‘All right so long as he does not put weight on that leg. Grumpy.’
‘He will be.’
I looked at her. ‘He told me Maleverer questioned you last night.’
She gave a sardonic smile that sat ill on her feminine features. ‘So now you come to question me about it.’
‘I need to know what he said.’
‘He questioned all the Queen’s servants. But neither they nor I could tell him anything. Jennet talked to me of little beyond our duties and her fiancé in the Tower. And her early life. It was very sad. She was an unwanted orphan, only Master Locke was ever kind to her. There was much to pity in her life, for all that she did.’
‘Forgive me if I find it hard to sympathize.’
Tamasin did not reply.
‘What about Lady Rochford? Jack said you told him that she seemed afraid when questioned?’
‘I was not there. I only heard that she shouted at Maleverer and he shouted back.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I think she calmed when she realized it was nothing to do with the Queen and Culpeper. Culpeper has not been near for days.’
I looked at her. ‘You have been crying. Were you afraid too?’
She met my gaze. ‘I have been crying for Jennet. I cannot help it. She was kind to me, she treated me almost like a daughter.’ She hesitated. ‘What will happen to her body?’
‘I have no idea. Left behind for burial at Howlme, probably. She tried to kill me, Tamasin.’
The girl gave a heartfelt sigh. ‘I know. I do not understand any of it.’
‘She acted at her fiancé’s bidding, she admitted it herself. Her motive was love,’ I added starkly. ‘Love turned to obsession, excluding all other feelings.’
‘Yes, she loved that man. It consumed her. What will happen to him now?’
‘He will be questioned about this.’
‘Harshly?’
‘Yes.’
‘That love could drive someone to do such evil, it is hard to believe.’
‘It is what can happen when one gives oneself over entirely to feeling.’
She looked at me curiously. ‘Is that what you believe?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I am sorry for you, sir.’
I gave her a stern look. ‘You know, Tamasin, some would say that trick you played with Jack the day we came to York was a sign of – not obsession, but – a lack of proportion.’
‘We make our way in life by action, sir,’ she said. ‘Not endless talk.’
‘Do we? Are you turned instructress now, to teach me?’
Tamasin turned her head away.
‘So Jennet told you nothing that could help us fathom her plans?’
‘No.’ She kept her head averted.
‘You must have talked with her about those stolen papers. After Maleverer questioned both of you at King’s Manor?’
‘We did not. She was not interested, or so it seemed.’
I looked at the side of her averted head. She was angry with me. I felt my old irritation against the girl rise again.
We reached the place where Giles and Barak were sitting on the grass. Barak heard us, looked up and waved at Tamasin. ‘Jack,’ she called eagerly, and ran towards him.
Chapter Thirty-six
WE STAYED AT LECONFIELD three days, in tents in the meadow beyond the moat. The King had business to conduct, we heard; the Scots were raiding the border villages, a sure sign James was not interested in a rapprochement with England. Perhaps the strengthening of the defences at Hull was no bad idea after all.
Those on the Progress were forbidden to wander beyond the fields that surrounded the camp but I did not go even that far; I stayed in my tent, resting. It did me good, and I felt myself relaxing, able to distance myself a little from my brush with death at Howlme. My only exercise was my daily visit to Broderick’s carriage, which stood closely guarded in a neighbouring field. Broderick seemed to have retreated into himself, lying silently on his pallet and barely acknowledging my presence. Radwinter said little either; he was surly and there was none of his usual verbal sparring. Perhaps my accusation of madness had finally struck a nerve.
ON MY FIRST MORNING at Leconfield I nerved myself to go and see Maleverer again. The guards directed me to an inner courtyard of the castle. As I entered my heart sank, for he was walking and talking with Richard Rich. They looked at me in surprise. I took off my cap and bowed.
‘Master Shardlake again,’ Rich said, a smile on his narrow face. I remembered he had seen me coming out of the Queen’s tent at Howlme when Lady Rochford had summoned me, and wondered if he would refer to that, but he only said, ‘I hear you have escaped assassination. By a woman. God’s death, it would have made my life easier had she got you. I would not be put to the trouble of sorting out the Bealknap case.’ He laughed, Maleverer joining in sycophantically.
I was so used to Rich’s mockery that it made no impact on me now. I looked at Maleverer. ‘It was about Mistress Marlin that I wished to speak to you, Sir William.’
Maleverer turned to Rich. ‘He’s a clever fellow, this. Sometimes he has good ideas. He delved out the truth about Broderick’s poisoning.’
‘He delves too much,’ Rich growled. ‘I will leave you, Sir William, we can talk about that piece of business later.’ He walked away.
Maleverer gave me an irritated look. ‘Well, Brother Shardlake?’
I told him I had been puzzling over Jennet Marlin’s behaviour to me at the beacon. ‘I have wondered whether it was she who attacked me at King’s Manor. She never actually said so, and it is strange that I was left alive only to be hunted by her later.’ I looked at him. ‘Perhaps to keep them from you, and show to Cranmer.’
He frowned and bit at one of his long yellow fingernails. ‘That would mean those papers are in the hands of the conspirators after all.’
‘Yes, Sir William, it would.’
‘You have been thinking too much. If the conspirators had the papers they’d have used them by now.’
‘They might be waiting for – for the right opportunity.’
He looked at me narrowly. ‘Have you told anyone else about this notion of yours?’
‘Only Barak.’
Maleverer grunted. ‘And what does he say?’
I hesitated. ‘He, too, thinks it is speculation.’
‘There you are then. Forget about it. Do you hear, forget it.’ He frowned mightily.
I thought, if he passed this on to the Privy Council and they thought the papers might be in the conspirators’ hands after all, it would harm his reputation just when he thought all was mended.
‘Very well, Sir William.’ I bowed and turned to go. As I reached the gateway he called me back.
‘Master Shardlake!’
‘Yes, Sir William.’
His face was angry, troubled. ‘Sir Richard Rich is right. You are a bothersome man.’
OVER THE NEXT couple of days the weather remained fine, if a little colder each day. Leconfield was a pretty place, the castle and the surrounding meadows enclosed by woodland bright with autumn colour. Nonetheless the time passed slowly. Barak and Giles and I spent hours in my tent playing cards, swathed in coats. When we had lost all our money to Barak we switched to chess, and Giles and I taught him the game using chesspieces I drew on scraps of paper. We did not see Tamasin, for it would not have been proper for her to come to our tents. Barak met her most evenings, stumping round the camp with her; he had progressed to a stick now. Tamasin had been avoiding me since our quarrel in the field. She must have told Barak, for he had been a little uncomfortable with me since then.
On the morning of the third day I stood with Giles in front of my tent, looking at the woods in their autumn colours. I thought he seemed noticeably thinner now, less a solid oak of a man.
‘How are you?’ I asked.
‘I have some pain,’ he said quietly. ‘But the cold in these tents is the worst thing. It saps my energy.’ He looked at his big hands, adjusting his emerald ring. ‘I am losing weight. This ring will fall off if I am not careful. I would be sorry to lose it; it was my father’s.’