by C. J. Sansom
‘Do you know many foreign merchants?’ Roger asked curiously.
‘We of alien looks or words must stick together.’ Guy smiled sadly. He brought our coats, and Roger left his fee of a mark. Guy promised the inserts for his shoes would be ready in a couple of weeks at most.
We left, Roger thanking Guy again profusely for his help. When the door was closed Roger clasped my arm. ‘I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your guiding me to Dr Malton. I will ever be in your debt.’
‘There are no debts between friends,’ I said with a smile. ‘I am glad to have helped.’
‘I could have done without the dissection book, though,’ he added as we rode away.
WE RODE ON, up Bucklersbury. We passed the ancient mansion from Henry III’s time, the Old Barge, long converted into a warren of crumbling tenements. Barak and Tamasin lived there.
‘Roger, do you mind if I leave you to go on?’ I asked. ‘There is a visit I would like to pay.’
He looked up at the Barge, raising his eyebrows. ‘Not some doxy?’ he asked. ‘I hear many live there.’
‘No, my clerk and his wife.’
‘And I should go and see my new client.’
‘What is the case?’
‘I do not know yet. A solicitor has sent me a letter about a client of his, who has some property dispute over in Southwark. His client is too poor to pay for a barrister, but he says the case is a worthy one and asked if I will act pro bono. It is all a bit vague, but I agreed to go and meet the client.’
‘Who’s the solicitor?’
‘A man called Nantwich. I’ve never heard of him. But there are so many jobbing solicitors looking for work around the Inns these days.’ He drew his coat round him. ‘It is cold for riding, I would rather go home and quietly celebrate the end of my fears.’ He turned his horse, then paused. The air was heavy with woodsmoke and chill with frost. ‘Where is spring?’ he asked, then waved a hand in farewell and rode off into the dark night. I dismounted, and walked towards the lighted windows of the Old Barge.
Chapter Five
I HAD VISITED Barak’s tenement in the days before he married Tamasin, and remembered which of the several unpainted street doors to take. It gave on to a staircase leading to the ramshackle apartments into which the crumbling old mansion was divided. The stairs creaked loudly in the pitch-black, and I recalled thinking on my previous visit that the whole place seemed ready to fall down.
I remembered Barak’s apartment as a typical young man’s lodging: dirty plates piled on the table, clothes strewn about the floor and mouse droppings in the corners. I had been glad when he announced, on marrying Tamasin, that they would move to a little house somewhere near Lincoln’s Inn, and sorry when the plan was abandoned. The Old Barge was no place for a young girl, especially one as fond of domesticity as Tamasin.
On the second floor I knocked on the door of their tenement. After a minute the door opened a fraction, and I saw a coiffed head dimly outlined against the candlelight within.
‘Who is it?’ she asked nervously.
‘ ’Tis I. Master Shardlake.’
‘Ah, sir. Come in.’ Tamasin opened the door and I followed her into the big room that served as dining-room, bedroom and parlour. She had been at work here; everything was clean, the plates stacked in a scuffed old dresser, the bed tidily made. But the place stank of damp, and patches of black mould spotted the wall around the window. Rags had been stuffed between the rotting shutters to keep out the wind. Attempts had been made to clean the wall, but the mould was spreading again. Barak, I saw, was absent.
‘Will you sit, sir?’ Tamasin indicated a chair at the table. ‘May I take your coat? I am afraid Jack is out.’
‘I will keep it. I - er - will not be long.’ In truth it was so cold in the fireless apartment that I did not want to remove it. I sat and took a proper look at Tamasin. She was a very pretty young woman, still in her early twenties, with high cheekbones, wide blue eyes and a full mouth. Before her marriage she had taken pride in dressing as well as her purse would allow; perhaps a little better. But now she wore a shapeless grey dress with a threadbare white apron over it, and her blonde hair was swept under a large, white housewife coif. She smiled at me cheerfully but I saw how her shoulders were slumped, her eyes dull.
‘It has been a long time since I saw you, sir,’ she said.
‘Near six months. How are you faring, Tamasin?’
‘Oh, well enough. I am sorry Jack is not here.’
‘No matter. I was passing on my way from taking a friend to consult Dr Malton.’
‘Would you like a cup of beer, sir?’
‘I would, Tamasin. But perhaps I should go . . .’ I was breaking the proprieties in being with her alone.
‘No, sir, stay,’ she said. ‘We are old friends, are we not?’
‘I hope so.’
‘I should like a little company.’ She went and poured some beer from a jug on the dresser and brought it over, taking a stool opposite me. ‘Was Dr Malton able to help your friend?’
I took a draught of the beer, which was pleasantly strong. ‘Yes. He had taken to falling over without warning, he thought he was taking the falling sickness, but it turns out he only has something amiss with his foot.’
Tamasin smiled, something like her old warm smile. ‘I should think he is mightily relieved.’
‘He is. I imagine when he gets home he will be dancing round his lodgings, bad foot and all.’
‘Dr Malton is a good man. I believe he saved you when you had that fever the winter before last.’
‘Yes. I think he did.’
‘But he could not help my poor little Georgie.’
‘I know.’
She stared at an empty spot against the far wall. ‘He was born dead, laid dead in his little cot over there that we had made.’ She turned to me, her eyes full of pain. ‘Afterwards I did not want Jack to take the crib away, it was as though some part of Georgie remained while it was there. But he hated the reminder.’
‘I am sorry I did not come to see you after the baby died, Tamasin. I wanted to, but Jack said you were both better alone.’
‘I used to get upset a lot. Jack would not want you to see.’ She sighed, frowning a little. ‘And you, are you in good health, sir?’
‘Yes. Working hard and doing well, with Jack’s help.’ I smiled.
‘He looks up to you, sir. Always saying how Master Shardlake managed to win this case by undermining the opposition, that one by turning up new evidence.’
‘Does he?’ I laughed. ‘Sometimes the way he talks, I feel he thinks I am a noddle.’
‘That is just his way.’
‘Yes.’ I smiled at her. When we first met two years before, on the King’s Great Progress to York, I had been suspicious of Tamasin’s confidence and lively personality, which had seemed unwomanly. But in the course of shared perils I had developed an almost fatherly affection for her. Looking at the tired housewife before me, I thought, where has all that spirit gone?
Something of my thoughts must have shown in my face, for her mouth trembled, then two large tears rolled down Tamasin’s cheeks. She lowered her head.
‘Tamasin,’ I said, half rising. ‘What is the matter? Is it still the poor child?’
‘I am sorry, sir.’
‘Come, after all we went through in Yorkshire a few tears are nothing. Tell me what ails you.’
She took a shuddering breath and wiped her eyes on her sleeve before turning her tear-stained face to me. ‘It began with the child,’ she said quietly. ‘His death was a shock to Jack as well as me. They say when a child dies his mother will always have him quick in her heart, but he is in Jack’s too. Oh, he is so angry.’
‘With you?’
‘With everything. With God himself, he felt it cruel of Him to take his child. He was never much of a churchgoer but now he does not want to go at all. It is Easter tomorrow, but he has refused to go to service or confession.’
‘Will you go?’
‘Yes, though - though I feel the faith has been squeezed from me too. But you know me,’ she added with a touch of her old humour. ‘I prefer to keep on the right side of the powers that be.’
‘That is wise these days.’
‘Jack says I only go to show off my best clothes.’ She looked down at her apron. ‘Well, ’tis true that after wearing these things all week I like to go out in something nice. But I fear if Jack absents himself continually, questions will be asked, he could be in trouble with the churchwardens. Especially as he is known to have Jewish blood.’ She set her lips. ‘He wanted to carry on his bloodline through our child. It comes out when he is drunk.’
‘Is he drunk often?’ I remembered his dishevelled look that morning.
‘More and more. He goes out with his old friends and sometimes does not come back all night. That will be where he is now. And I think he goes with other women too.’
I was shocked. ‘Who?’
‘I do not know. Perhaps with female neighbours. You know what some of them are here.’
‘Can you be sure?’
She gave me a direct look. ‘From the smell of him some mornings, yes.’
I sighed. ‘Is there no sign of - another child?’
‘No. Perhaps I am like old Queen Catherine of Aragon, and cannot produce healthy children.’
‘But it is only - what - six months since your baby died. That is no time, Tamasin.’
‘Time enough for Jack to turn away. Sometimes when he is drunk he says that I would rule him, make him into some weak domesticated creature.’ She looked around the room. ‘As though you could domesticate anyone in this place.’
‘Sometimes Jack can be insensitive. Even cruel.’
‘Well, at least he does not beat me. Many husbands do.’
‘Tamasin—’
‘Oh, he apologizes when he is sober again, he is loving then, calls me his chick and says he did not mean his words, it is only his fury that God took our child. That I can share. Why does God do such cruel things?’ she asked, in sudden anger.
I shook my head. ‘I am not the man to answer that, Tamasin. It puzzles me too.’
‘Sir,’ she said, sitting up and looking at me. ‘Can you speak to Jack, find out what is in his mind? He is so unpredictable these days, I do not know whether - whether he still wants me at all.’
‘Oh, Tamasin,’ I said. ‘I am sure he does. And talking to him of such matters would be no easy thing. If he even discovers you have been talking to me of his marriage he will be angry with us both.’
‘Yes. He is proud. But if you could try to find out somehow.’ She looked at me beseechingly. ‘I know you have a way of making people talk. And I have no one else to ask.’
‘I will try, Tamasin. But I will have to pick my time carefully.’
She nodded gratefully. ‘Thank you.’
I stood up. ‘And now I should go. If he were to come in now and find you telling me your sorrows he would certainly be cross.’ I laid a hand on hers. ‘But if things become too much, or you want someone to talk to, a note to my house will bring me.’
‘You are kind, sir. Some days I just sit staring mopishly at that damp patch for hours, I have no energy and wonder what is wrong with me. The mould will not go away. However I clean it the black spots are soon creeping over the wall again.’ She sighed. ‘It is not like the old days, when I worked in poor Queen Catherine Howard’s household. Oh, I was only the lowest of servants, but there was always something of interest to see.’
‘Danger, too,’ I said with a smile. ‘As it turned out.’
‘I know.’ She paused. ‘They say there will be a new queen soon. A widow. Catherine, Lady Latimer. She will be the sixth. Fantastic, is it not?’
‘Strange indeed.’
She shook her head wonderingly. ‘Was there ever such a king?’
I left her. As I descended the dark staircase, I remembered when Barak and Tamasin had married, on a fine spring day the year before. I had felt envious of their content. A single man can easily assume all marriages are blissful, the couple devoted like Roger and Dorothy. But tonight I had seen the sad things that could lurk beneath the surface. I had been right to guess something was amiss, but had not known things were as bad as this. ‘Damn Barak!’ I said aloud as I stepped out on to the road, startling a gentleman going into the Barge, perhaps to see one of the prostitutes.
I SPENT MOST OF Good Friday and Easter Saturday at home, working on papers. I did not go to church on Easter Sunday. The weather remained unseasonably cold, with a further light fall of snow. I was in an unsettled, restless mood. On Saturday I even took out my pencils and drawing pad; this last year I had gone back to my old hobby of painting and sketching, but that day I could think of nothing to draw. I looked at the blank paper but nothing came to mind but vague circles and dark lines and a sane man could hardly make a drawing of those. I went to bed but could not sleep. I lay thinking how I might broach the subject of Tamasin to Barak without making matters worse. Then when I did get to sleep I dreamed of poor mad Adam Kite. I came into his wretched room at the Bedlam to find him crouched on the floor, praying desperately. But as I approached I realized it was not God’s name nor Jesus’ that he was invoking, but mine - it was ‘Master Shardlake’ that he was begging for salvation. I woke with a start.
It was still dark, but dawn was not far off and I thought I might as well go into work, even though it was Easter Sunday. There was more paperwork to do in chambers. My housekeeper was already up, chivvying the boy, Peter, to light the fire and bring some heat to the cold morning. I breakfasted, then donned my robe and wrapped myself in my coat to walk up Chancery Lane to Lincoln’s Inn.
As I turned out of my gate I fancied it was less cold again, the remaining snow turning once more to muddy slush. I looked back at my house. The tall chimneys rising from the tiled roof were outlined against a strange-coloured sky, streaks of faint blue interspersed with banks of cloud tinged pink underneath by the rising sun. I set off, turning my mind to the cases to be heard on Tuesday, including Adam Kite’s. I passed under the Great Gate, past the still-shuttered porter’s lodge, and walked across the slushy yard towards my chambers.
It was not yet full day. Almost all the windows were unlit, but to my surprise I saw a light in my own chambers; Barak must have come straight here from wherever he had been last night, not gone home at all. Damn the wretch, I thought.
Then I jumped at the sound of a cry. A man’s voice, yelling out in terror. I made out two figures standing by the fountain, looking into the water. ‘Oh God!’ one cried.
I turned and crossed to them. I saw the ice was broken into pieces. The water under the ice was red, bright red. My heart began thumping painfully.
By their short black robes, the two young men standing staring into the fountain were students. One was short and thickset, the other tall and thin. They looked red-eyed, probably returning to their quarters from some all-night roister.
‘What is it?’ I asked sharply. ‘What is happening?’
The thickset student turned to me. ‘There’s - there’s a man in the fountain,’ he said in a trembling voice.
The other student pointed at something sticking out of the water. ‘That - that’s a foot.’
I looked at them sharply, wondering if this was some prank. But as I stepped close I saw in the growing light that a man’s booted leg was sticking out between the chunks of ice. Taking a deep breath, I leaned over. I made out the shape of a long dark robe billowing out in that bright red water. This was a lawyer. I felt a moment’s giddiness, then pulled myself together and turned to the students. ‘Help me get him out,’ I said sharply. The one who had spoken shrank back but the tall thin one approached.
‘You’ll have to pull on that leg,’ I said. ‘Then I’ll take hold of him.’
The student crossed himself, then grabbed the leg by the ankle, took a deep breath, and pulled. The ice heaved up in big fragments as the leg emerged, then the body. The oth
er student joined me in seizing hold of the stone-cold corpse.
We hauled it out, then laid it on the slushy ground. The gown had ridden up over the head, hiding the man’s face. I looked at the body: a small, thin man.
‘Look at that water.’ The tall student spoke in a whisper. It was almost full light now, showing a bright vermilion circle.
‘It’s full of blood,’ the other said. ‘Sweet Jesus.’
I turned back to the body. I was shivering, and not just from the cold water that had soaked me as we pulled the body out. I crouched down, took the hem of the robe and pulled it away from the face.
‘Oh Christ Jesus!’ one of the students cried out. He turned away and I heard a retching sound. But I sat transfixed by what was, for me, a double horror. The first was the great gaping wound in the man’s throat, red against the dead-white skin and stretching almost from ear to ear. The second was the face. It was Roger.
Chapter Six
FOR A FEW MOMENTS I stood transfixed, staring at that awful corpse, the terrible wound in the throat. Roger’s eyes were closed, the alabaster face looked peaceful. I thought, surely his face should be contorted with horror as he suffered that appalling death? For a second, in the shadowy early morning light, I hoped madly that the thing on the ground might not be Roger at all, but a plaster figure some crazed artist had created as an evil joke. But even as I watched, some dark blood from the ripped neck seeped on to the snow.
‘Please, sir, cover him!’ the stocky student called in a shrill voice. I removed my coat and bent down to the body. Suddenly I was overcome by emotion. ‘Oh, my poor friend!’ I cried out, tears starting to my eyes as I gently touched Roger’s face. It was icy cold. I covered it with my coat and knelt by him, letting the tears come.
