Sovereign

by C. J. Sansom

‘Yes. We do not go on to Hull till the first of October.’

  I set my lips. I wanted desperately to be on the boat to London, and here was more time lost. I turned back to Craike, remembering why I had sought him out. ‘Do you know where the Queen’s women-servants are camped?’ I asked. He looked at me narrowly. ‘Official business,’ I said.

  He pointed with his quill to a field where some tents were being set up a little away from the rest. ‘Over there.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, then essayed a smile. ‘I hope all goes smoothly with the arrangements.’ But he had already turned his back. I shook my head and began walking towards the field. As I approached I saw Tamasin herself coming towards me from the tents, holding the hem of her skirts clear of the wet grass. As she approached I saw her eyes were red from crying.

  ‘I came to find you,’ I said. ‘To tell you where we are.’

  ‘And I was about to come looking for you, sir.’ She gave me a watery smile and fell into step beside me. ‘How is Jack?’ she asked.

  ‘All right so long as he does not put weight on that leg. Grumpy.’

  ‘He will be.’

  I looked at her. ‘He told me Maleverer questioned you last night.’

  She gave a sardonic smile that sat ill on her feminine features. ‘So now you come to question me about it.’

  ‘I need to know what he said.’

  ‘He questioned all the Queen’s servants. But neither they nor I could tell him anything. Jennet talked to me of little beyond our duties and her fiancé in the Tower. And her early life. It was very sad. She was an unwanted orphan, only Master Locke was ever kind to her. There was much to pity in her life, for all that she did.’

  ‘Forgive me if I find it hard to sympathize.’

  Tamasin did not reply.

  ‘What about Lady Rochford? Jack said you told him that she seemed afraid when questioned?’

  ‘I was not there. I only heard that she shouted at Maleverer and he shouted back.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I think she calmed when she realized it was nothing to do with the Queen and Culpeper. Culpeper has not been near for days.’

  I looked at her. ‘You have been crying. Were you afraid too?’

  She met my gaze. ‘I have been crying for Jennet. I cannot help it. She was kind to me, she treated me almost like a daughter.’ She hesitated. ‘What will happen to her body?’

  ‘I have no idea. Left behind for burial at Howlme, probably. She tried to kill me, Tamasin.’

  The girl gave a heartfelt sigh. ‘I know. I do not understand any of it.’

  ‘She acted at her fiancé’s bidding, she admitted it herself. Her motive was love,’ I added starkly. ‘Love turned to obsession, excluding all other feelings.’

  ‘Yes, she loved that man. It consumed her. What will happen to him now?’

  ‘He will be questioned about this.’

  ‘Harshly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That love could drive someone to do such evil, it is hard to believe.’

  ‘It is what can happen when one gives oneself over entirely to feeling.’

  She looked at me curiously. ‘Is that what you believe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I am sorry for you, sir.’

  I gave her a stern look. ‘You know, Tamasin, some would say that trick you played with Jack the day we came to York was a sign of – not obsession, but – a lack of proportion.’

  ‘We make our way in life by action, sir,’ she said. ‘Not endless talk.’

  ‘Do we? Are you turned instructress now, to teach me?’

  Tamasin turned her head away.

  ‘So Jennet told you nothing that could help us fathom her plans?’

  ‘No.’ She kept her head averted.

  ‘You must have talked with her about those stolen papers. After Maleverer questioned both of you at King’s Manor?’

  ‘We did not. She was not interested, or so it seemed.’

  I looked at the side of her averted head. She was angry with me. I felt my old irritation against the girl rise again.

  We reached the place where Giles and Barak were sitting on the grass. Barak heard us, looked up and waved at Tamasin. ‘Jack,’ she called eagerly, and ran towards him.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  WE STAYED AT LECONFIELD three days, in tents in the meadow beyond the moat. The King had business to conduct, we heard; the Scots were raiding the border villages, a sure sign James was not interested in a rapprochement with England. Perhaps the strengthening of the defences at Hull was no bad idea after all.

  Those on the Progress were forbidden to wander beyond the fields that surrounded the camp but I did not go even that far; I stayed in my tent, resting. It did me good, and I felt myself relaxing, able to distance myself a little from my brush with death at Howlme. My only exercise was my daily visit to Broderick’s carriage, which stood closely guarded in a neighbouring field. Broderick seemed to have retreated into himself, lying silently on his pallet and barely acknowledging my presence. Radwinter said little either; he was surly and there was none of his usual verbal sparring. Perhaps my accusation of madness had finally struck a nerve.

  ON MY FIRST MORNING at Leconfield I nerved myself to go and see Maleverer again. The guards directed me to an inner courtyard of the castle. As I entered my heart sank, for he was walking and talking with Richard Rich. They looked at me in surprise. I took off my cap and bowed.

  ‘Master Shardlake again,’ Rich said, a smile on his narrow face. I remembered he had seen me coming out of the Queen’s tent at Howlme when Lady Rochford had summoned me, and wondered if he would refer to that, but he only said, ‘I hear you have escaped assassination. By a woman. God’s death, it would have made my life easier had she got you. I would not be put to the trouble of sorting out the Bealknap case.’ He laughed, Maleverer joining in sycophantically.

  I was so used to Rich’s mockery that it made no impact on me now. I looked at Maleverer. ‘It was about Mistress Marlin that I wished to speak to you, Sir William.’

  Maleverer turned to Rich. ‘He’s a clever fellow, this. Sometimes he has good ideas. He delved out the truth about Broderick’s poisoning.’

  ‘He delves too much,’ Rich growled. ‘I will leave you, Sir William, we can talk about that piece of business later.’ He walked away.

  Maleverer gave me an irritated look. ‘Well, Brother Shardlake?’

  I told him I had been puzzling over Jennet Marlin’s behaviour to me at the beacon. ‘I have wondered whether it was she who attacked me at King’s Manor. She never actually said so, and it is strange that I was left alive only to be hunted by her later.’ I looked at him. ‘Perhaps to keep them from you, and show to Cranmer.’

  He frowned and bit at one of his long yellow fingernails. ‘That would mean those papers are in the hands of the conspirators after all.’

  ‘Yes, Sir William, it would.’

  ‘You have been thinking too much. If the conspirators had the papers they’d have used them by now.’

  ‘They might be waiting for – for the right opportunity.’

  He looked at me narrowly. ‘Have you told anyone else about this notion of yours?’

  ‘Only Barak.’

  Maleverer grunted. ‘And what does he say?’

  I hesitated. ‘He, too, thinks it is speculation.’

  ‘There you are then. Forget about it. Do you hear, forget it.’ He frowned mightily.

  I thought, if he passed this on to the Privy Council and they thought the papers might be in the conspirators’ hands after all, it would harm his reputation just when he thought all was mended.

  ‘Very well, Sir William.’ I bowed and turned to go. As I reached the gateway he called me back.

  ‘Master Shardlake!’

  ‘Yes, Sir William.’

  His face was angry, troubled. ‘Sir Richard Rich is right. You are a bothersome man.’

  OVER THE NEXT couple of days the weather remained fine, if a little colder each day. Leconfield
was a pretty place, the castle and the surrounding meadows enclosed by woodland bright with autumn colour. Nonetheless the time passed slowly. Barak and Giles and I spent hours in my tent playing cards, swathed in coats. When we had lost all our money to Barak we switched to chess, and Giles and I taught him the game using chesspieces I drew on scraps of paper. We did not see Tamasin, for it would not have been proper for her to come to our tents. Barak met her most evenings, stumping round the camp with her; he had progressed to a stick now. Tamasin had been avoiding me since our quarrel in the field. She must have told Barak, for he had been a little uncomfortable with me since then.

  On the morning of the third day I stood with Giles in front of my tent, looking at the woods in their autumn colours. I thought he seemed noticeably thinner now, less a solid oak of a man.

  ‘How are you?’ I asked.

  ‘I have some pain,’ he said quietly. ‘But the cold in these tents is the worst thing. It saps my energy.’ He looked at his big hands, adjusting his emerald ring. ‘I am losing weight. This ring will fall off if I am not careful. I would be sorry to lose it; it was my father’s.’

  ‘Perhaps in Hull we will have brick walls around us again and a fire. ’Tis a large town, I believe.’

  ‘I have already taken care of that.’ He winked at me. ‘Some gold has passed from me to one of Master Craike’s underlings, it has secured me a room at an inn. You and Barak too.’

  ‘That is generous, Giles.’

  ‘No.’ He smiled wryly. ‘I might as well put my money to good use. Soon enough I will have no need of it. Jesu, but I miss my fire, and Madge to wait on me.’ He looked at me. ‘I have left her well provided for in my will, she will end her old age in comfort. And you will have my library.’

  ‘Me?’ I was taken aback.

  ‘You are the only man I know who will appreciate it. But give those old lawbooks to Gray’s Inn library. I should like my old Inn to have them.’

  ‘But – your nephew. . .’

  ‘Martin will have my house, and everything else. I made a new will before I left York. But I want to see him, to tell him.’

  I put a hand on his arm. ‘You will.’

  For a moment he looked sad. Then we both jumped at the blast of a hunting horn. We saw, some way off, a procession of brightly robed riders heading for the woods, a huge pack of greyhounds loping along beside the horses.

  ‘The King is going hunting,’ Giles said. ‘I hear he walks and rides so badly now he has to stand in a hide with his bow and arrow, and shoot at the stags as the hounds and keepers drive them by. He that was called the greatest athlete in Europe in his youth.’

  The King. The true King, I wondered again.

  NEXT AFTERNOON we were told to make ready, we would be moving on to Hull the following day, the first of October. The new month came in with winds and heavy rain from the east, making it a miserable business getting the Progress together in the early morning, finding our horses and our place in the cavalcade. The fields had turned to mud, all the cart wheels and even the hems of the senior officials’ robes were spattered with it. Barak was better able to ride now, the enforced rest had helped his leg. He probably wished he was back in his covered cart, though, as we rode slowly along with our heads bent against the driving rain.

  Mercifully it stopped later that morning as we approached the town of Beverley. We passed through quickly, then went on through more flat countryside, white church steeples marking the occasional villages. The road began descending slowly, past fields of rich black soil, and late in the afternoon we saw a wide grey estuary in the distance, broader than the Thames at London and dotted with sails.

  ‘Nearly there.’ Giles, riding beside me, spoke with relief.

  ‘Just the boat home now,’ I said. My own heart lifted at the thought. ‘That is the Humber, then? ’Tis wide.’

  ‘It is. We will sail down there, past Spurn Head, and into the German Ocean.’

  ‘Have you visited Hull before?’

  ‘Once or twice, on legal business. The last time near twenty years ago. See, there are the walls.’ I followed his pointing finger and saw, bounded by the grey estuary and a smaller river running into it at right angles, a walled town. It was smaller than I had expected, not half the size of York.

  ‘The walls are an odd colour,’ I said. ‘Reddish.’

  ‘They’re brick,’ Wrenne said. ‘All the bricks in Yorkshire come through Hull.’

  As we approached the city I saw a large group of dignitaries standing outside the walls, waiting to greet the King on this his second visit. The Progress drew to a halt and we sat waiting for some time as the royal party was welcomed in. Because of the press of people ahead I could not see them. I was glad, for even the sight of the assembled dignitaries had brought Fulford back to me, the thought of which still made me hot with shame and anger. I glimpsed Dereham and Culpeper, sitting on horseback among the courtiers.

  At length officials began moving to and fro among us, directing people where they were to spend the night. I saw Master Craike among them, checking queries against papers on his portable desk. It was as well they were held down with a clip, for the wind was ruffling them. He came over to where we sat.

  ‘Master Shardlake,’ he said. ‘You are to have accommodation at an inn. You and Master Wrenne and your man Barak. It seems someone has approved it.’ He gave us a suspicious look and I wondered if he smelt bribery. Some of the other lawyers nearby, who would be sleeping in tents in the fields again, looked on enviously.

  ‘I am to escort those with town lodgings into Hull now, if you would walk along. Your horses will be taken and stabled.’

  So Giles and Barak and I walked into the city with Craike. We were among a fortunate group of officials, mostly far more senior than us, who had billets in Hull. As we approached the red-brick walls I saw another skeleton hanging in chains from the ramparts. Sir Robert Constable, I guessed, in whose mansion the King had stayed at Howlme. Wrenne averted his eyes, distaste clear on his face.

  We walked under the gate and down a long main street Craike told me was named Lowgate. The buildings seemed in better repair than in York, the people a little more prosperous. They looked at us with a lack of interest as they stepped out of the way. This was the King’s second visit; they had seen it all before.

  ‘How long do we stay here?’ I asked Craike.

  ‘I do not know. The King wants to make plans for the new defences.’

  ‘Where is he staying?’

  Craike pointed to our left, where a clutch of tall chimneys overtopped the red-roofed houses. ‘His manor house here. It used to belong to the de la Pole family.’

  Yet another house he has taken, I thought. Craike seemed reluctant to converse, but I persisted. ‘We have to get back to London by boat. Will many return that way?’

  ‘No, after Hull the Progress will cross the river and ride to Lincoln. It breaks up there.’

  ‘We have to return to London as soon as possible.’

  Craike flattened his papers with a plump hand as the wind lifted them again. He looked up at the sky where grey clouds were scudding along. ‘Then I hope the weather allows you to sail.’ He stopped before the door of an inn. ‘Well, here you are.’

  Inside a number of gentlemen were already waiting. They looked down their noses at our lawyer’s robes. Craike bowed to us. ‘I must get back, my staff will doubtless have messed up the allocations. It is a nightmare.’ He turned and left.

  ‘Not the friendliest of men,’ Wrenne observed.

  Barak, leaning on his crutch, grinned wickedly. ‘He has things on his mind.’

  BARAK AND I HAD a pleasant room at the back of the inn, Wrenne the one next to us. There was a fire, and a view over red-roofed houses sloping down to the muddy banks of the smaller river. The rain had started again, large drops streaking the little diamond-paned window. Barak sat down on the bed with relief. I looked at my panniers, unsure how much to unpack. Then I heard heavy footsteps on the stairs. The door opene
d without a knock and Maleverer strode in. He looked around the room.

  ‘You’ve done well for yourself,’ he said sardonically. ‘I came to tell you Broderick is in Hull gaol. With Radwinter. One wing has been cleared of prisoners.’ He ran his hand along the edge of his coal-black beard in that habitual gesture of his. ‘I have new orders about him from the Privy Council. We don’t know when we’ll get back to London with this weather.’

  ‘There may be delay?’ I asked.

  ‘There may. So the King has ordered that Broderick is to be groped here in Hull. There’s a rack at Hull gaol. I’m supervising the racking myself.’

  I had hoped, all this time, that somehow Broderick might escape what was coming to him. And now it would be done tomorrow.

  ‘He is weak,’ I said.

  Maleverer shrugged. ‘It has to be done. We don’t think he knows exactly what was in that damned box of papers, but he may. And he may know the names of the London conspirators. We always knew there were London lawyers at the heart of the conspiracy, but we’ve not been able to lay them by the heels.’ Maleverer cracked his fingers noisily. ‘So, we’ll see what can be got out of him tomorrow. And meanwhile they’ll be getting information about Mistress Marlin’s mission from Bernard Locke, in the Tower.’

  I looked into his heavy, heartless face. For him it was just a task, another job. He gave me another quick, harsh smile, then left. Barak looked at the closed door. ‘Jesu. He’s a hard one. Hard as Lord Cromwell.’

  I SLEPT LITTLE that night. I lay awake thinking of what was coming to Broderick, remembering his mocking accusations that I was keeping him alive for the torturer. And for Bernard Locke it would have come already. Maleverer’s heartlessness made me shudder. In the small hours I got up, quietly so as not to wake Barak, who was snoring gently, and crossed to the window. The night was pitch dark, a high wind hammering raindrops against the panes. I wondered if Broderick was awake in his cell, perhaps trying to steel himself for the rack. A wet beech-leaf blew against the glass. Curled up on itself, it looked like an accusing finger.