Sovereign

by C. J. Sansom

  He shrugged. ‘Well, it’s done now.’

  ‘Come, I must do that family tree. God’s death, Maleverer is a brute. I hope he is not rough with Master Wrenne.’

  ‘I think that the old fellow can look after himself.’

  ‘By God, I hope so.’

  Barak looked back at the house. ‘We’ve got off lightly.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure,’ I said. ‘I doubt Maleverer has finished with us yet. Nor the people he was writing those notes for.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  AT OUR LODGINGS everyone was out at work; the building empty, the fire low. Barak fetched a bench and lugged it into my cubicle. He brought my cap too, which he must have retrieved from Craike’s office when he found me. He had fixed the feather back crudely with what was left of the pin.

  I locked the door, then brought out a big sheet of paper from my knapsack and laid it on the bed while he sharpened a goose-feather quill for me.

  ‘You sure you can remember how the family tree looked?’

  ‘Ay.’ I shifted my position on the bench, trying to get my neck comfortable. ‘My head still feels woolly, but Maleverer’s backhanded compliment was right, lawyers are good at remembering what is in documents. Let me see what I can recall.’ I dipped the pen in the inkpot. I was relieved that Barak did not seem angry with me over Tamasin. He sat subdued, watching as I sketched out the tree. I recalled that the line of descent leading to the present King had been inscribed in bolder ink, and pressed the pen down more heavily there. In a little time a scrawled version of what I had seen lay before us.

  ‘I saw a lot of these genealogies round Whitehall Palace when I worked for Lord Cromwell,’ Barak said. ‘This looks different somehow.’

  ‘Yes. They have missed out a number of children, like Richard III’s son, who died young.’

  ‘And the King’s two sisters.’

  ‘Yes.’ I frowned. ‘Every genealogy tells a story. Its purpose is always to prove someone’s legitimacy to a title through descent. It is because the Tudor claim was originally so weak that they have put family trees showing the marriages that strengthened it everywhere in official buildings.’

  Barak studied the tree. ‘Our King’s descent from Edward IV is marked in bold.’ He looked at me. ‘So this tree supports the King’s claim.’

  ‘Yet it includes the family of the Duke of Clarence, which most omit. See there, his daughter Margaret Countess of Salisbury and her son Lord Montagu, whom we spoke of with Master Wrenne. Both executed this year. And Montagu’s young son and daughter, who have disappeared in the Tower.’ I rubbed my chin. ‘Is the King’s claim marked thus for some other reason?’

  ‘Princesses Mary and Elizabeth are not marked in bold.’

  ‘They were not in bold on the one I saw. Remember neither has a claim to the throne; when the King’s marriages to Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were annulled, their daughters were declared illegitimate. Prince Edward, Jane Seymour’s son, is the King’s sole heir.’

  ‘Unless the rumours are true and Queen Catherine is carrying a child.’

  ‘Yes, that child would become second in line and make the Tudor dynasty more secure. But is she pregnant?’ I turned to look at Barak, wincing as my neck twanged, and although the lodging-house was empty I lowered my voice. ‘The King’s divorce from Anne of Cleves last year cited non-consummation; he said he found her so repulsive he could not mount her. Yet when the Act of Annulment was discussed at Lincoln’s Inn, some said quietly that perhaps the King, ill as he often is now, had become impotent. That he married pretty young Catherine Howard in the hope she could stir his jellied loins.’

  ‘People said the same in the taverns. But quietly, as you say.’

  ‘Perhaps we shall find out if Queen Catherine is expecting when the King arrives. Perhaps it will be announced from those pavilions.’ I turned back to the family tree. ‘In any event, this is all quite orthodox.’

  Barak pointed at the name that headed the list. ‘Who was Richard Duke of York? I confess I get lost among those competing claims during the Striving between the Roses.’

  ‘It all goes back to the deposition of Richard II as a tyrant in 1399. He had no children, and there were competing claims among his cousins. Eventually it came to war, and in 1461 the Lancastrian Henry VI was deposed and the rival house of York took the throne in the person of Edward IV. Edward’s father, Richard Duke of York, would have become King but he died in battle the year before.’

  Barak traced his finger down the line. ‘And Edward IV was our present King’s grandfather.’

  ‘Yes. Through the King’s mother, Elizabeth of York. It is said the King greatly resembles him.’

  ‘What about our King’s father’s claim? King Henry VII?’

  ‘His claim was weak, but he joined his bloodline to that of Edward IV by marrying his daughter. It is that which makes King Henry’s position dynastically secure.’

  Barak’s finger followed the line back up the paper. ‘When Edward IV died his son inherited briefly as Edward V, did he not? But he and his brother were killed when the throne was usurped by King Edward’s brother Richard.’

  ‘That is right. The Princes in the Tower.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Something interesting there. Richard III is named as “Crouchback, so-called”.’ Barak looked uncomfortable, and I smiled sadly. ‘Oh, let us not beat about the bush. It was said Richard III was a hunchback, though others say that is a lie invented by the Tudors. Because hunchbacks are said to be unlucky, and our outward shape a sign of inward degeneracy. The fact the writer says “so-called” indicates he did not believe the stories about King Richard. In any case, Richard III’s seizure of the throne angered the country, so that when the King’s father rose against him he got much support. Then he made his heirs secure by marrying Elizabeth of York.’

  ‘And the Duke of Clarence, Edward IV’s other brother, he died before him?’

  ‘He was executed for treason – he had tried to seize the throne as well.’

  ‘Jesu, what a family. The mother of those three, Cecily Neville. Maleverer mentioned her. He said it all starts with her.’

  ‘Yes. And there was a bitterness in his tone.’ I frowned. ‘I wonder why. All those shown here are her descendants, but they are Richard of York’s too and the line of descent runs through him.’

  Barak thought a moment. ‘If the conspirators had overthrown the King this spring, little Prince Edward would be the rightful heir.’

  ‘Yes, but a child king. That is a recipe for strife among the nobles. No, if the conspirators were going to replace the King, Margaret of Salisbury would have been their choice.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the conspirators would have wanted them for one reason above all others. The family are all papists, like the conspirators. Montagu’s brother Reginald Pole is a cardinal in Rome.’

  ‘Jesu.’

  ‘And the royal bloodline now gives the King not only the right to the throne but to headship of the Church in place of the Pope. As Cranmer said to me, when the King’s conscience is moved it is God who speaks through him, giving him the right to make or break religious policy.’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘Anyone who took the throne would take the title Defender of the Faith as well.’

  ‘God speaking through the King’s voice.’ Barak shook his head. ‘That has always seemed to me as stupid an idea as that he speaks though the Pope’s. Though it gives the King great power.’

  It was the first time he had spoken so frankly of his beliefs. I nodded slowly. ‘I agree. But to talk thus is treason.’

  ‘’Tis what many think.’

  ‘Ay, it is. But come, we are straying into dangerous waters.’ I sanded the paper carefully. ‘Here, take this to Maleverer. Make sure it is placed in his hands only.’

  He hesitated. ‘I wonder if it might be prudent to take a copy.’

  ‘No. No more hostages to fortune. Besides, I have a copy already.’ I tapped my bruised head. ‘In here.’

  AFTER
BARAK LEFT I lay down on my cot. I fell asleep at once, and did not wake till Barak shook my shoulder some hours later. ‘What time is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Near five. You’ve slept the afternoon.’ He seemed more cheerful.

  I sat up. My head felt clearer, but I winced at a jab from my neck. ‘Did you take the family tree to Maleverer?’

  ‘Yes, and got a growl for thanks.’ He hesitated. ‘Then I went to find Mistress Tamasin.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I tipped a guard to fetch her, saying I had news of a relative.’ He gave me one of his hard direct looks. ‘I understand why you felt you had to tell Maleverer what Tamasin did, but I wanted to tell her it was not my decision.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘She forgave me readily enough. And admitted her own fault in deceiving us, though she said she didn’t regret it. By Jesu, she has spirit.’

  I grunted. ‘You’ve told me more than once you like a woman who keeps her place.’

  ‘I don’t like bossy women. But Tamasin is not like that. In fact –’ he smiled – ‘I have never met anyone quite like her before.’

  ‘Women with strength of spirit may come to rule their men.’

  ‘Oh come,’ he said hotly. ‘You know you do not believe that. How often have you told me you admire women with minds of their own? Like Lady Honor.’

  ‘The less I am reminded of Lady Honor Bryanston, the better I like it.’ I heard the bitterness in my own voice at the memory of my ill-fated dalliance the year before. ‘And do not mistake reckless improvidence for an independent mind.’

  ‘Well, I am meeting her tomorrow evening at the singing, as we arranged.’

  ‘Is that wise? Maleverer was not happy about what she did.’

  ‘He’s not one to care what dalliances men and women may have so long as there are no political implications.’ He looked at me hard again. ‘Do you disapprove?’

  ‘ ’Tis not for me to approve or disapprove,’ I replied defensively. I still had doubts about the girl, but I realized too that I was jealous, not of Barak for having a pretty girl chase him, but of her for taking the attention of one of the few real friends I had. I changed the subject, asking Barak if he had seen Master Wrenne.

  ‘In the courtyard when I went in to Maleverer. Only in the distance – he was making for the gate and did not see me.’

  ‘Did he look all right?’

  ‘Yes. He was walking towards the gate. I thought I caught a slight smile on his face.’

  ‘Thank God. I feared Maleverer might take him in for rough questioning.’

  ‘I told you he could look after himself.’

  ‘Ay.’ I got up. ‘Well, I shall go for a walk, I think. I need some air.’

  ‘Want some company?’

  I smiled. ‘All right.’

  OUTSIDE A WIND had got up, and I smelled rain in the air. ‘Autumn is well on here,’ I observed. My head felt clearer, but with the clarity came apprehension. I watched the people passing to and fro and thought, somebody here, one of these people, attacked me. Will they try again? I was glad of Barak’s company.

  We walked past the animal enclosures. Two big metal cages had been set up to one side; in each a huge brown bear crouched, staring out through little red eyes full of fear and anger.

  ‘There’s to be bear-baiting among the public entertainments for the King,’ Barak said. ‘I dare say you’ll steer clear of that.’ He smiled slightly, for he found my squeamishness about such things odd.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied shortly.

  ‘A whole lot of fighting cocks were being brought in when I was in the courtyard earlier. Games for the soldiers and workmen. They’re not allowed in the city in case they fight with the Yorkers. They’ve put the birds in the chapterhouse, I was told.’

  I shook my head. ‘How the world is everywhere turned upside down.’

  We walked down the side of the church to the main courtyard. Men on ladders were fixing pennants to the pavilions now, in the green and white Tudor colours, the red-on-white cross of England and, I saw to my astonishment, blue flags with a slantwise white cross. I pointed. ‘Look! Isn’t that the Scotch flag? Jesu, King James must be coming here! That is what all this is for!’

  Barak whistled. ‘A meeting of kings.’

  ‘So King Henry has come to make his terms with the Scots as well as the Yorkmen. He’s after a peace treaty.’ I shook my head. ‘King James would be mad to abandon his alliance with the French, it’s all that’s ever stopped us overrunning them.’

  ‘Maybe he’s offering James a choice between peace terms and invasion.’

  ‘If this is what it is all about, perhaps Queen Catherine is not pregnant after all.’

  I looked round the courtyard, less crowded now the building work was finished. Men were loading surplus building material on to carts, while more flagstones were being laid near the manor house, covering the earth so the King – the Kings – should not get their robes muddy. I shivered, feeling tired again. ‘Come, let us go back through the church. We can see how the horses are doing.’

  The monastic church was also full of workmen. Row upon row of wooden stalls had been set up along the nave now for the horses, and men were piling up bales of hay for fodder and setting straw in the stalls. The banging down of the bales, the swish of the straw being laid, echoed round the place. As we walked down the church another sound became audible, an angry crowing from the chapterhouse. There must be hundreds of fighting cocks, I realized, and wondered what they made of the holy statues, whether they took them for real men as Barak had. I looked around. For all the great vaulting arches this was the corpse of a church, a corpse set out to be mocked and desecrated as they said Richard III’s was after the Battle of Bosworth. I felt suddenly giddy, and went over to a bench that someone had left in the middle of the nave. ‘I must rest a moment,’ I said.

  Barak joined me. We sat in silence for a minute, then I turned to him, wincing at a spasm in my neck.

  ‘I wonder if I am safe now,’ I said.

  ‘You mean your assailant would have killed you had Craike not interrupted him?’

  ‘I’m not sure Craike did interrupt him.’

  ‘You mean he was the attacker?’

  ‘No. Otherwise the cudgel, or whatever else he used, would have been found on him when he was searched. And those damned papers. No, I mean my assailant had already left the room when Craike arrived in the corridor. Think about it. That is a long corridor, whoever attacked me would have heard Craike’s footsteps as he arrived at the far end. He could not have left the room and run down the other staircase without Craike seeing him. And Craike said he heard footsteps descending, not running.’

  ‘So the attacker thought he had killed you.’

  ‘Unless he did not mean to kill me, just knock me out.

  Say he entered the room just as I lifted that confession by

  Blaybourne from the box, and hit me before I could read it.’

  ‘If it’s that important, surely he’d kill you to make sure.’

  I sighed. ‘Yes, unless he thought I was already dead. If

  so, he showed carelessness. And when he sees I am alive, he

  may try again.’

  ‘But the damage has been done. You’ve told Maleverer everything you saw.’

  ‘The attacker may not know that.’ ‘Then we’ll have to keep watch,’ Barak said. ‘Thank you for the we. I wonder what those papers signify. An orthodox-seeming family tree, a copy of the Mouldwarp legend, an Act of Parliament Maleverer says is a fake and a confession by someone called Blaybourne whose name appears to strike terror into the hearts of the mighty. There were other papers too, quite a few, they looked like statements of some sort. And who was the thief? A conspirator, trying to keep the papers out of the King’s hands? But if so, why did Oldroyd not give them to him – I am assuming that was why he was killed.’

  ‘I don’t know. Jesu, I wish we could go home.’

  ‘So do I.’ I shivered in a cold wind that ca
me through an empty window-arch. I looked through it at the grey sky, just beginning to darken. Oldroyd would have removed that glass. I wondered what would happen to his house and business; he was another who had died without heirs.

  ‘What are you thinking of?’ Barak asked.

  ‘How since we got here my mind has run on genealogies. Those like the King’s that have heirs and those like Wrenne’s and Oldroyd’s that have run out. And mine, perhaps.’ I smiled sadly. ‘Your tree I suppose will go back to Abraham, through your father’s Jewish blood.’

  He shrugged. ‘And we all go back to Adam, the first sinner. I am my father’s only child too. I would like the line to go on.’ He smiled mirthlessly. ‘The secret line of Jewish blood.’ He turned back to me. ‘You could still marry. You are not yet forty.’

  ‘I will be next year. Then people will start to think of me as an old man.’

  ‘Ten years younger than the King.’

  I sighed. ‘After Lady Honor, last year—’ I changed the subject. ‘So, you have made up with Tamasin?’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled, then looked at me seriously. ‘She was frightened at being hauled up before Maleverer, I think, though she tried to hide it. She said Mistress Marlin was sharp with her, but has promised she will not tell Lady Rochford.’

  I nodded. ‘That is in her own interest. Lady Rochford might blame Mistress Marlin for not keeping proper control of the girl. Mistress Marlin is a strange creature. What does young Tamasin think of her?’

  ‘That she is mostly a kind mistress, oddly enough. It was she who chose Tamasin to come to York. I think Tamasin feels sorry for her, because the other ladies mock her. Tamasin has a kind heart.’

  ‘Well, that is a virtuous thing in a woman.’ I massaged my neck again. ‘Jesu, I am tired. I should go to the prison tonight, but I cannot face trailing through York again in the dark.’

  ‘Hardly surprising, after being knocked out. You should rest tonight.’

  ‘I shall go tomorrow, and call on Master Wrenne as well. I grow fond of that old man.’ I was quiet for a moment then said, ‘He is alone. That reminds me of my father, and then I feel guilty for not visiting him for a year before he died.’