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Authors: C J Sansom

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‘What do you say to that, Shardlake?’

‘I don’t know. Trickery somewhere.’

‘Again,’ one of the bolder spirits called out. ‘More!’

‘Tabitha! Say, “Death to the pope! Death to the Bishop of Rome!” ’

‘Death to the pope! Bishop of Rome! God save King Harry!’ The creature spread its wings, causing people to gasp with alarm. I saw that they had been cut cruelly short halfway down their length; it would never fly again. The bird buried its hooked beak in its breast and began preening itself.

‘Come to the steps of St Paul’s tomorrow,’ the crone shouted, ‘and hear more! Tell everyone you know that Tabitha, the talking bird from the Indies, will be there at twelve. Brought from Peru-land, where hundreds of these birds sit conversing in a great nest city in the trees!’ And with that, pausing only to scoop up a couple of coins she had missed earlier, the old woman picked up the perch and disappeared inside, the bird fluttering its broken wings wildly to keep its balance.

The crowd dispersed, muttering excitedly. I led Chancery back up the lane, Pepper and his friend by my side.

Pepper’s usual arrogance was humbled. ‘I have heard of many wonders from this Peru the Spaniards have conquered. I have always thought you cannot believe half the fables that come from the Indies - but that - by Our Lady!’

‘It is a trick,’ I said. ‘Did you not see the bird’s eyes? There was no intelligence in them. And the way it stopped talking to preen itself.’

‘But it spoke, sir,’ Mintling said. ‘We heard it.’

‘One can speak without understanding. What if the bird just responds to the crone’s words by repeating them, as a dog comes to its master’s call? I have heard of jays doing such things.’

We had reached the top of the lane and paused. Pepper grinned.

‘Well, ’tis true that the people in church respond to the priests’ Latin mummings without understanding them.’

I shrugged. Such sentiments about the Latin Mass were not yet orthodox, and I was not going to be drawn into religious debate.

I bowed. ‘Well, I fear I must leave you. I have an appointment with Lord Cromwell at Westminster.’

The boy looked impressed, and Pepper tried not to, as I mounted Chancery and headed back into the crowd, smiling wryly. Lawyers are the greatest gossips God ever placed in the world, and it would do business no harm to have Pepper mentioning it about the courts that I had had a personal audience with the chief secretary. But my pleasure did not last, for as I passed down Fleet Street fat drops began to splash in the dusty road, and by the time I passed under Temple Bar a heavy rain was falling, driven into my face by a sharp wind. I turned up the hood of my coat and held it tightly as I rode into the storm.

BY THE TIME I reached Westminster Palace the rain had become torrential, gusting against me in sheets. The few horsemen who passed were, like me, hunched inside their coats, and we exclaimed to each other at the drenching we were getting.

The king had abandoned Westminster for his great new palace at Whitehall some years before, and nowadays Westminster was used mainly to house the courts. Pepper’s Court of Augmentations was a new addition, set up to deal with the assets of the small religious houses dissolved the year before. Lord Cromwell and his burgeoning retinue of officials had their offices there too, so it was a crowded place.

Usually the courtyard was thronged with black-clad lawyers debating over parchments and state officials arguing or plotting in quiet corners. But today the rain had driven all indoors and it was almost empty. Only a few bedraggled, poorly dressed men stood huddled, soaked, in the doorway of Augmentations: ex-monks from the dissolved houses, come to plead for the lay parishes the Act had promised them. The official on duty must be away somewhere - perhaps it was Master Mintling. One proud-faced old man was still dressed in the habit of a Cistercian, rain dripping from his cowl. Wearing that apparel around Lord Cromwell’s offices would do him little good.

Ex-monks usually had a hangdog air, but this group were looking with horrified expressions over to where some carriers were unloading two large wagons and stacking the contents against the walls, cursing at the water dripping into their eyes and mouths. At first glance I thought they were bringing wood for the officials’ fires, but when I brought Chancery to a halt I saw they were unloading glass-fronted caskets, wooden and plaster statues, and great wooden crosses, richly carved and decorated. These must be the relics and images from the dissolved monasteries, whose worship all of us who believed in Reform sought to end. Brought from their places of honour and piled up in the rain, they were at last stripped of power. I suppressed a stab of pity and nodded grimly at the little group of monks before steering Chancery through the inner arch.

IN THE STABLES I dried myself as best I could on a towel the ostler gave me, then entered the palace. I showed Lord Cromwell’s letter to a guard, who led me from the public area into the labyrinth of inner corridors, his brightly polished pike held aloft.

He took me through a large door where two more guards stood, and I found myself in a long, narrow hall, brightly lit with candles. Once it had been a banqueting hall, but now it was filled from end to end with rows of desks at which black-clad clerks sat sifting mountains of correspondence. A senior clerk, a short plump man with fingers black from years of ink, bustled across to me.

‘Master Shardlake? You are early.’ I wondered how he knew me and then realized he would have been told to expect a hunchback.

‘The weather was kind - until just now.’ I looked down at my soaked hose.

‘The vicar general told me to bring you in as soon as you arrived.’

He led me on down the hall, past the rustling clerks, the wind created by our passage making their candles flicker. I realized just how extensive was the web of control that my master had created. The church commissioners and the local magistracy, each with their own network of informers, were under orders to report all rumours of discontent or treason; each was investigated with the full rigour of the law, its penalties harsher every year. There had already been one rebellion against the religious changes; another might topple the realm.

The clerk halted before a large door at the end of the hall. He bade me stop, then knocked and entered, bowing low.

‘Master Shardlake, my lord.’

IN CONTRAST to the antechamber, Lord Cromwell’s room was gloomy, only one small sconce of candles by the desk lit against the dark afternoon. While most men in high office would have had their walls adorned with the richest tapestries, his were lined from floor to ceiling with cupboards divided into hundreds of drawers. Tables and chests stood everywhere, covered with reports and lists. A great log fire roared in a wide grate.

At first I could not see him. Then I made out his stocky form, standing by a table at the far end of the room. He was holding up a casket and studying the contents with a contemptuous frown, his wide, narrow-lipped mouth downturned above his lantern chin. His jaw held thus made me think of a great trap that at any moment might open and swallow one whole with a casual gulp. He glanced round at me and, with one of those mercurial changes of expression that came so easily to him, smiled affably and raised a hand in welcome. I bowed as low as I could, wincing, for I was stiff after my long ride.

‘Matthew, come over here.’ The deep, harsh voice was welcoming. ‘You did well at Croydon; I am glad that Black Grange tangle is resolved.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’ As I approached, I noticed the shirt beneath his fur-trimmed robe was black. He caught my glance.

‘You’ve heard the queen is dead?’

‘Yes, my lord. I am sorry.’ I knew that after Anne Boleyn’s execution Lord Cromwell had hitched his fortunes to those of Jane Seymour’s family.

He grunted. ‘The king is distracted.’

I looked down at the table. To my surprise it was piled high with caskets of various sizes. All seemed to be of gold and silver; many were studded with jewels. Through ancient spotted glass I could see pieces of cloth and bone lying on velvet cushions. I looked at the casket he still held, and saw it contained a child’s skull. He held it up in both hands and shook it, so that some teeth that had come loose rattled inside. The vicar general smiled grimly.

‘These will interest you. Relics brought specially to my attention.’ He set the casket on the table and pointed to a Latin inscription on the front. ‘Look at that.’

‘
Barbara sanctissima
,’ I read. I peered at the skull. A few hairs still clung to the pate.

‘The skull of St Barbara,’ Cromwell said, slapping the casket with his palm. ‘A young virgin murdered by her pagan father in Roman times. From the Cluniac Priory of Leeds. A most holy relic.’ He bent and picked up a silver casket set with what looked like opals. ‘And here - the skull of St Barbara, from Boxgrove nunnery in Lancashire.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘They say there are two-headed dragons in the Indies. Well, we have two-headed saints.’

‘By Jesu.’ I peered in at the skulls. ‘I wonder who they were?’

He gave another bark of laughter and clapped me soundly on the arm. ‘Ha, that’s my Matthew, always after an answer for everything. It’s that probing wit I need now. My Augmentations man in York says the gold casket is of Roman design. But it will be melted down in the Tower furnace like all the others and the skulls will go to the dunghill. Men should not worship bones.’

‘So many of them.’ I looked through the window, where the rain still beat down in torrents, sweeping the courtyard as the men continued unloading. Lord Cromwell crossed the room and stood looking out. I reflected that though he was now a peer, entitled to wear scarlet, he still dressed in the same style as I, the black gown and flat black cap of legal and clerical officials. The cap was silk velvet, though; the gown lined with beaver. I noticed his long brown hair had become flecked with grey.

‘I must have those things taken in,’ he said. ‘I need them dry. Next time I burn a papist traitor, I want to use some of that wood.’ He turned and smiled grimly at me. ‘Then people will see that using the heretic’s own images as fuel does not make him scream any the less, let alone make God strike out the fire.’ His expression changed again, became sombre. ‘Now come, sit down. We have business.’ He sat behind his desk, motioning me brusquely to a chair facing him. I winced at a spasm from my back.

‘You seem tired, Matthew.’ He studied me with his large brown eyes. Like his face, their expression constantly changed and now they were cold.

‘A little. It was a long ride.’ I glanced over his desk. It was covered in papers, some with the royal seal glinting in the candlelight. A couple of small gold caskets appeared to be in use as paperweights.

‘You did well to find the deeds to that woodland,’ he said. ‘Without them the matter could have dragged on in Chancery for years.’

‘The monastery’s ex-bursar had them. He took them when the house was dissolved. Apparently the local villagers wanted to claim the woods as common lands. Sir Richard suspected a local rival, but I started with the bursar as he would last have had the deeds.’

‘Good. That was logical.’

‘I tracked him to the village church where he had been made rector. He admitted it soon enough and gave them up.’

‘The villagers paid the ex-monk, no doubt. Did you have him in charge of the justice?’

‘He took no payment. I think he only wanted to help the villagers, their land is poor. I thought it better to make no stir.’

Lord Cromwell’s face hardened and he leaned back in his chair. ‘He had committed a criminal act, Matthew. You should have had him in charge, as an example to others. I hope you are not becoming soft. In these times I need hard men in my service, Matthew, hard men.’ His face was suddenly full of the anger I had seen in him even when we first met ten years before. ‘This is not Thomas More’s Utopia, a nation of innocent savages waiting only for God’s word to complete their happiness. This is a violent realm, stewed in the corruption of a decadent church.’

‘I know.’

‘The papists will use every means to prevent us from building the Christian commonwealth, and so by God’s blood I will use every means to overcome them.’

‘I am sorry if my judgement erred.’

‘Some say you
are
soft, Matthew,’ he said quietly. ‘Lacking in fire and godly zeal, even perhaps in loyalty.’

BOOK: Dissolution (Matthew Shardlake Mysteries)

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