Dissolution

CHAPTER 29

It was a long ride out to Whitechapel, well beyond London Wall; a fast-growing area, filled with the wattle-and-daub hovels of the poor. Thin smoke from a hundred fires rose into the still air. Here the bitter weather was more than just a serious inconvenience; looking at the pinched, hungry faces I reflected that for some here this would be one hardship too many. Such wells as they had must have frozen, for I saw many women carrying pails of water up from the river. I had changed into my clothes of cheapest cloth, for gentlemen were not always safe out here.

The street where Smeaton had had his forge was one of the better ones, housing several workshops. Singleton's papers said he had lived in a two-storey building next to a smithy and I found it readily enough. It was no longer a carpenter's; the shutter covering the shop-front had been nailed down and painted over. I tied the nag to a post and rapped on the flimsy wooden door.

It was opened by a poorly dressed young man with untidy black hair framing a pale, hollow-cheeked face. He asked what I wanted without much interest, but when I said I was a commissioner from Lord Cromwell's office he shrank away, shaking his head.

'We've done nothing, sir. There's nothing here to interest Lord Cromwell.'

'You are not accused of anything,' I said mildly. 'I have some enquiries, that is all. About the last owner of this place, John Smeaton. There will be a reward for those who help me.'

He still looked dubious, but invited me inside. 'Excuse my home, sir,' he muttered, 'but I've no work.'

In truth it was a sorry chamber he led me into. It had obviously been a workshop in the recent past, for it consisted only of one long, low room, the brick walls blackened with years of soot. A carpenter's bench now served as a table. It was cold; the fire consisted of a few stony coals that gave off as much smoke as heat. Apart from the bench there was no furniture save a few battered chairs and straw mattresses on the floors. Around the poor fire three thin children sat huddled together with their mother, who nursed a coughing baby in her lap. They all looked up at me with sullen, indifferent expressions. The room was dim, the only light coming from a small rear window now the old shopfront was nailed up. The place smelt strongly of smoke and urine, and the whole scene filled me with a chill sadness.

'Have you been here long?' I asked the man.

'Eighteen months, since the old owner died. The man who bought it lets us this room. There's another family in the living quarters upstairs. The landlord's Master Placid, sir, he lives in the Strand.'

'You know who the old owner's son was?'

'Yes, sir. Mark Smeaton, that lay with the great whore.'

'I presume Smeaton's heirs sold it to Master Placid. Do you know who they were?'

'The heir was an old woman. When we moved in there was a pile of Master Smeaton's belongings, some clothes and a silver cup and a sword –'

'A sword?'

'Yes, sir. They were in a pile over there.' He pointed to a corner. 'Master Placid's man told us John Smeaton's sister would be coming to collect them. We were not to touch them or we'd be out.'

'Nor did we, sir,' added the woman by the fire. Her child coughed harshly and she hugged it to her. 'Quiet, Fear-God.'

I fought to suppress my excitement. 'The old woman? Did she come?'

'Yes sir, a few weeks later. She was from the country somewhere, she seemed nervous in the city. Her lawyer brought her.'

'Do you remember her name,' I asked eagerly, 'or what part of the country she came from? Might it have been a place called Scarnsea?'

He shook his head. 'I'm sorry, sir, I only remember she was from the country somewhere. A little fat woman, past fifty, with grey hair. She only said a few words. They picked up the bundle and the sword and left.'

'Do you remember the lawyer's name?'

'No, sir. He helped her with the sword. I remember her saying she wished she had a son she could give it to.'

'Very well. I would like you to look at my sword – no, don't be alarmed, I'm only taking it out to show you – and tell me if this might be the one the woman took.' I laid it out on the bench. The man peered at it and his wife came over, still hugging the child.

'That looks like it,' she said. She eyed me narrowly. 'We did take it out of its scabbard, sir, but only to have a look, we didn't do anything with it. But I recognize that gold-coloured handle, and those marks on the hilt.'

'We said it was a fine piece,' the man added. 'Didn't we, Elizabeth?'

I sheathed the weapon. 'Thank you both, your information has been helpful. I am sorry your child is ill.' I reached out to touch the baby, but the woman raised her hand.

'Don't stroke her, sir, she's alive with nits. She won't stop coughing. It's the cold, we've lost one already. Quiet, Fear-God.'

'She has an unusual name.'

'Our vicar is strong for Reform, sir, he's named them all. He said it would help us in the world now, to have children with such names. Here, children, stand up.' The other three stood on rickety legs, revealing bloated wormy stomachs, and their father pointed to them in turn. 'Zealous, Perseverance, Duty.'

I nodded. 'They shall each have sixpence, and here are three shillings for your help.' I counted out the contents of my purse. The children grabbed the coins eagerly; the father and mother looked as if they could not believe their good fortune. Overcome with sudden emotion, I turned and left them quickly, mounted the horse and rode away.

The pitiful scene at the house haunted me, so it was a relief to turn my thoughts back to what I had discovered. It made no sense. The person who had inherited the sword, the only person with a family motive for vengeance, an old woman? There were no women over fifty at the monastery, apart from a couple of old serving women, tall thin old crones who did not answer the young man's description. The only person who did that I had encountered in my time at Scarnsea was Goodwife Stumpe. And no short old woman could have dealt that blow. But Singleton's papers had been definite there were no male relatives. I shook my head.

I realized that in my preoccupation I had let the horse wander and it was heading down towards the river. I did not feel like going home yet and let the nag take the lead. I sniffed the air. Was it my imagination, or was it, at last, getting warmer?

I passed an encampment on a snowy piece of waste ground, where a group of workless men had made a camp. Presumably they had lighted here in the hope of finding casual labour at the docks; they had built a lean-to from pieces of driftwood and sacking and sat huddled round a fire. They gave me unfriendly looks as I passed, and a thin yellow cur ran from the camp and barked at the nag. She tossed her head and neighed, and one of the men called the dog to heel. I rode away quickly, patting the horse until she calmed.

We were down at the riverside; ships were drawn up and men were busy unloading. One or two were as dark as Brother Guy. I brought the nag to a halt. Directly ahead a great ocean-going carrack was drawn up at the quay, its square prow ornamented with an obscenely grinning naked mermaid. Men were hauling crates and boxes from the hold; I wondered from what far reach of the round globe it had come. Looking up at the great masts and the mesh of rigging I was surprised to see mist curling round the crow's nest. Wreaths of fog, I now saw, were floating up the river and I could feel distinctly warmer air.

The nag was showing signs of anxiety again and I turned and headed slowly back towards the City, through a street of storehouses. Then I paused. An extraordinary babel of noise was coming from one of the wooden buildings; screeches and yells and a host of voices in strange tongues. It was bizarre, hearing those unearthly sounds in the misty air. Overcome with curiosity, I tied the nag to a post and went across to the warehouse, from which a sharp smell issued.

The open door showed a dreadful sight. The warehouses was full of birds, in three great iron cages each as tall as a man. They were birds such as the old woman had had, which Pepper had reminded me of. There were hundreds of them, of all sizes and innumerable colours: red and green, golden and blue and yellow. They were in the most miserable state: all had had their wings cut, some right to the bone and badly done too, so that the mutilated ends were covered with raw sores; many were diseased, with half their feathers gone, scabs on their bodies and eyes surrounded with pus. For every one that clung with its claws to the sides of the cages another lay dead on the floor among great heaps of powdery droppings. The worst thing was their shrieking; some of the poor birds simply made harsh piteous cries as though appealing for an end to their suffering, but others cried out over and again in a variety of tongues; I heard words in Latin, in English, in languages I did not understand. Two of them, clinging upside down to the bars, shrieked at each other, one calling out 'A fair wind', over and again, while the other answered 'Maria, mater dolorosa' in the accent of a Devon man.

I stood, transfixed by the horrible scene, until I was interrupted by a rough hand on my shoulder. I turned to find a sailor dressed in a greasy jerkin eyeing me suspiciously.

'What business have you here?' he asked sharply. 'If ye've come to trade ye should go to Master Fold's rooms.'

'No – no, I was passing, I heard the noise and wondered what it was.'

He grinned. 'The Tower of Babel, eh, sir? Voices possessed by the spirit and speaking in tongues? Nay, just more of these birds the gentry all want now for playthings.'

'They are in a most pitiful state.'

'There's plenty more where they came from. Some always die on the voyage. More will die from the cold, they're weak brutes. Pretty though, ain't they?'

'Where did you get them?'

'The isle of Madeira. There's a Portuguese merchant there, he's realized there's a market in Europe for them. You should see some of the things he buys and sells, sir; why he ships boatloads of black Negroes from Africa as slaves for the Brazil colonists.' He laughed, showing gold-capped teeth.

I felt a desperate urge to escape from the chill, fetid air of the warehouse. I excused myself and rode away. The harsh cries of the birds, their unearthly simulacra of human speech, followed me down the muddy street.

I rode back under the City wall into a London suddenly grey and foggy, full of the sound of water dripping from melting icicles on the house eaves. I halted the nag outside a church. I normally attended church at least once a week, but had not been to a service for over ten days. I was in need of spiritual comfort; I dismounted and went inside.

It was one of those rich City churches attended by merchants. Many London merchants were reformers now and there were no candles. The figures of saints on the rood screen had been painted over and replaced by a biblical verse:

The church was empty. I stepped behind the rood screen. The altar had been stripped of its decorations, the paten and chalice standing on an unadorned table. A copy of the new Bible was chained to the lectern. I sat down in a pew, reassured by these familiar surroundings, a total contrast to Scarnsea.

But not all the accoutrements of the old ways had gone. From where I sat I could see a cadaver tomb of the last century. There were two stone biers, one above the other. On the top one was the effigy of a rich merchant in his fine robes, plump and bearded. On the lower tier lay the effigy of a desiccated cadaver in the rags of the same clothes, and the motto: 'So I am now; so I once was: as I am now; so shall ye be.'

Looking at the stone cadaver I had a sudden vision of Orphan's decomposed body rising from the water, then of the diseased rickety children at Smeaton's house. I had a sudden sick feeling that our revolution would do no more than change starveling children's names from those of the saints to Fear-God and Zealous. I thought of Cromwell's casual mention of creating faked evidence to hound innocent people to death, and of Mark's talk of the greedy suitors come to Augmentations for grants of monastic lands. This new world was no Christian commonwealth; it never would be. It was in truth no better than the old, no less ruled by power and vanity. I remembered the gaudy, hobbled birds shrieking mindlessly at each other and it seemed to me like an image of the king's court itself, where papists and reformers fluttered and gabbled, struggling for power. And in my wilful blindness I had refused to see what was before my eyes. How men fear the chaos of the world, I thought, and the yawning eternity hereafter. So we build patterns to explain its terrible mysteries and reassure ourselves we are safe in this world and beyond.

And then I realized that blinkered thinking of another sort had blinded me to the truth of what had happened at Scarnsea. I had bound myself to a web of assumptions about how the world worked, but remove one of those and it was as though a mirror of clear glass were substituted for a distorting one. My jaw dropped open. I realized who had killed Singleton and why and, that step taken, all fell into place. And I realized I had little time. For a few moments more I sat with my mouth open, breathing heavily. Then I roused myself and rode as fast as the nag would go, back to the place where, if I was right, the last piece of the puzzle lay: the Tower.

It was dark by the time I rode over the moat again, and Tower Green was lit by flaming torches. I almost ran into the Great Hall and made my way again to Master Oldknoll's office. He was still there, carefully transferring information from one paper to another.

'Master Shardlake! I trust you've had a profitable day. More than mine, at least.'

'I must speak urgently to the gaoler in charge of the dungeons. Can you take me straight there? I've no time to wander round trying to find him.'

He read the importance of the matter from my face. 'I'll take you now.' He picked up a great bunch of keys and led me off, taking a torch from a passing soldier. As we passed through the Great Hall he asked if I had ever been to the dungeons before.

'Never, I'm glad to say.'

'They are grim places. And I've never known them busier.'

'Yes. I wonder what we are coming to.'

'A country full of godless crime, that's what. Papists and mad gospellers. We should hang them all.'

He led me down a narrow spiral staircase. The air became sharp with damp. There was green slime on the walls, fat beads of water running down it like sweat. We were below the level of the river now.

At the bottom was an iron gate, through which I saw a torchlit underground chamber where a little group of men stood round a paper-strewn table. A guard in Tower livery came over to us and Oldknoll addressed him through the bars.

'I have one of the vicar general's commissioners here, he needs to see Chief Gaoler Hodges at once.'

The guard opened the gate. 'Over there, sir. He's very busy; we've taken in a load of Anabaptist suspects today.' He led us over to the table, where a tall thin man stood checking papers with another guard. On both sides of the chamber there were heavy wooden doors with barred windows, from one of which a loud voice issued, calling out verses from the Bible.

'Behold I am against them saith the Lord of Hosts, and I will burn the chariots and the sword shall devour thy young lions…'

The gaoler raised his head. 'Shut your mouth! Do you want a whipping?' The voice subsided and he turned to me, bowing. 'Your pardon, sir, I am trying to sort the delations for all these new prisoners. Some of them are to go before Lord Cromwell for interrogation tomorrow, I don't want to send him the wrong ones.'

'I need information about a prisoner who was here eighteen months ago,' I said. 'Do you remember Mark Smeaton?'

He raised his eyebrows. 'I'm not likely to forget that time, sir. The queen of England in the Tower.' He paused, remembering. 'Yes, Smeaton was down here the night before his execution. We had instructions to separate him from the other prisoners, he was to have some visitors.'

I nodded. 'Yes, Robin Singleton came to make sure he was keeping to his confession. And there were other visitors. Would they be recorded?'

The gaoler exchanged a look with Oldknoll and laughed. 'Oh yes, sir. Everything's recorded nowadays, isn't it, Thomas?'

'At least twice.'

The gaoler sent one of his men off, and a few minutes later he returned with a heavy log book. The gaoler opened it.

'May 1536, the sixteenth.' He ran his finger down the page. 'Yes, Smeaton was in the cell that mayhemmer's in.' He nodded at the door from which the declamations had issued; silent now, only darkness visible through the bars.

'His visitors?' I asked impatiently, coming to peer over his shoulder. He shrank away a little as he bent once more to his book. Perhaps a hunchback had once brought him bad luck.

'See, there's Singleton, brought in at six. Another, marked "relative" at seven and then "priest" at eight. That's the Tower priest, Brother Martin, come to confess him before his execution. A pox on that Fletcher, I've told him always to put in the names.'

I ran my finger down the page, looking at the other prisoners' names. 'Jerome Wentworth called Jerome of London, monk of the London Charterhouse. Yes, he's here too. But I need to know about that relative, Master Hodges, most urgently. Who is this Fletcher, one of your guards?'

'Aye, and he doesn't like the paperwork. His writing's not good.'

'Is he on duty?'

'No, sir, he's had leave for his father's funeral up in Essex. He won't be back till tomorrow afternoon.'

'He comes on duty then?'

'At one.'

I bit my finger. 'I will be at sea by then. Give me paper and a pen.'

I quickly scribbled two notes and handed them to Hodges.

'This one asks Fletcher to tell me all he remembers of that visitor, everything. You will impress on him that the information is vital, and if he can't write the answer get someone else to. When he's done, I want the answer taken at once to Lord Cromwell's office with this other letter. It asks him to provide his fastest rider, to bring Fletcher's answer to me down at Scarnsea. The roads will be hell itself if this snow's melting, but a good man might be able to reach me by the time my boat gets in.'

'I'll take it to Lord Cromwell myself, Master Shardlake,' Oldknoll said. 'I'll be glad to get out in the air.'

'I'm sorry about Fletcher,' Hodges said. 'Only there's so much paperwork now, sometimes it doesn't get done properly.'

'Just make sure I have that answer, Master Hodges.'

I turned away, and Oldknoll led me out of the dungeons. As we mounted the stairs we heard the man in Smeaton's cell shouting again: a litany of garbled quotations from the Bible, cut off with a sharp crack and a yell.