I laughed. ‘Then I should hear his fine collection of oaths.’ There was another thump. ‘He’ll do himself a mischief.’
Wrenne looked at me seriously. ‘You risk mischief for yourself, Matthew.’
‘What do you mean, Giles?’
‘That case against this man Bealknap. I could not hear all Rich said to you, but I heard enough.’
I sighed. ‘He tried to bribe me, then threatened me with nameless woes if I did not desist.’
‘You don’t have to accept his bribes, but why not drop it? You said yourself the case was weak.’
‘To drop it under duress would be wrong.’
‘Many lawyers would. You are obstinate, Matthew. And will you be doing your clients a service, advising them to pursue this case, if you cannot win? Because you dislike this man Bealknap and the corruption he stands for? The law has always been corrupt and always will be.’
I looked at him. ‘But don’t you see? Rich’s desperation for me to drop the case means I may win. He has been unable to find a corrupt judge in Chancery. That must mean the judges think we do have a case, and they do not want to risk a ruling that is obviously corrupt.’
‘Perhaps. But if the council win this case you know the King could just get Parliament to pass an Act reversing the law. He gets everything he wants, by fair means or foul, you know that.’
‘If he does, he does.’ I looked up at him. ‘I shall go to that library tomorrow, look over some of the relevant case law again. After all this time away from the matter some new angle may strike me.’
He shook his head. ‘Something will strike you, if you are not careful. That is what I fear.’
‘I will not give into them,’ I said. ‘I will not.’
A LITTLE LATER I left Giles to go to the jakes. As I stepped out I saw Tamasin walking up the hallway, perhaps from a visit to the same place. She looked at me coldly for a moment, then suddenly composed her features into a sweet smile. But I had seen the cold look.
‘Master Shardlake,’ she said, ‘I have not thanked you properly for getting me a place on the boat. The sooner I am away from the Queen’s household, the happier I shall be.’
‘You should thank Master Wrenne,’ I said. ‘He paid for it.’
‘Will you thank him for me?’ she asked. She put a hand on the door of my and Barak’s room.
Shameless creature, I thought. Her that thinks she might be of good birth. ‘Yes,’ I answered curtly.
She bit her lip. ‘Do not be angry with me, sir,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I am sorry if I have been ill-mannered with you recently. Only Mistress Marlin’s death was a blow. I could not quite believe she had done – what she did.’
‘Well, she did. I am lucky to be here to tell the tale.’
‘I see that now. I am sorry.’
‘Very well,’ I said, ‘but now you must excuse me.’
I stepped past her quickly, making her move aside; more quickly than I had intended for she lost her balance, slipped and fell against the wall. Something fell from her dress to the floor.
‘I am sorry,’ I said quickly, for I had not meant to cause her to hurt herself. ‘Let me.’ I bent to pick up the object that had fallen on the floor. I looked at it, then held it up with a puzzled frown. It was a rosary, a cheap thing of wooden beads on a string, the beads smooth with long use. I looked up at her; her face had gone scarlet.
‘You have found my secret, sir,’ she said quietly.
I handed it to her. She quickly enclosed it in her little fist. She must have worn it on a belt round her underskirt, I thought, hidden.
I looked up and down the corridor. ‘Does Barak know you are a papist?’ I asked her quietly. ‘He told me once you had no strong views on religion.’
She met my hard gaze. ‘I am not a papist, sir. But my grandmother was brought up long before reform was heard of and she was always ticking at her beads. She said they calmed her when she was worried. It is a comfort to poor folk still.’
‘A comfort that is disapproved of now. As you know, for you keep it hidden.’
Her voice rose defiantly. ‘Saying the words in your head, sir, ticking the beads, what harm does it do? It calms me.’ She looked at me and I saw the strain in her face. ‘I am worried what we saw may come out. I am afraid. And I mourn Jennet.’
I looked at her fist closed round the rosary. I saw the nails were bitten to the quick. ‘That is truly all the beads are, something to calm you?’
‘Yes, that is all. I think I had better stop this habit,’ she added bitterly. ‘I will follow whatever forms of religion are required by the King, even though they change from year to year. It is a puzzle to me and perhaps a puzzle to God, but common folk must leave God and the King to resolve it between them, must they not?’
‘That is wisest.’
She turned away then. She did not go back to our room where Barak waited but marched off down the corridor. Her footsteps sounded down the inn stairs. I followed more slowly. I wondered, had she told the truth about why she ticked the beads, or had she invented that tale about her grandmother with her usual quickness? I felt more than ever that I did not really know Tamasin, that she was a woman who kept much secret.
THE NEXT MORNING found me at the little library once more, for all that it was raining again. As the servant took my wet coat in the hall, Brother Davies came clattering busily down the stairs, a leather bag under his arm.
‘Brother Shardlake. Back so soon? I have to go now, a case before the City Council, but look at anything that interests you in the library.’
‘Thank you. How much?’
He waved a hand. ‘No fee for visitors. But a little word of warning.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Old Brother Swann is in this morning. He is over eighty, the oldest lawyer in Hull by many years. Long retired – he says he comes here to keep up to date with the law but really he comes to talk.’
‘Ah. I see.’
‘I looked in a moment ago, he is asleep before the fire. Do not wake him if you want to study.’
‘Thank you.’
He nodded, took his coat from the servant and went out into the pelting rain. I opened the library door quietly. Within it was warm and peaceful, a good fire lit in the grate, the embossed lettering on the spines of the large old books glinting in the flames. The only occupant was an old man in a shiny lawyer’s robe, fast asleep by the fire. His face was a mass of lines and wrinkles, the pink skull showing through sparse white hair. I tiptoed over to the shelves, took a couple of books containing cases relevant to the Bealknap case and sat down at a table. I found it hard to concentrate, though; I had been away from my books too long. I reflected on Giles’s words. I had not liked that look Rich had given me as we parted. Yet every instinct told me Rich would not have gone to so much trouble unless he feared he might lose the case. I had to go on, I had to try to win. Fighting for my clients was my life’s work; if I gave in, what was left for me?
I looked up to find the old man had woken and was looking at me with surprisingly bright blue eyes. He smiled, multiplying the wrinkles in his face.
‘Not in the mood for work today, brother?’
I laughed. ‘No, I fear not.’
‘I do not think I have seen you before. Are you new to Hull?’
‘I am here with the King’s Progress.’
‘Ah, yes, that.’
‘My name is Matthew Shardlake.’ I rose in my place and bowed.
‘Forgive me if I do not rise. I am eighty-six. My name is Alan Swann. Barrister at law. Retired,’ he added with a chuckle. ‘So, then, the bad weather keeps you here.’
‘I fear so.’
‘I remember the great gale of 1460, the year of the Battle of Wakefield.’
‘You remember that?’ I asked in surprise.
‘I recall the messenger coming to Hull saying the Duke of York was slain, his head set over the gates of York wearing a paper crown. My father cheered, for we all supported the House of Lancaster then. It was later the county went over to the Yorkists.’