Sovereign (65 page)

We stood in a little group, waiting to go aboard. Myself and Giles, leaning on his stick and eyeing the boat keenly; Barak and Tamasin next to Giles. I had still not told Giles his nephew might
be in danger. I feared the shock it might be to him.

‘Soon be off,’ Giles said to Barak and Tamasin. Barak nodded and Tamasin smiled tightly. She stood by Barak’s side, ready to give assistance should he fall, for he still limped
heavily.

My attention was drawn by a carriage that trundled over the docks to the water’s edge. Curious heads turned everywhere as the door opened and Sergeant Leacon stepped out, accompanied by
two red-coated soldiers. They were followed by Radwinter, who stood on the dockside looking around him. Then the two soldiers helped Broderick from the carriage. A coat had been thrown over his
shirt; he pulled it round him as he felt the keen wind from the sea. I saw he cradled his left arm in his right and winced with pain as he moved. Even a few minutes on the rack, I knew, could leave
a man with a dislocated limb.

He looked at the little crowd on the dockside. His eyes fixed on my little group and he stared straight at us for a long moment, his face set hard. Then he nodded slowly, as though to say, here,
see what has become of me. The soldiers nudged him towards the planks that led from the docks to the ship. I saw his feet were still shackled, the chains rattling as they guided him onto the boat,
Radwinter following. They crossed the deck and went below.

‘So that is Broderick,’ Wrenne said quietly. He looked at me intently. ‘He will die in London?’

‘Yes,’ I answered bleakly. ‘If he survives his torture he will die a traitor’s death, disembowelled at Tyburn.’

‘I had not realized he was so young.’

The clerk in charge of the arrangements spoke to one of the courtiers. They began going aboard, several getting their servants to help them across the planks, looking down nervously at the
water. Then the clerk came over to us. He was a plump, bustling fellow. He reminded me of Master Craike, well on his way back to London with the Progress by now. He had not said goodbye before he
went.

‘If you would go aboard, sirs.’

Giles stepped forward. I turned to Barak, essayed a smile. ‘Well, here we go at last.’

‘Ay. Goodbye to Yorkshire. And good riddance,’ he added as Tamasin led him aboard by the hand.

T
HE FOUR OF US
– me, Barak, Tamasin and Giles – each had tiny cabins in the stern, no bigger than cupboards,
with space only for a narrow bunk nailed to the floor. Across the way I caught a glimpse of a servant unpacking his master’s bag in a larger cabin. A little further down the two soldiers that
had brought Broderick aboard stood guard outside a heavy door; the ship’s lock-up, no doubt. I wondered if Radwinter was in there with the prisoner. We four went back on deck. It was cold
even with the sea calm and the skies clear. I dreaded to think what it would be like in rough weather.

The crew were busy with the sails, under the eye of the mate, a stocky man with a weatherbeaten face. Satisfied, he marched off, boots ringing on the planks. There was a bump, a creak and the
ship began moving away from the wharf. Giles, who was wearing a cap, doffed it at the Yorkshire shore as we moved away.

‘I should keep that off,’ I said. ‘Or you’ll lose it in the wind. You should really be below.’

‘I’ll manage.’ But as he pulled his coat tightly round him I noticed his face seemed drawn. He went to sit down on a bench nailed to the deck, while Barak, Tamasin and I
watched as Hull faded slowly from view, a light swell in the Humber estuary making the ship rise and fall. I felt a little sick, and recalling what someone had told me once I fixed my eyes on the
mudbanks on the horizon.

I heard a murmur behind me. ‘That was him, at Fulford. The King made him bare his back to the crowd.’ I turned to see a pair of clerks looking over their shoulders at me. I frowned
at them and they turned away. So the story of what had happened at Fulford Cross was already growing in the telling, I thought bitterly, as stories do. Would I never be allowed to forget my
humiliation by King Henry? I wondered what they would say if they knew he might be no more than a Kentish archer’s grandson.

‘Oh, God.’ Barak lurched abruptly, then bent forward and vomited on the deck. He lost his balance, pitched forward and fell with a thud on the boards. There was a burst of laughter
from the clerks, and the sailors working at the mast looked over and grinned. I helped him to his feet. Tamasin took his other arm and we led him to sit down next to Giles. The acid smell of vomit
made my own stomach heave. Barak’s face was white as paper. He put his head between his knees and groaned, then lifted it and looked at me.

‘I hate being ill, and having only one fucking leg that works properly!’ he burst out. ‘I hate it!’ He glared at the clerks. ‘I’d make those arseholes laugh
if I was fit!’

‘You’ll be back to normal soon.’

‘You can rest when you get back to London, Jack,’ Tamasin said. She looked at me appealingly behind Barak’s back. ‘Perhaps Master Shardlake will let you stay at his house
for a while, so his housekeeper can look after you, speed your recovery.’

‘Yes,’ I said awkwardly. ‘Yes, we can do that.’

‘I don’t want any favours. Oh, God.’ He put his head between his knees again.

I walked to the rail to escape the smell of vomit. I felt annoyed at Tamasin’s request; the calculating little piece had made it when I could least refuse. But she was right, he could not
yet cope on his own; he would try to do too much and injure himself again.

After a few minutes I went back to where Barak still sat with his head between his knees, Tamasin’s arm round him. On his other side Giles was slumped heavily on the bench. His stillness
sent a momentary chill down my spine, until I touched him and his eyes opened.

‘Giles?’ I asked gently. ‘Are you all right?’ He winced with pain.

‘I must have fallen asleep.’

‘Barak has been sick, he fell over. Did you not hear?’

He looked tired, tired to death. He essayed a smile. ‘Not a good sailor, eh? It is a long time since I was at sea, but fortunately I have never got sick.’ He looked over to the
mudbanks in the distance. ‘We are still in sight of Yorkshire, then.’

‘I gather it will be many hours before we are out of the estuary.’

‘I wonder how Madge is coping, without me to fuss over.’

‘When we get to London, Giles, my first task will be to help you find your nephew. Barak will help too.’

Giles lowered his voice. ‘How are things between you and him?’

‘Ah. You have noticed something was amiss.’

‘It has been hard not to, these last days. Something to do with the girl?’

‘In a roundabout way.’ I looked at the coastline, a little further off now. ‘But do not worry about that. We will be all right once all this is over, once we are back in our
routine at Lincoln’s Inn.’ I smiled at him. ‘And then we will find your nephew.’

He looked at me thoughtfully. ‘How will you go about it? Finding Martin?’

‘We can go to Garden Court, and if he is not there, the Inn Treasurer can tell us where he practises.’

He nodded. ‘So it should be quite simple.’

‘Yes.’ I said, hoping to God it would be.

F
OR THE NEXT
three days the weather stayed calm and bright, and though it was uncomfortable sitting around on deck or cramped in those tiny cabins, it
could have been a great deal worse. We saw nothing of Rich or Maleverer; doubtless they were in comfortable quarters below decks. Giles too spent most of his time in his cabin, in his tiny bunk. He
lay quietly, seeming withdrawn. I suspected he was in much pain, and worried about him.

Although the weather made life easier for the passengers, we heard the captain was unhappy, for in place of the gale there was now only the lightest of winds and the ship had to tack endlessly.
On the fourth day the news went round that we would have to pull in at Great Yarmouth on the Norfolk coast, for we had not enough supplies left to complete the voyage. I saw Maleverer arguing
fiercely with the captain, saying enough time had been lost, but the captain stood his ground.

We were at Great Yarmouth two days, taking on supplies. We learned the Progress had now dissolved at Lincoln. The King was hurrying south as fast as possible, for he had had word that Prince
Edward was ill.

‘The life on which the Tudor dynasty depends,’ Giles said as we sat together on the deck, watching as the ship pulled away from Great Yarmouth. He had come up for some air, saying he
felt better, though to me he still looked ill and frequently made those little winces of pain that cut me to the heart. Barak, who had found his sea-legs, was standing at the rail with Tamasin. We
had spoken little in the last few days.

‘Unless Queen Catherine becomes pregnant,’ Giles ruminated. ‘But they’ve been married over a year now, and nothing. Perhaps the King can father no more
children.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said hesitantly. Knowing what I knew about the Queen, I did not want to get involved in a discussion along those lines.

‘If the Prince dies,’ Giles continued, ‘who then will be heir to the throne? The Countess of Salisbury’s family wiped out, both the King’s daughters disinherited.
What confusion King Henry would leave us then.’ He gave a bitter little laugh.

I got up. ‘I must stretch my legs, Giles, they are stiff.’ He wrapped the rug he had brought up more tightly around his big frame. ‘It will get cold now we are out at
sea,’ I told him. ‘Perhaps you should go down again,’ I added, hesitantly for I knew how he disliked being treated like an invalid. But he said, ‘Yes, I will go below. Help
me, would you?’

I saw him down to his cabin and returned to the deck. Tamasin and Barak were still talking at the rail, laughing. I felt excluded. I saw Barak incline his head to where a sailor was walking
along the deck. To my astonishment, half a dozen rats swung by their tails from one hand, their long black bodies dripping blood on to the deck.

‘The ship’s ratcatcher,’ Barak said to Tamasin with a grin. She screwed up her pretty face and turned her head away. He nudged her. ‘D’you know what the main perk
of his job is?’

‘No. I don’t want to.’

‘He gets to eat the rats.’

‘Sometimes you are disgusting,’ she said.

‘Better than the weevilly old biscuits they get.’ He laughed.

Just then the two soldiers climbed out of the hatchway leading below deck. They waited as Broderick followed them up, his hands and feet chained, a scrawny pitiful figure beside the two big men.
He was followed up by Sergeant Leacon, and then Radwinter.

The soldiers led Broderick across to the rail. He stood there, looking out to sea, a man on either side in case he thought to jump over the rail. Sergeant Leacon looked out over the deck, taking
deep breaths of fresh air. Radwinter, seeing me, came over.

‘Master Shardlake.’

His face had a tired, pinched look, and his hair and beard were longer, unkempt. He must have been below decks with Broderick nearly all the time since we left Hull. It struck me it was a long
time since he had been as neat and dapper as when I first saw him at York Castle.

‘Well, Radwinter,’ I said. ‘Not long now to London, let us hope.’

‘No.’ He looked up at the sails. ‘I fancy there is more of a wind. I heard the captain say this was an unlucky voyage.’

‘Superstition.’

‘Yes. We will be in London in a few days.’ He smiled, his old wicked smile. ‘Then Sir Edward will have a merry time in the Tower.’

‘Is he well?’

‘Well enough. Do you know, he cried like a woman when I told him we had left Spurn Head behind. Said it was because he would never see Yorkshire again. I told him they may nail his
quarters over the York gates once they are done with him.’

I shook my head. ‘You have no pity for him, have you?’

Radwinter shrugged. ‘In my work it does not do to have pity. You said I was mad once –’ his eyes glinted and I saw that indeed he had not forgotten that – ‘but to
be a gaoler of traitors and heretics and be soft-hearted with them, that
would
be madness. Nor would it be God’s will.’

‘God’s will is torture and bloodshed?’

‘Where necessary to preserve true religion.’ He looked at me with contemptuous pity. ‘Have you not read your Testament, all the blood and battles? The world God made is full of
violence and we must work in that world. The King knows that, he is not afraid of harshness.’

‘Does it not say somewhere the meek shall inherit the earth?’

‘Not until the strong have made it safe.’

‘When will that be? When the quarters of the last papist are nailed above York’s gates?’

‘Perhaps. You have to be strong to do right in this world, Master Shardlake. You have to be ruthless, as ruthless as our enemies.’

I turned away. Sergeant Leacon was walking towards me. He gave Radwinter a look of distaste, then turned to me. ‘Master Shardlake, good day.’

‘Good day, sergeant. I called Radwinter mad once,’ I said in a low voice. ‘He seems more so every time I see him.’