‘You sound disapproving, sir.’
He shrugged. ‘Queen Catherine is a giddy girl. Too young and silly for the high office she has been called to, in my opinion. Kindly enough, but concerned with naught beyond clothes and jewels. The King though, he is besotted.’
‘You have met her?’ I asked.
‘No. Only seen her.’
‘They say the conservative party in religion hoped much from her marriage to the King, and are disappointed now.’
Craike nodded. ‘She is no Jane Seymour to whisper in the King’s ear how much better the old ways were. So they say, at least,’ he concluded, perhaps deciding he had said too much.
‘DO YOU TRUST HIM?’ Barak asked as we crossed the hall. ‘I do not feel I can trust anyone here now.’ In the doorway a blast of rain-laden wind hit us. In the
courtyard, there was pandemonium. One of the three tents had blown over. Heaps of magnificent gold-leaf tenting billowed in the wind, the fine damask curtains and carpets inside now exposed to the elements. Workmen tried frantically to lift the tenting, as a young man who must be the King’s designer Lucas Hourenbout stood looking on, shouting, then almost dancing in frustration as a man stepped on a piece of priceless tapestry, leaving a muddy footprint on it.
WE FOUND SERGEANT LEACON at his lodge. I was impressed again by the young officer’s efficiency as he ordered soldiers to be rounded up and a cart fetched. While he went off to supervise matters, Barak and I waited in the gatehouse, watching the labourers collecting the materials from the tents and carry them off for cleaning.
‘I worry about Maleverer,’ Barak said. ‘He dislikes us. He is ruthless and has much power behind him. He’s the sort who will blame us if he can for anything that goes wrong.’
‘Yes. You are right.’ I broke off, for Sergeant Leacon had returned. He ran a hand through curly blond hair which the rain had plastered over his forehead. ‘Everything is being fetched round. Sir, could Master Barak help with the cart? It is very muddy down by the storehouses.’
Barak nodded. The sergeant gave him directions and he went out into the rain cheerfully enough. I smiled at Leacon. ‘Well, sergeant, it seems service to Sir William keeps throwing us together. You are to be in charge of Broderick’s security.’
‘It will make a change from guard duties, sir.’
‘Where in Kent are you from?’ I asked to make conversation.
‘Waltham. But my family came from the Leacon, some miles off.’
‘Hence Leacon, eh? I have read that many people moved to new places after the Great Pestilence, but kept the names of their old homes.’
‘That is so.’
‘I know Kent a little. A few years ago I was engaged on a complex dispute involving the boundaries of some properties near Ashford. Different conveyances had contradictory maps attached, details of landownership locally were in a terrible muddle.’
Leacon shook his head. ‘Strange work lawyers do, sir. I have some experience of it, I fear.’
‘Have you?’ I looked at him curiously.
‘Ay. Perhaps you might even advise me,’ he added diffidently.
‘If I can.’
‘There is a dispute regarding my parents’ farm. My family have owned the land for generations, it was gifted them by the local priory more than a hundred years ago. But since the priory was dissolved the new owner claims the land is his, that the priory’s gift was defective in some way.’
I nodded sympathetically. ‘There have been many such claims since the dissolution. Sometimes the smaller monastic houses were not good with their documentation. But after such long usage – though I could not advise without seeing the papers.’
‘You would think these landowners would be content to get so much of the monks’ lands cheap.’
‘People who covet land are never content. Have your parents taken legal advice?’
‘They cannot afford it. My uncle is helping them – he can read, which they cannot. It is a worry to be posted so far away.’
‘Yes. I can see you would help them all you could.’ I remembered the extortionate mortgage on my father’s farm that he had not even felt able to tell me about, and bit my lip. ‘I wish you good luck.’ Then a thought struck me, and I took a sharp breath.
‘Have you thought of something?’ he asked eagerly.
‘No,’ I replied hastily. ‘My neck hurts a little, that is all.’ But it was not that. Our talk of names, and my time in Kent, had brought back the name of one of the districts I had been concerned with. Braybourne. Or perhaps, corrupted as a man’s name, Blaybourne.
A SMALL, HIGH-SIDED cart with a big cloth cover had been provided, drawn by a pair of horses, and Barak and I and the sergeant walked alongside with half a dozen soldiers with pikes, who shoved a way though the crowds. Despite the wind and rain, the city was busier than ever with the Great Progress’s arrival imminent.
I had expected argument when I told Radwinter of Maleverer’s plans, but though his eyes gleamed bitterness he merely nodded. At Leacon’s direction he unlocked the long chains binding Broderick to the wall, though his wrists were kept manacled. He groaned into wakefulness; he still looked weak. When he saw the helmeted soldiers standing over him I noticed terror spark in his eyes.
‘You’re to be taken to St Mary’s,’ I told him quietly. ‘For your own safety.’ He gave me a bitter smile but said nothing.
On the way down the steps to the cart, Broderick’s legs trembled mightily, his steps uncertain, and I guessed it had been long since he had walked more than a few yards. I was surprised to see that he was a small man, shorter than me. When we reached the open air he paused for a moment, bracing himself against the wind and rain, and looked up at the clouds scudding across the sky in various shades of dirty grey. He took in a deep lungful of air that almost made him faint.
‘Take care,’ I said, as a soldier steadied his arm. Broderick stared for a moment at his friend Robert Aske’s skeleton, swinging to and fro in the breeze, then gave me that twist of a smile again.
‘Who poisoned you?’ I asked him quietly. ‘Do you know?’
He laughed weakly. ‘King Henry did.’
I sighed. ‘Get him in the cart. He’ll catch an ague standing out here.’ Broderick had gone very pale, and was only half conscious as the soldiers raised him and laid him gently in the bottom of the cart, where someone had thought to lay some cushions. The cart smelled of apples, oddly domestic in the grim context of our business. The soldiers covered him and so we drove back, to all appearances soldiers escorting some goods of value to the abbey. I watched the rainswept crowds and wondered how many, had they known Broderick lay there, might have rushed to rescue him.
Chapter Sixteen
I WALKED WITH BARAK along the Fossgate, one of the main city roads, among a crowd heading for the public rehearsal for the musical entertainment that would be given before the King tomorrow evening. As night fell the wind and rain had ceased, though the street was miry, strewn with leaves and small branches, and the doorsteps and shopfronts glinted wetly in the moonlight. It was a merry crowd, the most cheerful I had seen in York, that made its way towards the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall.
I had decided to accompany Barak to the rehearsal rather than sit alone in the lodging-house with anxious thoughts for company, listening for more nasty comments from the clerks. Barak was dressed in his best green doublet and, above it, a pretty shirt-collar decorated with lacework. Both our faces were smooth, cleared of nearly a week’s growth of beard, for that afternoon the barbers from the Progress had ridden into St Mary’s. There had been a mass shaving, so all the gentlemen should look their best when the King arrived. I had put on my best robe but donned my old cap. I had had trouble fixing the feather back properly on the new one and did not want it coming unstuck again tonight. Tomorrow I would doff it to the King. My stomach gave a strange lurch at the thought.