‘We shall be there.’
‘I may need to call you for questioning in London, about Mistress Marlin. Your horses will be taken back to London by road.’
So maybe it is not over yet, I thought.
‘How long will the voyage take, Sir William?’
‘Depends on the weather. Less than a week, if it holds. We will still be home before the King.’
‘How is Broderick?’ I asked hesitantly.
‘Well enough. I’ve had some good fare taken to him and told him if he didn’t eat he’d be fed forcibly with a tube down his throat. He’s fattening up nicely, like a Christmas fowl.’ He smiled, a slash of white in his black beard. ‘By the way, I have had a letter by a fast rider from London. Bernard Locke has confessed. He confirmed Jennet Marlin was working on his instructions.’
‘How did he get her to do it?’ I asked quietly.
Maleverer shrugged his heavy shoulders. ‘Apparently she was besotted with him. It was as she told you, he knew there was a box containing papers that could do damage to the King. He told her to find it, if need be kill anyone who stood in the way. He admitted he told her to get the box but to destroy it, not bring it back to London to give to a conspirator there, which is what Locke had been instructed to do if the northern rising failed. He told her he had repented, but he admitted in the Tower that it was to save his own skin.’
‘I see,’ I said neutrally.
‘Apparently there was a letter among the papers authorizing Oldroyd to give them up to Locke if he called, giving a description of him. To Locke, not a woman. That was why Jennet Marlin had to kill Oldroyd to get the box, and that was why the box incriminated Locke.’
‘Did he…’ The question stuck in my throat for a moment as I thought of how the answer would have been obtained. ‘Did he give the names of any other conspirators?’
‘No. That’s where the bastards have been clever. I told you before how well they were organized: in cells, no one person knowing more names than he needed. And Locke wasn’t told what else was in the box either, only that it contained important papers. His contact in London was one of the rebels who escaped – he’s probably in Scotland now, helping King James plan trouble for us. Locke was supposed to have given the box to someone else, a fellow barrister who would make himself known to him.’
‘From Gray’s Inn?’
‘He didn’t know who. I believe him.’ He set his mouth hard. ‘But we’ll find him, if we have to have every lawyer from the north brought to the Tower.’ Wrenne’s nephew, I thought with sudden alarm.
‘How did Bernard Locke react when he learned Jennet Marlin was dead?’ I asked quietly.
He shrugged. ‘Didn’t believe it, till the Tower warden waved his engagement ring, which I prised off her finger and sent down there, in his face.’
‘Was he sorry?’
‘I don’t know. Who cares?’ He walked across to me, standing close so that he looked down on me from his great height and I could smell his rank breath. ‘You’ll keep this quiet, you understand. You worked for Lord Cromwell. You know the value of a shut mouth and the penalties for opening it.’
‘Yes, I will.’ I thought, Martin Dakin is in trouble now if he wasn’t before. They will have Garden Court inside out.
Maleverer was looking at me narrowly. He smiled, his cold knowing smile. ‘Another acquaintance of yours will be on the boat, by the way. Sir Richard Rich.’
‘He did not go back with the Progress?’
‘No, he has a place on the boat. He wanted to return to London as soon as he could.’ He smiled again. ‘Have you given up that case against him?’
‘No, Sir William.’
He smiled again. ‘I hope you know what you are doing.’
WE WERE AT the docks early. The first sunny day since we got to Hull, the water calm, seabirds wheeling and crying. Our ship dominated the harbour, a seventy-foot caravel, with big square sails adapted for speed. The huge stern rose twenty feet above the waterline. ‘The Dauntless’ was painted in white letters on its side. Blocked-off gunports showed it had once been a warship. I guessed the lower decks would have been partitioned into rooms and fitted out comfortably, for I could see by their expensive clothes that the half dozen or so officials waiting to go aboard, each attended by a servant, were senior people. Rich was among them, talking to Maleverer, but neither gave us a glance.
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.
Chapter Thirty-nine
THE 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.