Sovereign (6 page)

‘No, that’s been there a long time, the bones are picked quite clean. I’d guess that’s Robert Aske, who led the Pilgrimage of Grace five years ago.’ I had heard he
was hanged in chains. I shuddered, for that was a dreadful death, and pulled at Genesis’ reins. ‘Come, let’s find the gaoler.’

Another pair of towers flanked the opposite gateway. We rode across and dismounted. I was still stiff and tired despite the brief rest, though Barak seemed to have recovered his energy. I must
do my back exercises tonight, I thought.

A guard approached, a fellow of my own age with a hard square face. I told him we had come from Archbishop Cranmer, to see Master Radwinter.

‘He was expecting you yesterday.’

‘So was everyone. We were delayed. Could you stable our horses? And give them some feed, they are sore tired and hungry.’

He called a second guard. I nodded to Barak. ‘Go with them. I think I’d best see him alone, this first time.’

Barak looked disappointed, but went off with the horses. The first guard led me to a door in the tower, unlocked it, and led me up a narrow spiral staircase lit by tiny arrow-slit windows. We
climbed perhaps halfway up the tower, and I was panting by the time he halted before a stout wooden door. He knocked, and a voice called, ‘Come in.’ The guard opened the door, standing
aside to let me enter, then closed it behind me. I heard his footsteps descending again.

The chamber was gloomy, more arrow-slit windows looking out across the city. The stone walls were bare, though scented rushes were scattered on the flagstones. A neatly made truckle bed stood
against one wall, a table covered with papers against another. Beside it a man sat in a cushioned chair reading a book, a candle set on a little table beside him to augment the dim light. I had
expected a gaoler’s slovenly dress but he wore a clean brown doublet and good woollen hose. He shut his book and rose with a smile, smoothly as a cat.

He was about forty. There was a pair of deep furrows in his cheeks; otherwise his features were regular, framed by a short beard, black like his hair but greying around the corners of his mouth.
He was short, slim but strong-looking.

‘Master Shardlake,’ he said in a melodious voice with a slight Londoner’s burr, extending a hand. ‘Fulke Radwinter. I had expected you yesterday.’ He smiled,
showing small white teeth, but his light-blue eyes were hard and sharp as ice. The hand that took mine was clean and dry, the nails filed. This was indeed no common gaoler.

‘Did the stairs tire you?’ he asked solicitously. ‘You seem to breathe a little heavily.’

‘We had to ride through the night, Master Radwinter.’ I spoke firmly, I needed to establish my authority. I felt inside my coat pocket. ‘I should show you the
Archbishop’s seal.’ I passed it to him. He studied it a moment, then handed it back.

‘All in order,’ he said with another smile.

‘So, then. My lord Archbishop has written to you, told you I am to have oversight of the welfare of Sir Edward Broderick?’

‘Indeed.’ He shook his head. ‘Though really, there was no need. The Archbishop is a great and godly man, yet he can become – overanxious.’

‘Sir Edward is in good health, then?’

Radwinter inclined his head. ‘He had some rough treatment from the King’s interrogators when he was first taken. Before certain matters came to light, and it was decided to hale him
to London. Most secret matters.’ He raised his eyebrows. He must know that the nature of those matters had been kept from me as it had from him; Cranmer would have told him in his letter.

‘So, then, he was tortured before you came.’

The gaoler nodded. ‘He is in some discomfort, but nothing can be done about that. Otherwise he keeps well enough. He will be in London soon. Then he will be in far greater discomfort. The
King wants him questioned as soon as possible, but it is more important that it is done by the most skilled people, and they are in London.’

I had tried not to think of what must await the prisoner at the end of his journey. I suppressed a shudder.

‘Well, sir,’ Radwinter said cheerily. ‘Will you have some beer?’

‘Not now, thank you. I ought to see Sir Edward.’

He inclined his head again. ‘Of course. Let me get the keys.’ He went over to a chest and opened it. I glanced at the papers on his desk. Warrants and what looked like a sheet of
notes in a small, round hand. His book, I saw, was a copy of Tyndale’s
The Obedience of a Christian Man
, a reformist text. The desk was set beside one of the narrow windows, giving a
good view across the city. Glancing out, I saw many steeples and one larger church that had no roof, another dissolved monastery no doubt. Beyond lay marshland and then a lake. Looking directly
down, I saw the moat ran broader on this side of the castle, a wide channel fringed thickly with reeds. People were moving about there, women with large baskets on their backs.

‘They are picking reeds to make rushlights.’ I started at Radwinter’s soft voice beside me. ‘And see there?’ He pointed down to where one woman was pulling at
something on her leg. I heard, very faintly, a little cry of pain. Radwinter smiled. ‘They’re gathering the leeches that bite them, for the apothecaries.’

‘It must be a miserable occupation, standing deep in mud waiting for those things to bite.’

‘Their legs must be covered in little scars.’ He turned to me, his eyes looking into mine. ‘As the body of England is covered in the scars left by the great leech of Rome.
Well, let us see our friend Broderick.’ He turned and crossed to the door. I took the candle from beside his chair before following him out.

R
ADWINTER CLATTERED RAPIDLY
up the stairs to the next floor, halting before a stout door with a little barred window. He looked in, then unlocked the
door and went inside. I followed.

The cell was small and dim, for there was but one tiny window, barred and unglassed, the open shutters letting in a cold breeze. The chill air smelled of damp and ordure, and the rushes beneath
my shoes felt slimy. The clank of a chain made me turn to a corner of the room. A thin figure in a dirty white shirt lay on a wooden pallet.

‘A visitor for you, Broderick,’ Radwinter said. ‘From London.’ His voice kept its smooth, even tone.

The man sat up, his chains rattling, in a slow and painful way that made me think he must be old, but as I approached I saw the face beneath its coating of grime was young, a man in his
twenties. He had thick, matted fair hair and an untidy growth of beard framing a long, narrow face that would have been handsome in normal circumstances. I thought he did not look dangerous, but as
he studied me I started at the anger in his bloodshot eyes. I saw that a long length of chain, looped through manacles on both his wrists, was bolted into the wall beside the bed.

‘From London?’ The hoarse voice was that of a gentleman. ‘Are there to be more gropings with the poker, then?’

‘No,’ I replied quietly. ‘I am here to ensure you get there safe and well.’

The anger in his gaze did not change. ‘The King’s torturers prefer a whole body to work on, hey?’ His voice broke and he coughed. ‘For Jesu’s sake, Master
Radwinter, may I not have something to drink?’

‘Not till you can repeat the verses I set you yesterday.’

I stared at him. ‘What is this?’

Radwinter smiled. ‘I have set Broderick to learn ten verses of the Bible each day, in the hope that God’s pure word in English may yet amend his papist soul. Yesterday he was
obdurate. I told him he would have no more drink till he could say his verses.’

‘Get him some now, please,’ I said sharply. ‘You are here to care for his body, not his soul.’ I held the candle up to Radwinter’s face. For a moment his lips
pressed hard together. Then he smiled again. ‘Of course. Perhaps he has been too long without. I will call a guard to fetch some.’

‘No, you go. It will be quicker. And I will be safe, he is well chained.’

Radwinter hesitated, then strode from the room without another word. I heard the key turn in the lock, shutting me in. I stood and looked at the prisoner, who had bowed his head.

‘Is there anything else you need?’ I asked. ‘I promise, I am not here to harm you. I know nothing of what you are accused, my commission from the Archbishop is only to see you
safe to London.’

He looked up at me then, and gave a grimace of a smile. ‘Cranmer worries his man may make sport with my body?’

‘Has he?’ I asked.

‘No. He likes to grope at my mind, but I am proof against that.’ Broderick gave me a long, hard look, then stretched out again on his pallet. As he did so the open neck of his shirt
revealed the livid mark of a burn on his chest.

‘Let me see that,’ I said sharply. ‘Open your shirt.’

He shrugged, then sat up and untied the strings. I winced. Someone had drawn a hot poker across his body, several times. One mark on his chest was red and inflamed, oozing pus that glinted in
the candlelight. He stared at me fiercely, I could almost feel his rage. I thought, if Radwinter is ice, this man is fire.

‘Where did you get those?’ I asked.

‘Here, in the castle, from the King’s men when they took me a fortnight ago. They could not break me. That is why I am being sent to London, to be worked on by men of real skill. But
you know that.’

I said nothing.

He looked at me curiously. ‘What manner of man are you then, that my marks seem to offend you, yet you work with Radwinter.’

‘I am a lawyer. And I told you, I am here to ensure you are well cared for.’

His eyes burned again. ‘You think that will suffice, in God’s eyes, for what you do here?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You keep me safe and well for the torturers in London, that they may have longer sport. I would rather die here.’

‘You could just give them the information they want,’ I said. ‘They will have it from you in the end.’

He smiled, a ghastly rictus. ‘Ah, a soft persuader. But I will never talk, no matter what they do.’

‘There are few who go to the Tower who do not talk in the end. But I am not here to persuade you of anything. You should have a physician, however.’

‘I ask nothing from you, crookback.’ He lay down again, looking across at the window. There was silence for a moment, then he asked suddenly, ‘Did you see where Robert Aske
still hangs in chains from Clifford’s Tower?’

‘That is Aske then? Yes.’

‘My chain is just long enough to allow me to stand at the window. I look out, and remember. When Robert was convicted of treason, the King promised he should be spared the pains of
disembowelling at his execution, that he would hang till he was dead. He did not realize the King meant he was to be dangled alive in chains till he died from thirst and hunger.’ He coughed.
‘Poor Robert that trusted Henry the Cruel.’

‘Have a care, Sir Edward.’

He turned and looked at me. ‘Robert Aske was my best friend.’

A key grated in the lock and Radwinter returned, bearing a pitcher of weak beer. He handed it to Broderick, who sat up and took a deep draught. I motioned Radwinter into the corner.

‘Has he spoken?’ the gaoler snapped.

‘Only to tell me he knew Robert Aske. But I have seen the burns on his body; I do not like the look of them. One is inflamed, he should have a physician.’

‘Very well.’ Radwinter nodded. ‘A man dead of fever will be no use to the Archbishop, after all.’

‘Please arrange it. I will call tomorrow to see how he does. And he should have fresh rushes.’

‘Scented perhaps, with sweet herbs?’ Radwinter still smiled, but there was cold anger in his voice. ‘Well, Broderick,’ he continued. ‘You have been telling Master
Shardlake about Aske. I am told that in the first winter after he died, when all his flesh had been eaten by the ravens and little bones began falling to the ground, they had to set a guard, for
people were taking away the bones. Bones from his hands and feet are hidden by papists all over York. Usually in the dunghills, for that is the safest place to keep relics safe from a search. It is
also where Aske’s bones belong—’

Broderick jumped up, with a sound between a groan and a snarl. There was a rattle of chains as he sprang at Radwinter. The gaoler had been watching for the move. He stepped quickly back and the
chains holding Broderick’s arms tautened, jerking him back on the bed. He slumped with a groan.

Radwinter laughed softly. ‘Watch him, Master Shardlake. You see, he is not as weakly as he looks. Well, Broderick, I shall ignore your violence, and comfort myself with the knowledge of
what awaits you in London. As ’tis well said, there is truth in pain.’ He stepped past me and opened the door. I followed, with a last glance back at the prisoner. Broderick was staring
at me again.

‘You are a lawyer?’ he asked quietly.

‘I said so.’

He laughed bitterly. ‘So was Robert Aske. When you see him again, think on what even lawyers may come to.’

‘Words, Sir Edward, words,’ Radwinter said as I went out past him. The gaoler locked the door and I followed him back downstairs. In his room the gaoler stood and faced me, his eyes
cold and his expression serious.

‘I wanted you to see that he is dangerous, for all he may look helpless.’