by C. J. Sansom
‘By the same token Craike is the only official we know. And you’ve missed one person who saw us with that box.’
‘Who?’
‘Master Wrenne.’
I frowned. ‘Giles? But he was not at King’s Manor when Oldroyd was killed.’
‘How do we know? He has authority to be here. Who would notice another black-robed lawyer? He could have come in early that morning and killed Oldroyd. Sir, I know you have become good friends with that old man, and I do not blame you for there are few enough friendly faces here. But if you are looking for someone who has links to the town, who knew Oldroyd and has access to St Mary’s, he does.’
‘But is he a man capable of killing? And consider his state of health. He is dying. He cares about nothing except reconciling with his nephew before he dies.’
‘Yes, you are right.’
‘You are right too, though in principle we should exclude nobody.’ I frowned, remembering my uneasy thought that Martin Dakin could be linked to the conspiracy. ‘Do you remember the Pilgrimage of Grace?’ I asked.
‘Ay. Lord Cromwell set me and some others to listening around London, to see how much support the rebels had.’ He looked at me seriously. ‘More than he thought.’
‘And there was gossip among the lawyers that some from Gray’s Inn were involved. Many from the northern counties practise there; like Robert Aske.’
‘No one was prosecuted.’
‘No. But I am reminded that Jennet Marlin’s fiancé practised there, as does Giles’s nephew. I hope he is safe.’ I sighed. ‘I am sorry, I digress. Let us move forward, to the attack at the camp.’
Barak gave a hollow laugh. ‘Jesu, there were hundreds there. Dereham and Culpeper, for example. Young Dereham saw us and he’s a fierce brute.’
‘Yes, he is. Could he have a connection to the spring conspiracy? The Queen’s secretary? He was in York when Oldroyd was killed. Remember we saw him at the inn? He was part of the advance party. Yes, we should consider him.’
‘Leacon was there,’ Barak added. ‘Radwinter, too; he has it in for you.’
‘No. He’s loyal to Cranmer, I am sure. Anything he knew about the conspiracy would go straight to Maleverer or the Archbishop.’ I rubbed my chin. ‘Craike was not at the camp but I had just seen him and I told him I was going there. Let us go tonight and visit this inn where he went.’
‘I might be better going alone.’
‘No, I’ll come. I need to be doing something. I am still in the dark. There was another thought I had. What if the attack on me at the camp happened for a different reason than the first one?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Rich’s threat. I was attacked once, if I was attacked again it would be assumed it was connected to the stolen papers.’ I shook my head. ‘Yet would Rich go to the trouble and risk of employing some rough to kill me, just because I have been tenacious on the Bealknap case?’
‘Too tenacious.’ Barak looked at me seriously. ‘Rich is capable of putting someone out of the way if they cause him trouble. But I doubt he’d do it just to get a troublesome lawyer off his back, especially when given time he can find the right judge.’
I sighed. ‘You are right. But Jesu, what a tangle. ’Tis hard to be the hunted rather than the hunter.’
‘That Titulus you found did not help?’
‘No. Though there are things in it that puzzle me. And we are left with this dangerous knowledge about the Queen. I still think we should tell Maleverer.’
‘But if we do, and Lady Rochford and the Queen and Culpeper deny it, as they will, what proof have we? We will be punished as troublemakers. And I do not want to place myself in Maleverer’s hands. He lied, you know, when he said the Titulus was a forgery. Couldn’t you write to Cranmer, tell him all that’s happened, let him deal with it?’
‘A letter wouldn’t get out of here unread. And it would take ten days for a reply to get back.’ I looked at him. ‘No, we’re stuck here. And I can’t trust anyone. Except you.’
Barak sighed. ‘Well, I said I would see Tamasin. I ought to go, if I may.’
‘Of course.’
‘She is afraid.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ll walk you back to the lodging house?’
We returned and arranged that Barak would be back at nine and we would visit the tavern. I went into my cubicle and locked the door. It was starting to get dark. I sighed. I seemed to be making trouble for everyone: Barak, young Leacon over that arbitration, and Broderick, whose life I had saved for the torturer. I saw again in my mind’s eye the King’s face as he smiled cruelly at me at Fulford. I shook my head. How that image kept haunting me, biting into my guts, somehow at the centre of everything that had happened. The Mouldwarp.
Chapter Twenty-six
THE BELLS OF THE Minster sounded loudly as Barak and I passed it, booming through the damp night air. It was dark, and we stumbled on the unpaved streets as we headed down the Fossgate towards the corner from which Barak had seen Master Craike emerge.
‘This is the way,’ Barak said.
He pointed down a narrow lane, the sky almost hidden by the overhanging top storeys of the tumbledown houses. Doors and shutters were closed, only strips of yellow light showing through warped timbers. A white board creaked and flapped in the wind at the far end of the lane. ‘That’s the alehouse sign,’ he said. ‘The White Hart.’
I studied it. ‘Seems a mean place. You’re right, Craike wouldn’t put folk from the Progress up there.’ I wrinkled my nose at the strong stench of piss from the alley.
‘Sure you want to come?’ Barak asked. ‘This is a rough spot.’
‘I want to find out what he was up to.’ I followed him into the lane, hand at my dagger. At his suggestion I had donned my cheapest-looking clothes. I looked at the doorways we passed; I had a sense of eyes watching. But no one had followed us from St Mary’s; we had watched and listened carefully.
Barak pushed open the door of the alehouse. It was the sort of poor place I expected, merely a room set with benches and tables and a hatch through which a slatternly looking woman passed home-brewed beer to the men in ragged clothes who sat on the benches lining the walls. The floor was bare and the room cold, without a fire. A dog, belonging to a pair of young Dalesmen in sheepskin coats who sat together by the wall, growled at us then barked loudly.
‘Down, Crag.’ The dog’s master laid a big hand on its back. ‘Look, Davey, here’s gentlemen come to’t White Hart.’
Barak went up to the bar and asked the landlady for two mugs of beer. She did not understand him at first and he had to repeat his request. ‘Southrons,’ the man with the dog said loudly to his friend. ‘Crag caught their stink.’
Barak turned to them. ‘We’ve just come for a drink, my friend,’ he said. ‘We want no trouble.’
I looked around uneasily. There were a dozen Yorkers there, all glaring at us with hostile expressions. The Dalesmen, from their looks, had been drinking for some time.
The woman handed two wooden mugs through the hatch. All the benches were taken; we could have found spaces if some of the customers had moved up but they sat where they were. We stood awkwardly. The Dalesman called Davey laughed.
‘Can thee not find a bink, maisters?’ He turned to his friend. ‘Tha should make a seat for the southron gentlemen, Alan. They must be gentlemen, they don’t allow the soldiers and servants into York. We should mebbe stand in their presence.’
‘I say we’re all made by one workman, of like mire,’ Alan replied.
‘I agree,’ Barak replied cheerfully. ‘From London to Carlisle, we are all one.’
‘Nay, maister. Not in riches, when all our rents go down to London.’
‘We’ve done well enough out of them today,’ his friend said. ‘Selling those poor nawtes of sheep to the purveyors for five nobles.’
‘Ay, but when the Progress leaves prices will fall again. Our folk can’t pay the money southrons can.’ He looked at us belligerent
ly, hunting for an argument. I took a sip of the foul-tasting beer.
‘Has tha come on business, maisters?’ one of the men on the benches asked, and to my surprise some of the others laughed.
‘Business?’ I repeated.
‘Ay, tha’ll not have come for our company.’ There was more laughter.
Just then a door opened and a tall stringy fellow in an apron appeared. He frowned at the Dalesmen then came over to us.
‘Can I help thee, maisters?’ he asked quietly.
I exchanged a look with Barak. Something more than the selling of ale was going on here.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Can you?’
The man inclined his head towards the door, and we were glad enough to follow him into a narrow passageway beyond, that stank of old beer. A candle burned in a lamp on the staircase. He closed the door. ‘I’m sorry about that, maisters. Southrons aren’t popular here.’
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Now then, how can you help us?’
‘Depends on your wants.’ He scanned our faces with narrow, calculating eyes.
‘A friend of mine was here a week or so ago. An official from the Progress. A large fellow with a fringe of fair hair.’
‘Ay.’ His face relaxed into a leer. ‘I remember him. Tell you what we have here, did he?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well.’ He smiled confidingly. ‘Tell me what your pleasure is. Sharp little nips from a girl with a dagger, or a belt-thrashing from an old carrion-whore, like your friend enjoys?’ He leered again. ‘I can arrange to indulge the most sinful lusts.’
I was taken aback. Whatever I had expected, it was not this. Barak stepped in. ‘You provide girls who cater for special tastes, hey?’
He nodded eagerly. ‘Tastes the ordinary houses don’t cater for. Boys, too, if you like. Got a good network in York, going back to the days of the monks. Sinful, some of those fellows were.’
‘Tell you what,’ Barak said quickly. ‘We’re making enquiries on behalf of one of the senior officials at St Mary’s, who doesn’t care to be seen here himself. I think you have what he wants. We’ll talk to him and come back. He wouldn’t want to be seen here, perhaps some private room?’
‘Ay, sir, that can be arranged.’
‘Here’s two shillings for your trouble in the meantime.’ Barak produced the coins and handed them over. The man looked at them.
‘He’d pay well, then? This official?’
‘Handsomely.’
The pimp’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s his name, maister?’
‘Now, you know better than that. Just wait for our return.’
‘Come in the morning, before we open. You won’t be bothered by the customers then.’
‘We will. And talking of that, is there a back way out of here?’
He nodded and led us to another door that gave on to the stinking alley. We walked quickly away, and did not relax till we reached the Fossgate again. Then Barak laughed loudly.
‘So that’s it. That pompous old fellow Craike likes to be whacked about by some old doxy. Wonder if he thinks about that as he shuffles his papers on that little desk of his.’
I looked at him. ‘You handled that very smoothly. As though you knew what you were doing.’
He shrugged again. ‘Lord Cromwell had contacts among the London whoremasters, especially fellows like that who deal with those who have outlandish tastes. Often the whoremasters could come up with the name of someone at court, and then they were in my master’s power.’
‘Blackmail?’
‘If you like.’
‘And you were involved?’
‘I was Lord Cromwell’s contact with some of the whoremasters, ay.’ Barak frowned at me. ‘You know well my duties were more than running errands. I didn’t like it much, if you have to know.’ He shrugged. ‘But if men of rank choose to delve in the stews, they take a risk.’
‘They do if there are spies about.’ I snapped my fingers. ‘I’ll wager that’s why he got to know Oldroyd. To find out if there were places like this in York.’
‘Only one way to find out. Ask him.’
I was reluctant to shame Craike, but realized there was no alternative. ‘I’ll see him tomorrow,’ I said. We walked on in silence for a time, then I asked, ‘Does Tamasin know about your work for Cromwell?’
‘Not the details.’ He looked at me sharply. ‘She doesn’t need to know those. After all, you have never enquired too closely before.’
‘I suppose I haven’t.’
‘It’s just as well I was able to work out what was going on there as quick as I did. Or we might have found ourselves presented with some salty old whores with birch-rods ready to beat hell out of us, and a little report going to someone at King’s Manor.’
I laughed. We walked on, our steps echoing on the cobbles. As Bootham Bar came into sight I asked him, ‘Have you thought any more about what we talked about? Your future?’
‘All I want now is to get safe back to London. And be sure I have one,’ he added grimly.
WE RETURNED LATE TO St Mary’s. It was eleven o’clock by the time the guard let us through the gate; everyone had retired to bed. A big, yellowish harvest moon had risen and in its dim light the helmeted soldiers continued their endless walks along the walls, more standing guard outside the tents and pavilions and the doors of King’s Manor, all its windows dark. I had heard the King was going hunting on the morrow; there was no word yet of the Scotch King’s arrival.
‘I’ve a meeting with Tamasin,’ Barak said. ‘I’ll come to the lodging house with you first.’
‘At this hour? Ah, in your secret love-nest?’ I did not mean the words to come out in the supercilious way they did. He gave me a sharp look. ‘Ay. She feels safe with me.’ ‘She will get in trouble if she is found out.’ ‘She won’t. After three months of the Progress half the servants in the Queen’s household have a dalliance with someone. And the Queen is hardly one to keep her ladies on a tight moral rein.’ He stepped ahead of me and walked briskly to the church. I realized I had annoyed him. One of the guards by the pavilions sneezed, making me jump. But I was glad of those armed men nearby. Always now at night my senses were alert for danger, for an assassin.
The monastic church was inhabited by a number of grooms who slept on blankets in the straw near the horses, their forms illuminated by candles burning in big iron sconces, five feet high. The gentlemen’s horses – over a hundred of them – stood quietly in their stalls, each stall with a paper pinned to the door with the name of the owner. It was a good system, enabling the horses owned by individuals to be readily available, while the huge herd of carthorses was left to browse in the fields. We walked down until I came to Genesis’ and Sukey’s stalls, side by side.
‘Let’s see how the horses are,’ I said.
‘All right.’
A young groom, rolled in his blanket on a pile of hay in the nave, sat up sleepily. He was a round-faced fellow in his teens, his smock covered with pieces of straw.
‘Who is it?’ He looked dubiously at our poor clothes.
‘We are the owners of these horses. We just came to see how they do.’
‘They are all well, sir.’
‘Good. Go back to sleep, fellow, we will only be a moment.’ We went over and spoke with the horses a little, stroking them. Genesis seemed happy enough in his stall but Barak’s Sukey was restless and pulled away from his hand.
‘Are you bored, here, Sukey?’ he asked. ‘Nothing to do? Well, hopefully we will soon be on our way. It all depends on the King of the Scotch.’
‘We walk them up and down the nave.’ The groom had got up. ‘We can’t take them out. There’s so much going on in the courtyard, we’re not allowed.’
‘I understand.’
‘When do you think King James will come, sir?’ he asked. ‘We are all anxious to move on again.’
‘I wish I knew,’ I said with a smile. ‘Well, we must to bed. Goodnight.’
We wa
lked on to the open north door of the church that led to the courtyard where the lodging house and the animal pens were. Barak looked left, along to the claustral buildings at the other end of the courtyard.
‘Waiting for you there, is she?’
‘Ay.’
‘Go on. I can walk to the lodging house alone.” I felt guilty for annoying him earlier.
‘Sure?’
‘Ay. Off you go. No one’s followed us through the church, I was looking out.’
He left me, and I turned along the path to the lodging house. Beside a pen full of black-faced sheep I saw the bear standing upright in its cage, resting its clawed arms on the iron bars of its cage. As I walked past it made a whimpering sound. I stopped and looked. Poor bruin, it must be in pain from its wounds. I stopped a few feet from the cage and studied it. It made a low, angry growling sound and shifted its stance. Its little eyes glinted at me. I caught a rank smell from the thick fur.
I thought of how it would have been captured in some far-off German forest, brought over to England in a boat, suffered taunts and beatings to keep it savage, then let loose in an arena full of dogs. The King would have relished that spectacle, I thought.
I heard a creak, metal against metal. I stared round wildly for at once I thought of the spit at the camp. But no one and nothing was near. I looked back at the cage. Something was different. Then I realized the door was opening. I saw a rope was fixed to the top, it was being pulled upwards from the back of the cage. The bear stepped back, its eyes still fixed on me. There was a clang as the door suddenly crashed back on the cage roof.
The beast stepped out and stood for a moment on the path, looking straight at me. There was a frantic bleating from the sheep-pen. The bear let out a hoarse roar and waved its big forelegs at me, the moonlight glinting on its long curved claws.
I stepped backwards. My hand went to my dagger, but it would be useless against a charge by this creature. The bear dropped to all fours and began walking towards me, growling horribly. It dragged one of its hind legs, which must have been injured in the baiting before the King; otherwise it would have been upon me in seconds. Even so it moved fast, its big claws scraping on the path. I turned and ran, back to the open door of the church, and raced inside; fearing every moment to feel those claws raking my back, the terrible weight of the huge creature felling me to the earth.