Sovereign (34 page)

Rich’s eyes widened. ‘How come you to have acquaintances in that quarter?’

‘Not acquaintances, Sir Richard. But – er . . .’ I looked at Barak.

‘There was some dalliance between this Barak and a kitchenmaid under Mistress Marlin’s authority,’ Maleverer said.

‘Who else?’ Rich snapped.

‘Only Master Craike, who let us leave the casket in his office. And Master Wrenne whom we met on the way, and the sergeant at the gate.’

‘I’ve questioned all three,’ Maleverer said. ‘And the girl. And Oldroyd’s apprentice, but he said nothing useful either.’

‘Many others that we do not know must have seen us,’ I said.

Rich sat considering. ‘Have you questioned Lady Rochford about the casket?’ he asked.

‘No, sir. I questioned Jennet Marlin. I did not think I could interfere with members of the Queen’s household.’

Rich nodded. ‘No, Lady Rochford and Dereham can’t be questioned by the likes of you, but the Queen’s Chamberlain could put some careful questions to them. As for that Mistress
Marlin, she has a fiancé in the Tower. Suspected of being part of a Gray’s Inn link to the spring conspiracy.’

‘She was investigated and declared safe to come on the Progress,’ Maleverer said.

‘I will arrange to have some questions asked of Lady Rochford and Dereham. And you can question the Marlin woman again. We shall see if that throws anything up.’ Rich turned and
pointed a long finger at me, then Barak. ‘And you had better keep your curiosity to yourself, Brother Shardlake. You know too much as it is. Some on the Privy Council think that is reason to
send you back to London, but I think I would rather have you under my eye. Besides, the Archbishop wants you to look after Broderick. Not that you’ve done well there, either. I hear someone
tried to poison him.’

‘Yes, Sir Richard.’

‘And he won’t say whom?’

‘No. I have wondered . . .’

‘Well?’

‘Whether he is party to the plot to poison him. I know he wishes to die.’

Rich looked at Maleverer. ‘Is that possible?’

‘It could be. He’s an unusual one. He was well groped in York Castle, but said not a word. The torturers there feared he’d die if they went on much longer.’

‘What instruments do they have there?’

‘The rack, pokers, the usual. But the men are not skilled.’

‘And the locals cannot be trusted with what Broderick might know. Hence the King’s order he be taken to the Tower, where the real professionals will work on him.’ He shook his
head. ‘Yet time passes.’

‘Hopefully he will be on a boat in a few days,’ Maleverer said.

‘We must hope for a fair wind. We could send him by road, but that’s not safe and the roads are still in a mess from the rains and the passage of the Progress.’ Rich turned to
me. ‘What is his state of health now?’

‘Weak still from the poisoning.’ I hesitated. ‘I saw him earlier today. He was talking about the Mouldwarp legend. He seems to believe in it.’

Rich looked at Maleverer. ‘There were papers about that legend in the box.’

‘It was a common currency among the rebels in the commotion time. It is of a piece with Broderick’s fanaticism.’

Rich cast sharp eyes at me. ‘Why should Broderick relate the Mouldwarp legend to
you
? He can hardly have thought you would credit it. Can he?’

‘He overheard me talking to Radwinter.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Radwinter wormed out of me that the King mocked me at the Progress today. Broderick overheard our conversation
and related the Mouldwarp nonsense. But I swear I said no word against the King.’

Rich leaned back, giving me a sidelong look. ‘You had better not, or you will be in the hottest of hot water. You are in bad enough odour with the Privy Council. My advice to you, Master
Shardlake, is to follow the natural inclination of your bent body and keep your head down.’

‘Yes, Sir Richard.’

‘A low profile. That is the best course for you from now on.’ He spoke slowly and carefully, fixing me with his eyes, grey and lifeless as those of a corpse. He leaned forward.
‘It might help your reputation a little if you were to advise the London Guildhall to drop the Bealknap case.’

I met his gaze. I realized Rich had probably volunteered to be the Privy Councillor who would question me; it was a chance to put some pressure on. I did not reply. He inclined his head
slightly.

‘In any event it will do no good to keep on with that matter. I have found the judge I want, the case has been assigned to him.’

‘Who?’ I asked.

‘The case has not been
formally
set down yet. You will find out if you continue. You would be better to take my word for it, advise the Guildhall to drop the case now, and save
costs.’

Take Rich’s word was one thing I would never do. I saw Barak look at me anxiously. Rich saw too. ‘Perhaps you can advise your master to see sense,’ he snapped.
‘Otherwise, I do not know what will become of him. All right, that will be all. You can go.’

Maleverer leaned over to Rich and spoke quietly but eagerly. ‘May we take the opportunity, Sir Richard, of discussing the property of Aske’s family? If the disbursements can be
agreed —’

‘Not now.’ Rich frowned and looked at me. ‘I told you to go,’ he said. ‘Send for that Marlin woman.’ He waved a hand at us and we left the room. Outside, a
guard was waiting to lead us downstairs.

‘Some corrupt business between those two,’ I murmured to Barak.

I
T WAS ALMOST
dark now.

‘Shit,’ Barak said. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

‘Couldn’t have put it better myself,’ I said bitterly.

‘What are you going to do about the Bealknap case?’

‘I don’t believe Rich has managed to bribe a judge. If he had he’d have given the name. No, he was just using the opportunity to intimidate me.’

‘Intimidate you?’ Barak came to a halt. He looked angry, and as worried as I had ever seen him. ‘Intimidate you?’ he repeated. ‘Have you any idea just how much
pressure he can put on you if he wants? On a man who has the disapproval of the Privy Council? What he could do to you now if he really wanted?’

‘I have Cranmer’s protection.’

‘And Cranmer’s here, is he? I can’t see any archbishop’s robes among this lot. And Cranmer can’t stand against Rich, not if Rich has the Privy Council behind
him.’

‘Cranmer—’

‘Would only risk so much for someone as lowly as you. Or me. I’m in trouble too – it was me decided to try and open that fucking box!’

‘I will not be pressured or blackmailed into giving up a case!’

‘You’ve said yourself you didn’t think you could win.’

‘I won’t be blackmailed!’ I realized I was shouting.

‘Obstinacy,’ Barak said. ‘Obstinacy and pride. It’ll be the death of you – of both of us.’ He opened his mouth to say more, then closed it again and walked
away.

I ran a hand across my brow. ‘Shit!’ I said. A passing official looked at me curiously. I turned, walked down the side of the church and made my way to the bench under the copper
beech. I sat down heavily under the branches. People were still going to and fro through the gate that led to the encampment. I shivered, for there was a chill in the air now.

Barak’s outburst had surprised me. When I first met him a year ago he had been defiance itself, ready to treat the highest with disrespect. But then he had been under Lord Cromwell’s
patronage and, as Rich had taken pleasure in reminding us, Cromwell was dead. And now, as Barak had said, part of him at least wanted a quiet life. But it had been strange to hear him accuse me of
obstinacy and recklessness. I felt a warm flush of self-righteousness. I was protecting my clients, as every honest lawyer must. My integrity in the often corrupt world of the law was my badge, my
identity. Was even that to be taken from me by these mocking courtiers?

But as I sat under the tree a while a calmer humour settled on me. I knew I was clinging on to my reputation for integrity because, after the battering I had taken during that long day, it was
all I felt I had left. And I had no right to involve Barak in any unwise defiance of Rich. Yet I could not abandon my clients if, as I thought, we had a chance of winning. Barak should surely know
that.

I jerked upright at the sound of approaching footsteps. I remembered that I could still be in danger. A dim figure was approaching across the grass; I was relieved to see it was a woman, her
dress rustling as she stepped into the carpet of fallen leaves under the tree. As she came close I saw to my surprise that it was Tamasin, in her yellow dress and wearing a fine silver
necklace.

‘Mistress Reedbourne?’

She curtsied, then stood uncertainly before me. She seemed nervous, not at all her usual pert self.

‘I wondered, sir, if I might speak with you,’ she asked hesitantly. ‘I saw you sitting there.’

‘What about?’

‘It is important, sir. Important to me.’

‘Very well.’ I gestured to the bench and she sat beside me. She did not speak for a moment, she seemed to be considering what to say. I studied her. With her high cheekbones, full
mouth and determined chin she was indeed a very pretty girl. Yet so young; little more than a child it seemed to me.

‘Mistress Marlin has been taken to Sir William for questioning,’ she said at length.

‘Yes. Barak and I have just been with him. And Sir Richard Rich.’

‘Mistress Marlin looked angry. She dislikes Sir William greatly.’

‘Yes. I saw that when you were brought in for questioning on Wednesday.’

She reddened at the reminder of her deception.

‘You would have been better to have left Barak and me alone,’ I said. ‘I am involved in some very confidential matters.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We have had words. He will have told you. He is an impertinent fellow, Master Jack.’

‘He is anxious, sir.’

‘Usually it is me who is the anxious one.’ I hesitated. ‘But perhaps this time he is right.’ I looked at her, wondering how much of our business he had told her. The less
the better, for her sake. ‘Do you know where he is now?’

‘He has just left to look at the camp. I have been wanting to say, sir . . .’ she added, then hesitated again.

‘Yes?’ I said encouragingly. It cannot have been easy for her to come and seek me out; Barak’s cross-grained old employer as she probably thought of me.

‘I am sorry for the trick I played that day you first came to York.’

I nodded. ‘It was foolish. And unbecoming for a woman. Maleverer was right there. Yet he should not have struck you.’

She shook her head. ‘I care little for that.’ She looked at me steadily now. ‘I have had a strange life, Master Shardlake. I have had to make my own way. My mother was a
servant at court.’

‘Yes, Barak told me.’

‘She sewed the Queens’ bodyservants’ clothes in the sewery. In Catherine of Aragon’s time, then Anne Boleyn’s.’

‘Did she?’

‘Yes. Then she died, in the plague in London seven years ago.’

‘I am sorry,’ I said gently. ‘So many were lost then. I lost someone too.’

‘I was but twelve, with no one but my grandmother to care for me, or rather me for her as she was old and ailing.’

‘I see.’

‘I never knew who my father was. But I believe he was of good blood.’ She seemed to straighten a little with pride. ‘My mother told me he was a professional man.’

‘Did she?’

‘Yes. He might have been a senior courtier.’

Or a tailor. I felt sorry for her. Her mother had probably told her the tale to comfort her, to ease the girl’s shame at her origins.

‘I see you doubt me, sir. But I believe it. I take pride in myself, whatever cruel people may say about my birth.’

‘That is good. You should not listen to what cruel people say.’ I thought, but if it is the King?

‘My granddam told me to take advantage of the dearth of servants caused by the plague to seek the place my mother held,’ the girl went on. ‘And I did, sir. I told them in the
chamberlain’s office I was a skilled seamstress, though I knew nothing of the work.’

‘It seems you have a talent for deception.’

She frowned then. ‘I worked, sir, I worked day and night to learn until I made myself a competent seamstress, learning from the other girls, who helped me for my mother’s sake. And
poor folk must make shift for themselves. I had my granddam and myself to feed, and the Queen’s sewery offers good wages. And protection from the world outside,’ she added.

‘Yes. I can see that.’

‘I learned to live by my wits, sir.’

‘As Barak did.’

‘When I saw him that day in the town, something stirred in me, as it has seldom done before, and I thought – why not manufacture a meeting?’

I smiled reluctantly. ‘In truth you are clever, mistress, as well as bold.’ I looked at her directly. ‘And now you hope to hook your fish, eh?’

Her face was serious. ‘We are becoming fast friends, sir. I wanted only to ask you not to stand in our way. And please, where is the boldness in asking that?’

I studied her a long moment. ‘I think you are an unusual woman, Mistress Reedbourne,’ I said. ‘I had thought you of a frolic disposition but I see I was wrong.’

‘Jack is sorry for his words earlier,’ she said.