Betrayal (The Fenland Series Book 2)

by Ann Swinfen

‘How serious a problem is that?’ He nodded toward my missing leg.

  Few people spoke so frankly, and oddly I liked him for it.

  ‘As you see, sir, I can only get about with difficulty, using two crutches. Walking any distance is painful and tiring. I cannot manage more than a few stairs.’

  ‘There is a fellow I know of,’ he said. ‘Trained in Paris, where they have been improving false limbs for sixty or seventy years. Far more skilled than any English craftsman. My cousin’s son lost a hand at Marston Moor and this fellow built him a new one. He’s very skilled, so my cousin says. I will enquire his name and his place of work here in London.’

  I found myself flushing. ‘I thank you, sir. I was hoping to have a wooden peg fitted. It might help my balance.’

  ‘These French designs are more than pegs, Bennington. They have joints. Something like a marionette, I believe.’

  ‘That seems remarkable.’

  ‘Aye, well, I will see what I can learn. Off you go now.’ His stern face broke briefly into a smile.

  Once outside, I paused, drawing a deep breath. A jointed leg? It seemed impossible. How could it possibly work? And in any case, it would surely cost a king’s ransom. Now I thought about it, I remembered hearing about some German nobleman who wore a silver hand after he had lost a hand in battle, but how could a poor law student pay for a silver leg? It was a wild dream. I would be lucky if I could afford a wooden peg strapped to my stump, which would take some of the weight on my left side and ease the pressure of my crutches on my shoulders and back.

  For the remainder of that day and all the next, I applied myself to Bencher Whittaker’s topics, and they were not easy. I felt it would be deceitful to ask Anthony for help – although he volunteered. I did check a few points in the law books he kept in chambers. And I was relieved to find that he also owned most of the twenty books on the list Whittaker had given me. The other two I hoped to be able to find amongst the chaos of the library.

  ‘It is a little hard,’ Anthony said, ‘if he requires you to hand in your answers on Friday, when you must work in the library all day on Wednesday and Thursday.’

  ‘It will remind me of my time at Cambridge,’ I said, ‘when much preparation was a mad scramble at the last minute.’

  ‘You were younger then.’

  ‘Aye. So I was. But now I am older and I hope I may work harder, with fewer distractions and more sense.’

  Nevertheless, I found it difficult to complete the task in time, even though I continued to work on the topics during the evenings of the days I spent in the library. I suspected that the short time allowed me was part of the test of my abilities. In the end, I did my best, wrote out a fair copy of my answers, without all the blots and crossings out, and handed it in to Whittaker’s chambers on Friday morning.

  When I had stumped my way back through the snow to Anthony’s chambers I found Goodwife Gorley on her hands and knees scrubbing the stairs which led past Anthony’s door and on to the upper floors of the building. I had forgotten that it was her day to clean. It was best to keep out of her way. I knew that Anthony was in court today.

  ‘Good morrow, Goodwife Gorley,’ I said politely.

  ‘Don’t you be tracking mud across my clean floor.’

  ‘The ground is still too frozen for mud.’

  She sniffed, turning her back on me and scrubbing all the more vigorously.

  When Anthony had told me of the widow who was such a tartar, I had expected a fierce grey-headed old woman, thin and hard. Meeting Goodwife Gorley for the first time the previous week, I had been taken aback. She could not be more than her middle thirties, a blooming buxom woman with plump cheeks and light brown curls escaping from the edges of her cap. However, she had the muscled arms of a farm labourer and she was indeed a tartar. She kept us all in order.

  I sidled past her now, hoping that my single foot and the tips of my crutches would not drop lumps of snow on her shining floor. Safe within the sanctuary of the parlour, I sank down on to one of the cushioned chairs and took up the first book on my list to read. Later she would be cleaning our chambers, but as she started on the top floor and worked her way downwards, I was safe until midday at least. Anthony had taken his clerk with him to court and it occurred to me that it could not always be convenient to have Goodwife Gorley and the shared clerk both arriving on the same day. I wondered whether she scrubbed round their feet while they worked in the office, or whether she drove them away with her broom.

  I settled to my book and began to take brief notes. Paper was expensive, so I would need to keep them short. The Treasurer had been right, in what he said about participation in moots being an excellent training for a lawyer. The more one wrote down in notes, the less one committed to memory and the less one would have ready for argument in court.

  The time passed quickly as I became absorbed in the book, which was one Anthony and I had consulted for his case on land inheritance, so that I was taken by surprise when Goodwife Gorley gave a brief tap on the outer door before marching into the chambers with her bucket, brushes and broom.

  ‘I will be out of your way, goodwife,’ I said hastily, as I laid aside my book and rose from my chair. ‘Master Thirkettle has left money on the table for some pasties, a pot of raspberry preserve, and another of your excellent pies.’

  I waved my hand toward the money, aware that I was flattering her. She merely nodded briskly. Hopping to the door, I took down my cloak from its peg and let myself out into the court. The air was so cold it made me gasp. I had decided that this would be a good time to approach Theodore Somers about my salary for working in the library. I had seen the Treasurer go out of the gatehouse a little while before, and I preferred to speak to Somers when there was no danger of running into the Treasurer.

  ‘Your salary for the library work, Master Bennington?’ Somers said, reaching into a drawer of his desk. ‘I was about to send you a note about it.’

  He laid a cloth purse on the desk. ‘The Treasurer has given me this for you. It is your first month’s fee.’

  I picked up the purse gratefully. I had hardly needed to ask, and the purse was a comfortable weight in my hand. I tucked it into a pocket in my doublet.

  ‘Should I come to you again, in a month’s time, Somers?’

  ‘Aye. That will be best. I will be sure to have it ready for you. And how are you faring with Bencher Whittaker?’

  I grinned. ‘I shall know better on Monday, when he has read the answers to his topics which I handed in today. I feel like a schoolboy again, or a student back at Cambridge.’

  He returned my smile. ‘Ah, sir, but you will soon be back into the way of it. In no time you will be an utter barrister, like Master Thirkettle.’

  ‘I hope you may be right. Good day to you, Somers.’

  I made my way slowly back across Chapel Court, the weight of the purse comforting against my hip. I hoped Goodwife Gorley had finished her work and left, for I wanted to count my coins. I would have been shamed to do it before Somers.

  I met Anthony and his clerk, Edwin Latimer, at the door. Edwin was carrying a basket, from which arose an appetising aroma. A hot beef and kidney pie, I suspected.

  ‘We bought our lunch as we came past Pie Corner,’ Anthony said. ‘Let us set to while it is still hot.’

  We trod warily into chambers, but Goodwife Gorley was gone, every surface gleaming, my book and papers lined up severely into a neat stack, and the new stores put away on a shelf in the small kitchen.

  When we had made quick work of the pie, Anthony drank deeply from his cup of beer. ‘Latimer and I have been discussing the likely whereabouts of the charter you seek. It is most likely that a copy will be held in the Rolls House in Chancery Lane, as I said. If it was indeed granted by Henry II, it will be shelved with the other state documents of that reign.’

  ‘I cannot be certain,’ I said, ‘but I remember my father saying that he believed it was King Henry who made the grant.’

  ‘I shall need to go
to Rolls House next week,’ Anthony said. ‘My senior has a case involving the purchase of monastic lands in Sussex in Henry VIII’s time. That was a fine time for men grabbing land that was not theirs, like your speculators in the Fens. Although there was at least I kind of sham legitimacy about it, the king having decreed all the monastic lands belonged to him, so that he could sell them to whomsoever he wished.’

  Latimer shook his head. ‘It may have been legitimate but it was a ruthless land grab nonetheless. And so much of it done in haste, with ill-conceived bills of transfer, that we are still trying to sort the confusion, more than a hundred years later.’

  ‘Aye, you are right.’ Anthony nodded. ‘Two or three cases a year, where a poorly written bill of purchase is called into question.’

  I laughed. ‘Profitable work for lawyers, then?’

  They both grinned at me. ‘Where would our profession be, without the folly and greed of our fellow men?’ Anthony asked.

  On Monday morning, as I set off nervously for Bencher Whittaker’s chambers and the judgement on my answers to his points of law, Anthony followed me out into Chapel Court, where a few more wisps of snow were falling, like feathers from a leaking pillow.

  ‘I am off to the Rolls House to hunt out the documents relating to those monastic lands in Sussex,’ he said. ‘I am not sure how long it will take me. I may stay there all day. If time permits I will start the search of state papers from the reign of Henry II, but he was a prolific legislator and it was a long reign, so it is likely to take me more than today. You are quite sure you do not know the date?’

  I shook my head. ‘I am afraid I do not. I only remember what my father said, and he may have been wrong. He said Henry II, but he may have meant Henry III. He may even have been told the wrong king by my grandfather. I know my grandfather had hoped to take a case to court, but they arrested him and he died in Cambridge castle, without ever having the chance to be heard in court.’

  ‘Like your father.’

  ‘Aye. Like my father. Let us hope history does not repeat itself even in the third generation.’

  ‘At least you will pursue the case as a trained lawyer, with lawyer friends to support you.’

  ‘If you mean yourself, then I thank you, Anthony. But we must find the charter first. It will be the strongest weapon in our defence.’

  He pulled his cloak tightly about him and drew the hood up over his head. ‘At least it is not far to the Rolls House to walk in this weather. Will spring never come? Just down Chancery Lane, opposite Lincoln’s Inn.’

  ‘Aye. It would have been easy for Sir John’s lawyer at Lincoln’s Inn to search there for the charter.’

  ‘Indeed. I hope you meet with Bencher Whittaker’s approval. He will be a hard task master, I expect, but an excellent mentor.’

  Unsure whether this should cheer or depress me, I raised my hand in farewell and began my laborious way through the snow to Coney Court.

  It seemed that my discussions of Whittaker’s topics had been satisfactory. He did not praise my efforts and pointed out one or two omissions, but it seemed I had answered well enough that we could move on. He outlined a course of reading I was to pursue for the next week.

  ‘You will come again next Monday and we will see how much you have understood and remembered,’ he said. ‘It is unfortunate that moots are no longer held daily. There are, of course, far fewer students than before the war. Have you become acquainted with any?’

  ‘Only in passing. I cannot get about easily.’

  Also, with working two full days a week in the library and spending the rest of my time on the work he had prescribed for me, I had hardly had the opportunity to meet other students.

  ‘You must dine in Hall. You will meet them there.’

  I nodded. I knew that I must dine in Hall, which would give me the chance to get to know the other Members of Gray’s, both senior members and students, but it would be more costly than our present practice of sending out to the Peacock. I fancied that Anthony was quite glad to save his coin too, for he could not be earning much as an utter barrister. Perhaps we might dine in Hall once a week. Anthony’s friend, Henry Grantham, had twice eaten with us in chambers, but I knew that he usually dined in Hall. I also knew – but did not say – that I should probably find I had little in common with the other students, who were so much younger than I, fresh come from Oxford or Cambridge. Some would be country gentlemen’s sons, here at one of the Inns of Court to pick up a smattering of the law to serve them when they went home to become Justices of the Peace in their own counties. The others would be those bent on a permanent career in the law, like Anthony They would take their studies more seriously, but it seemed there was no longer the same fellowship that had existed when I was first a student. In those days we all met daily to listen to readings or participate in moots. Now, most study was done privately or with a senior Member.

  As Bencher Whittaker concluded his instructions for the following week’s work, he handed me a slip of paper.

  ‘This is the address of the craftsman of artificial limbs who made the hand for my cousin’s son. His name is Gilbert Bolton, a good English name, although I believe his mother was French. That is why he studied his craft in Paris, at the Hôtel-Dieu, where the barber surgeons are trained.’

  I glanced at the paper. At the sign of the Golden Ram, Bucklersbury.

  ‘That is south of Cheapside, is it not?’ I said.

  ‘It is. Parallel to Cheapside. It meets Walbrook in the east. A good many of the apothecaries have their shops there, but also the barber surgeons. I understand that although Bolton trained as a surgeon, his trade is now mostly in artificial limbs.’

  I wondered both how I could make my way there, and how I could afford an expensive artificial leg, but I thanked him politely and slid the paper, together with my other papers and writing materials, into an old leather satchel Anthony had loaned me.

  Anthony returned from the Rolls House in the late afternoon, looking tired. He threw himself down on a chair and looked at his clothes in disgust.

  ‘I am covered in dust. We should lend Goodwife Gorley to them in the Rolls House. She would soon sort them out. I do not know how the clerks can work there, day in and day out, without choking.’

  ‘Goodwife Gorley would probably want to scrub all the ink off the ancient parchments, to make them fresh and clean again.’

  ‘Aye. And she would not tolerate all those ancient cracked wax seals dangling off frayed ribbon or ragged strips of parchment. She would snip them off and throw them away, so that the bundles of scrolls would look all the tidier.’

  We grinned at each other. We would never dare to speak to the goodwife so boldly, but in her absence we could take some revenge for her bullying.

  ‘Did you find your Sussex documents?’

  ‘Eventually. But the bills of sale for monastic properties at the time are stacked high, and you have to check at least the heading of each scroll until you find the right ones. They should be making a catalogue like yours for the library, but when you look at rack upon rack of documents, stretching back hundreds of years, you can see that it would be an almost impossible task, unless you set a hundred clerks to work, night and day, for several years.’

  ‘Still, you found what you needed.’

  ‘I did. And I had about an hour to look through documents from Henry II’s time, but as I feared there are thousands of them. However, I have some free time this week, so I will go back again tomorrow and Wednesday, though I am in court again on Thursday.’

  ‘I am grateful.’

  ‘Nay, I have my nose on the scent for this charter. We will show these scoundrels that they shall not destroy our fenlands, shall we not?’

  ‘Indeed. Between us, how can we fail?’

  He sat up, brushing the dust off his breeches. ‘What shall we order for dinner?’

  ‘Bencher Whittaker thinks I should dine in Hall and meet the other Members of Gray’s. I would prefer to carry on as we have done
, but what do you say to dining in Hall once a week?’

  ‘Very well. I suppose we should show our faces from time to time. Shall we dine there tonight?’

  ‘Aye, let us do so.’

  There were but five steps up to Hall, so I managed well enough, and we took our places at one of the tables set at right angles to the dais which held High Table. The lower tables were sparsely populated, compared with the full complement of students and junior lawyers which I remembered from the past, but there was a cheerful buzz of conversation as we stood waiting. Then silence fell as the Treasurer and the other members of Pension filed in and took their places at High Table. The Treasurer spoke the traditional Latin grace, then everyone sat down with a scraping of benches and a fresh outburst of conversation.

  The meal was good, but not as fine as I remembered. Even here, it seemed, some effects of the war could be felt, though we had heard of no fighting recently. So many years of war had meant damage to crops and a shortage of men working the land. And there had been a severe famine two years before, which had cost many lives. All in all, I felt we dined as well in chambers. Anthony introduced me to several students sitting nearby, but to me they looked no more than boys. I had seen them stealing glances at my missing leg. I felt more as ease in the company of Anthony and Henry, for all that they were utter barristers and I was a mere student.

  Anthony spent the next two days diligently searching through the state documents dating from the reign of Henry II, but could find no trace of a charter granting the common lands to our five parishes.

  ‘Do not be down-hearted, Tom,’ he said on Wednesday evening, when I returned from my labours in the library and he came in, dust-covered as usual, from the Rolls House. ‘If you were to see the thousands of scrolls there, stacked shelf upon shelf, so high you must climb a ladder to reach the top, then you would understand that a single charter may be as hard to unearth as a grain of sand on a beach. As I have said, I am in court tomorrow, but if the case does not linger on to the next day, I will go back on Friday. If it is there, I shall find it.’