Revelation ms-4

by C. J. Sansom

  The old woman wrinkled her nose as I led her into the parlour. She followed me into the old workshop, and now sadness did cross her face. 'Look at this place now,' she said. 'So sad and empty. Adrian kept it so neat, and it was always full; he never lacked work.'

  I opened the chest full of clothes. 'Do you know where these might have come from? There are a lot of them.' I picked out the coat of many colours.

  The old woman nodded. 'Ah, yes, those are Adrian's. He built up quite a collection. He used to work for the stage companies. Got contracts to build the sets for open-air performances. Built one at Hampton Court once, for a disguising before the King. He used to lend out costumes as well.' She looked at me. 'He was a good businessman, you know. These things are worth money, they shouldn't be left lying here.'

  'Did Adrian ever take his son to the performances?'

  'Charlie? Yes, when he was small. He used to love them. It was the only time you saw him happy. If it was something local a lot of the neighbours would go. I think Charlie wanted to be an actor, but he didn't have the skill for it, or anything else, so he went for a monk instead.' She laughed contemptuously, then turned back to me and said seriously, 'But Adrian had such skill, he could make pulleys that could make wooden dragons he built move across the stage as though they were real.' She stroked the coat with a skinny hand, then replaced it in the box. When she looked up her eyes were sharp with curiosity again. 'What's he done then, useless Charlie?'

  'Never mind that,' Harsnet said.

  A thought struck me. 'How did Adrian Cantrell die?'

  'Fell down the stairs one night, according to what Charlie said. Broke his neck.' She laughed bitterly. 'Still, according to that hot-gospelling religion he believed in, he's gone straight to Heaven. What're those things in that chest? Those aren't Adrian's.'

  I steered her away from the instruments and led her back outside;

  she was clearly disappointed that I would not tell her more. In the doorway I asked her, 'That cart in the workshop; Was it Adrian Cantrell's?'

  'Ay. He used to take things to customers in it.' A thought struck me. To get from Westminster up to Hertfordshire, Cantrell must have a horse.

  'What became of his horse?' I asked. 'I thought Charlie must have sold him.'

  'What did it look like?'

  She shrugged. 'Brown, with a white triangle down its nose.'

  'You never saw him going in or out of there with a horse and cart?'

  'Him that can hardly see?' She snorted. 'No. I saw him going out to buy something once or twice, shrinking against the wall, feeling his way along it.'

  'Ever see him go out at night?'

  She laughed. 'I shouldn't have thought that was very likely. Anyway, I got to bed early and lock my doors. It is not safe around here. Look, sir, what's this all about—'

  'It doesn't matter. Thank you.' I gently closed the door on her and turned to Harsnet. 'So he learned about acting,' I said quietly. 'Perhaps even as a boy he needed to act to appear like a normal man. I wonder if he killed his father. I wonder if that was when he learned what he truly wanted to be.'

  'Such speculation does not get us anywhere,' Harsnet said.

  'No. You are right.'

  'What about that horse?' Harsnet asked.

  'He must have one.'

  'Can he see to ride?'

  'I begin to think he has greatly exaggerated that eye trouble of his. He has to be able to ride to get to Goddard's house.' I turned to the stairs. 'I want to have another look at his Bible, those underlined passages. See if I can wring some meaning from his scribblings.'

  'I'll come up with you.'

  Harsnet was too blinkered to give me any serious help. 'No, thank you, Gregory. I work best alone.'

  I CLIMBED the stairs again. It was strange to sit at Cantrell's desk, beside his bed, the room silent apart from the noises from the street. I sat down, held my head in my hands and bent over the book. Like a lawyer trying to get inside an opponent's mind through the text of an affidavit, I searched for what Cantrell might see here, what final enemy was to be destroyed. My mind tumbled and turned the words of the short chapter. 'I will shew unto ye the judgement of the great whore ... with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication...' On to where the angel said she would explain her mystery to the saint: 'And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.'

  I thought, after the seven vials the next victim will be the eighth; like the seven, but different somehow in kind. The most important victim because, after her judgement, Armageddon comes at last. I thought furiously. Was a woman his victim; It would have to be a woman to symbolize the Whore. Fornication with the kings of the earth. For Cantrell surely it would have to be a Protestant woman who had backslid, like poor Mistress Bunce that took up with the ex-monk Lockley. I thought, fornication, a king, the eighth. A woman who had not yet abandoned true religion but who would surely be seen to do so if she were to marry a religious conservative. 'The beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth.' King Henry VIII, who had been a reformer himself but was so no longer. Not the King, but a woman who would be his wife.

  I stood up. I looked out of the window into the yard. The drunken guard had sat down on an upturned pail. I went back downstairs. I turned to face Harsnet. I made myself speak steadily.

  'I think—' I said, 'I think he means to kill Catherine Parr.'

  Chapter Forty-four

  I STOOD BEFORE Archbishop Cranmer's paper-strewn desk. The prelate stared at me intensely, and I felt the force of the powerful mind behind those blue eyes. Around the desk, also looking at me, were both Seymour brothers. Harsnet and I had just finished telling them of our visit to Cantrell's house. We had gone immediately to Lambeth Palace, and the Seymours had been summoned to meet us there.

  'Then it seems Cantrell is the killer,' Cranmer said quietly. 'Have you left men at his house?'

  'The three constables,' Harsnet replied. 'They are hiding in the house and in the shed in the back yard. If he returns they will surprise him and take him.'

  'But what if he does not?' Lord Hertford asked. As ever, he came straight to the point. 'What if he is even now pursuing his eighth victim?'

  'We must send a squad of men to Catherine Parr's house at once,' Sir Thomas said. 'To ride to her succour, ensure she is protected. I already have men at the Charterhouse—'

  'No.' Cranmer's voice was firm. 'What would the King think, if he learned there was a mob of your men in Catherine Parr's house? Dear God, if anything happens to her . . . The arrested courtiers are starting to be released; there was no evidence against them. And Bonner is frightened of arresting more people in London; he is starting to fear popular resistance. I have been with the King this afternoon, he has assured me of his trust. But what if something happens to Catherine Parr now, after I have concealed so much from him?'

  'We cannot be sure Shardlake has the truth,' Hertford said.

  'Cantrell could have built any one of a hundred fantasies around the story of the Great Whore.'

  'Yes,' Cranmer agreed. 'He could. But I know Revelation, and I think Matthew could be right. We will send men of my guard to her house, tell some story of a threat from a dangerous burglar that I learned of.' Decisive now, he called for his secretary. Speaking rapidly and urgently, he told him to fetch the dozen best men from the palace guard, and at the same time order the river barge to take fifteen horses across the river.

  The secretary looked confused for a moment. 'A dozen men, my lord? But that will leave the palace almost unguarded.'

  'I don't care! Just do it!' It was the first time I had seen Cranmer truly lose his temper. 'Get the sergeant to choose the men, go to the landing stage yourself and arrange the horses. I want the best animals, ready for riding in twenty minutes!' Lord Hertford reached over and touched him gently on the shoulder. He nodded, and continued more quietly. 'And most important, I want a fast rider sent now to Lady Latimer's house in Charterhouse Square. He is to s
ay a gang of burglars has designs on the house. The steward is to lock all the doors and windows, keep Lady Catherine safe until my guards arrive. Go now, do it!'

  The secretary fled. Cranmer turned to Harsnet. 'Gregory, I put you in charge of this. Matthew, you and Barak are to accompany him.'

  'Yes, my lord.' Barak was waiting outside. I had sent a message home before riding to Lambeth, and he had ridden across. He had traced Tamasin to the house of one of her friends, but she had refused to see him. He was in a turmoil of anger and contrition.

  I winced at a sharp stab of pain from my back. 'What is wrong?' Cranmer asked.

  'I was burned, at Goddard's house. Not badly.'

  'You have borne much, Matthew, I know.' He gave me a hard, serious look. 'I hope Lady Catherine's steward has some sense. It is not over yet,' he said.

  WE DONNED our coats and hurried downstairs, through the Great Hall and out into the palace gardens, picking Barak up on the way. It was evening now, the sun setting behind stretches of white cloud, turning them pink. I shivered.

  'Where are those men:' Harsnet said impatiently.

  'The sergeant will have to gather them together,' Barak said.

  Harsnet turned to me. 'Are you fit to ride to the Charterhouse, Matthew: With your burns:'

  'I have been in this from the start. If this is the end I wish to be there.'

  There was a sound of hoofbeats and jingling harness, and a rider shot out of the palace gates. 'There goes the messenger,' Barak said. A moment later a dozen armed and helmeted men appeared round the corner of the house, led by a sergeant. They had discarded their pikes and were armed with swords. They looked puzzled at this sudden change to their routine; they were used to patrolling the palace grounds, not chasing across London. But they were all strong-looking fellows, and the sergeant had a keen look about him. He was a tall man in his thirties, with a hawk nose and keen eyes. He approached Harsnet.

  'Master coroner:'

  'Yes.'

  'Sergeant Keeble, sir.'

  'Are your men ready to ride:'

  'Yes, sir. We're to go to Charterhouse Square, I'm told.'

  'Yes. Come, I will explain on the way to the landing-stage.'

  'Cantrell's had a full day to get into Lady Parr's house,' Barak said to me quietly. And what's the betting he spied out the place carefully before?'

  'Surely Lady Catherine is well guarded. Given her importance now.'

  THE ARCHBISHOP'S secretary had done his work; when we reached the river the barge was waiting, and on the London side we found a group of horses ready.

  We then rode fast and hard to the Charterhouse as dusk deepened to darkness. The jolting movement set my back on fire; the muddy country road made riding all the more difficult. In the fields on either side of us startled cows blundered away. We rode on through Smithfield, into Charterhouse Square. On the corner stood the Green Man, now boarded up. We rode across the grass of the square and stopped outside the Charterhouse Gate. A little way off a group of beggars stood in the open doorway of the old abandoned chapel. They stayed where they were, watching; they were not going to approach a group of armed men. Sir Thomas drew his horse to a halt. 'We should make a search of the area first, I think,' he said. 'If we rush the place and he is near by, he might escape. I want him caught this time.' He ended with a hard look at me, and spurred his horse towards the gate of the Charterhouse. The gate was opened and we rode into the Charterhouse precinct.

  Sir Thomas' steward Russell emerged from the conduit-house. Seymour told him what had happened. 'I suggest sending three or four of the Archbishop's men on foot to search the area,' Sir Thomas said. 'If he is hanging around and we send everyone looking round the square, we could alarm him and he might run. Shardlake, Barak, you should stay out of the way for now. He knows you.'

  Again his strategy made good sense. Three of Cranmer's men were sent to reconnoitre; the rest of us stayed in the courtyard. A man in a stained smock emerged from the conduit-house and came over to us, wiping his hands on a rag. 'I've done all I can, Sir Thomas,' he said. 'I sent a man over to Islington Fields. The streams up there have overflowed, there is quite a lake of water. It is backed up behind the lock gates down there.'

  'We cannot leave things as they are, master engineer,' Harsnet said.

  'If we have no more rain the water up at Islington will start to drain slowly into the ground and the pressure on the gates will subside. Then we could open the gates in a few days. Let us hope the wet spell is over.'

  Sir Thomas grunted. 'I want to leave this place. What if some- one from Augmentations makes one of their unannounced visits and finds the Charterhouse full of my men, just across the road from Catherine Parr's house? It will get back to Richard Rich and he will tell the King. Come, master engineer, show me.' He marched off to the conduit-house, the engineer and Russell following. I smiled sardonically at Harsnet. 'Sir Thomas is going to tell the expert how to do his job,' I said.

  The coroner sighed. 'He's right. We don't want Rich finding things amiss here, learning that the gates were blocked up by the body of a crucified potman.'

  'No.' I looked over at the conduit-house, candlelight outlining the half-open door. 'I have come up against Rich before. He would do anything for his own advancement. Like most of those at court.'

  'The Archbishop at least is different,' Harsnet said. 'He is a man of principle, a good man. The hope of all of us who wish to see reform preserved.'

  I looked at him curiously. 'Yet he believes God has chosen the King to be his representative on earth. Your school of thought allows for no intermediary between man and God.'

  'He is all we have. And Lord Hertford, of course.' Harsnet smiled to himself. 'If Lord Hertford ever came to rule this land . . . but for now the Archbishop is our rod and staff. I would do anything to protect him, anything.' He spoke with fierce emphasis.

  We turned at the sound of approaching footsteps. The three Archbishop's men had returned. They went into the conduit-house, and a moment later Sir Thomas and Russell emerged and hurried over to us.

  'Master Shardlake,' Sir Thomas said. 'You said Cantrell's horse had a distinctive white mark on its face. Shaped like a triangle.'

  'Yes. So the old woman said. Otherwise it is all brown.'

  'There is a horse answering that description tied up on the common behind the houses. No sign of an owner.'

  Harsnet took a long, shuddering breath. 'So you were right,' he said. 'I am sorry I doubted you.' He turned to Sir Thomas. 'We should get the Archbishop's men together. The time for concealment is past. We must get to Catherine Parr's house now.'

  'I will lead them,' Sir Thomas said.

  'I do not think that is wise, sir,' Harsnet said. 'You should not be seen there.'

  'The coroner is right, sir,' Russell said quietly.

  Sir Thomas hesitated, then nodded. He glared at Harsnet and me. 'You had better not make a mess of this,' he said coldly. 'If anything happens to Lady Catherine, I will see you pay with your heads.' He turned and stalked off.

  'Arsehole,' Barak muttered when he was out of earshot.

  'It's just bluster, sirs,' Russell said quietly. 'He can't do anything without his brother's permission.'

  WE WALKED FAST through the wooded square, emerging in front of the large houses on the eastern side. Lord Latimer's mansion was large, three storeys high, set back from the road in its own grounds. Lights shone at several of the large, diamond-paned windows. As we walked down the gravel path, the front door opened and a man emerged carrying a lantern; he approached Harsnet. He was middle- aged, full-bearded, with an anxious expression. Lord Latimer's arms, a grey shield with a red diagonal cross, were stitched prominently on his doublet.

  'Master coroner?' he asked.

  'Yes. Is all safe?'

  He nodded. 'We've searched the house. There's no one here. We've told Lady Catherine there are robbers about, tried to get her to stay in her room, but she wants to take charge.'

  'She doesn't know what she's facing,' I
said.

  'He's around somewhere. I can feel it,' Barak muttered. He looked into the deep shadows cast by the house. There were trees and bushes against the inner wall; plenty of space for Cantrell to hide.

  'What do you mean?' The steward looked at me sharply. 'I thought it was a gang of burglars?'

  'It's one man we're after.' Harsnet looked into the steward's eyes. 'An assassin, a madman. Lady Catherine must be told she is in real danger.' The man's eyes widened. 'How many entrances are there to this house?'

  'Two. This one and the one for tradesmen at the back.'

  'Have you had any visitors today?' I asked.

  'A messenger from the King came with a note for Lady Catherine.' The steward hesitated. 'She's been rather agitated since.'

  'Where is she?' Harsnet asked him quietly. 'In her rooms on the first floor.'

  'All right,' he said. 'Now go, tell her she must stay there. Two of you men, accompany him, guard her.' Two men joined the steward and they ran back inside. Harsnet turned to the others. 'I want six men patrolling the outside. Everyone else, inside with me.' As the men moved to his orders I had to admire his ability to command, his decisiveness. He led the other four, and Barak and me, into the house.

  We entered a large hall, the walls covered with expensive tapestries of Greek and Roman gods in woodland settings. Before us, a wide staircase led upstairs, the Latimer arms held by a pair of brightly painted wooden lions at the foot. Several doors led off the hall. One at the back was open, a couple of frightened-looking pages looking out. 'Get back in there,' Harsnet ordered. They hastily disappeared. We looked up as the steward clattered down the stairs. I was pleased to see he looked calmer now, his face intent.

  'Lady Catherine has said she will remain in her rooms. But she would like to see you, master coroner.'

  Harsnet took a deep breath. 'Very well.'

  'What will you tell her?' I asked.

  'That we have word of an assassin, no more.' He turned to the steward. 'Make sure all the servants are accounted for.'

  The man nodded and disappeared towards the servants' quarters. Harsnet took a deep breath and mounted the stairs. Barak and I were left with the four remaining men, who fingered their sword-hilts uneasily.