ‘No, you go. It will be quicker. And I will be safe, he is well chained.’

  Radwinter hesitated, then strode from the room without another word. I heard the key turn in the lock, shutting me in. I stood and looked at the prisoner, who had bowed his head.

  ‘Is there anything else you need?’ I asked. ‘I promise, I am not here to harm you. I know nothing of what you are accused, my commission from the Archbishop is only to see you safe to London.’

  He looked up at me then, and gave a grimace of a smile. ‘Cranmer worries his man may make sport with my body?’

  ‘Has he?’ I asked.

  ‘No. He likes to grope at my mind, but I am proof against that.’ Broderick gave me a long, hard look, then stretched out again on his pallet. As he did so the open neck of his shirt revealed the livid mark of a burn on his chest.

  ‘Let me see that,’ I said sharply. ‘Open your shirt.’

  He shrugged, then sat up and untied the strings. I winced. Someone had drawn a hot poker across his body, several times. One mark on his chest was red and inflamed, oozing pus that glinted in the candlelight. He stared at me fiercely, I could almost feel his rage. I thought, if Radwinter is ice, this man is fire.

  ‘Where did you get those?’ I asked.

  ‘Here, in the castle, from the King’s men when they took me a fortnight ago. They could not break me. That is why I am being sent to London, to be worked on by men of real skill. But you know that.’

  I said nothing.

  He looked at me curiously. ‘What manner of man are you then, that my marks seem to offend you, yet you work with Radwinter.’

  ‘I am a lawyer. And I told you, I am here to ensure you are well cared for.’

  His eyes burned again. ‘You think that will suffice, in God’s eyes, for what you do here?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You keep me safe and well for the torturers in London, that they may have longer sport. I would rather die here.’

  ‘You could just give them the information they want,’ I said. ‘They will have it from you in the end.’

  He smiled, a ghastly rictus. ‘Ah, a soft persuader. But I will never talk, no matter what they do.’

  ‘There are few who go to the Tower who do not talk in the end. But I am not here to persuade you of anything. You should have a physician, however.’

  ‘I ask nothing from you, crookback.’ He lay down again, looking across at the window. There was silence for a moment, then he asked suddenly, ‘Did you see where Robert Aske still hangs in chains from Clifford’s Tower?’

  ‘That is Aske then? Yes.’

  ‘My chain is just long enough to allow me to stand at the window. I look out, and remember. When Robert was convicted of treason, the King promised he should be spared the pains of disembowelling at his execution, that he would hang till he was dead. He did not realize the King meant he was to be dangled alive in chains till he died from thirst and hunger.’ He coughed. ‘Poor Robert that trusted Henry the Cruel.’

  ‘Have a care, Sir Edward.’

  He turned and looked at me. ‘Robert Aske was my best friend.’

  A key grated in the lock and Radwinter returned, bearing a pitcher of weak beer. He handed it to Broderick, who sat up and took a deep draught. I motioned Radwinter into the corner.

  ‘Has he spoken?’ the gaoler snapped.

  ‘Only to tell me he knew Robert Aske. But I have seen the burns on his body; I do not like the look of them. One is inflamed, he should have a physician.’

  ‘Very well.’ Radwinter nodded. ‘A man dead of fever will be no use to the Archbishop, after all.’

  ‘Please arrange it. I will call tomorrow to see how he does. And he should have fresh rushes.’

  ‘Scented perhaps, with sweet herbs?’ Radwinter still smiled, but there was cold anger in his voice. ‘Well, Broderick,’ he continued. ‘You have been telling Master Shardlake about Aske. I am told that in the first winter after he died, when all his flesh had been eaten by the ravens and little bones began falling to the ground, they had to set a guard, for people were taking away the bones. Bones from his hands and feet are hidden by papists all over York. Usually in the dunghills, for that is the safest place to keep relics safe from a search. It is also where Aske’s bones belong-’

  Broderick jumped up, with a sound between a groan and a snarl. There was a rattle of chains as he sprang at Radwinter. The gaoler had been watching for the move. He stepped quickly back and the chains holding Broderick’s arms tautened, jerking him back on the bed. He slumped with a groan.

  Radwinter laughed softly. ‘Watch him, Master Shardlake. You see, he is not as weakly as he looks. Well, Broderick, I shall ignore your violence, and comfort myself with the knowledge of what awaits you in London. As ’tis well said, there is truth in pain.’ He stepped past me and opened the door. I followed, with a last glance back at the prisoner. Broderick was staring at me again.

  ‘You are a lawyer?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘I said so.’

  He laughed bitterly. ‘So was Robert Aske. When you see him again, think on what even lawyers may come to.’

  ‘Words, Sir Edward, words,’ Radwinter said as I went out past him. The gaoler locked the door and I followed him back downstairs. In his room the gaoler stood and faced me, his eyes cold and his expression serious.

  ‘I wanted you to see that he is dangerous, for all he may look helpless.’

  ‘Then why provoke him?’

  ‘To show you. But I will have the physician fetched.’

  ‘Please do. Whatever he has done, that man is to be treated as well as safety allows. And you should call him Sir Edward – he is still entitled to the courtesy.’

  ‘Safety means he should be kept in no doubt
who is master. You do not know what he is capable of.’

  ‘Very little, chained to a wall.’

  Radwinter’s mouth set in a line as hard as a knife-blade. He stepped forward so his face was close to mine. His eyes seemed to bore into me.

  ‘I saw your sympathy for him,’ he said. ‘The softness in your face. That worries me, with a man as dangerous as that.’

  I took a deep breath, for it was true that there was something about people being kept in cells that revolted me.

  ‘I have struck a nerve, I see.’ Radwinter smiled softly. ‘Then let me strike another. I distrust that sympathy in you, sir. Perhaps those who seem outcasts resonate in your soul. Perhaps because of the condition of your back.’

  My mouth tightened at the insult, at the same time as my stomach lurched in recognition that, again, he spoke true.

  He nodded. ‘I am the one responsible for keeping Broderick secure, and for getting him back to London. There are those in this city who know he is here and would free him if they could, so I must study and scrutinize all those I meet, look as far as I can into their souls. Even yours, sir.’

  I stared into those cold eyes. ‘Get him his physician,’ I said curtly. ‘I will come again tomorrow to see how he progresses.’

  He stared back a moment longer, then gave that little incline of his head. ‘At what time?’

  ‘When I choose,’ I answered, then turned and left the room.

  OUTSIDE, BARAK WAS sitting on a bench watching the comings and goings at the courthouse. A chill autumnal wind had risen, bringing more leaves tumbling from the trees. He looked at me curiously.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. I must have looked as drained as I felt.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know which man is the worse,’ I said. ‘It seemed the gaoler, yet – I don’t know. ’ I looked to where Aske’s skeleton dangled. The breeze made it swing a little to and fro, as though the dead white bones were struggling to be free.