Coincidence

by C. J. Sansom

  ‘He’s with t’mayor. I doubt he can see you, sir.’

  ‘I come from Sir William Maleverer.’

  Once again that name brought results. ‘Oh. Then come with me, sir.’

  We followed the clerk to a large room with a fine view across the river, where two men stood at a table poring over gold coins, counted into piles. I recognized the plump figure of the mayor in his bright red robes from the day before. ‘With all the people we’ve canvassed,’ he was saying crossly, ‘they’ll say we should have collected more.’

  ‘It was hard enough getting this much. And the gold cup is a good one.’ The other man was younger, with a thin, serious face, wearing a lawyer’s robe.

  ‘This won’t fill it.’ The mayor looked up angrily at our entrance. ‘Jesu’s blood, Oswaldkirke, what is it now?’

  The clerk bowed almost to the floor. ‘Maister Mayor, this gentleman has come from Sir William Maleverer.’

  The mayor sighed, waving the clerk out, and turned protuberant eyes to me. ‘Well, sir, how can I help Sir William now?’ He pointed irritably at the piles of coins. ‘The Recorder and I are preparing the city’s present to the King for Friday.’

  I introduced myself and explained my mission to investigate the glazier’s death. ‘I have been asked to deal with the matter,’ I said, ‘but wished to inform the York coroner, as a courtesy. Perhaps he may be able to give me some aid,’ I added hopefully.

  The mayor frowned. ‘I knew Peter Oldroyd, he was chairman of the glaziers’ guild two years ago. The city should investigate this.’

  ‘If the death took place on royal property, the King’s coroner has jurisdiction,’ said the thin-faced man. He extended a hand. ‘William Tankerd, the city Recorder.’ He smiled, but eyed me curiously.

  ‘Matthew Shardlake, of London.’

  ‘God’s death,’ the mayor snapped pettishly. ‘Am I to have no authority left in my own city?’ He sighed and waved a hand at the Recorder. ‘Take them outside, Tankerd, they shouldn’t be in here with all this gold. Tell him what he needs to know, but don’t be long.’

  Tankerd led us outside. ‘Forgive Mayor Hall,’ he said. ‘We have much to do before Friday. People are still throwing rubbish in the streets and they won’t clear their middens, no matter how we threaten them.’

  ‘I am sorry to trouble you, sir. If you could tell me where I may find the coroner . . .’

  He shook his head. ‘I fear Maister Sykes is out of town today, holding an inquest over at the Ainsty.’

  ‘Then may I ask where Master Oldroyd lived? His family should be told.’ That was an aspect of my task I was not looking forward to.

  ‘All the glaziers live in Stonegate. It is almost opposite here, up the road from St Helen’s church. Oldroyd lived just beyond the churchyard, I believe.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Then I will go there.’

  He nodded, then gave me a sharp look. ‘Take care, sir. With the monasteries going down, the glaziers have lost much of their work. They are not friendly to southrons.’

  ALMOST OPPOSITE THE SQUARE from the Guildhall stood an old church with fine glasswork, and a passer-by confirmed the narrow street running alongside it was Stonegate. It was bounded on one side by the ancient churchyard and the buildings were tall and narrow, overhanging eaves cutting out much of the light from the grey sky. As we walked down it we saw some houses had signs outside showing glazed windows, and I could hear tinkling and hammering from workshops behind. Halfway down Stonegate the churchyard ended. ‘Round here somewhere,’ Barak said.

  I stopped a passer-by, a middle-aged man with a square face and black hair under a wide cap, and asked if he knew which was Master Oldroyd’s house.

  ‘Who wants t’know?’ he replied, looking at me keenly. I noticed his hands were covered in scars as Oldroyd’s had been.

  ‘We come from St Mary’s,’ I said. ‘I am afraid he has met with an accident.’

  ‘An accident? Peter?’ His face filled with concern.

  ‘Did you know him, sir?’

  ‘Of course I did, he is in my guild and a friend too. What happened, maister lawyer?’

  ‘He fell from his ladder early this morning while working on the monastery church. I fear he is dead.’

  The man frowned. ‘Fell from his ladder?’

  ‘The circumstances are uncertain. We have been appointed to investigate by the King’s coroner,’ I said. ‘If you knew him, Master . . .’

  ‘Ralph Dike. I’m a master glazier, as Peter was. He was a good man.’

  ‘Perhaps you could tell us about Master Oldroyd. Does he have a family?’

  ‘His wife and three bairns all died in the plague in ’38.’ The glazier crossed himself. ‘He had only an apprentice.’

  No family then, I thought with relief. Master Dike pointed to a house two doors down. ‘Peter lived there.’ He gave us a long look, then took a step away. ‘I have business now,’ he said. ‘I must tell the guild of this.’ He turned and walked hastily off.

  ‘He didn’t want to talk, did he?’ Barak asked.

  ‘I think he was suspicious of us, southerners from St Mary’s. Let’s see his house.’

  The property Master Dike had pointed out needed plastering, and the paint on the front door was cracked and flaking. I knocked, but there was no reply so I took the key and turned it in the lock. As I did so Barak nudged me, nodding at a window in the house opposite. A woman’s face was quickly withdrawn. I pushed the door open.

  The house was built round a central hall, like Master Wrenne’s but smaller, with a hearth in the middle and a smoke-hole in the black-raftered ceiling. The ashes of last night’s fire lay in the little grate. I noticed the plate displayed on the buffet was mostly pewter, the furnishings clean but cheap.

  ‘Hullo!’ I called out. ‘Anyone at home?’ There was no reply.

  ‘That’s odd,’ Barak said. ‘You’d expect a servant to be around, or the apprentice.’

  I walked over to an inner door. It gave on to a hallway doors, and a wooden staircase leading to an upper floor. Opening the first door I found myself in the kitchen. I went to the oven; it was warm. Someone had been baking recently. Apart from faint sounds from the street, the house was silent. I crossed to the other door, which led to an enclosed yard with a gate and a furnace in an open shed in one corner. Windows of stained and painted glass mostly, with two broken, were stacked in piles against the walls. I shuddered, remembering that blood-soaked cart. I saw Oldroyd had been separating out some of the small painted panes for reuse. He had laid them on a cloth, representations of birds and animals and mythic beasts. None had religious themes. ‘It’s like he told us,’ Barak said. ‘He’s been taking the glass to reuse.’ I bent and looked down at the figures; some of them were beautiful, hundreds of years old. I wondered if they had come from St Mary’s.

  Barak had gone over to the furnace. A large bucket full of pieces of glass showing monks at prayer stood beside it, for melting down no doubt. Barak touched the side of the furnace. ‘It’s cold,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s try upstairs.’

  We went back in and climbed up to a little hallway with two more doors. I opened one; it gave on to a bedroom, empty save for a truckle bed with a straw mattress and an open trunk containing clothes and a blue cloak.

  ‘The apprentice’s room, perhaps,’ I said.

  ‘Lucky to have his own room.’

  ‘Poor Oldroyd may have had no other use for the room if his family all died of plague.’ I opened the other door, which led into a master bedroom. A wall-cloth in green and yellow stripes went round the whole room, leaving a gap only for the window. There was a good bed with a feather mattress and a couple of big solid trunks, carved and painted. Opening them I found a stock of clothes, neatly folded.

  ‘Wonder where he kept his papers,’ I said, then turned as Barak laid a hand on my arm. He held a finger to his lips for silence and nodded over his shoulder. ‘There’s someone on the stairs,’ he mouthed. ‘I heard the boards creak.’
Motioning me to stay where I was, he crept to the door, listened a moment, then threw it open. There was a shrill cry and he stepped back in, his arm round the neck of a plump lad in his early teens with a shock of red hair and an apprentice’s blue coat.

  ‘Listening at the keyhole,’ Barak said. ‘Tried to bite me when I grabbed him, the little weasel.’ He released the boy, giving him a shove that sent him spinning against the opposite wall, then stood with his back to the door. The lad stared between us, his eyes wide.

  ‘Are you Master Oldroyd’s apprentice?’ I asked.

  He gulped. ‘Ay, maister.’

  ‘We are King’s officials.’ The words made the boy open his terrified eyes even wider. ‘We come from St Mary’s Abbey. What is your name?’

  ‘P-Paul Green, maister.’

  ‘You live here?’

  ‘Ay, sir, with Maister Oldroyd.’

  ‘Have you been with your master long?’ I asked more gently.

  ‘Two years. I were ’prenticed at fourteen.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I meant no harm, maister. I came back from fetching the charcoals and heard voices in Maister Oldroyd’s bedroom.’ I saw the boy’s eyes flicker to a spot low down on the wall, just for a moment. ‘I thought it might be robbers, sir.’

  ‘There’s a sack of charcoal at the foot of the stairs,’ Barak confirmed.

  ‘Are there no other servants here?’ I asked.

  ‘Only the cook, sir. She’s gone to try and find some fowl for maister’s supper. There’s a shortage, everything in t’city’s being bought up by King’s purveyors. Maister told me to set up furnace to melt down the monkish glass, but I had to go and get the coals.’ He stared at me, his eyes still full of fear.

  ‘I have bad news, Green,’ I said gently. ‘I fear your master is dead. He fell from his ladder at St Mary’s into his cart, early this morning.’

  The boy went white. He sat on the bed with a thump, his mouth open.

  ‘Master Oldroyd was good to you?’

  ‘Ay,’ he whispered. ‘He was. Poor maister.’ He crossed himself.

  ‘We have been asked by the King’s coroner to investigate his death.’

  The boy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Was it not an accident?’

  ‘That is what we have to find out.’ I looked at him. ‘Had your master any quarrels with anyone, that you know of?’

  ‘No, maister.’ But there was a hesitation in the boy’s voice, and I saw his eyes start to move to the spot on the wall again, though this time he checked himself.

  ‘Did you know the names of all your master’s friends and family?’

  ‘His friends are mostly guildsmen, and them he did business with. He had no family, maister, they all died in the plague. His old apprentice died too, he took me on afterwards.’

  ‘So you know of none who might have wished him harm?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Again that slight hesitation.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I —’

  But before the boy could answer there was a bang at the front door, not a knock but a loud crash. We all started, and the boy let out a squeak of fear. Heavy footsteps sounded, some going into the downstairs rooms and the yard and others thundering upstairs. Barak jumped away from the door just before it was thrown open and two guards in the King’s uniform stormed in, swords held at the ready. Barak stood in the centre of the room, his hands raised. The apprentice moaned in terror. The nearest guard looked at us, then smiled wolfishly. ‘Don’t move, any of you,’ he said threateningly, then called downstairs. ‘Sir! There’s three up here, in the bedroom!’

  ‘What is going on?’ I asked. ‘We are —’

  ‘Shut up!’ He smiled evilly again. ‘You’re in the shit, you are.’

  A moment later Maleverer strode into the room.

  Chapter Seven

  SIR WILLIAM GLARED from me to Barak and then at the terrified apprentice. ‘What’s going on?’ he barked.

  I managed to keep my voice calm. ‘We are investigating the glazier’s death for the coroner, Sir William, as you instructed. We just arrived; I was questioning the apprentice —’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ To my surprise, he seemed to have forgotten his own instructions. ‘Why up here?’

  ‘He was listening at the door,’ Barak said, nodding at young Green.

  Maleverer leaned over and grasped the apprentice by the ear, yanking him to his feet. He stood, plump limbs trembling, as Maleverer glared into his terrified face before turning to me. ‘Well, what have you got out of him?’

  ‘He says Master Oldroyd had no enemies he knew of.’

  ‘Does he?’ Maleverer turned back to the boy. ‘What do you know of your master’s affairs, eh? What have you heard listening at doors?’

  ‘Only about his business, sir, only his business.’

  Maleverer grunted, released the boy’s ear and drew a deep breath. ‘I’ve talked with the Duke of Suffolk,’ he said. ‘His instructions are that I should investigate this personally. It seems Oldroyd was crooked in his business dealings with us. It needs looking into.’

  ‘No, sir,’ the boy said. ‘Not maister —’

  He broke off as Maleverer landed him a terrific clout across the face. He fell back across the bed, blood pouring from his mouth and from his cheek where a ring Maleverer wore had cut a gash. Sir William looked at me. ‘I’ll take this little squealing pig back to St Mary’s and see what some questioning can get out of him. Are there any other servants?’

  ‘A housekeeper, I believe, who is out shopping.’

  ‘We’ll have her in too.’ He turned to the nearer guard. ‘Get two men and take the boy back to St Mary’s. The rest of you can help me search this place.’ A guard hauled young Green to his feet. He gagged, spat a tooth into his hand, then started weeping in terror and shock. The guard manhandled him out of the room, still bleeding profusely. Sir William turned brusquely to the other guard. ‘Now go down and get that search organized.’

  ‘What are we looking for, Sir William?’

  ‘I’ll know when I see it.’ Maleverer watched him go, then glared at me. ‘This matter is out of your hands. Forget about it, understand?’

  ‘Yes. We—’

  ‘Out of your hands. And those words you heard Oldroyd say this morning, about the King and about that name –’ he lowered his voice – ‘Blaybourne. You say nothing of that to anybody, do you understand? Have you mentioned it to anyone?’

  ‘No, Sir William.’

  ‘Then leave, both of you. Go about your business —’

  He was interrupted by the sound of a commotion outside. He turned to the window. Two soldiers could be seen hauling the apprentice up the street. The boy’s legs had given way and they were dragging him along the earth by the arms. He was howling with fear, begging to be let go. The doors of all the neighbouring houses had opened and there was a babble of voices as a crowd, mostly women, came to their doors. Someone called ‘For shame!’ after the soldiers. ‘Southron dogs!’ another shouted. Maleverer set his lips.

  ‘God’s death, I’ll have them all in gaol!’ He marched furiously out, and a moment later I heard him bawling at the crowd. ‘Be about your business, unless you want taking in for a whipping!’

  Barak nudged me. ‘I think we should get out while we can. Let’s go the back way.’

  I hesitated, glancing at the spot on the wall the apprentice had looked at, then nodded and followed him downstairs. Another two soldiers were guarding the back gate. I explained we had been there on official business, but had to show my commission before they would let us out. We found ourselves in one of the narrow side-lanes and followed it out to the main street. We walked slowly back towards the Guildhall, both a little shocked by what had happened.

  ‘Can we get some lunch?’ Barak asked. ‘My stomach feels my throat’s been cut.’

  ‘Ay.’ I realized I was hungry too; we had had no breakfast. We found a busy inn where we ordered some bread and pottage and sat at a vacant table.

  ‘What was all
that about?’ Barak asked, quietly so our neighbours would not hear.

  ‘Jesu knows.’

  ‘Why’s the Duke of Suffolk involved? He’s in charge of the Progress, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. He’s the senior official, close to the King.’

  ‘What was Oldroyd up to? They wouldn’t send a troop of soldiers if he’d been overcharging for taking out the glass. That’s balls.’

  ‘No. I think that was the first thing that came into Maleverer’s head when he saw us.’ I lowered my voice. ‘It’s something political, it has to be.’

  ‘Something to do with the conspiracy?’ Barak whistled softly. ‘I remember Oldroyd sounded like he might be a papist, mourning the stained glass.’

  I nodded, then frowned. ‘God knows what they’ll do to that apprentice.’

  ‘Poor little arsehole.’ Barak gave me a hard look. ‘Still, apprentices often learn things through listening at doors and with a callow lad like that scaring it out of him is the quickest way to the truth.’

  ‘That’s what Lord Cromwell would have done?’

  He shrugged. ‘If the boy has any sense he’ll tell them all he knows.’

  ‘And he did know something,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘He kept glancing at a spot on the wall, as though there were something hidden behind that hanging.’

  ‘Did he? I missed that.’

  ‘I was going to tell Maleverer about it, but he stormed out.’

  ‘Maybe we should go back and tell him now.’

  I shook my head. ‘You saw he wanted us out of there quick. I’ll speak to him later.’

  ‘Anyway, we’re off the case. Can’t say I’m sorry.’

  ‘No. Yet . . .’ I hesitated. ‘I cannot but wonder what it is all about. I’ll never forget that desperate look in Oldroyd’s eyes. What he said about the King and Queen and that name, Blaybourne. It was obviously important after all.’

  ‘Seems so.’

  ‘I’d guess that when Maleverer told the Duke of Suffolk about Oldroyd’s words they meant something to him. He’d know secrets of state Maleverer wouldn’t.’