The road was busy with carts bringing goods into the city and we halted as we approached the largest and most ornate of the gatehouses set in the walls, with double round towers on each side of a wide-arched door. There was insufficient room for more than one cart to pass through at a time, and there were several carts ahead of us. We halted before a low ditch with a wooden bridge in front of the gatehouse, half-filled with stinking rubbish like the ditches outside London Wall. There was a gallows, too, where the half-rotted body of some malefactor hung in chains, a pair of rooks picking at the blackened flesh. I turned and looked along the walls. They were of dark flint, studded with many projecting towers. I noticed that in some places they were in a state of disrepair, half tumbled down. ‘These walls are in no good state for defence,’ I said to Toby. ‘And they are lower than I expected, lower than London or York.’
He nodded. ‘They were built for civic pride, not defence. In the days before the Great Plague two centuries ago. The city was larger then.’
WE ENTERED THROUGH the gate, and rode into the city. I was surprised by how much open ground there was – to our right was an area of grass, where earthen butts stood for Sunday archery practice, while to the left were the grounds of a large building undergoing demolition. ‘St Mary’s,’ Toby said. ‘Used to be a big chantry college. The government has sold it to the Spencers, one of the big Norwich families.’
We rode on. There were more buildings now, houses and shops with glimpses of courtyards behind them. A small, malodorous stream ran down the centre of the road. Many shops were selling leather goods, and there was a strong smell of new-tanned skins in the air. The streets were busy, though not as thronged as London, with the same mixture of workmen in leather or wadmol jackets, blue-coated apprentices, goodwives in their coifs and the occasional gentleman with decorated doublet, codpiece and sword. I noticed the gentlemen were accompanied by a good retinue of armed servants, while many citizens looked poor; shoeless, their clothes ragged and dirty, their cheeks hollow. Beggars and workless men leaned on walls, watching those who passed by. Some gave us hostile looks. I thought of Josephine and her husband, and wondered how they fared.
To our left, atop artificial grassy mounds built one on top of another, stood a Norman castle, a gigantic battlemented cube of stone, faced with flint at the lowest level, the higher levels of limestone, dirty with age. Like all the Norman castles it was a brutal, solid statement of power. Most now served as gaols. Toby pointed to one of the smaller buildings beside it. ‘That’s the Shire Hall, where the Assizes will be held.’
‘And Master Boleyn is in the castle prison.’
‘No escape from there,’ Nicholas said, staring at the huge, solid block. ‘His only road is to trial.’
‘And from there,’ Toby said, ‘to freedom or to the gallows on hanging-day afterwards. You are right, Master Overton, there is no other road.’
I did not answer, but thought of the Lady Elizabeth’s application for a pardon in my pocket, and again hoped desperately it would not be needed.
We rode on, into the largest market square I had ever seen, rectangular and with a downward slope towards the river. We passed a magnificent church, where I noticed that the stained-glass in the east window, beautifully coloured, was still in place. ‘St Peter Mancroft,’ Toby said. ‘Where the rich city fathers gather on Sundays.’
On the grassy mounds leading up to the castle a cattle market was in preparation, the beasts in a series of pens, men walking around, inspecting them. The marketplace itself, with permanent booths and shops at the top and an open cobbled space at the bottom, was closed; men in leather aprons were clearing rubbish from the cobbles. ‘Wednesday and Saturday are market days,’ Toby said. ‘On Saturday, there won’t be room to move here.’
We rode through the marketplace. In its centre stood a huge, ornate market cross, two storeys high. At the top of the square I saw an impressive building of flint and limestone, one wall decorated in an alternating pattern of black and white squares. ‘The Guildhall,’ Toby said, ‘where the city business is done, the tolls are added up, and the guildsmen meet.’ By the doors I noticed a small group of gentlemen in richly decorated gowns attended by armed retainers, looking down over the marketplace and talking quietly. ‘The city aldermen and sheriffs,’ Toby explained. ‘Representatives of the great city families. The Stewards, the Anguishes, the Sothertons. That fat little fellow in the red robes is this year’s mayor, Thomas Codd.’ I noticed that next to the Guildhall another gibbet stood, though without a dangling corpse this time, and beside it were the town stocks and a canopied well.
‘You said John Boleyn’s father-in-law was an alderman.’
‘Yes, Gawen Reynolds. But he and his wife have shut themselves up in their house in Tombland since the news of their daughter’s murder. Reynolds is well known as a haughty old fellow with a vicious temper, but if you attend him in your serjeant’s robes, he may speak to you.’ Toby smiled wryly. ‘He married his daughter to John Boleyn when Anne Boleyn was set to become Queen; he thought association with her name would add to his status. But of course she didn’t last.’
Before I could reply a crowd of beggarly children appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and surrounded our horses, lifting stick-thin arms with cries of ‘Charity, gemmun!’, ‘We’re clammed half ta dead!’
To my surprise it was Toby who waved them away, calling fiercely, ‘Shut that rattock! Begone!’ We rode on, followed by a stream of insults. ‘Bent hunchback! Doghearts! Snudges!’ I looked at Toby. ‘You have to be firm here, sir, even more than in London,’ he said quietly. ‘If you are marked out as charitable, you’ll get no peace. It’s hard, though, many of them are truly near starving. The city set a new poor rate last month, but what they raise makes little difference.’ There was an angry tremor in his voice.
A number of inns stood at the top of the marketplace, just above the Guildhall. Little groups of people stood talking outside. The inns where the lawyers would stay when the Assizes arrived, I thought. As we approached, a stocky man in his late thirties detached himself from one group and marched towards us. He wore a green doublet and black hose, a wide red cap covering his brown hair. The thing that drew Toby’s eye towards him, though, was that he lacked a right hand, having instead a metal rod with a curved handle, below a pointed end covered in a leather sheath. With the handle he held a leather bag.
‘Jack!’ I said, leaning over to take his proffered left hand. ‘I hadn’t expected to see you in Norwich so soon!’
‘I hadn’t expected to see you at all! But when I saw a gentleman surrounded by a crowd of eager beggars, I thought it must be you. And Nicholas, how fare you, long lad?’
‘Well enough.’ Toby looked a little surprised at their familiarity, but though my former assistant had started life as a child of the streets, he had helped train Nicholas up, and the three of us had lived through the events that ended with Barak losing his right hand to a swordsman.
I indicated Toby. ‘This is Goodman Lockswood, a Norwich man assisting us on the case that brings us here.’ They shook hands.
‘You’re here on a case?’ Barak asked. ‘At the Assizes?’
‘Yes.’
‘One of the civil law matters? A land case?’
I hesitated. ‘Not quite. I’d welcome the chance to discuss it with you, if you have time. But why are you here now? Surely the trials are not due until next week.’
‘No, the judges are still in Cambridgeshire. I’m one of those sent ahead, to sniff out the air in Norwich, see which of the Protector’s proclamations are being properly observed – which is pretty well bugger all – how folk are reacting to the Prayer Book, what sort of people might be suitable for jury service.’ He inclined his head back to the group he had been talking to. ‘That’s what I’m doing now.’ Then his eyes narrowed. ‘What sort of case is this one of yours, then? A criminal one? You won’t be allowed to represent the accused.’