Sovereign (24 page)

‘I told you he could look after himself.’

‘Ay.’ I got up. ‘Well, I shall go for a walk, I think. I need some air.’

‘Want some company?’

I smiled. ‘All right.’

O
UTSIDE A WIND
had got up, and I smelled rain in the air. ‘Autumn is well on here,’ I observed. My head felt clearer, but with the clarity
came apprehension. I watched the people passing to and fro and thought, somebody here, one of these people, attacked me. Will they try again? I was glad of Barak’s company.

We walked past the animal enclosures. Two big metal cages had been set up to one side; in each a huge brown bear crouched, staring out through little red eyes full of fear and anger.

‘There’s to be bear-baiting among the public entertainments for the King,’ Barak said. ‘I dare say you’ll steer clear of that.’ He smiled slightly, for he
found my squeamishness about such things odd.

‘Yes,’ I replied shortly.

‘A whole lot of fighting cocks were being brought in when I was in the courtyard earlier. Games for the soldiers and workmen. They’re not allowed in the city in case they fight with
the Yorkers. They’ve put the birds in the chapterhouse, I was told.’

I shook my head. ‘How the world is everywhere turned upside down.’

We walked down the side of the church to the main courtyard. Men on ladders were fixing pennants to the pavilions now, in the green and white Tudor colours, the red-on-white cross of England
and, I saw to my astonishment, blue flags with a slantwise white cross. I pointed. ‘Look! Isn’t that the Scotch flag? Jesu, King James must be coming here! That is what all this is
for!’

Barak whistled. ‘A meeting of kings.’

‘So King Henry has come to make his terms with the Scots as well as the Yorkmen. He’s after a peace treaty.’ I shook my head. ‘King James would be mad to abandon his
alliance with the French, it’s all that’s ever stopped us overrunning them.’

‘Maybe he’s offering James a choice between peace terms and invasion.’

‘If this is what it is all about, perhaps Queen Catherine is not pregnant after all.’

I looked round the courtyard, less crowded now the building work was finished. Men were loading surplus building material on to carts, while more flagstones were being laid near the manor house,
covering the earth so the King – the Kings – should not get their robes muddy. I shivered, feeling tired again. ‘Come, let us go back through the church. We can see how the horses
are doing.’

The monastic church was also full of workmen. Row upon row of wooden stalls had been set up along the nave now for the horses, and men were piling up bales of hay for fodder and setting straw in
the stalls. The banging down of the bales, the swish of the straw being laid, echoed round the place. As we walked down the church another sound became audible, an angry crowing from the
chapterhouse. There must be hundreds of fighting cocks, I realized, and wondered what they made of the holy statues, whether they took them for real men as Barak had. I looked around. For all the
great vaulting arches this was the corpse of a church, a corpse set out to be mocked and desecrated as they said Richard III’s was after the Battle of Bosworth. I felt suddenly giddy, and
went over to a bench that someone had left in the middle of the nave. ‘I must rest a moment,’ I said.

Barak joined me. We sat in silence for a minute, then I turned to him, wincing at a spasm in my neck.

‘I wonder if I am safe now,’ I said.

‘You mean your assailant would have killed you had Craike not interrupted him?’

‘I’m not sure Craike
did
interrupt him.’

‘You mean he was the attacker?’

‘No. Otherwise the cudgel, or whatever else he used, would have been found on him when he was searched. And those damned papers. No, I mean my assailant had already left the room when
Craike arrived in the corridor. Think about it. That is a long corridor, whoever attacked me would have heard Craike’s footsteps as he arrived at the far end. He could not have left the room
and run down the other staircase without Craike seeing him. And Craike said he heard footsteps
descending
, not running.’

‘So the attacker thought he had killed you.’

‘Unless he did not mean to kill me, just knock me out.

Say he entered the room just as I lifted that confession by

Blaybourne from the box, and hit me before I could read it.’

‘If it’s that important, surely he’d kill you to make sure.’

I sighed. ‘Yes, unless he thought I was already dead. If

so, he showed carelessness. And when he sees I am alive, he

may try again.’

‘But the damage has been done. You’ve told Maleverer everything you saw.’

‘The attacker may not know that.’ ‘Then we’ll have to keep watch,’ Barak said. ‘Thank you for the
we
. I wonder what those papers signify. An
orthodox-seeming family tree, a copy of the Mouldwarp legend, an Act of Parliament Maleverer says is a fake and a confession by someone called Blaybourne whose name appears to strike terror into
the hearts of the mighty. There were other papers too, quite a few, they looked like statements of some sort. And who was the thief? A conspirator, trying to keep the papers out of the King’s
hands? But if so, why did Oldroyd not give them to him – I am assuming that was why he was killed.’

‘I don’t know. Jesu, I wish we could go home.’

‘So do I.’ I shivered in a cold wind that came through an empty window-arch. I looked through it at the grey sky, just beginning to darken. Oldroyd would have removed that glass. I
wondered what would happen to his house and business; he was another who had died without heirs.

‘What are you thinking of?’ Barak asked.

‘How since we got here my mind has run on genealogies. Those like the King’s that have heirs and those like Wrenne’s and Oldroyd’s that have run out. And mine,
perhaps.’ I smiled sadly. ‘Your tree I suppose will go back to Abraham, through your father’s Jewish blood.’

He shrugged. ‘And we all go back to Adam, the first sinner. I am my father’s only child too. I would like the line to go on.’ He smiled mirthlessly. ‘The secret line of
Jewish blood.’ He turned back to me. ‘You could still marry. You are not yet forty.’

‘I will be next year. Then people will start to think of me as an old man.’

‘Ten years younger than the King.’

I sighed. ‘After Lady Honor, last year—’ I changed the subject. ‘So, you have made up with Tamasin?’

‘Yes.’ He smiled, then looked at me seriously. ‘She was frightened at being hauled up before Maleverer, I think, though she tried to hide it. She said Mistress Marlin was sharp
with her, but has promised she will not tell Lady Rochford.’

I nodded. ‘That is in her own interest. Lady Rochford might blame Mistress Marlin for not keeping proper control of the girl. Mistress Marlin is a strange creature. What does young Tamasin
think of her?’

‘That she is mostly a kind mistress, oddly enough. It was she who chose Tamasin to come to York. I think Tamasin feels sorry for her, because the other ladies mock her. Tamasin has a kind
heart.’

‘Well, that is a virtuous thing in a woman.’ I massaged my neck again. ‘Jesu, I am tired. I should go to the prison tonight, but I cannot face trailing through York again in
the dark.’

‘Hardly surprising, after being knocked out. You should rest tonight.’

‘I shall go tomorrow, and call on Master Wrenne as well. I grow fond of that old man.’ I was quiet for a moment then said, ‘He is alone. That reminds me of my father, and then
I feel guilty for not visiting him for a year before he died.’

The events of the day seemed to have put us in a rare mood for confidences, there in the huge desecrated vault of the church, the swish of straw and crowing of fighting cocks echoing in the
background. ‘I dream of my father sometimes,’ Barak said. ‘When I was small he always wanted to hold me and I would squirm away because I could not stand the smell of his trade.
The emptying of cesspits. I often dream he comes to me with arms outstretched, but I catch the smell of him and draw back as I did then, I cannot help myself. Then I wake with that smell in my
nostrils. I thought of it when they brought that apprentice into Maleverer.’ He fingered his breast, where I knew he carried the ancient mezuzah his father had bequeathed him. ‘Perhaps
such dreams are sent to punish us,’ he concluded softly. ‘To remind us of our sins.’

‘You are a Job’s comforter.’

‘Ay.’ He rose. ‘ ’Tis this grim place.’

‘I wonder what will happen to that boy.’

‘Young Green?’

‘That was a cruel humiliation Maleverer visited on him, sending him bare-arsed into the town.’

Barak suppressed a laugh. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but it did look funny. The Yorkers will probably sympathize. He’ll find another place. Come, shall we get some supper before
you retire?’

‘Yes.’ I rose and we walked to the far door.

He turned to me. ‘I am sorry for causing you to lose the papers, more than I can say.’

I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Come, no recriminations. There is no point.’

We went to look at the horses, complimenting the stable boy on how well they were cared for, then went and ate companionably in the refectory. As we walked we were both on the alert, looking
into shadowed corners. The refectory was busier and noisier than the night before. The carpenters, their work done, were in boisterous mood. If they were allowed into the town tonight there would
be revelry and probably bloody noses too. I was tired again, glad to return to my cot. Barak said he was going into the town, ‘to see what I can see’.

‘No adventures.’

‘No, I’ll save those for Tamasin tomorrow. Shall I wake you at six in the morning?’

‘Ay.’ He left me then, and I sank into a deep and thankfully dreamless sleep, disturbed only when the lawyers and clerks returned late and went to bed. Yet it was not Barak who woke
me next morning but a soldier, a hand shaking me roughly awake. It was still dark, he carried a lamp. I stared at him. It was young Sergeant Leacon. His face was serious. My heart leaped in terror,
and I feared for a second that Maleverer might have put me under arrest.

‘What is it?’

‘I have been sent to escort you to York Castle, sir, at once,’ he said. ‘The prisoner Broderick, he has been poisoned.’

I
T WAS STILL ONLY
five in the morning as we marched through a dark and silent York. Barak had been woken when Leacon roused
me and I asked him to accompany us; whatever awaited us at the castle, I wanted another pair of eyes to see. The town constables, roused by our footsteps, shone their lamps at us but retreated
again at the sight of Leacon’s red uniform. I shivered and drew my coat round me, for a cold gusting wind had risen.

‘Who brought you the news?’ I asked the young sergeant.

‘A messenger sent by the captain of the castle guard. He said the prisoner had been poisoned and seemed like to die, and you were asked for at once. I thought it best to come myself as we
must cross the city. The constables would stop you otherwise.’

‘Thank you.’ By the light of his lamp I could see a worried expression on Leacon’s boyish face. ‘I put you to much trouble, I fear.’

‘I was called to Sir William yesterday, asked for the details of your arrival at St Mary’s with that box. He questioned me closely.’ He hesitated, looking at the bruise on my
head. ‘He told me you were attacked. The guards at St Mary’s have been warned to be triply attentive. The King arrives tomorrow.’

The castle tower reared up on its hill, outlined against a sky which was just beginning to lighten. We hurried on to where torches burned brightly on the drawbridge; we were expected and quickly
gained admittance. I thanked the sergeant and told him to go back to St Mary’s. Barak watched him return across the drawbridge.

‘He must think trouble surrounds us everywhere we go.’

We hurried across the bailey to the guardroom. The door was open, light spilling into the yard. The hard-looking fellow who had met me on my previous visits was standing in the doorway, looking
worried.

‘I’ll take you up, sir,’ he said at once.

‘What happened?’

‘Master Radwinter came into the guardroom not an hour ago, said the prisoner was taken ill. He suspected poison, said to send for you and the physician. The physician’s just gone
up.’

So Radwinter had summoned me. To protect his back, perhaps, share the blame if Broderick died. I set my lips tight as we followed the guard up the damp spiral staircase. The door to
Broderick’s cell was open. Inside, by the light of a lamp set on the floor, a stout man in a black fur-trimmed robe and close-fitting cap was bent over the bed. The sour stink of vomit filled
the room. Radwinter stood looking on, holding another lamp high. He turned as we came in. His face was pale against his black beard. He had dressed hurriedly; he looked far from his usual dapper
self and his eyes had a look of fear and anger. He stared at Barak, who met his gaze unflinchingly. ‘Who’s that?’ he snapped.

‘My assistant, Barak. He is privy to everything, by the Archbishop’s authority. How is Sir Edward?’