by C. J. Sansom
There was a moment’s silence. The blood rushed to my head and I thought I might faint. But no one was permitted to rise and look the King in the face until he addressed them. I heard him laugh. It was a laboured, creaking sound, oddly reminiscent of Treasurer Rowland. Then he spoke, in that same unexpectedly high voice I remembered from my brief encounter with him at York, though underlain with a new, throaty creakiness. ‘So, Paget, my Master of Practices, he found you out. Someone has punched him in the face.’ That creaky laugh again.
‘There was a fight, I believe, your majesty, before Stice took him,’ Paget said.
‘Have you told him anything?’
‘Nothing, your majesty. You said you wished to do that.’
The King continued in the same quiet voice, though I discerned a threatening edge to it now. ‘Very well, Serjeant Matthew Shardlake, stand.’
I did so, my bruised face throbbing, and looked slowly up at the King. The pale bloated face was lined, full of pain and weariness. His grey beard, like his hair, was thin and wispy. His huge bulk strained against the satin arms of his chair, and his legs stuck out, swathed in thick bandages. But grotesque and even pitiable as he now was, Henry’s gaze remained terrifying. In the portrait outside it was the eyes which seemed most chilling, but in the living man it was the tight little mouth, straight and hard as a blade between the great jowls; angry, merciless. Looking at him my head swam for a second; it was as though none of this were real, and I was in some nightmare. I felt oddly disconnected, dizzy, and again I thought I might faint. Then in my mind’s eye I saw Barak’s hand fly through the air in a spray of blood, and I jerked convulsively.
The King held my gaze another moment, then turned and waved at Somers and the guard. ‘Will, top up my goblet, then take the guard and begone. One crookback at a time is enough.’
Somers poured wine from the flagon, the monkey clinging to his shoulder with practised ease. The King lifted the goblet to his mouth and I caught a glimpse of grey teeth. ‘God’s death,’ he murmured, ‘this endless thirst.’
Somers and the guard went out, closing the door quietly behind them. I gave Paget a quick glance; he looked back with that flat, empty gaze of his. The King, his eyes locking on mine again, spoke in a voice full of quiet menace. ‘So, Master Shardlake, I hear you have been spending time with my wife.’
‘No, your majesty, no!’ I heard the edge of panic in my own voice as I answered. ‘I have merely been helping her to search for, for – ’
‘For this?’ With difficulty the King reached behind him to the desk, his surprisingly delicate fingers clutching at a sheaf of papers. He heaved himself round again, holding it up. I saw the Queen’s writing, the first page torn in half where Greening had grasped it as he died. The Lamentation of a Sinner.
I felt the ground shift beneath me, again I almost fainted. I took deep breaths. The King stared at me, waiting for an answer, the little mouth tightening. Then, from beside me, Paget said, ‘Naturally, Master Shardlake, when I learned from my spy in that Anabaptist group that they had stolen a book written by the Queen, I told his majesty at once. He ordered the book brought to him, and the sect extirpated. It has been in his possession all this time.’
I stared foolishly at the manuscript. All this – all the weeks of anxiety and fear, the terrible thing that had happened to Barak tonight – and the Lamentation had been in the King’s possession all along. I should have been furious, but in the King’s presence there was no room for any emotion but fear. He pointed a finger at me, his voice rasping with anger. ‘Last year, Master Shardlake, when the Queen and I were at Portsmouth, I saw you at the front of the crowd as I entered the city.’ I looked up in surprise. ‘Yes, and I remembered you, as I do all those I have had cause to look on unfavourably. You failed once before to discover a stolen manuscript. At York, five years ago. Did you not?’
I swallowed hard. The King had insulted me in public, then. Yet he would have done far worse had he known that I had succeeded in discovering that particular cache of papers and had destroyed them on account of their incendiary contents. I looked back at him, fearing irrationally that those probing eyes could see into my very mind, that they could see what I had truly done at York, and even my treacherous thoughts this very afternoon about the Anabaptists’ creed.
The angry edge in the King’s voice deepened. ‘God’s blood, churl, answer your King!’
‘I – I was sorry to have displeased you, your majesty.’ It sounded craven, pathetic.
‘So you should have been. And when I saw you last year at Portsmouth, when you had no reason to be there, I had Paget make enquiry, and learned you had visited my wife at Portchester Castle. And that you did lawyer’s work for her. I allowed that, Master Shardlake, for I know that once, before our marriage, you saved her life.’ He nodded slowly. ‘Oh yes, Cranmer told me about that, later.’ His voice had softened momentarily, and I saw that, indeed, he still loved Catherine Parr. And yet he had used her as a tool in his political machinations all these months, had allowed her to go in fear of her life.
His voice hardened again. ‘I do not like my wife receiving visitors unsanctioned by me, so when I returned from Portsmouth I arranged to have you watched.’ He laughed wheezily. ‘Not that I would suspect my Kate of dalliance with an ugly brokebacked thing like you, but these days I watch all those who might take too great an interest in those I love. I have been betrayed by women before,’ he added bitterly. ‘My wife does not know that I watch certain of her male associates. Paget is good at employing discreet men to observe and spy. Eh, Sir William?’ The King half-turned and gave Paget a blow on the arm which made him stagger slightly; he blinked but did not flinch. The movement meanwhile set the King’s whole vast body, uncorseted under the caftan, wobbling and juddering.
I swallowed hard. ‘Your majesty, I hold the Queen in great esteem, but only as her employee, and as a subject admiring of her kindness, her learning—’
‘Her religion?’ the King asked, suddenly and sharply.
I took a deep breath. ‘It is not a matter her majesty and I have discussed at length.’ But I remembered those conversations in the gallery. I was lying, plain and simple, because terrifying as the King was, to reveal the truth might still endanger the Queen. My heart thumped in my chest, and it was hard to keep my voice from shaking as I continued. ‘And when I spoke with her, in London and at Portsmouth – someone was always present, one of the ladies, Mary Odell or another – ’ I was almost stammering, my words tumbling over each other.
Paget looked at me contemptuously and said, ‘Stice’s spies, the lawyer Bealknap and afterwards the steward Brocket, reported no dealings between you and the Queen or her court for a year. But then last month, out of the blue, you were sworn to the Queen’s Learned Council. With the mission, people were told, of finding a missing jewel. But as the steward Brocket overheard you saying to Lord Parr’s man Cecil, it was actually the Lamentation of a Sinner you sought. A search that led you to join Richard Rich in his hunt for Anne Askew’s ravings.’
I remembered when Cecil had visited me after Elias was murdered. The Lamentation had been mentioned then. That rogue Brocket must have been listening at the door. If they know all this, I thought, there is no point telling lies about a stolen jewel. With horror, I realized the depth of the trouble I was in, and felt my bruised face twitch.
The King spoke again, in a strangely quiet voice. ‘Anne Askew. I did not mean her to be tortured. I only gave Wriothesley permission to use strong measures.’ He wriggled slightly in his chair, but then added sternly, ‘That is his fault, and Rich’s. Let them suffer if her writings are published.’ Then the King looked at me again, and spoke with biting coldness. ‘But the Queen should have told me this manuscript existed, and that it was stolen, not set forth a search under cover of lies about a missing jewel. What say you to that, lawyer?’
I swallowed hard. And I decided that whatever I said must be calculated to protect the Queen, to deflect any possible charge of dislo
yalty from her. Otherwise, truly, it would all have been for nothing. I took a deep breath. ‘When Lord Parr consulted me, just after the book was stolen, the Queen was quite distracted, frightened, too, after – recent events.’ I knew that with what I planned to say next I could be signing my own death warrant: ‘It was I who asked her to let me try and find the book secretly, using the story of the stolen jewel.’
‘I will be questioning Lord Parr tomorrow,’ Paget said quietly.
I felt relief at that. I knew the Queen’s uncle, whatever his faults, would also do his best to deflect responsibility from the Queen to himself. And to make sure our stories tallied I said, ‘Lord Parr did agree that we should try to find the book secretly.’
‘Who else knew?’ the King asked sharply.
‘Only Archbishop Cranmer. The Queen knew the book might be considered too radical, after she wrote it. She sought his opinion, and he said the manuscript should not be published. But before it could be destroyed, it disappeared. Stolen by that guard,’ I dared to say. ‘So she did not deceive you, your majesty, she intended to destroy the book at once lest it anger you.’
The King was silent, his brow puckered. He shifted his legs, wincing. When he looked at me again the expression in his eyes had changed. ‘The Queen was afraid?’ he asked quietly.
‘Yes, your majesty. When she discovered its disappearance she was astonished, confused – ’
‘She would have been. Coming after all these months of Gardiner and his minions trying to turn me against her.’ His voice rose angrily, but I was – for the moment – no longer the object of his fury. ‘Gardiner told me she was a heretic that denied the Mass; they would have broken my heart again!’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘But I knew their ways, I knew my Kate was faithful and true, the only one since Jane. So I told them I would do nothing without strict proof. And they brought none, none!’ His face was red now, sweating. ‘Those rogues, that would have had me turn against Kate, and take me back to Rome! I have seen through them, they will pay—’
The diatribe ended in a bout of painful coughing which turned the King’s face puce. The Lamentation, which he had been holding on his lap, began to slide to the floor. I leaned forward instinctively, but Paget, with a quick frown at me, returned it to the King before taking his goblet, hastily refilling it, and handing it back to him. Henry drank deeply, then sat back in his chair, gasping. Paget murmured, ‘Your majesty, perhaps too much should not be said in front of this man—’
‘No,’ the King said. ‘This he should know.’ He looked at me. ‘When the manuscript was brought to me, I feared what it might hold. But I have studied it.’ Then, quite unexpectedly, he gave a prim little smile. ‘Its sentiments are a little thoughtless, but – ’ he waved a hand dismissively – ‘the Queen is but a woman, and emotional. Nothing is said here against the Mass. The book is not heretical.’ His tone now was pompous, judgemental, as befitted one authorized by God Himself to decide such matters, as Henry truly believed he was. ‘Kate fears too much,’ he concluded. I thought, how fast his emotions change, and how he wears them on his sleeve. At least when he chooses to. For the last few months had shown, too, how coldly secretive he could be. Yet his last words gave me hope for the Queen.
‘May now be the time to tell her you have it?’ Paget asked him, hesitantly.
‘No,’ the King answered sharply, the edge back in his voice. ‘In these days the more things I keep safe in my own hands the better.’ I realized he had kept the manuscript to himself because, until Bertano’s mission failed, there remained at least the possibility that he might still decide against the reformist faction. Then a Protestant Queen would be a liability, and the Lamentation could still be a weapon. He loved the Queen, yes, but ultimately, like everyone in the realm, she was only a pawn on his chessboard. He would have killed her if he thought he had to, little as he wished it. And it would, of course, all have been someone else’s fault.
He studied me again. ‘So, it was you that inclined the Queen to keep its loss a secret?’ A query in his voice now. I remembered Lord Parr telling me how suggestible the King was, how he believed what he wanted to believe, and also that to him disloyalty was the greatest of sins. Now, I was sure, he wanted to believe Queen Catherine had not taken the initiative in hiding the theft of the Lamentation from him. He would rather the blame fell on me, whom he despised and who, politically, counted for nothing at all. Perhaps he had already chosen me as a scapegoat, perhaps that was why he had told me so much. But after what had happened tonight, I no longer cared. ‘Yes, your majesty,’ I answered, perhaps signing my death warrant a second time.
He considered a moment, then he said petulantly, ‘But Kate still deceived me – ’
I took a deep breath. Somehow I was fluent again, fluent as at the climax of a court hearing. ‘No, your majesty. It was I who hunted for the Lamentation behind your back.’
With a struggle, the King managed to sit more upright in his chair. He was silent a moment, trying to decide just what the role of his wife had been in all this. Then he seemed to reach a conclusion. He leaned forward, eyes and mouth set mercilessly now. ‘You are an insolent, base-born, bent-backed common churl.’ He spoke the words quietly, but I could feel his rage. ‘Men like you are the curse of this land, daring to say they answer only to themselves on religion and the safety of the realm, when their loyalties are to me!’ His voice rose again. ‘Me, their King! I call it treason, treason!’ He looked at me in such a vengeful way that, involuntarily, I took half a step back.
‘Do not dare move unless I give you liberty!’ he snapped.
‘I am sorry, your majesty.’
Seeing my abject fear seemed to change his mood again. He turned to Paget and spoke scornfully. ‘How could I ever think such a poor reed of a creature could be any sort of threat to me, hey?’
‘I do not think he is,’ the Secretary answered quietly.
The King considered a moment. ‘You say one of the two men working for Shardlake is dead.’
‘By now, yes.’ Paget’s tone was completely indifferent.
‘And the other, that was brought here with him?’
‘Little more than a boy.’ Paget ventured a smile. ‘A tall young fellow, with red hair, as your majesty was in his youth, though I believe this churl is nothing like so well-looking.’
The King smiled at the flattery. And I realized that Paget was trying to soften the King’s anger, and I wondered why. There was a moment of silence as the King considered further, but then shook his head. ‘This man suborned the Queen to keep secrets from me. That is treason.’ He looked at me again, those little blue eyes buried in their wrinkles still hard and merciless. ‘And I would be rid of him, he is a pestilential nuisance.’
I bowed my head. I felt cold, my racing heart had slowed. Treason, I thought. I would be dragged to Tyburn at the tail of a horse, hanged until almost dead, cut down, and then the executioner would cut out my innards. And naked, I thought strangely, quite naked. Then finally I would be beheaded. I thought, can I face that, can I act with courage as some have? I doubted it. And when I was dead, would I go then to hell? Would I burn for lack of faith, as Philip Coleswyn would believe? I stood there, in the King’s study, quite still. The image of Barak, thrown on that rubbish heap, came to me again.
Beside me, Paget drew a deep breath. He spoke slowly. ‘Your majesty, a trial for treason before a jury would make the recent problems concerning the Queen public. And also the deaths of those Anabaptists. We do not want that getting out. Not at this time.’
‘He can be condemned by Parliament, through an Act of Attainder.’
‘That would make it all the more public.’
Henry waved a hand, as though this were a trifle, but I could see from his expression that he realized it was not. Paget took another deep breath, before pressing home his point. ‘Even if Shardlake were put quietly out of the way, it would become known, and some might see it as a move against the Protestant side. The new political balance is s
till very delicate. We do not want to upset it unnecessarily.’
He fell silent; Henry was glowering at him now. It was a scene I imagined Henry playing out with anxious chief advisers repeatedly over these last thirty-seven years; the King angry, demanding ferocious measures, his councillors trying to warn him of the possible damaging consequences.
The King sat, considering. At length he grunted, a strange sound like a pig’s squeal, full of frustration. He gave me a savage look. ‘But surely we could do him quietly to death.’
‘I have no affection for this man, your majesty, believe me. But still I do not think that a wise move. The Parrs, in particular, would be concerned if he disappeared.’
The King sighed. ‘You give me straight advice, Paget, you always have. Even though I may dislike to hear it.’
‘Thank you, your majesty.’
Henry gave him a sharp look. ‘And you know on which side your bread is buttered, eh? Always you act to further my will, never go down your own road, like Wolsey and Cromwell?’
Paget bowed deeply. ‘I serve only to implement your majesty’s chosen policies.’
‘Yet I would be rid of this man,’ the King repeated. He gave me a long stare, unblinking as a snake’s. I knew my life, and Nicholas’s, hung in the balance. An eternity seemed to pass before he spoke again. ‘Paget is right. You are a serjeant and it is known that you have been working for the Queen. Your disappearance would make a stir.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I will let you go, Master Shardlake, you and your boy. For policy reasons alone. But take note of this.’ He leaned forward, his voice rising again. ‘You will never, ever, again come anywhere near the Queen, or any royal palace, or do anything that might, even possibly, bring you to my notice. Do you understand? I do not wish to hear of you, still less see you, ever again. And if I do see you, it will not be your bent back I see, but only – your – head!’ The last words were accompanied by the King banging on the arms of his chair. He leaned back, breathing hard. ‘Now, Paget, get him out of here. And send in Will Somers, I need distraction.’
