Coincidence

by C. J. Sansom

  ‘Where did it start? Think a moment, get this right.’

  ‘With Richard Duke of York, father of Edward IV. And his wife, Duchess Cecily Neville.’

  Maleverer sighed, a sigh that turned into a bitter laugh. ‘Oh yes. Everything starts with Cecily Neville.’ I noticed a look of strain about his face. ‘Do you think you could draw that tree?’

  ‘Yes. I think so.’

  He nodded. ‘Ay. Lawyers ever had good memories for papers, that they may quote them to ordinary men to puzzle them. Do that today, but in secret, and get Barak there to bring it to me.’

  ‘I will, sir.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘There was a scribbled paper that claimed to tell of a legend from the days of Merlin, that our present King would rouse God’s enmity and be driven from the realm.’ I hesitated. ‘It called him the Mouldwarp.’

  Maleverer smiled cynically. ‘The Mouldwarp legend. Those fake prophecies were circulated by the hundred during the Pilgrimage of Grace. Sounds like this box may have been full of rubbish. What else?’

  ‘The third document was written on parchment. It was an official copy of an Act of Parliament. But one I have never heard of. It was called the Titulus Regulus.’

  Maleverer’s head jerked forward. ‘What?’ He hesitated, then asked, very quietly, ‘Did you read it?’

  ‘No. Only the title page. It was from the reign of Richard III.’

  Maleverer was silent a moment, running a finger along the edge of his black beard. ‘That was not a real Act of Parliament,’ he said at length. ‘It was a fake.’

  ‘But the seal —’

  ‘God’s body, did you not near me! It was a forgery.’ He leaned forward. ‘Produced by the followers of Lambert Simnel, who pretended to be one of the Princes in the Tower and challenged the King’s father.’

  It was clear he was lying – mention of that Act had shaken Maleverer to the core.

  ‘And the fourth document?’ he asked.

  ‘Different again. An old scrawled paper. It claimed to be a confession. By a man named Edward Blaybourne. It said it was made in contemplation of death, that the world might know of his great sin.’

  Maleverer seemed to have stopped breathing for a moment. ‘And that great sin,’ he said very quietly. ‘Did he say what it was?’

  ‘I had got no further when I was struck down.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ His voice was scarce above a whisper. I looked back at him steadily.

  ‘Yes.’

  He considered a moment. ‘You said the paper was old. There was no date on it?’

  ‘Not at the head of the paper, at least.’ I hesitated. ‘Blaybourne, that was the name Master Oldroyd mentioned.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, it was. That glazier was not what he seemed, he was part of the conspiracy to topple the King from his throne this spring.’ He gave me a long hard look. ‘Do you swear you read no more than you have told me, that you do not know what Blaybourne’s sin was? Think before you answer. If you lie you make yourself liable to great penalties.’

  ‘I will swear on the Bible, sir.’

  He stared at me a long moment, then looked away. For a moment he seemed distracted. Then he glared at us again. ‘You fools. If only you had left that box alone, got those papers to me.’ He clenched his big fists. ‘Right, the boy.’

  ‘The apprentice?’

  ‘Ay. Barak said you saw him looking at a spot on his master’s bedroom wall, it was there you found that casket. I’d no time to question him yesterday, I was summoned to the Privy Council.’ He nodded to the guard. ‘Let’s have him brought up.’

  The guard left. Maleverer sat behind his desk. He picked up a quill and began writing rapidly, pausing occasionally to ask me to confirm a point about the papers I had seen. He was making notes of what I had said. I looked uneasily at Barak, glad I had spoken only the truth.

  ‘Sir,’ I ventured. ‘May I ask whom these notes are for?’

  ‘The Privy Council,’ he answered bluntly, without raising his head.

  There was a knock at the door. The guard, helped by another, dragged the red-headed apprentice into the room. He was in a terrible state, his cheek and lip both thick and bloodied where Maleverer had struck him. He was dressed only in his shirt, and the long tail, which barely covered his arse, was streaked with faeces, as were the backs of his fat legs. The stink from him was enough to make me recoil.

  ‘He shit himself on the way,’ the guard said.

  Maleverer laughed. ‘Better than doing it in here. Let him go.’ The guards released the apprentice, who staggered a moment then stood looking at Sir William, his protuberant eyes almost starting from his head.

  ‘Well, boy,’ he said. ‘Ready to talk?’

  ‘Maister!’ The boy wrung his hands together. ‘Maister, I bain’t done nowt. For mercy.’

  ‘Stop whining!’ Maleverer raised a big fist. ‘Unless you want some more teeth out.’ The boy gulped and fell into a tremulous silence. ‘Now then, remember these gentlemen were talking to you yesterday, before I came?’

  Green cast a fearful look at us. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The lawyer said he saw you looking at a spot on the wall in Master Oldroyd’s bedroom. Today he went back and found a hole concealed in the wall, with’ – he pointed to the casket – ‘that inside.’ The boy’s gaze swivelled round to the casket, and paled with fear.

  ‘I see you recognize it,’ he said sharply. ‘Tell me what you know about it.’

  Green gulped several times before he could speak. ‘Maister had visitors sometimes, that he would take to his bedroom to talk in secret. Once I – I – looked through the keyhole, out of curiosity – I know it was a wicked thing, t’devil made me do it. I saw them sitting on the bed, reading a whole lot of papers. I saw the hole in the wall, and the box. I heard one of them say these would be enough to do for the – the King . . .’

  ‘Did they say the King?’ Maleverer asked, catching the hesitation.

  ‘No, maister. They said – they said the old Mouldwarp.’ Green shrank back in fear, but Maleverer only nodded.

  ‘After that I were afeard, I didn’t want to hear no more, I went away.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘At the start of the year. January, there was snow on the ground.’

  ‘You should have come to the Council of the North, if you had heard words against the King,’ Maleverer said threateningly.

  ‘I – I were afeard, sir.’

  Maleverer sat looking at Green for a long moment, then spoke quietly. ‘Now, boy, I want you to tell me who those men were. If you lie, you can expect a good taste of the thumbscrews and the rack in York gaol. Do you understand?’

  Green had turned pale and started to tremble. ‘I – I’d never seen them before. They came many times, from the back end of last year till the conspiracy was discovered in the spring. They weren’t from the town, I’d have known them. They always came after dark, when business was done.’

  ‘Describe them.’

  ‘One was tall and fair and had a harelip.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Thirty-five or so, maister. He had a gentleman’s voice, sir, though he dressed poorly. T’was that I found strange, it made me curious.’

  ‘Hm. And the other?’

  ‘He was a gentleman too, though he had a strange accent, as though he’d lived in the south. He sounded a little like him.’ He pointed to me with a trembling finger.

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘The same age, mayhap a bit older. He had brown hair and a thin face. I – I am sorry, maister, that is all I know, if I knew more I would tell you, I swear.’ And then he sank to his knees with a thud and wrung his hands together, raising them to Maleverer in supplication. ‘Oh, maister, have mercy, don’t send me to t’gaol, I can’t tell you more than I know.’

  ‘All right. I’m letting you go, but breathe a word of this and you’ll be in irons before you can turn round. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, maist
er. I—’

  ‘Guards!’ Maleverer called. The two soldiers entered. ‘Take this snivelling wretch and put him out of doors.’

  ‘Shall we give him clean clothes and a wash?’

  ‘Nay.’ Maleverer gave a bark of laughter. ‘Put him out on the road as he is, bare-arsed and shitty-legged. He can make his way through the town like that, it’ll be a lesson to him not to meddle with things he shouldn’t.’ They dragged the apprentice out. A minute later he appeared in the courtyard outside. We watched from the window, Maleverer grinning broadly, as he ran for the gate, trying at the same time to pull his shirt down to cover himself as people laughed at the sight. Maleverer turned to us.

  ‘I’ll have him followed and watched,’ he said. He took a deep breath. ‘The fair man that Green described was the clothier Thomas Tattershall. He was executed in June, damn it, he can’t tell us any more. Who the other man might be I have no idea. The conspirators were careful – they organized themselves in cells, each man knew only two or three others and only some elements of the conspiracy, not all. But this matter of those papers went right to the top.’ He gave me a sudden evil look. ‘To have found those papers, and then lost them. If you’d left matters alone I’d have got the information out of the boy, then had the box fetched.’

  ‘I am sorry, Sir William.’

  He looked out of the window again. ‘It seems whoever killed Oldroyd attacked you, and would have killed you if Craike hadn’t appeared – unless it was Craike. But, if not Craike, who?’

  ‘Someone who wants those papers, whom Oldroyd perhaps refused to give them to.’ I hesitated. ‘Someone who has the run of King’s Manor. They got the keys to the chapterhouse from somewhere.’

  Maleverer turned and looked at me, for the first time, without contempt. ‘Ay. A good point. That could all incriminate Craike.’ He began pacing up and down, his big feet in their heavy boots making the floorboards creak. ‘When I reported Oldroyd’s death to the Duke of Suffolk, and mentioned the name Blaybourne, all hell broke loose. I was ordered by the Privy Council itself to take over the investigation. And keep it secret. Who or what Blaybourne is I know not, except that there is some connection to the prisoner Broderick.’

  ‘Does Radwinter know anything?’

  ‘No. Only the Privy Council, and Cranmer in London. Better Oldroyd had not mentioned that name, Master Shardlake, he threw you into a hornets’ nest. When the Privy Council hear you have been responsible for losing those papers, you may hear sharp words from them, be warned.’ He shook his head, his jaw twitching as he clenched his teeth in anger and frustration.

  ‘We are sorry,’ I said again.

  ‘Pox on sorry. Sorry does not help.’ He came up to us and stood looking down at me, so I had to bend my neck painfully to meet his gaze. I caught the ripe stink of a man who has ridden hard. ‘Did you tell anyone the glazier’s words? Of his words about the King and Queen, of that name Blaybourne?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  He went over and picked up the box, turning it over in his big hairy hands. ‘This is old, a hundred years at least. And very finely made, valuable. Odd thing to choose as a strongbox. He frowned thoughtfully. ‘Who could have known you were here with the box? Who saw you?’

  ‘A hundred people in the courtyard could have seen it. But people that we knew? Master Craike, of course, whom we asked for the key. Lady Rochford and her lady Mistress Marlin in the hall. They were with a bearded young man who laughed at some plaster I had on my coat.’

  He grunted. ‘That’ll be Francis Dereham, Queen Catherine’s secretary. A young fool.’

  ‘Then there was the young guard at the gate, Sergeant Leacon. Master Wrenne, too, and his boy.’ I hesitated, for mention of Mistress Marlin had brought the girl Tamasin to mind.

  ‘What?’ Maleverer asked sharply. ‘What else?’

  I looked at Barak, then took a deep breath. ‘There was something we discovered this morning, sir.’ I looked quickly at Barak again. ‘I think we must tell you. It involves one of the Queen’s servants, a Mistress Reedbourne.’ Barak set his lips as I told Maleverer what we had learned about the staged robbery.

  ‘We’ll resolve that one now,’ Maleverer said firmly. He opened the door and spoke to the guard. Barak gave me an accusing look. I could see he was wondering, as I was, whether Tamasin might be subjected to the same treatment Maleverer had meted out to Green. The fact she was a woman would mean nothing to Maleverer. ‘We mustn’t hold anything back from him now,’ I whispered intently. ‘Nothing. Don’t you see the danger we’re in?’

  Maleverer returned. ‘She’s being fetched. And that Marlin woman too.’ We waited in tense silence for a minute, then footsteps were audible outside, there was a knock, and two guards thrust a terrified-looking Tamasin Reedbourne, an apron over a working dress, into the room. Behind her Jennet Marlin followed. She cast Maleverer a look of such hatred my eyes widened in surprise. Maleverer met her look with an unpleasant smile. Tamasin stared in horror at the caked blood on the side of my head.

  Maleverer went over to them. He glanced at Tamasin briefly, then looked at the older woman. ‘Mistress Marlin, I think.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Mistress Marlin replied coldly. ‘Why have we been brought here? Lady Rochford would expect —’

  ‘Piss Lady Rochford.’ He turned back to the white-faced Tamasin, and stood over her, his arms folded. ‘Now then, Mistress Reedbourne. You know who I am?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She gulped. ‘Sir William Maleverer.’

  ‘And you and Mistress Marlin were sent with Lady Rochford to York, to ensure the arrangements at King’s Manor for the Queen were satisfactory. You are a kitchenmaid?’

  ‘A confectioner, sir,’ she ventured.

  ‘A scullion. You are under Mistress Marlin’s orders?’

  ‘Yes, she is,’ Jennet Marlin said. ‘And I am under Lady Rochford’s.’

  ‘Shut your gob, I didn’t ask you.’ He turned back to Tamasin. ‘Now then, these gentlemen bring me a strange tale.’ I saw Barak look at Tamasin with an anguished expression as Maleverer towered over the girl, intimidating her with his height. ‘They say you faked a robbery to make their acquaintance. They have evidence. Now, Master Shardlake here is involved in important matters of state. He may not look like it but he is. So, you will tell me, now, why you played this game, and whether your mistress is involved.’

  Tamasin stood silent a moment, then seemed to compose herself; her breathing steadied and the colour came back to her cheeks.

  ‘It was not Master Shardlake whose acquaintance I sought to make,’ she said clearly. ‘But Master Barak. I saw him ride by in the city, I liked his looks so well. Then I saw him pass by again, and thought to make him stop. The city was full of beggar lads, I knew they’d do it for a shilling.’ She glanced at Barak, her face quite red now, then back at Maleverer. ‘It was worth a shilling,’ she said, a note of defiance in her voice.

  Maleverer slapped her hard across the face. Barak took a step forward. I gripped his arm, the sudden movement making my head throb. Tamasin put a hand to her cheek but did not cry out, only looked at the floor, trembling.

  ‘Don’t speak to me like that, you malapert creature,’ Maleverer snapped. ‘That was all there was to it, then – you hatched this plan because you liked the look of that churl?’

  ‘That was all, sir. I swear.’

  Maleverer took hold of her chin and lifted her head roughly to look her in the eye.

  ‘You are a wilful, saucy, unbroken wench. Mistress Marlin, you will see this girl’s behaviour is reported to Lady Rochford. It will serve you right if you are set back on the road to London. That is where you are from, by your tones?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then get out, back to your fellow scullions. And you, Mistress Marlin, keep a better eye on your servants instead of going around whining about how hard done by your fiancé is and making everyone laugh at you.’

  Mistress Marlin reddened. ‘So this is why we were brought here? You feared
I had involved Tamasin in some plot? That I am not loyal?’ Her voice rose. ‘I am made a victim again as poor Bernard has been.’ Maleverer stepped over to her but she did not quail, looking him hard in the eye. I had to admire her courage.

  ‘Do you want a slap too, you prune-faced baggage? Don’t think I wouldn’t give you one.’

  ‘I do not doubt it, sir.’

  ‘Oh get out, both of you. You’re wasting my time.’ He turned away and the women left the room, Tamasin scarlet-faced.

  Maleverer gave Barak a look of distaste. ‘So that was all it was. God’s nails, the things the royal servants get up to on this Progress. They could both do with a whipping.’ He turned to me. ‘You said that Marlin creature saw you bring the box into the hall? You know her?’

  ‘I have spoken with her briefly,’ I said. ‘She told me of her fiancé in the Tower.’

  ‘She talks of nothing else. For all her local knowledge, she should not have been allowed to come on the Progress – she is fixated on the innocence of that papist Bernard Locke. She has been after him since she was a girl. It took her until she was thirty and his first wife dead before she cozened him into proposing. And then he gets snatched away to the Tower.’ He gave a bark of laughter. ‘Right. Go and make a copy of that family tree. And be careful, the eyes of the Privy Council will be looking at it. I shall have Master Wrenne in here to question.’ He must have seen my face fall, for he added, ‘You do not wish that?’

  ‘It is only – he seems a harmless old fellow.’

  ‘Harmless?’ Maleverer gave another bark of humourless laughter. ‘How do you know who is harmless and who is not in this place?’

  OUTSIDE, THEY WERE MAKING the final arrangements for the Progress. Great drapes of cloth of gold were being set in layers over the tents. A queue of carts stretched from the gate to the church, loaded with bales of hay: the bedding and fodder for all the horses that would soon arrive. It was cold, with a raw wind, the sky grey. I took a deep breath, and felt giddy for a moment. Barak took my arm.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes.’ I looked at him. ‘I am sorry about Mistress Reedbourne, but I had to tell him what I knew.’