Lamentation (The Shardlake Series Book 6) (4 page)

‘I had not known she was so young,’ Coleswyn whispered.

Some of the constables ran to the faggots and piled several bundles round the stakes, a foot high. We watched as the three men were led there. The branches crunched under the constables’ feet as they chained two of the men – back-to-back – to one stake, the third to another. There was a rattle as the chains were secured round their ankles, waists and necks. Then Anne Askew was carried in her chair to the third stake. The soldiers set her down and the constables chained her to the post by the neck and waist.

‘So it’s true,’ Coleswyn said. ‘She was racked in the Tower. See, she can no longer stand.’

‘But why do that to the poor creature after she was convicted?’

‘Jesu only knows.’

A soldier brought four brown bags, each the size of a large fist, from the basket and carefully tied one round the neck of each victim. They flinched instinctively. A constable came out of the old gatehouse carrying a lit torch and stood beside the railing, impassive. Everyone’s eyes turned to the torch’s flame. The crowd fell silent.

A man in clerical robes was mounting the steps to the lectern. He was elderly, white-haired and red-faced, trying to compose features distorted with fear. Nicholas Shaxton. But for his recantation he would have been tied to a stake as well. There were hostile murmurs from some in the crowd, then a shout of, ‘Shame on you that would burn Christ’s members!’ There was a brief commotion and someone hit the man who had spoken; two soldiers hurried across to separate them.

Shaxton began to preach, a long disquisition justifying the ancient doctrine of the Mass. The three condemned men listened in silence, one trembling uncontrollably. Sweat formed on their faces and on their white shifts. Anne Askew, though, periodically interrupted Shaxton with cries of, ‘He misses the point, and speaks without the Book!’ Her face looked cheerful and composed now, almost as though she were enjoying the spectacle. I wondered if the poor woman was mad. Someone in the crowd called out, ‘Get on with it! Light the fire!’

At length Shaxton finished. He slowly descended and was led back to the gatehouse. He started to go in but the soldiers seized his arms, forcing him to turn and stand in the doorway. He was to be made to watch.

More kindling was laid round the prisoners; it reached now to their thighs. Then the constable with the torch came over and, one by one, lit the faggots. There was a crackling, then a gasping that soon turned to screaming as the flames licked the victims’ legs. One of the men yelled out, ‘Christ receive me! Christ receive me!’ over and over again. I heard a moaning wail from Anne Askew and closed my eyes. All around the crowd was silent, watching.

The screaming, and the crackling of the faggots, seemed to go on forever. Genesis stirred uneasily again and for a moment I experienced that awful feeling I had known frequently in the months since the
Mary Rose
sank, of everything swaying and tilting beneath me, and I had to open my eyes. Coleswyn was staring grimly, fixedly ahead, and I could not help but follow his gaze. The flames were rising fast, light and transparent in the bright July day. The three men were still yelling and writhing; the flames had reached their arms and lower bodies and burned the skin away; blood trickled down into the inferno. Two of the men were leaning forward in a frantic attempt to ignite the gunpowder, but the flames were not yet high enough. Anne Askew sat slumped in her chair; she seemed to have lost consciousness. I felt sick. I looked across at the row of faces under the canopy; all were set in stern, frowning expressions. Then I saw the thin young lawyer looking at me again from the crowd. I thought uneasily, Who is he? What does he want?

Coleswyn groaned suddenly and slumped in his saddle. I reached out a hand to steady him. He took a deep breath and sat upright. ‘Courage, Brother,’ I said gently.

He looked at me, his face pale and beaded with sweat. ‘You realize any of us may come to this now?’ he whispered.

I saw that some of the crowd had turned away; one or two children were crying, overcome by the horrific scene. I noticed that one of the Dutch merchants had pulled out a tiny prayer book and was holding it open in his hands, reciting quietly. But other people were laughing and joking. There was a smell of smoke round Smithfield now as well as the stink of the crowd, and something else, familiar from the kitchen: the smell of roasting meat. Against my will I looked again at the stakes. The flames had reached higher; the victims’ lower bodies were blackened, white bone showing through here and there, their upper parts red with blood as the flames licked at them. I saw with horror that Anne Askew had regained consciousness; making piteous groans as her shift burned away.

She began to shout something but then the flames reached the gunpowder bag and her head exploded, blood and bone and brains flying and falling, hissing, into the fire.

Chapter Two

A
S SOON AS IT WAS OVER
, I rode away with Coleswyn. The three men at the stakes had taken longer than Anne Askew to die. They had been chained standing rather than sitting and it was another half-hour before the flames reached the bag of gunpowder round the last man’s neck. I had shut my eyes for much of the time; if only I could have shut my ears.

We said little as we rode along Chick Lane, heading for the Inns of Court. Eventually Coleswyn broke the uneasy silence. ‘I spoke too freely of my private thoughts, Brother Shardlake. I know one must be careful.’

‘No matter,’ I answered. ‘Hard to keep one’s counsel when watching such a thing.’ I remembered his comment that any of us could come to this, and wondered whether he had links with the radicals. I changed the subject. ‘I am seeing my client Mistress Slanning this afternoon. There will be much for both of us to do before the case comes on in September.’

Coleswyn gave an ironic bark of laughter. ‘That there will.’ He gave me a look which showed his view of the case to be the same as mine.

We had reached Saffron Hill, where our ways divided if he were to go to Gray’s Inn and I to Lincoln’s Inn. I did not feel ready to go back to work yet. I said, ‘Will you come for a mug of beer, Brother?’

Coleswyn shook his head. ‘Thank you, but I could not. I will return to the Inn, try to lose myself in some work. God give you good morrow.’

‘And you, Brother.’

I watched him ride away, slumped a little over his horse. I rode down to Holborn, pulling off my cap and coif as I went.

I
FOUND A QUIET INN
by St Andrew’s Church; it would probably fill up when the crowds left Smithfield, but for now only a few old men sat at the tables. I bought a mug of beer and found a secluded corner. The ale was poor, cloudy stuff, a husk floating on the surface.

My mind turned, as it often did, to the Queen. I remembered when I had first met her, when she was still Lady Latimer. My feelings for her had not diminished. I told myself it was ridiculous, foolish, fantasy; I should find myself a woman of my own status before I grew too old. I hoped she possessed none of the books on the new forbidden list. The list was long – Luther, Tyndale, Coverdale, and of course John Bale, whose scurrilous new book about the old monks and nuns,
Acts of the English Votaries
, was circulating widely among the London apprentices. I had old copies of Tyndale and Coverdale myself; an amnesty for surrendering them expired in three weeks. Safer to burn them quietly in the garden, I thought.

A little group of men came in. ‘Glad to be out of that smell,’ one said.

‘’Tis better than the stink of Lutheranism,’ another growled.

‘Luther’s dead and buried, and Askew and the rest gone now too.’

‘There’s plenty more lurking in the shadows.’

‘Come on, have a drink. Have they any pies?’

I decided it was time to leave. I drained my mug and went outside. I had missed lunch, but the thought of food revolted me.

I
RODE BACK
under the Great Gatehouse of Lincoln’s Inn, once again in my robe, coif and cap. I left Genesis at the stables and crossed to my chambers. To my surprise, there was a flurry of activity in the outer office. All three of my employees – my assistant Jack Barak, my clerk John Skelly, and my new pupil, Nicholas Overton – were searching frantically among the papers on the desks and shelves.

‘God’s pestilence!’ Barak was shouting at Nicholas as he untied the ribbon from a brief and began riffling through the papers. ‘Can’t you even remember when you last saw it?’

Nicholas turned from searching through another pile of papers, the freckled face beneath his unruly light-red hair downcast. ‘It was two days ago, maybe three. I’ve been given so many conveyances to look at.’

Skelly studied Nicholas through his glasses. It was a mild look but his voice was strained as he said, ‘If you could just remember, Master Overton, it would narrow the search a bit.’

‘What is going on?’ I asked from the doorway. They had been so busy with their frantic search they had not seen me come in. Barak turned to me, his face an angry red above his new beard.

‘Master Nicholas has lost the Carlingford conveyance! All the evidence that Carlingford owns his land, which needs to be presented in court on the first day of the term! Dozy beanpole,’ he muttered. ‘Bungling idiot!’

Nicholas’s face reddened as he looked at me. ‘I did not mean to.’

I sighed. I had taken Nicholas on two months before, at the request of a barrister friend to whom I owed a favour, and half-regretted it. Nicholas was the son of a gentry family in Lincolnshire, who at twenty-one had, apparently, failed to settle to anything, and agreed to spend a year or two at Lincoln’s Inn, learning the ways of the law to help him run his father’s estate. My friend had hinted that there had been some disagreement between Nicholas and his family, but insisted he was a good lad. Indeed he was good-natured, but irresponsible. Like most other such young gentlemen he spent much of his time exploring the fleshpots of London; already he had been in trouble for getting into a sword fight with another student over a prostitute. The King had closed the Southwark brothels that spring, with the result that more prostitutes had crossed over the river to the city. Most gentry lads learned sword fighting, and their status allowed them to wear swords in the city, but the taverns were not the place to show off such skills. And a sharp sword was the deadliest of weapons, especially in a careless hand.

I looked at his tall, rangy form, noticing that under his short student’s robe he wore a green doublet slashed so the lining of fine yellow damask showed through, contrary to the Inn regulations that students must wear modest dress.

‘Keep looking, but calm down, Nicholas,’ I said. ‘You did not take the conveyance out of this office?’ I asked sharply,

‘No, Master Shardlake. I know that is not permitted.’ He had a cultivated voice with an undertone of a Lincolnshire burr. His face, long-nosed and round-chinned, was distressed.

‘Nor is wearing a slashed silken doublet. Do you want to get into trouble with the Treasurer? When you have found the conveyance, go home and change it.’

‘Yes, sir,’ he answered humbly.

‘And when Mistress Slanning comes this afternoon, I want you to sit in on the interview, and take notes.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And if that conveyance still isn’t found, stay late to find it.’

‘Is the burning over?’ Skelly ventured hesitantly.

‘Yes. But I do not want to talk about it.’

Barak looked up. ‘I have a couple of pieces of news for you. Good news, but private.’

‘I could do with some.’

‘Thought you might,’ he answered sympathetically.

‘Come into the office.’

He followed me through to my private quarters, with its mullioned window overlooking Gatehouse Court. I threw off my robe and cap and sat behind my desk, Barak taking the chair opposite. I noticed there were odd flecks of grey in his dark-brown beard, though none yet in his hair. Barak was thirty-four now, a decade younger than me, his once lean features filling out.

He said, ‘That arsehole young Overton will be the death of me. It’s like trying to supervise a monkey.’