‘What about you?’
He smiled wryly. ‘I’m only a gentleman by association with you two. I’ll be all right.’
The innkeeper looked relieved. ‘I’ll call a couple of link-boys to light your way back. Where are you staying?’
‘The Maid’s Head.’
The innkeeper walked back to his customers. ‘It’s all right. Nobody is being accused. Come on now, no trouble, lads.’ The men returned to their benches.
‘How are you feeling?’ I asked Nicholas.
‘Just a sore head. But by Christ, I need a wash.’
I looked around the candlelit benches, receiving a couple of sour looks in return. I was glad when the innkeeper reappeared, accompanied by a couple of stout link-boys with flaming torches.
BACK AT THE Maid’s Head, we explained Nicholas’s state by saying he had slipped on a turd in the street. After a thorough wash and change of clothes he looked much better, though still pale. He insisted he would be able to accompany me and Toby around Norwich the following day, and I left him to sleep. I had kept the piece of paper. One of those boatmen – I was sure the attack had come from them – had been literate. This hatred of gentlemen – and boldness in attacking them – was something I had never encountered before, and I was careful to lock my door before going to bed.
THE NEXT MORNING, I was up at five, and eating breakfast with Nicholas in the inn parlour before six. Fortunately, his colour had returned, and the nasty bruise on his head was concealed by a wide cap. I had repeated Guy’s exercise last night, and my back felt much better. I would not have liked to ride again so soon, but I felt I could manage to walk without my stick. Punctually, as the cathedral bells sounded six, Toby Lockswood walked in from the stables. He bowed to us. ‘God give you good morrow, sirs.’
‘And you, Toby. How fare your parents?’
‘My mother is better than she was. But my father is worried about the crops.’
I looked out of the window at the sunlit street. ‘At least the wet weather is over.’
‘Ay. It’s hot already, it’s going to be a swelking day.’
‘And a busy one. I want to see John Boleyn at the castle, the coroner, and, if possible, Edith Boleyn’s family.’
‘I managed last night to arrange a meeting with the coroner. He will see you in the Guildhall at twelve o’clock.’
I considered. ‘I would rather see him before Boleyn.’
‘That was the earliest he could do, sir.’
‘Then we’ll see Boleyn first. And did you manage to find out anything about my old servant, Josephine Brown?’
He shook his head. ‘Nobody recognized the name, nor that of the retired lawyer, Peter Henning. However, a solicitor’s assistant, who is a friend of mine, will make enquiries. Even if Master Henning is retired, his name should be known. God willing, he’s still alive,’ he added.
‘Thank you. It is – important to me. Well, we should go.’ I glanced at Nicholas. ‘Are you sure you’re up to it, after that blow on the head?’
‘Of course,’ he answered, a little irritably.
Toby frowned. ‘Blow on the head?’
I told him of events at the Blue Boar, and showed him the paper I had found. He flicked his black beard.
‘You shouldn’t have called those men churls,’ he said seriously. ‘Even if they did start it.’
‘So my friend Barak said.’
‘Just going to an inn not usually patronized by gentlemen would be enough.’ He looked at Nicholas. ‘You must take care to avoid any unnecessary quarrels.’
‘I was thinking of reporting it to the constable,’ Nicholas replied.
‘It would go nowhere, and may get you a bad name.’ He looked at me with those intense blue eyes. ‘And sir, we have our work cut out as it is, do we not?’
WE LEFT THE Maid’s Head at seven. Nicholas and I had donned our legal robes. First of all Toby led us round the corner into Tombland. He pointed at a large house brightly painted in yellow. ‘That is Alderman Gawen Reynolds’s house, next to Augustine Steward’s. I warn you again, he is a difficult and bad-tempered old man. His poor old wife always looks afraid of him, and he has ever had a reputation for pestering the female servants. But now, to get to the Guildhall, we should turn back and go up Elm Hill.’
We walked on to the wide market square, the great block of the castle looming over it. There people were cleaning their stalls and sweeping horse dung and rubbish away in preparation for the morrow’s market. Goods were being carried into warehouses. Beside the market cross a man in a preacher’s robe was addressing a crowd, mostly blue-coated apprentices, stabbing the air with a New Testament to emphasize his points. In his loud, deep voice, he said, ‘St Paul tells us, “The body consists of not one member, but many. Now, they are many, but of one body.”’
‘Ay!’ a boy called out. ‘All the faithful are equal before God!’ There were shouts of agreement.
The preacher, a tall young man, waved the Testament again. ‘They are! But St Paul also reminds us we each have different parts to play in this world, like the parts of the body. “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us. If it is the gift of prophecy, let us prophesy—”’
An old man with a wild white beard shouted out from the crowd, ‘I prophesy the commons shall have rule of the country when John Hales’s enclosure commission comes. For together we are as great as the Leviathan in Job.’ Eyes turned to him as he quoted, in turn, ‘ “Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook? Or his tongue with a cord? Can you put a hook into his nose or bore his jaw through with a thorn?”’ His voice rose. ‘ “Will he make many supplications unto you? Will he speak soft words to you?” We, the common people of this land, are Leviathan.’
There were cheers. The preacher shook his head vigorously. ‘No, brothers, there is justice that needs to be done in God’s kingdom, and it will be done, by the grace of the King and the Lord Protector. But the body must have its head, some must rule. Again, St Paul says, “Let him that rules, do it with diligence.”’
‘Fuck the landlords!’ an apprentice called out.
We walked on. ‘The preacher walks a tightrope with the crowd,’ I observed. ‘It’s the same in London.’
Toby replied, ‘That’s why the right to preach is strictly controlled now. That was Robert Watson, one of Cranmer’s protégés, appointed as a canon at the cathedral to be a thorn in the side of Bishop Rugge.’
‘Is Rugge a traditionalist?’ Nicholas asked.
‘Ay, and lazy and corrupt. Watson sings the Protector’s tune. Though some, like that old man, want more. Old Zachary Hodge. He thinks himself a prophet of the Lord, he’s been preaching around Norwich for twenty years. Done spells in the Guildhall gaol for it. Not that a lot of what he says isn’t right.’
‘So many think themselves prophets these days,’ Nicholas said wearily. ‘Preaching,’ he continued, ‘it’s always slanted to somebody’s politics.’
‘That it is, lad,’ I agreed.
We had reached the bottom of the market square. We paused beside a cart to allow a skinny, ragged lad in his mid-teens, with an unruly shock of brown hair and carrying a large bale of cloth, to cross our path. A plump middle-aged man standing in a doorway called out to him, ‘Hurry up, Scambler! Ain’t got all day!’
Though struggling under the load, the boy picked up his pace. Someone from inside the building approached the man with a list, and he turned away. At that moment three other boys, in apprentices’ robes, who had been loitering near the cart, ran across to the boy, one of them kicking his feet from under him so that he fell forward. The bale, despite the boy’s frantic attempt to grab it, landed in the mud of a puddle drying after the rains. The three boys shouted, ‘Sooty Scambler’s done it again!’ The man in the doorway turned round, frowned mightily, and walked rapidly over. He looked with dismay at his bale of cloth. He dragged it from the mud, then stood over the boy, who was rising to his feet, a puzzled expression on his face. The three apprentices who had caused his fall stood around, serious-faced now. One shook his head disapprovingly.