Sovereign ms-3

by C. J. Sansom

  I decided to walk through the church and see what was happening in the main courtyard. A dim light came through the windows, but all round the side-chapels, where once candles would have been lit before saints’ images, stood empty and dim. I went over to the horses and spoke a few words to Genesis and Sukey, then walked on. Halfway down I was puzzled to hear a scraping, chinking noise, repeated over and over. Turning, I saw above me the shape of Master Oldroyd, already at work hacking at the lead round a stained-glass window.

  I came out into the main courtyard. All was silent here too, the huge pavilions ghostly shapes in the mist. The gate on to Bootham was closed, a guard leaning on his pike and yawning sleepily. Lights flickered, however, at the window of the abbot’s house, and a few officials were already standing around the doorway, stamping their feet and coughing.

  ‘Master Shardlake. Sir!’ I turned at the sound of a woman’s voice. The girl Tamasin, wearing a fine hooded coat of demi-worsted, was walking towards me. I halted.

  ‘Mistress Reedbourne.’

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ she said with a curtsy. ‘I am glad we are met. I would like to thank you properly for your help yesterday.’ She looked around through the fog. ‘Is Master Barak with you?’

  ‘He is abed yet,’ I said. ‘And you, Mistress Reedbourne, is it not early for you to be abroad?’ I thought again of yesterday’s adventure. It was convenient for her the assault should have happened just as we rode past.

  She smiled at me. ‘I am to meet my mistress, Jennet Marlin, and go over to the cooks. Lady Rochford is unhappy with the arrangements for the Queen’s privy kitchen. My mistress has a busy day ahead and wished to start early.’

  I eyed her narrowly. So she worked for Jennet Marlin, the sour-looking woman who had been with Lady Rochford yesterday.

  ‘I fear Mistress Marlin is still abed too,’ the girl said, drawing her coat round her. ‘But I have to wait for her here.’

  I nodded. ‘Well, I must be on my way,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps I may see Master Barak again,’ she continued, unabashed by my cool manner. ‘And thank him.’

  ‘We shall be very busy. I doubt our paths will cross.’

  ‘They may, if we are all lodged here -’

  She broke off suddenly, and we both jerked round as a great scream sounded through the fog from the direction of the church: it was a terrible, animal sound, inhumanly loud, and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. An official in a red robe walking towards the works stopped dead, his mouth falling open.

  ‘What in Jesu’s name…’ the girl breathed.

  The dreadful sound came again, closer, and suddenly a huge blurry shape appeared, charging through the mist. It hit the red-robed official, knocking him aside like a skittle, then charged on, straight to where Tamasin and I stood.

  Chapter Five

  IT WAS AN ENORMOUS HORSE, the glazier’s; I recognized it in the same moment that I grabbed the girl and jumped back, just in time for I felt the wind of its passing and caught the stink of its sweat. I almost fell, but Tamasin, reacting quickly, put her hand on my back and managed to steady me. I hate being touched there but for the moment scarcely registered it. We stared at the great horse. It had run up to the wall of the manor and stood there at bay, trembling, its eyes rolling wildly and its mouth flecked with foam. I turned to the girl. ‘Are you all right?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ She looked at me oddly. ‘You saved me.’ ‘We’d only have been knocked over,’ I said brusquely. ‘See, yonder fellow is getting up.’ I pointed to the official the horse had set spinning; he was rising painfully to his feet, his red robe covered in mud. People were running out of the abbot’s house, fetched by the din, including a couple of guards with drawn swords. They approached the horse; with another shrill scream it reared up on its hind legs and kicked out, causing them to jump back hastily, for those gigantic hairy hooves could have smashed their skulls. I stared at the animal that had passed me so peacefully the night before. What had happened to drive it near-mad?

  ‘Leave it!’ someone called. ‘Leave it and it’ll calm.’ The crowd stood back, forming a semicircle round the horse. It stood still, shivering, rolling terrified eyes at the crowd.

  ‘God’s teeth, what has happened? Are you all right, Master Shardlake?’ I turned at a voice at my elbow. Master Craike had appeared and was staring open-mouthed at the scene.

  ‘Ay. It’s the glazier’s horse, something has terrified it.’

  ‘Goodman Oldroyd?’ Craike looked around. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I can’t see him.’

  He stared at the terrified horse. ‘That animal is usually the quietest of beasts. It didn’t even need tying up. Master Oldroyd would leave it to graze beside his cart.’

  I looked at him. ‘Will you come with me, sir, to see what has happened?’

  The crowd was growing, servants from the house and half-dressed workmen from the tents milling around. I saw the sergeant I had spoken with the evening before hurrying over with a little group of soldiers.

  ‘Ay, sir,’ Craike said. ‘I will come.’ He looked at Tamasin, still standing beside me. ‘I am surprised you are about so early, girl, and alone.’

  ‘I am waiting for Mistress Marlin.’

  ‘I think you should go indoors,’ I said firmly. She hesitated a moment, then curtsied low and walked away. Craike went over to the sergeant and I followed. I saw Tamasin had stopped on the edge of the crowd and was still looking on. I remembered her hand on my back and I must have glared at her, for she turned then and walked back to the house.

  Craike addressed the sergeant. Like some habitually anxious men, when a real crisis came he was quite cool. ‘That horse belongs to the man who has been taking the windows from the church. I fear something has happened to him. Will you bring another man, and come with us?’

  ‘Ay, sir.’

  ‘The other soldiers had best stay here. To watch the horse and get this crowd back to their duties. And send someone to inform Sir William Maleverer. What is your name?’

  ‘George Leacon, sir.’ The sergeant spoke quickly to his men, selected another fellow as tall and broadly built as himself, then took a firm hold of his pike and led the way towards the side of the church.

  The mist was still thick. We tramped carefully along wet duckboards that had been laid to the right of the church. I wished Barak were with us. Then I heard a sound ahead of us, a rusty creak. I turned to Craike. ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It sounded like a door closing.’

  ‘What’s that ahead?’ He pointed at a large brown shape that appeared ahead of us through the mist. As we approached we saw it was the glazier’s cart, his ladder leaning against it.

  ‘Where is he?’ Craike asked, puzzled. ‘You can see nothing for this damned fog. Master Oldroyd!’ he called loudly. The soldiers followed suit, their voices muffled by the mist. There was no reply, no sound at all.

  ‘He must have let the horse loose to graze. But what terrified it so?’

  The soldiers called out again. I studied the cart. The ladder was propped against it at an odd angle, the end leaning right over the cart. Struck with a sudden foreboding, I touched Leacon’s arm.

  ‘Can you give me a lift up, sergeant? I want to look inside there.’

  The young man nodded and bent to make a stirrup of his hands. I grasped the top of the cart and felt myself levered up. I heard my robe rip, caught in a sliver of glass embedded in the wood. Then, the sergeant still holding my foot, I looked over the top, at one of the most terrible sights I have ever seen.

  The cart was three-quarters full of shattered pieces of stained glass. Master Oldroyd lay on his back on top of the glass, his body pierced in several places by sharp fragments. A big piece, sharp as a pointed sword and covered with blood, had gone right through the centre of his body and protruded from his stomach. Oldroyd’s face, directly below mine, was white, his eyes closed. Blood covered the glass beneath his body.

  I swallowed hard.
‘He’s in here!’ I called. ‘He’s dead!’

  ‘Help me up,’ I heard Craike order someone, and a moment later his round face appeared on the other side of the cart. He blenched. ‘Dear Jesu. He must have fallen from the ladder.’ He turned to where a little crowd was gathering, and called out, ‘Here! Four of you climb up, stand on others’ shoulders. We must pull the body out!’

  There was more scrabbling, and the heads and shoulders of four stout workmen appeared. They all looked shocked at the scene in the cart, but hesitantly reached out. They grasped Oldroyd’s feet and hands and pulled at them. The body slid up that terrible spike of glass, a great gout of blood pouring from the wound. Then I nearly fell from the cart as the glazier’s eyes opened wide. ‘He’s alive!’ I cried, startling the workmen. They dropped him back onto the broken glass with a tinkling crash.

  Oldroyd stared at up me. He tried feebly to lift an arm and his mouth worked in an attempt to speak. I leaned over, as far as I dared. He reached up and gripped my robe with his scarred bloody hand. I held the side of the cart convulsively; terrified I might fall in with him, face-first onto that broken glass.

  ‘The Ki – The King!’ he said in a trembling whisper.

  ‘What about him? What is it?’ I heard my own voice shake, for my heart was juddering mightily in my chest.

  ‘No child of Henry and-’ He gasped and coughed up a dribble of blood. ‘Of Henry and Catherine Howard – can ever – be true heir!’

  ‘What? What is this?’

  ‘She knows.’ He gave a convulsive shudder. ‘Blaybourne,’ he whispered frantically, his blue eyes staring into mine as though by doing so he could hold onto life. ‘Blaybourne-’ The word ended in a rattling gasp, Oldroyd’s grip slackened, and his head fell back. He was dead; being lifted up had opened his wounds and the last of his blood was even now spilling out over the spikes and needles of glass.

  I hauled myself upright, my arms trembling. The workmen were looking at me, aghast. ‘What did he say, sir?’ Craike asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ I answered quickly. ‘Nothing. Take him out.’ I called over my shoulder to Sergeant Leacon: ‘Help me down.’ He did so, and I steadied myself against the cart, just as Barak ran up to us. ‘Where in God’s name have you been?’ I snapped, quite unfairly.

  ‘Looking for you,’ he answered truculently. ‘The whole place is abuzz. God’s nails, what’s going on?’

  ‘The glazier fell off his ladder into his cart, it sent his horse running off in terror.’

  The tall figure of Sir William Maleverer appeared, his black robe flapping round his long legs. The crowd parted hastily before him. He watched, frowning, as Oldroyd’s bloody corpse was dragged to the top of the cart and fell with a sickening flop to the earth.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Maleverer snapped. ‘Craike, and you, brother lawyer, what’s happened?’

  ‘The glazier fell in his cart,’ Craike answered.

  Maleverer gave the body a look of distaste. ‘Wantwit fool. As if we haven’t enough to do. I’ll have to trouble the King’s coroner now.’ He looked round the crowd. ‘Who found him?’

  I stepped forward. ‘I did.’

  Maleverer grunted, then turned to face the crowd. ‘Get your mangy arses back to work!’ he shouted. ‘You as well, Craike. And you, soldier,’ he said to Leacon. ‘Take that carcass to the manor. And see that mad horse gets an axe to the head!’

  Such was the force of Maleverer’s presence that the crowd dissolved at once, excited mutters floating back through the mist. Leacon and the other soldier lifted Oldroyd’s body between them and walked away, followed by a frowning Maleverer. Barak made to follow, but I held him back. ‘No, Jack,’ I said quickly. ‘There’s something I must tell you. My head’s awhirl.’

  We stood there, in the shadow of the cart, and I told him Oldroyd’s last words.

  ‘Jesu,’ he said. ‘The man spoke treason. Was he some sympathizer with the conspirators? Shouting his defiance when he knew he was about to die?’

  I frowned. ‘He seemed to be trying desperately to tell me something.’

  ‘Why you? You only spoke to him for a minute yesterday.’

  ‘He was dying, there was no one else to tell.’

  ‘Who is this Blaybourne?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe the man who killed him.’ I shook my head.

  ‘But it was an accident, surely. He fell from his ladder.’

  ‘I’m not so sure.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I think he could have been pushed. He was a glazier, they’re not people to fall off ladders.’ I looked down the length of the church, past the cart. ‘And as I was walking down to the church I heard something, a creak. It sounded like a door closing.’

  Barak’s face became sharp. ‘Someone who’d killed the glazier, and heard you coming?’

  ‘Possibly. And escaped into the church.’

  ‘Then let’s go and look.’ The old eagerness for combat was back in his eyes. I hesitated.

  ‘I don’t want to get involved, Barak. That’s why I said nothing about Oldroyd’s last words. No one heard them but me. No one needs to know.’

  ‘But if he spoke against the King and Queen, you must tell.’ His face was full of anxiety. ‘There were people this spring hanged for knowing something was afoot and saying nothing. What if there’s something else abroad here, and Oldroyd knew? The King’s due here in two days. Tell Maleverer what you heard, for Jesu’s sake!’

  I nodded slowly. He was right.

  ‘And we can try to find that door you heard creak. See if there’s anybody in the church. Come along, if we heard something in the church Maleverer would expect us to look.’ Barak fingered the hilt of his sword, which he had buckled on as usual.

  I looked at him. For more than a year I had been the one in charge, showing him the ways of the law, but suddenly he was Lord Cromwell’s man of action again, keen and alert. I nodded reluctantly and felt for my dagger. ‘Come on then.’

  Barak led the way along the wall. The mist was thinning now, a pale sun showing through. Sure enough, a short way beyond the cart a little door was set in the wall. It had a big keyhole and I wondered if it was locked, but when Barak pushed the door it opened with the same rusty creak I had heard earlier. Drawing his sword, he pushed the door wide. We stepped in.

  ‘Look,’ he breathed. He pointed down at a fresh set of footprints. The damp smudges went from the door across the church. I strained to look, twisting my head, for a large pillar blocked our view.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ I whispered.

  ‘Let’s just follow the footprints. They’re very recent – whoever made them was in the damp grass for a good while.’

  ‘So there was someone.’

  Barak nodded. ‘Dodged into the church when he heard you coming, and ran. He’s probably gone out one of the main doors now.’

  I shook my head. ‘If I was him, knowing there was about to be a great hue and cry, I’d have hidden in the church until the crowds were gone. Jesu knows there are enough dark spaces.’

  Barak took a firm grip of his sword. ‘Let’s follow those prints.’

  The marks on the tiled floor were faint but visible. They crossed the breadth of the church, intersecting with the trail of mud and dung left by those taking the shortcut along the length of the nave, then continued, fainter, on the other side to where a large internal doorway stood, its arch decorated with scenes from the life of Christ. The door was open a little, and the wet smudges ended there.

  Barak smiled. ‘Got him,’ he whispered. ‘This’ll be a feather in our caps.’ He stepped back, then kicked the door wide, the crash echoing and re-echoing around the great abandoned church. We looked in. An elaborately decorated vestibule lay ahead, with a low vaulted ceiling supported by wide carved pillars. Ahead, another archway led to a large inner room, lit by a big stained-glass window that had survived and through which daylight filtered dimly; probably the chapterhouse. We stepped inside, watching the pillars carefully lest our quarry had conc
ealed himself behind one.

  ‘Come on!’ Barak called out. ‘We’ve got you! Give yourself up!’

  ‘Stay by the door,’ I suggested. ‘I’ll go and find those soldiers.’

  ‘No, I fancy taking this one myself.’

  ‘Barak!’ I said. ‘Be sensible!’ But he was already moving round the room, sword held out before him. I pulled out my dagger, peering into the corners. The anteroom was ill-lit, it was difficult to see. Then Barak let out a sudden yell.

  ‘Jesu Christ!’

  I ran across to where he stood in the doorway to the inner room. It was empty, all the furniture removed, but round the walls stood two tiers of men, dressed in brightly coloured robes. I saw white hair, long beards, pink faces and glinting eyes. I stood with my mouth open for a second, then laughed.

  ‘They’re statues, Barak. The prophets and apostles.’ They were so lifelike in the dim light that his astonishment was understandable. ‘Look, that’s Moses in the blue robe. Jesu, even his lips are painted to look real -’

  We both whirled round at a patter of footsteps, just in time to glimpse the hem of a dark robe disappearing through the door before it slammed shut with a bang. As we raced up to it we heard the sound of a key turning. Barak grasped the handle frantically.

  ‘Shit!’ he cried. ‘He’s locked us in!’ He tugged again, but it was no good.

  I set my lips. ‘Then it’s us who are trapped now, while he gets away.’

  We walked back into the chapterhouse, where there was more light. Barak’s face was red with embarrassment.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That was my fault. Charging in here without a thought like an arsehole, then crying out at those statues, pox on them. He must have been hiding in one of those corners, you’d have seen him but for my foolishness.’ There was real distress in his face.

  ‘Well, it’s done now,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not the man I was,’ he said with sudden, bitter anger.