Lamentation Page 13

  ‘I have met them.’ The apprentice’s eyes narrowed. ‘Good, honest men.’

  ‘They were all able to give account of their movements on that night,’ I said with a reassuring smile. ‘Though they have not been seen for some days.’

  ‘I haven’t seen them since the murder.’

  ‘McKendrick is a Scotch name,’ Nicholas said bluntly. ‘Until just recently we were at war with them.’

  Elias glared at him. ‘The papists threw Master McKendrick out of Scotland for calling the soul of the Pope a stinking menstruous rag. As it is.’

  Okedene snapped, ‘Elias, I will not have such language in my shop!’

  I raised a pacifying hand. ‘Was there any woman Master Greening was close to? Your master was still a young man.’

  ‘No. Since his poor wife died he devoted himself to his work and the service of God.’

  I was considering how to broach the question of Elias’s involvement in the religious discussions between his master and his friends, when Nicholas asked him suddenly, ‘What about this Jurony Bertano that I heard my master mention as I came upstairs? Did your master know him?’

  An expression of utter fear came over Elias’s face, his ill-mannered surliness vanishing. He took a step back.

  ‘How do you know that name?’ he asked. He looked at Okedene. ‘Master, these men are agents of Bishop Gardiner!’ Before Okedene could reply, Elias shouted at me, his face red with fear and anger, ‘You crawling crouchback papist!’ And with that he punched me hard in the face, making me stagger. He threw himself on me, and with his size could have done me damage had not Nicholas put an arm around his throat and dragged him off. The boy twisted, grasped Nicholas, and the two fell grappling to the floor. Nicholas reached for his sword, but Elias threw him off and ran through the open door of the print-shop, his footsteps crashing down the stairs. I heard Okedene’s wife call out, ‘Elias!’ The front door slammed.

  Nicholas was on his feet in a second, running downstairs after him. Okedene and I looked from the window to see my pupil standing in the crowded street, looking up and down, but Elias had already disappeared. The boy would know these streets and alleys like the back of his hand.

  Okedene stared at me in amazed horror. ‘Why did that name cause him such terror? I never saw Elias react like that before.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said quietly as I wiped blood from my cheek.

  Nicholas came back upstairs. ‘He’s gone,’ he said. ‘Are you hurt, master?’

  ‘No.’

  Okedene’s face darkened with anger. ‘Elias was terrified. I doubt he will return.’ He glared at Nicholas. ‘Now I will have to find a new apprentice in the middle of a print run. All because you blurted out that name. Master Shardlake, I have done enough. I wish to have no more to do with this matter. I have a business, and am responsible for my wife and children.’

  ‘Master Okedene, I am sorry.’

  ‘So am I. Sorry, and sore afraid.’ He looked out of the window again, breathing hard. ‘And now, please go. And I beg you, involve me no more in this.’

  ‘I will try to ensure you are not troubled again. But if Elias returns, can you send word to me at Lincoln’s Inn?’

  Okedene did not look round, but nodded wearily.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said again. ‘I am sorry.’ I turned to Nicholas. ‘Come, you,’ I snapped.

  I BEGAN WALKING fast down Paternoster Row. My cheek stung where Elias had struck it. I would have a nice bruise soon. ‘We should go to the constable,’ Nicholas said. ‘For an apprentice to run away from his master is an offence.’

  ‘We don’t know that he’s run away yet,’ I answered. I was not going to involve the authorities in this without first consulting Lord Parr. I stopped and turned to Nicholas, ‘What did you think you were doing, mentioning that name?’

  ‘I heard you and Master Okedene discussing it as I came to the door. It seemed important. I thought it might be a good thing to scare that insolent boy into answering.’

  ‘Could not you see that beneath his surliness was fear?’

  ‘I saw only that he spoke to you as a lumpish apprentice should not to one of your rank.’

  ‘Yes, Nicholas, you are full of your rank and class, and Elias annoyed you, so you thought to put him in his place. I was trying to soothe him, in order to gain his confidence. Do you not know the saying, never prick the stirring horse more than he needs? You have just lost us our most important witness.’

  He looked crestfallen. ‘You said I could ask questions.’

  ‘Only after careful consideration. You didn’t consider, you just reacted. The worst thing a lawyer can do.’ I jabbed a finger on his doublet. ‘Do not ever play the lusty-gallant gentleman again in my service.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘So am I. So is poor Master Okedene.’

  ‘It seems this murder touches the most delicate matters of religion,’ he said quietly.

  ‘All the more reason to be delicate ourselves,’ I snapped back. ‘Now, return to Lincoln’s Inn and ask Barak what needs doing there. And do not say one word about where we have been. I think even you will realize the importance of confidentiality here. And now I will leave you. I have business elsewhere.’

  I turned my back on him and walked away, down to the river, to get a boat to Whitehall.

  Chapter Ten

  WHEN I REACHED the Thames Street stairs there were plenty of boatmen waiting along the riverside, calling, ‘Eastward Ho!’ or ‘Westward Ho!’ to indicate whether they were going up- or downriver. I called to a man who was going upriver, and he pulled into the steps.

  We rowed past Whitehall Palace; I had asked the boatman to take me to Westminster Stairs, just beyond. At the Whitehall Common Stairs servants were unloading great armfuls of firewood from a boat, presumably destined for the palace kitchens. I thought again of yesterday’s burning, and shuddered. The boatman gave me an odd look. I lowered my eyes, watching him pull the oars in and out. He was a young man but his hands were already hard and knotted; I knew that older boatmen often got painful arthritis, the joints in their hands frozen into grasping claws. And all to take rich folk like me where they wanted to go.

  We passed the King’s Stairs: a wide covered gallery painted in green and white, jutting out fifty feet into the water, and ending in a broad, covered landing stage where the King’s barge would pull up. Beyond, the long line of the palace facade was beautiful, the red brickwork mellow in the late afternoon sun, interspersed with projecting, richly glazed bastions, with tall glass windows, and at the south end the Lady Mary’s new lodgings, covered in scaffolding. I paid the boatman and walked back up the Whitehall Road, beside the west wall of the palace, to the Gatehouse. I was hot in my robe, dusty, tired and troubled.

  This time there was no one to meet me, but my name was on the list and the guard at the gate allowed me in. I walked underneath the Gatehouse, across the courtyard, then up the stairs and into the King’s Guard Chamber; my name checked at every door.

  I went up to the King’s Presence Chamber. A brown-robed servant carrying a silver ewer of water hurried past as I entered, almost colliding with me. I looked around. It was strange; already the effect of all the fantastic magnificence had worn off a little, though I was conscious of the Gentlemen Pensioners around the wall; their dress magnificently decorative. But they were big men, and carrying heavy poleaxes. Here I saw fewer young men come to fish for a name of fame standing around. My eye was drawn again to the picture of the royal family, the square solid frame of the King a total contrast to the grotesque, sad figure I had seen earlier that day.

  Two of the would-be courtiers sat gambling with silver dice. One suddenly stood and shouted, ‘You cheat! That is the third time you have thrown a five!’

  The other stood up, moving his short Spanish cloak aside to free his arm. ‘Dirt in your teeth! You insult me – ’

  Two of the Gentlemen Pensioners instantly moved forward, each grasping one of the popinjays by
an arm. ‘You forget where you are, churls!’ one of them shouted. ‘Do you dare think you can make a bray in this place, as though it were a common tavern? Get out! The King’s Chamberlain will hear of this!’ The two gamblers were marched to the door, now watched by everyone in the room.

  I drew in my breath sharply at the sight of two men in black robes and gold chains, who had entered from the stairs and stood staring at the brawlers. I had seen both of them at the burning. One was Chief Secretary William Paget, his square face frowning above the bushy brown beard that framed his odd, downturned slash of a mouth. The other, his spare frame contrasting with Paget’s solid build, and with a sardonic smile on his thin face, was Sir Richard Rich. They had not seen me; I moved quickly to the door leading to the Queen’s Presence Chamber and whispered my name to the guard. He opened the door and I slipped through. On the other side another guard in the Queen’s livery looked at me interrogatively. ‘Serjeant Shardlake,’ I said breathlessly. ‘Here to see Lord Parr.’

  The Queen’s uncle was already waiting for me in the chamber; someone below must have told him I had arrived. Among all the magnificent decoration, and the sumptuous clothes of a pair of courtiers, Lord Parr made a sober figure in his black robe, the only colour the Queen’s badge on his chest and the heavy gold chain around his neck. I bowed low. He said, ‘Come to my private office, Master Shardlake.’

  I followed him through another door. He led me on down a corridor, our footsteps making no sound on the thick rush matting that covered the floors from wall to wall. Through an open door I glimpsed the Queen’s Presence Chamber, and caught sight of the Queen herself sitting sewing at a window, dressed in red, with some of the ladies who had been also present earlier. Gardiner, the Duchess of Suffolk’s spaniel, sat on the floor, playing with a bone.

  ‘We are passing on to the Queen’s privy lodgings,’ Lord Parr said. ‘My office is there. The Queen likes me close to her since I was recalled from the country in the spring.’ He opened the door to a small, dark office, with a window giving onto another courtyard, the papers on chests and the little desk in neatly ordered piles. ‘Here,’ he said, taking a lawyer’s robe in fine silk from a chair and handing it to me. ‘Change into this.’ The Queen’s brightly coloured badge of St Catherine, I saw, was sewn onto the breast. Before taking his place behind the desk he went over and closed the window. Then he bade me sit.

  ‘I prefer it open these summer days,’ he said ruefully. ‘But in this place one never knows who may be listening from the next window.’ Lord Parr sighed. ‘As you have probably realized, the court is a place full of fear and hate; there is no real amity anywhere. Even among families; the Seymours quarrel and scratch like cats. Only the Parr family is united; we are loyal to each other.’ He spoke with pride. ‘It is our strength.’

  ‘You have been here only since the spring, my Lord?’ I ventured.

  ‘Yes. For much of the last few years I have delegated my duties and stayed on my estates. I am old now, not always well. No longer the man I was, when I served the King.’ He smiled in reminiscence. ‘As did my brother, the Queen’s father; and the Queen’s mother was lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon. The Parrs have been a part of the court for a long time. The Queen’s mother died just before the full storm of the King’s Great Divorce broke. Well, she was spared that.’ He looked up, eyes sharp again under the white brows. ‘I have stood in loco parentis for my niece since then. I will do anything to protect her. When she asked me to come back to court, I did so at once.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I should swear you in.’ He took a Testament from a drawer, and I solemnly swore to serve the Queen loyally and honestly. Lord Parr nodded brusquely, returned the Testament to the drawer, and said, ‘Well, what news?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Not good, my Lord.’ I told him that the first of the attacks on Greening had taken place before the Lamentation was stolen, that the authorities had given up on the case, that Greening’s friends seemed to have gone to ground and might even be Anabaptists. Finally I explained how Elias had fled. I had promised to tell only the Queen of anything that might endanger the boy, but Lord Parr had to know of his plight. None of it made good hearing, and I had to mention Nicholas’s careless use of the name Bertano, which had caused such distress to Elias, though I praised his discovery of the scrap of silk. I had brought it with me, and now laid it on the table. Lord Parr examined it.

  ‘A fine piece of work, expensive,’ he said. ‘The blackwork decoration is distinctive.’ He turned it over. ‘The Queen’s embroiderer, Hal Gullym, has worked all his life at the Queen’s Wardrobe in Baynard’s Castle; he knows all the fine shirt-makers in London. He might be able to find out who made this.’

  ‘From a mere piece of sleeve?’

  ‘Of this quality, possibly.’ He frowned. ‘The apprentice was certain that the first attack on Greening happened before the Lamentation vanished?’

  ‘Certain. I am sorry he ran away. When that name Bertano was mentioned he became terrified.’

  ‘I have never heard it before. And Okedene, he overheard them talking of this Bertano as one who would bring down the country, an agent of the Antichrist?’

  ‘He is quite sure. And I believe Okedene is an honest man.’ I added hesitantly, ‘He asks that we leave him alone now; he fears for his family.’

  ‘As I fear for mine,’ Lord Parr answered bluntly. ‘And yet – eleven days now since the book was stolen and not a word, nothing. Who could have taken it?’

  ‘Not a religious radical, surely.’

  ‘And yet if it was a papist, surely the book would be public knowledge by now, and God knows what would have happened to my niece. The King has a hard view of anything that smacks of disloyalty.’ He bit his lip.

  ‘We should find that apprentice,’ I said.

  He looked at me sternly. ‘You should not have lost him.’

  ‘I know, my Lord.’

  ‘And those three associates of Greening’s. Gone to ground?’

  ‘It looks like it. Though they may just be keeping quiet for a while. The constable knows where they live. He has been keeping an eye on them this year, as suspected sacramentarians.’

  Lord Parr frowned angrily, spots of colour forming on his pale cheeks. ‘God’s death, these extreme radicals with their mad ideas. They are a danger to those of us who know that reform must be sought through quieter means. They have no idea of the reality of politics. This Bertano, he may not even exist, may be some phantasm of their fevered minds!’ He took a long breath, calming himself, then said, ‘You must seek out these three friends of Greening’s, talk to them, find what they know. Likely that apprentice has taken refuge with them.’ He frowned again. ‘And if you take your pupil this time, make sure he knows when to keep his mouth shut.’

  ‘Rest assured, my Lord, I will.’

  I thought, this meant even more work, and among people who could be dangerous to those they thought their enemies. I thought also of the work in chambers that I could not leave to my staff – the inspection of the wall painting in the Slanning case was coming up – and I had a moment’s panic, felt the chair shifting under me. I grasped the arms hard.

  ‘What is the matter?’ Lord Parr asked sharply.

  ‘I am sorry, my Lord, I – it has been a long day, and I was at the burning yesterday. Sometimes when I am tired I feel strange, the world seems to rock – ’

  I expected him to snap at me for being a mumping weakling, but to my surprise he spoke quietly. ‘The Queen told me you were on the Mary Rose when she went down last year. That was a great tragedy. Though it is not permitted to speak of it at court, the King felt much humiliated by the foundering of his favourite ship.’

  ‘I lost good friends, and nearly died myself. At times of strain – forgive me, my Lord.’

  He grunted. ‘I, too, am sometimes unwell. I have long suffered from fevers, and they grow more frequent. Sometimes I am so tired – ’ He shrugged, then gave a tight smile. ‘But we must
go on. You know the Queen’s motto?’

  ‘To be useful in all I do.’

  ‘And so must we be. I know this is a hard load, Serjeant Shardlake.’

  ‘Thank you, my Lord, but is it really the best course for me to try to find and question these men? The radicals are suspicious of everybody. They will surely see me, as the apprentice did, as an inquisitive lawyer who may serve some master who would hurt them.’

  Lord Parr smiled wryly. ‘Yes, people are suspicious of your trade, they think all lawyers will serve any master for a fee.’

  ‘Perhaps if someone else could approach these men initially, someone known as a sympathizer, who could reassure them that the lawyer who will be coming is not an enemy. No more than that need be said.’

  The old man nodded. ‘You are right. You met young William Cecil last night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He is known to have certain – contacts, shall we say. He is a very junior employee of the Queen’s Learned Council, but I have already marked his cleverness, and his commitment to reform. As well as his ambition for himself, which is considerable.’ He gave his sardonic smile again. ‘Very well, I will send him to try and find these people, and reassure them that you merely wish to question them about the murder of Greening, but that you mean them no harm. That is all Master Cecil needs to be told. He does not know about the Lamentation, of course.’

  ‘That may help our quest.’

  Lord Parr stroked his beard. ‘You say Greening was only printing some French primer when he was killed?’

  ‘Yes. I checked the print-shop thoroughly.’

  ‘The Queen, you may imagine, has no connection with such small-scale printers. Her Prayers and Meditations went to the King’s Printer, John Berthelet.’ He shook his head, then grasped the arms of his chair resolutely. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘I would like you to question some servants of the household.’