by C. J. Sansom
‘Any developments on the Bealknap case?’ said Barak.
‘No. I wrote to London, telling the council we should proceed, that I had hopes of the matter now. I doubt it will have got there; Rich will have ordered letters from me be intercepted before they leave with the postboy.’
‘Then why write it?’
‘So he could see my resolve stays firm.’
Barak raised his eyebrows, but said no more. I risked a backward glance. Rich had gone from the doorway.
THE WEATHER STAYED FINE but grew colder; the leaves continued to fall in the courtyard and were burned in big smoking piles. I went to visit Giles again the next day. He had rallied but I could see his square cheeks had fallen in a little more. I dined alone with him, and he told me stories of the cases he had dealt with in York over the past fifty years; lawyer’s tales, some funny and others tragic. Yet I sensed he had things on his mind.
‘Giles?’ I asked him at one point. ‘Have you thought of writing to your nephew? You could send a letter by fast messenger.’
He shook his head firmly. ‘No. Our quarrel was bitter, Matthew. He might ignore a letter. I need to see him face to face. Besides, I do not have his address.’ He looked at me keenly. ‘You think I am not up to the journey.’
‘You know best, Giles.’ I hesitated. ‘By the way, what chambers did Martin Dakin practise in, before your quarrel?’
He looked at me. ‘Garden Court. Why?’
‘It will help us find him. He is probably still there.’ I thought, the same chambers as Bernard Locke. That was a damned mischance. Or was it just a coincidence; there were not that many chambers at Gray’s Inn, and I knew the northern lawyers tended to stick together. But I would not tell him, would not worry him unnecessarily.
At ten Barak called as arranged to accompany me home. As Giles saw me to the door he laid his hand on my arm.
‘Thank you for your care,’ he said. ‘You watch over me like a son.’
‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Only as a friend should. Thank you for a pleasant evening, Giles. It has taken my mind from my troubles.’
‘Is your father’s estate settled yet?’
‘Soon. I have written to the mortgagee, told him I will have the balance of the funds when I get paid for my work here.’
‘It will be sad, though, letting your father’s farm go.’
‘Yes.’ And yet I had hardly thought of the farm at all. The realization I had no feelings for my childhood home made me guilty. I had a sudden vision of my father’s face. He looked sad, disappointed.
‘Is that all that troubles you, Matthew?’ Giles asked. ‘That girl and Barak looked mighty worried when she called the other day. And you seem – strained.’
‘Official matters, Giles,’ I said with an apologetic smile.
He raised a hand. ‘Well, if you feel you can talk of them at any time, I shall be glad to listen.’ He opened the door. I looked out at the dark narrow street. Barak, waiting outside, bowed. Giles looked between him and me. ‘Come over on Sunday, both of you, and I will show you round the Minster. I think you have not seen it yet?’
‘No.’ With all that had passed, I had forgotten my wish to see inside.
‘Bring that comely wench of yours, young Barak. It does me good to see her.’
‘Thank you, Master Wrenne.’
‘Good, then that is settled. Goodnight, Matthew, till Sunday.’
‘Goodnight, Giles.’ We walked away. As ever when walking in the dark I tensed, my eyes alert for a shadow in a doorway, a stealthy footstep behind.
I told Barak Giles’s nephew had practised in the same chambers as Bernard Locke. ‘When we get back to London,’ I said, ‘I am going to go to Gray’s Inn privately before taking Giles there, find out what the position is.’
‘If we ever get out of York,’ Barak answered gloomily.
THE FOLLOWING DAY we had an unwelcome reminder of our meeting with Lady Rochford. I had spent the morning with Barak checking the orders made in the arbitration hearings before delivering them to Maleverer’s office; that was my last task in connection with the petitions. I walked across to King’s Manor with Barak and delivered the papers to a clerk; we had arranged to meet Tamasin outside and go to the refectory to lunch. As the three of us walked away from King’s Manor, my heart sank at the sight of Lady Rochford approaching with a group of courtiers. Culpeper was not there, but Francis Dereham was with her. We bowed our heads and hurried by, hoping they would ignore us.
‘Mistress Reedbourne!’ Lady Rochford’s sharp voice behind us made us halt and turn. Barak and I bowed, and Tamasin curtsied deeply, as Lady Rochford approached us.
‘What are you doing away from the manor, mistress?’ Lady Rochford asked sternly. Her eyes raked Barak’s face and mine, too. The other courtiers looked on with interest.
‘I am going to the refectory, my lady. Mistress Marlin gave me permission.’
Lady Rochford gave us a haughty look. ‘Mistress Marlin allows her servants too much latitude. Still, I daresay it will do no harm.’ She stared at me. ‘You are lucky to have a gentleman for a patron to accompany you. Though I hear you had an encounter with an escaped bear, Master Shardlake. That would have been most sad, if it had got you. You would have had to take all your lawyer’s secrets to the grave.’ She gave a harsh, nervous laugh.
I eyed her narrowly. Was this some sort of threat? But I thought, no, it has been put about the bear escaped by accident. She is only reminding us she has her eye on us. And, of course, she believed I had a record of what Tamasin and Barak had seen. I had written nothing down, but the threat was enough. ‘Be assured, my lady,’ I said steadily, ‘I take care to keep all my secrets where they are most safe.’
‘Be sure you do,’ she said, then turned away quickly. We walked on, but after a few yards I heard footsteps behind me. Before I could turn I felt a hand laid on my shoulder and was yanked round. Francis Dereham was glaring at me, a savage frown on the saturnine features above his black beard.
‘You hunchback churl!’ Dereham hissed at me. ‘I heard your words. How dare you speak to Lady Rochford with such disrespect. God’s death, you get above yourself for a lawyer. I should hammer you into the ground for your insolence.’
I did not reply. Fortunately, Dereham made no move to further violence; no doubt remembering that violence within the precincts of the royal court carried serious consequences.
‘You annoy me, crookback,’ he said. ‘And for someone of your rank to annoy someone of mine is not wise. Now, crawl on your knees to Lady Rochford, and apologize.’
I breathed hard. All around the courtyard people had stopped to watch the scene. I looked at Lady Rochford. She stood at the front of the group of courtiers and for once looked uncertain what to do. Then she stepped forward and laid a hand on Dereham’s arm.
‘Leave him, Francis,’ she said. ‘He is not worth the trouble.’
Dereham turned to her, anger turning to puzzlement. Reasonableness, I imagined, was not a quality Lady Rochford often showed. ‘Would you let him get away with answering you back?’ he pressed.
‘It does not matter!’ She reddened.
‘What is between you and these people?’ Dereham asked.
‘It is you who forgets your place now, Francis,’ Lady Rochford said, her voice rising. ‘Do not question me.’
‘Fie!’ Dereham released my shoulder and stalked off without a word. Lady Rochford gave me a savage look that showed what she would have liked to do had I not had a hold over her, and walked off with a swish of skirts. The others followed.
‘They say Dereham suspects there is something the Queen is keeping from him,’ Tamasin said in a low voice.
‘Then let us hope for all our sakes he does not find out what it is,’ I said. ‘Or at least, our connection to it.’
BY SUNDAY THERE WAS still no word of King James; we had been in York now thirteen days. After lunch I met Barak and Tamasin in the courtyard to go to Master Wrenne’s. The sky was dark and there was a thin
, biting wind; we had wrapped ourselves warmly in our coats.
‘I am looking forward to this,’ Tamasin said cheerfully.
‘It will get us out of St Mary’s for a while,’ Barak agreed.
We walked down Petergate to the Minster. I looked at the great east window of the cathedral that dominated the view as we approached, one of the largest stained-glass windows in Christendom. Strange how I had got used to seeing it, how it had become merely part of the view. Services were over, the streets quiet, but there were many soldiers about and more standing before the gates to the precinct. As we approached two of them crossed their pikes to bar our way.
‘The King is visiting the Minster. What business have you here?’
The three of us exchanged glances. I would have preferred to turn back there and then, but that would have been discourteous to Giles. I showed the guard my commission and explained we had an appointment to visit a lawyer who lived in the precinct. The guard allowed us to enter, but warned that if the King’s train approached, we must stand well out of the way and keep our heads bowed till he passed. I wondered if it was just my imagination or whether the guard cast a look at my back as he let us through, whether he had heard about Fulford.
The precinct was quiet, though many more soldiers were posted around, wearing half-armour over their red tunics and plumed helmets, and carrying pikes. I hurried Barak and Tamasin over to Wrenne’s house. Madge, who greeted me pleasantly these days, showed us into the solar where Master Wrenne stood before the fire, staring sadly at the falcon’s perch.
‘Ah, Matthew. And Master Barak, and Mistress Reed-bourne.’ He smiled at Tamasin. ‘It is a long time since I have welcomed a pretty maid as my guest.’
‘Where is your falcon, Giles?’ I asked.
‘Poor Octavia is dead. Madge came in this morning and found her lying on the floor. She was very old. Yes, I had promised myself we should go out hunting together again, to see her fly once more and feel the sun. How easy it is to leave things undone until they are too late.’ He gave me a sudden look of intense sorrow. He must be thinking of his nephew, I thought.
He forced a smile. ‘Come, have some wine. We will have to wait awhile before we can go into the Minster, the King is there. So common mortals must wait.’ Giles walked over to the table with his slow steady gait, poured us wine and bade us sit. He asked Tamasin about her time on the Progress, and she told stories of the Queen’s servants and attendants and their problems in keeping up cleanliness while camping in muddy fields in the rain. She avoided mention of Lady Rochford. Wrenne encouraged her stories, he clearly enjoyed having her there. At length we heard voices outside, and a guard shouting, ‘Fall to!’ Giles crossed to the window.
‘The soldiers seem to be going, the King’s visit must be over. I think we may make our way across to the Minster now.’
‘I would have liked to see the King,’ Tamasin said. ‘I only glimpsed him for a moment when he came to York.’
‘You do not see him in the course of your duties?’ Giles asked.
‘No. Only the Queen occasionally, and I have never spoken with her.’
‘Well, seeing His Majesty once can be enough, eh, Matthew?’
‘It can indeed,’ I replied feelingly.
WE MADE OUR WAY outside and walked up the little street to the Minster forecourt. But we had miscalculated; Henry had not gone. Soldiers still lined the walls and the King, who had just descended the Minster steps, was stumping heavily towards us on his stick. There was a retinue of courtiers behind him, and a white-haired old man in robes like Cranmer’s walked at his side, who I realized must be Archbishop Lee of York. The King, dressed today in a heavy fur-lined robe open to show his jewelled doublet and thick gold chain, was berating the old man; his face was red with anger, redder than his beard. We stood by the wall, bowing our heads – I bowed mine as low as it would go, praying the King would not recognize me and stop for another of his merry jests.
‘God’s blood!’ we heard Henry shout in his hoarse, squeaky voice. ‘That shrine is large and rich enough to hold the bones of a monarch, not a long-dead archbishop! Remove all those offerings and have the whole thing down! God’s death, Lee, I will have either it or you in pieces on a dunghill, do you hear? You would have kept me from seeing it!’ His voice rose. ‘I ordered the shrines closed and I will have every one in England down. I will have no authority in religion save mine!’
His voice faded as he passed by. I ventured to look up. The courtiers were following now and the King was walking on. I looked at the back of his fur-collared, rich velvet coat. Was he really the grandson of some commoner? I trembled a little, as though my thoughts could somehow reach him. I saw his limp was very bad; without his jewelled stick I doubted he could walk at all. The soldiers peeled away from the walls and followed behind their master as he went through the gates.
‘Well, Tammy,’ Barak said. ‘You got to see the King close to after all.’
‘I did not know he looked so old,’ she said quietly. ‘Pity the Queen.’
‘Pity all of us,’ Giles said. ‘Come, let us go in.’
THE INTERIOR OF THE Minster was a wonder, the nave larger than St Paul’s and more brightly lit. I stared around me through a light haze of incense. From the inside the magnificence of the stained glass was even more apparent, the great east window dominating all. In side-chapels and little niches, chantry priests stood quietly murmuring their masses. Again I thought of the strangeness of the pattern reform had taken in England: the great monastic church at St Mary’s had been turned into a stable and smithy, while the Minster stood intact.
Tamasin pointed to a strange object, the painted figure of a long-necked dragon that hung over the nave. ‘What is that, Master Wrenne?’
‘A lever for the lid of the great font. A touch of decorative humour. Out of fashion these days.’
I walked to where Barak stood a little way off, looking at a richly decorated side-chapel. A little group of clerics stood nearby. One of them was the man Wrenne had pointed out as the Dean. He was looking grimly pleased. ‘So do it,’ he said. ‘Commission the workmen.’ He stalked away, his footsteps echoing on the tiled floor.
‘He’s been ordering them to take down a great shrine in the quire,’ Barak told me. ‘The King was furious when he saw all the offerings laid before it.’
‘Earwigging, were you?’ I asked with a smile.
‘Might as well.’ He shrugged. ‘Can’t say these old churches interest me.’
‘Tamasin seems enthralled.’
‘That’s women for you.’
‘Any word from London? About who her father might be?’
‘None. She’s stopped talking about it. I lost my temper with her, in fact.’ He looked shamefaced. ‘Told her she should let it go, stop thinking about it all the time. Seems to have done the trick, she’s hardly mentioned it since.’
We went over and joined Tamasin before the quire screen. It was decorated with a series of life-size figures that I recognized as the kings of England, from William the Conqueror to Henry V. They were exquisitely done. I counted them. ‘Eleven,’ I said.
‘Are they not marvellous?’ Tamasin asked.
‘Yes.’
She pointed to the statues. ‘Why does the row stop with King Henry V?’
‘Good question. Master Wrenne may know.’ I looked around for the old man, but there was no sign of him.
‘He went off through there,’ Tamasin said, nodding to the door to the quire.
‘I will go and look. No, stay here,’ I added as they made to follow. I hoped he had not been taken ill again; if so, I did not want the others to see.
I walked into the quire, lined with rows of high, beautifully decorated wooden pews. To one side stood an enormous, ornate construction in dark wood, richly adorned with pillars and arches. A decorated sepulchre was set atop a bier ten feet high, with niches carved in the side where people could kneel and pray. Offerings were hung on the bier: rosaries and rings and necklaces. Gi
les knelt in a niche, praying intently, his lips moving silently. Hearing my footsteps, he turned. He stared blankly for a moment, his mind far away. Then he smiled and rose stiffly to his feet.
‘Forgive me,’ I said. ‘I did not mean to interrupt.’
‘No, no, it was discourteous of me to leave you.’ He waved at the shrine. ‘Well, behold the shrine of St William, that so angered the King.’
‘Who was he?’
‘An early archbishop of York. It is said the Ouse bridge collapsed when he was crossing it in procession, but by divine intervention none were killed. He is the patron saint of the city; many come to pray for his intercession, as you see.’
I nodded uncomfortably. To me tales of centuries-old miracles had no meaning; and the shrine struck me over-elaborate, even ugly.
‘It seems those who say the King’s passion for reform died with Cromwell were wrong,’ Giles said. ‘As we heard from his own lips, St William’s shrine will be destroyed. It offends his great vanity.’
‘It seems so,’ I said quietly.
‘Would you approve?’ He gave me a sharp look.
‘I confess saints and shrines mean little to me. But perhaps it is a shame to destroy it if it means so much to the people.’
‘Now this too is to be taken from York.’ He sighed. ‘Well, let us go.’ With a last look at the shrine, he turned away. We returned to the nave, where Tamasin and Barak still stood before the statues of the kings.
‘Master Wrenne?’ Tamasin asked him. ‘Why do the Kings stop at Henry V?’
‘Ah. There used to be a figure of Henry VI there, the Lancastrian king who was defeated in the Wars of the Roses. Many believed him to be a saint, and people would come and make offerings beneath his statue. The Yorkist kings did not approve, so the statue was removed.’ He turned to me and raised his eyebrows. ‘So you see, kings as well as saints may be written out of history.’
