Revelation ms-4

by C. J. Sansom

  Chapter Thirteen

  NEXT MORNING Barak and I set out once again for the marshes. We took the horses; it was bright and sunny, a truly springlike day, and they were skittish, Barak's black mare Sukey sniffing the air and tossing her fine head. As we rode through the city I saw crocuses and snowdrops springing up everywhere, even among the tumbled stones of the dissolved Blackfriars monastery. At Cheapside conduit I looked at the beggars gathered round. The Bedlam man was there, singing a nonsensical song to himself, snowdrops stuck in his wild hair. He had a sharp eye on the crowd though, hoping to catch someone's eye and shame them into casting him a coin.

  We rode across London Bridge and through Southwark. Gib's child had left directions with Barak; we were to take a path on the far side of Southwark village, where a church stood on the edge of the marshes, and follow it through the marshes to the cottars' dwellings. We found the church easily enough, a square little Norman building perched on the edge of the reedbeds. Beside it a wide track led through the marshes, twisting and turning to follow the higher ground. We passed a group of men shoring up a muddy, sunken stretch of path with cinders and branches. They stepped aside and bowed. I wondered if the cottars had widened and maintained this stretch them- selves, to bring their produce to market. They were bringing a whole new area into development; no wonder the landlords were keen to filch the product of their labours.

  'Our local butcher's been arrested,' Barak told me. 'Him too?' I looked at him sharply. 'You haven't been buying meat in Lent?'

  'No. I would have, left to myself, but Tamasin is too careful.'

  'She always had a sensible head on her shoulders.'

  'If it's right that Catherine Parr has reformist sympathies,' Barak said, changing the subject, 'she's stepping into a dangerous position if she marries the King. Gardiner and Bonner will be after her, watching every word she says, hoping she'll let slip some reformist opinion they can run and tell the King about.'

  'They will. But it will take courage to turn down a proposal from the King.'

  Barak looked across the marshes. 'Were those two killings to do with her? Someone who wants to stop the marriage;'

  'Thomas Seymour would have a motive,' I said.

  'I can't see Sir Thomas lying flat in a bog for most of a cold day. He'd damage his fine clothes.' Barak spoke lightly, yet there was an uneasy note in his voice as he steered a way through the reeds, all around us now.

  Cottages began to appear beside the path, surrounded by little market gardens; Gib's was the fifth along, a mud-and-daub cottage like the rest, smoke curling through a hole in the thatched roof. Gib was working in his patch, loosening the heavy soil with a spade. A woman and several small children were also at work digging and sowing. Barak called out Gib's name and he came across, his wife and children following. They gathered round as we dismounted, the children staring at me wide-eyed.

  'My barrister,' Gib introduced me proudly. 'He seeks my help on a certain matter.'

  His wife, a thin, tired-looking woman, curtsied then smiled at me warmly. 'We are so grateful, sir, for what you did. We won't ever forget.'

  'Thank you.' Like all lawyers, I was delighted by gratitude. It happened so rarely.

  Gib clapped his hands. 'Come on. Maisie, children, back to work! Master Shardlake and I have confidential matters to discuss.' Barak winked at me. The family returned to their labours, the children casting glances over their shoulders at us.

  'I don't want them to hear about this bad business,' Gib said, suddenly serious. 'Tie your horses to this post, sir, and come inside.'

  We followed him into the cottage, which smelt of damp and smoke. A few poor sticks of furniture stood about, and a fire burning in the hearth in the middle of the floor provided some warmth. The single window was unglazed, the crude shutters open. I looked out at the view of his market garden, the marshes stretching out beyond.

  'Ay, it's a doleful spot,' Gib said.

  'It must have been lonely this past winter, with all the snow.'

  'It was. Bitterly cold too. At least now we can get busy with the sowing. Sit down on that settle.'

  He brought some weak beer and sat on a stool opposite us. 'Now then,' he said, looking at us seriously. 'You've questions about poor Wilf Tupholme?'

  'He was the man who was murdered?'

  'Yes.' He paused, remembering. 'He was found in January. They are after Welsh Elizabeth, that he lived with. A Bankside whore.' He spat in the fire. Barak and I looked at each other. This sounded as though we were on the wrong track.

  'Are they sure she did it?' I asked.

  'Sure enough to issue a warrant against her. She and Wilf had been living together a few months, but they were always fighting. Both liked the drink too much. He turfed her out in December, then he was found dead a month later. The coroner's trying to trace her but the other whores say she's gone back to Wales. She'll go to earth there, they won't find her.'

  'But there was no direct evidence?'

  'Well, whoever did that to him must have hated him.' He looked at us curiously. 'Are you saying it was someone else?'

  'We don't know. At Westminster you said his landlord probably killed him.'

  Gib grinned. 'That was just to annoy Sir Geoffrey.' He looked at us with great curiosity, but saw that we were not going to tell him anything more.

  'So what happened?' Barak asked. 'You said he was killed most horribly.'

  'So he was. I'll tell you on the way to his house. His neighbour has the key, I thought you might like to look.' He inclined his head to the window and I saw that one of the children, a girl of ten or so, had edged close to the window as she walked up and down the vegetable patch, sowing. 'Little pigs have big ears,' he said quietly.

  I glanced at Barak, who shrugged slightly. It did not sound as though this killing had anything to do with our investigation, but we might as well hear the full tale. 'Very well,' I said, 'let us go.'

  GIB LED US eastward along the path. The cottages became fewer as the ground became marshier, water squelching under our feet and large pools standing among the reeds. An early pair of swallows, the first I had seen that year, dived and glided above them.

  'What happened to Tupholme, then?' Barak asked.

  'Wilf was a strange man,' Gib said. 'He was always bad-tempered and surly, seemed to prefer living alone in his isolated cottage. We'd only see him at market. A couple of years ago he became a hot- gospeller, telling everyone that the end'time was nigh. Plagues and earthquakes and Jesus coming to judge us all. He'd talk about the joys of being saved, in a smug way as though secretly enjoying that the rest of us poor cottars weren't saved. He went across the river to some hot-gospelling church in the city. But you know how it is with these folk, often it doesn't last long. Last autumn he took up with Welsh Elizabeth and she moved in. They'd get drunk and argue, like I said. You could hear them way out over the marshes. Then Wilf booted Elizabeth out. He was surly after that, you'd find him stumbling drunk around the lanes. Then he disappeared, his neighbour saw his cottage was locked up. After a while his neighbour thought, if he's gone, I'll take the land over before it goes back to marsh. So he broke open a shutter to take a look inside. Said the smell nearly felled him.'

  Gib looked sombre. 'Wilf was inside on the floor, tied up, dead. He was gagged. They said his staring eyes were terrible to see. Someone had cut him badly all over, then tied him up. His thigh had this great sore on it, all black and crawling with maggots. There was a rag in his mouth to stop him shouting. Whether his diseased leg got him, or cold and hunger, nobody knows.'

  We were silent. This death was even worse than Roger's. Tupholme would have died in slow agony.

  'If his leg went bad that would probably kill him first,' Barak said.

  'Welsh Elizabeth deserves to hang,' Gib said with sudden fierceness.

  I looked at Barak and he shook his head slightly. Horrific as this killing was, its manner was nothing like those of Roger and Dr Gurney.

  Gib led us up a side-path to w
here an isolated cottage stood, as poor as the others. No smoke came from the roof. The shutters were closed, and the door had a heavy padlock. The wood of one shutter had been splintered at one end where the neighbour had broken in. Gib stared at the house, then quickly crossed himself. 'I'll get the key,' he said. 'Gib's neighbour has it. I won't be long.'

  He walked back to the main path, the reeds soon hiding him. I looked at the cultivated land around the cottage. It was already going to seed, new grass coming up among the little furrows.

  'This is a dead end,' Barak said.

  'It seems so. And yet. . .'

  'What?'

  'Gib described a great sore. I know that phrase, or one like it. People keep using phrases that I know somehow. Treasurer Rowland talked of a fountain of blood. The man who found Dr Gurney said something too — water turned to blood.'

  'We've got enough to worry about without word mysteries,' Barak said irritably. 'Look, when he comes back, let's just say we don't need to go inside; it seems clear enough this Welsh whore did it for spite.'

  'That's a huge amount of spite.'

  Gib returned in a few minutes. 'Pete Lammas has given me the key, the coroner left him responsible for the house. He doesn't want to go in again, though.' He paused. 'Look, sir,' he said. 'I'd rather not go in either. I've heard enough of what it was like. Can I leave you to bring me back the key:'

  'All right,' I agreed.

  Gib handed the key to Barak, bowed to us and left. I was still lost in thought, those phrases jostling in my head.

  'I'll be the one to open the door, then, shall I:' Barak asked with heavy sarcasm. He unlocked the padlock and pushed at the door. It was stiff, scraping along the ground as it opened. Barak and I both stepped backwards at the smell that hit us, a butcher's shop stink overlaid with the stench of sweat and dirt. And a great buzzing, as from a swarm of flies.

  'Jesu!' Barak said.

  We stepped carefully into the dark interior. I saw the shapes of chairs, a table and what looked like heaps of rubbish scattered around. Despite the season blowflies were everywhere, buzzing around the room, slow and disoriented in the cool weather. We batted them away from our faces. The earthen floor was spotted with dead ones. Barak went across to the shutters and opened them.

  In the light that fell into the room we saw the place was filthy, stinking old rushes on the floor, a full chamber pot in one corner and rags everywhere. The disturbed blowflies began to settle again, on the rags and the pot; a few flew out of the window.

  'Gib said his leg was a mass of maggots,' Barak said. 'They must have hatched. There's enough filth in here for them to feed on.' He lifted one of the rags with his foot, and a couple of flies buzzed upward. 'This is his upper hose, I think. There's a tear in it, look, it's stiff with dried blood. Jesus, to cut someone up and leave them to die of infected wounds. That's some revenge.'

  I stood in the middle of the foul room, looking round. 'The coroners' men probably cut the clothes off the body and then left everything here as it was,' I said. 'Look, there are some fragments of cut rope over there.'

  'It must have been filthy enough here even before the poor arsehole was killed.'

  I looked at a truckle bed in the corner, the sheets grey with dirt. A cheap wooden cross was nailed to the mud wall above the bed. A relic of the man's hot-gospelling past?

  'Let's get out of here,' Barak said. 'There's nothing but filth and rags.'

  'Not yet.' I would have liked to sit down, my back was aching from so long on my feet. 'This is a lonely spot and he was unpopular. If Wilf Tupholme's killer knew him, he would know that in the depths of winter if he was tied up and left to die it might be weeks before anyone opened the place up.'

  'Why do you say, he? Surely it was his woman.'

  'I wonder.' I looked at a dark bloodstain on the floor by the long- dead fire. 'He was overpowered, perhaps knocked out, then tied up, a rag put in his mouth, then laid down here. Finally his leg was slashed open. Surely a drunken whore he'd kicked out would be more likely to knock him on the head.'

  'She wanted to ensure a slow death,' Barak answered grimly.

  'And if it wasn't her?'

  'Who else could it have been?'

  'Someone who kills skilfully, carefully, to make an evil spectacle.' A few dozy bugs still crawled over the bloodstain. 'Jesu, how he must have suffered,' I said.

  'This has nothing in common with those others,' Barak said impatiently. He stirred the rags with his foot. 'Hullo, what's this?'

  Something among the rubbish had made a metallic chink. Barak bent and, wrinkling his nose, felt among the scraps of clothing. He came up with a large tin badge, showing the painted image of an arched stone structure. I took it from Barak's hand.

  'A pilgrim badge,' he said. 'From St Edward the Confessor's shrine at Westminster. That's an odd thing for a hot-gospeller to have. Don't they see shrines as papist images?'

  'Maybe one of the constables dropped it while they were clearing the body out,' Barak suggested.

  'Unlikely. People don't wear pilgrim badges these days, in case they're taken for papists. But someone dropped it here. Look through the rest of that stuff, Jack, see what else you can find.'

  'I do get the nice jobs, don't I?' Barak began turning over all the filthy clothes and other rubbish. 'There's nothing else here,' he said at length. He looked at the cross on the wall, then at the bloodstained spot by the fire. 'Poor bastard,' he said. 'I wonder if he repented him of his fornication as lay watching the maggots eat his leg.'

  I gave a start. 'What did you say?'

  'I said I wondered if he regretted his time with the whore—'

  'No, no, you said "repented him of his fornication". Why did you use that phrase?'

  He looked at me as though I had lost my senses. 'I don't know, it just came into my head. It's from the Bible, isn't it?'

  I clapped him on the shoulder. 'Yes, it is. Phrases from the Bible, they are what we hear everywhere now, are they not? In the pulpit, in the streets. They have become part of our daily language. That's why those other phrases snagged at my mind.' I stood in that terrible place, thinking. 'Is it possible?'

  'Is what possible?'

  'Oh, Jesu,' I said quietly. 'I hope I am wrong. Come.'

  'Right about what? You talk in riddles—'

  'We must get to a church. That one on the edge of the marshes will do.'

  I led the way out of the cottage and began walking rapidly down the path. Barak locked it and came after me, for once having to run to keep up as I led the way back to Gib's place. He was back at work. I left Barak to hand over the key, while I unhitched the horses and used a tree trunk as a mounting block.

  'What's the hurry?' Gib called out as Barak ran back to me, his face alive with curiosity. 'What did you find?'

  'Nothing!' Barak called back as he swung into Sukey's saddle. 'He has to go to church, that's all!'

  THE DOOR OF the church was open, and we stepped into the cool interior. It was, I saw, still decorated in the old style, the walls painted in bright colours, worn patterned tiles on the floor. Candles burned everywhere and there was a smell of incense, although the niches where reliquaries and statues of saints once stood were bare. On a lectern beside the richly decorated altar lay a Bible, fixed to it by a chain. The English Bible, ordered by Lord Cromwell to be set in every church, the year before his fall. This particular church, I reflected, was a faithful image of what the King wished to see: saints and relics gone, but otherwise everything as it was before the break with Rome. Here, at least, everything was conformity.

  'Why are we here?' Barak asked, following me down the aisle. 'I want to look at that Bible. Sit down in a pew while I seek what I want.'

  'But what do you want?'

  I turned to face him. 'We've been talking about the hot-gospellers, the end-timers who say Armageddon will soon be here. They preach their message everywhere these days, that's why Bishop Bonner is so keen to stop them. But where do they get their message from, which part
of the Bible?'

  'The Book of Revelation, isn't it?'

  'Yes, the Apocalypse of St John the Divine. That's where most of their religious quotes come from. The last book of the Bible; full of wild, fiery, cruel language, hard to understand, unlike anything else in the New Testament. Erasmus and Luther both doubted whether Revelation was really the word of God, though Luther at least calls it inspirational now.'

  'You're saying that's where these phrases you remember come from? But how does—'

  'I think they come from a specific part of the Book of Revelation. But please, sit quiet a minute, don't distract me.' I spoke somewhat unfairly, as I had been doing the talking.

  With a shake of his head, Barak sat down on the thick-cushioned pew of a rich family in the front row. I mounted the lectern and opened the great blue-bound Bible. I paused at the frontispiece: the King on his throne, underneath him Cromwell and Cranmer passing the Bible down to richly dressed lords, who in turn passed it down to those of lower degree. Then I turned the heavy pages until I came to the very end, to Revelation. I found the part I was seeking and read slowly, following the text with my finger. At length I stood up. 'Barak,' I said quietly. 'Come up here.'

  He joined me. 'Look,' I said. 'This is the part of the Book of Revelation where St John is shown the seven angels who pour the seven vials of wrath upon the earth.'

  'I remember our vicar reading about that once. I couldn't follow it, it sounded like a mad dream.'

  'A mad dream. Yes, well put. Here, look at this, in Chapter 2.' I quoted: 'And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. When you used that phrase, or a version of it, I realized where all these other gobbets that had stuck in my mind came from. Here.' I turned several pages, until I came to a heading: The angels pour out their vials of wrath. 'Now, listen to this,' I said. 'Chapter 16:

  'And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, pour out your vials of wrath upon the earth.