Sovereign ms-3

by C. J. Sansom

  The young official shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘The problem is, if his petition is granted, the council will be deluged with demands for payment. Our clerks have had some difficulties in managing the – er – flow of cash.’

  ‘You mean they’ve made a mullock of things, ordering more than they can pay for?’

  ‘Sir Robert Holgate is in discussions with the King’s treasury.’ Waters looked between us. ‘I have been generous on other matters concerning the council. I am instructed to continue to be: provided this petition is dismissed. Master Segwike will be paid, and the others, but we need time.’

  Giles nodded and smiled softly. He looked at me.

  ‘We are here to do justice,’ I said. ‘We should not be subject to pressure from a member of our panel on individual cases.’

  ‘When was justice ever divorced from politics?’ Giles asked quietly.

  ‘Under the constitution of England, the answer to that is “always”.’ I knew it sounded priggish, but I would not let this go by unchallenged.

  ‘Then I will be less accommodating with other petitioners,’ Master Waters said. ‘I’m sorry, but those are my instructions.’

  ‘We are stuck with this, Matthew,’ Giles said. I shrugged angrily, but said no more. Justice for this one man would mean less justice for others. The woodsman was called in. An elderly fellow, nervous to be before us, stated his case haltingly.

  ‘But you cannot doubt the Council of the North will meet its debt,’ Giles said when he had finished. ‘They are the King’s representatives.’

  ‘But when, sir?’ the old man asked. ‘I have debts to meet myself.’

  Giles raised his eyebrows at Waters, passing the problem over to him.

  ‘Soon, fellow,’ he said reassuringly. ‘It is in hand.’

  ‘But my creditors -’

  ‘Must wait a little too,’ Giles said in a grave voice. ‘Then all will balance out. You can tell them this tribunal has confirmed payment will be made -’ he paused – ‘soon.’

  The woodsman was dismissed. I watched him go, his shoulders slumped in dejection. Giles took a deep breath and looked at Waters. ‘I hope it will be soon, sir,’ he said.

  ‘It will be. We can’t afford to have York full of discontented traders for too long. Not with the mood as it is.’

  I looked at Giles. ‘You overawed the poor fellow.’

  He shrugged. ‘Lawyers must ever be good actors and play their part boldly for the greater good.’ Yet he frowned, and was sharp with the petitioners who followed. The cases came and went, while outside the wind had risen to a gale. We heard shutters banging around the castle keep.

  ‘Well, that is done,’ Giles said when the last petitioner had gone. He looked at Waters. ‘Another day should finish matters.’

  ‘You have proceeded with admirable dispatch, sir,’ Waters said. ‘If we meet at noon tomorrow, that should be enough time to finish the business.’

  I found myself thinking sadly of my arbitration of the Kent land disputes, and the injustice that had been done to Sergeant Leacon’s family as a result. ‘Barak will draw up the orders for us,’ I said. ‘Shall we send you copies, Master Waters?’

  ‘Ay.’ He stretched out his legs. ‘How goes it at King’s Manor? I hear Sir William Maleverer is in charge of the King’s security.’

  ‘Yes. Do you know him?’

  ‘No, I work in the administration. But he is known as a fierce fellow. All fear his swaggering ambition.’ He smiled maliciously. ‘But men are often like that where there’s a taint of bastardy.’

  ‘I heard that story.’

  ‘ ’Tis said he has decided not to marry till he has accumulated so much land people will not care about his origins. They say he was much in love with a Neville girl when he was young, but she would not have him. With their Yorkist blood they are a proud old family. She turned him down because of that whiff of bastardy.’

  ‘Really?’ It reminded me of Maleverer’s comment when I had mentioned Cecily Neville’s name on that family tree. ‘Everything starts with Cecily Neville,’ he had said.

  ‘That would make him bitter,’ I observed.

  Waters nodded. He looked at me. ‘Sir William’s mother and father – well, his supposed father – went as part of the train that accompanied Queen Margaret to Scotland, when she married the Scotch King’s father forty years ago. Sir Martin Maleverer had to return early. His wife came back with the ladies many months later with a baby, and he doubted it was his. Not even born in this country.’

  I sat up, for Waters’ words had rung a bell. What the Titulus had said about Richard III: ‘Ye be born within this land; by reason whereof you may have more certain knowledge of your birth and filiation.’ I drew a sharp breath. That must mean one of his siblings was not. Someone had a taint of bastardy. I tried to remember how the lineage ran.

  ‘Brother Shardlake?’ Waters asked. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Er, yes.’

  ‘You were in a brown study,’ Giles said with a laugh.

  ‘I am sorry -’ I broke off at the sound of a great shout from outside, the sound of running feet. ‘What on earth?’

  Giles and Waters looked at each other in surprise, then rose and went out. Barak and I also exchanged a glance. I shuddered. The commotion had brought back the cries and yells in the church the night before.

  ‘Shall we see?’ Barak asked.

  We descended the steps to the castle bailey. There servants and clerks were standing around, heedless of the rain, watching as soldiers spilled from the guardhouse. They ran up the mound to where the castle keep stood. At the bottom of the keep I saw a pile of chains and bones strewn across the grass. Master Waters crossed himself. ‘Jesu. Aske’s skeleton. The wind has brought it down.’ I watched as the guards ran to the white bones and began picking them up, making them safe from relic hunters.

  ‘That this should happen while the King is here.’ Wrenne laughed softly, then raised his eyebrows at me. ‘People in York will take this as an omen.’

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  MALEVERER STARED when, an hour later, I explained how Broderick had worked his own poisoning. Then he shook his head and gave a bark of laughter. He looked at me across his desk, a smile playing at the corners of his lips as he ran his finger along the edge of his beard, as he liked to do.

  ‘By Jesu, you’re a clever fellow. So Broderick outwitted Radwinter.’ He laughed again. ‘God’s body, that gaoler’s reputation will never be the same when this gets out. I told him to keep to his room. Well, now we know nobody else was involved I suppose he can go back on duty. You have rescued him from suspicion, Brother Shardlake.’

  ‘I would not have anyone under false suspicion. Even Radwinter.’

  Maleverer’s smile turned into a cruel smirk. ‘Jesu, sir, you are a righteous prig. I wish I could afford your scruples.’

  I said nothing. He turned and stared out of the window, to where workmen were tying thick ropes across the royal tents to secure them against the wind. I studied his heavy dark face, wondering if it was angry shame at the taint of bastardy that drove this relentless, cruel man. Strange to think that he too knew mockery and heard the laughter behind his back.

  ‘Those tents can’t stand there for ever,’ he said. ‘Damn the Scotch King.’

  ‘Still no word of his arrival, sir?’

  ‘That’s not your business.’ He changed the subject. ‘I’ll tell Radwinter he can go back to work. And you’re still to keep an eye on Broderick. Visit him at least once a day, without fail. He might try something else.’ He looked at me speculatively. ‘If Broderick’s poisoning was all his own doing, that means it’s only you someone is trying to kill.’

  ‘It seems so.’

  ‘Make sure you do as I ordered, keep your randy clerk with you. That’s all.’ He waved a quill dismissively, and I bowed and left. As I walked away I felt more determined than ever to say nothing to Maleverer about what had happened with the Queen and Culpeper; I could not trust
him a single inch. He disliked me strongly; he would do me ill if he could.

  OUTSIDE THE WIND WAS dropping, though still blowing hard. Barak was waiting for me. As we walked past the pavilions I saw a familiar plump figure going into the church: Master Craike, his robe billowing round his ankles.

  ‘Here’s the chance to resolve another mystery,’ I said.

  The church was a hive of activity. Grooms went to and fro, straw and dung lay everywhere, and forges flared red in every side-chapel. In the daylight I saw the walls were smeared with dirt and graffiti, crude drawings of bare-breasted women and men with gigantic penises.

  ‘Where is he?’ Barak asked.

  ‘He’s probably gone to the belltower.’ I paused and looked at a charred heap of straw that had been piled against the wall; the bear’s body was long gone.

  Craike had disappeared by the time I reached the door to the belltower, but the guard confirmed he had gone up. We found him sitting on a stool, a picnic meal on his knee, staring out of the window. He looked up at me in surprise. ‘Why, Master Shardlake, what brings you up here?’ His greeting was cheerful but his eyes, again, were watchful. He smiled at the bread and cold meat spread on a cloth on his lap. ‘I have had a busy day, I thought to escape up here and have some food. I never tire of looking out over the camp. It is a strange thing to watch it from up here, like a bird on the wing.’

  I looked from the window, screwing my eyes up against the wind that whistled round the belltower. I saw again, in the fading light, the hundreds of men sitting before the tents, playing cards or watching cockfights. Campfires were lit, the wind blowing the smoke in all directions. A large group of workmen were digging fresh latrines near the ranks of carts. Craike came and joined me.

  ‘They are having problems with the sewage,’ he said. ‘You can imagine, with more than two thousand in the camp it becomes disgusting if they stay in one place more than a few days. There’s fields along the route so choked with filth they’ll not be able to use them for years. They’re worried about it all getting into the river, killing the fish. Filth will seep out, you see. It seeps out.’

  I looked at his plump, bland face, then took a deep breath. ‘Master Craike, there is something I must discuss with you.’

  ‘Indeed. You sound serious, sir.’ He looked from me to Barak and laughed nervously.

  ‘It is serious.’

  He went and sat back down on his stool.

  ‘You remember those papers?’ I asked. ‘That were stolen from me, in your old office?’

  ‘I am hardly likely to forget, sir.’

  ‘You know it was important.’

  ‘I know I was roughly searched by Maleverer’s men. He told me to say no more about the matter, and I have not.’

  ‘Barak saw you a few nights ago, going into an inn in York. To the White Hart.’

  He looked at Barak and I caught a flicker of fear in his eyes.

  ‘What has that to do with the hunt for those wretched papers?’ There was a tremor in his voice.

  ‘We were there last night. And I learned the innkeeper there can arrange to provide – well, certain women…’

  A shudder ran through Craike’s body then, and his face turned scarlet.

  ‘Is that why you went there?’

  He did not reply, but buried his face in his hands.

  ‘Come,’ I said sharply. ‘Answer me.’

  His voice was a shaky whisper. ‘I am ashamed. Ashamed to show you my face.’

  ‘I have no wish to shame you, Master Craike. Look at me.’

  With a great sigh, he lifted his face to me. He looked suddenly old, his red face haggard, tears in the corners of his pale blue eyes.

  ‘That inn is a hateful place,’ he said. ‘But Jesu knows I have seen enough like it in London. Oh, I may seem like a fellow who has succeeded in life, I know.’ He laughed bitterly, then began talking rapidly, words tumbling over each other. ‘I have a wife, children, a good position, respect. But – but you do not know me, I am a bad unworthy man, a sinful man. The priests who taught me as a child knew that, they mocked me and – and hurt me. And I need to be hurt, ’tis only then I feel safe.’ He laughed then, with such hollow bitterness it made me shudder.

  What he said should have disgusted me but I only felt sorry for him, caught as he was in some trap of the mind I could barely comprehend.

  ‘How did you find it?’ I asked. ‘Was it through the glazier Oldroyd?’

  ‘No. I sounded him out about the brothels in the town, said I was asking on behalf of the officials who would be coming, but he knew nothing. He was a respectable man. No, I asked others in the city and they led me to the White Hart.’

  ‘Well, if that is all,’ I said, ‘it is no business of mine.’

  ‘If that is all.’ He sighed again, as though he would wrench out his heart. His expression changed, seemed to shift from his private hell to the real world again. ‘It is not all. There is a house I frequent in Southwark. The madam there is a paid spy of Sir Richard Rich.’

  ‘Rich,’ I said slowly. ‘I know that Cromwell used such methods.’ I glanced again at Barak.

  ‘And when he was executed Rich took over his networks. Paid those in charge of certain houses to give him names. Oh, I was of no interest to Lord Cromwell, I was too lowly. But Rich is a different matter. You know my work, I allocate accommodation to courtiers in the King’s London palaces as I do here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Sir Richard Rich hungers for property like no man in England. And if I certify to the Chamberlain that this or that London house that belonged to some monastery is unfit to accommodate courtiers, then it will be sold cheaply. And Richard Rich will be ready to snap it up.’

  ‘He is blackmailing you?’

  ‘If I do not cooperate with him he will tell my wife. She is a fierce woman, sir. She would leave me, tell the world of my sins and I would never see my children again.’ The tears began flowing down his cheeks. Then, suddenly, he brushed them aside and looked at me defiantly. ‘Well, that is the truth. Nothing to do with your stolen papers or the attack on you. If you tell, you will incur Sir Richard’s wrath, I warn you, and that is no light thing. And ruin me.’

  ‘Is he putting pressure on you now?’

  ‘Yes. Maleverer wants a London house. There is a property near Smithfield that is in royal ownership. He and Rich will share the difference between the price I set for the London house and its true value.’

  ‘I see,’ I said. ‘Maleverer is trying to get hold of land up here too, I think.’

  ‘I know nothing of that. I beg you, sir,’ Craike said. ‘Keep my secret.’

  ‘I will say nothing, Master Craike. None of this is any concern of mine.’

  ‘Truly?’ I saw hope rise in his face.

  ‘I swear. I would help you if I could. It seems to me Rich is the greater rogue in this.’

  He sagged with relief. ‘Thank you. Thank you. And…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You do not even mock me,’ he said wonderingly. ‘Most men would.’

  I looked into Craike’s haggard face, and wondered at the strange darkness that lay behind it. But then darkness lies behind so many faces.

  ‘I know mockery too well,’ I answered.

  I HAD TO VISIT BRODERICK before I went to my next task, which was to ponder on that royal family tree, and what the Titulus had said about Richard III’s being born in England. I felt buoyed by my successes at the castle, and by my conversation with Craike.

  Sergeant Leacon was standing guard with one of his men outside Broderick’s cell. He nodded to us stiffly.

  ‘All well?’ I asked.

  ‘Ay. He’s just lain on his pallet all day. Won’t talk to the man I have posted with him.’

  ‘I have solved the mystery of how the poison reached him.’ I told the sergeant of my discovery at the castle. ‘I think Radwinter will be back soon.’

  He shrugged. ‘I hoped we had seen the last of him.’

  ‘I fear n
ot.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Sergeant, I have to thank you and your men. For shooting the bear last night. I fear if you had not arrived when you did, it would have had me.’

  ‘We were just doing our duty,’ he said stiffly. ‘Though I wondered if it was a ruse to distract me and free the prisoner; I wondered whether it was safe for us to lock Broderick up and go to the church.’

  ‘Thank Jesu you did. I shudder to think what might have happened had you not been so close.’

  He nodded, but his look was still cold.

  ‘Sergeant,’ I said, ‘I have been thinking on your parents’ troubles. That it seems I helped land them in. It struck me: I made that arbitration without knowledge of any underleases or copyholds. Do your parents have any documents about their tenancy?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. The manor court records were destroyed in a fire years ago. But they always thought they were tenants of the monks.’

  ‘I did not have that evidence before me. It might have made a difference, especially if any records could be found.’

  ‘My parents can barely read or write,’ he said awkwardly. ‘They rely on my uncle, and he is no great reader either. And they are not people who can afford a lawyer.’

  ‘How long before they have to be out?’

  ‘Six months. Spring quarter-day.’

  ‘Listen, sergeant, I feel some responsibility for this. When we get back to London, if you wish, I could try to help.’

  ‘I told you, my parents have no money for a lawyer.’

  ‘I would do it for nothing. Pro bono, as we say.’

  His face lightened a little. ‘Would you, sir? If you could help…’

  ‘I cannot guarantee anything. But if I can, I will.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He looked at me. ‘I confess I cursed you hard when I learned of your involvement.’

  ‘Then undo the curse. I have had enough of those recently.’

  He smiled. ‘Right readily, if you will aid us.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, a little embarrassed, ‘I must see how Broderick fares.’