Sovereign

Chapter Thirty-nine

THE FOUR OF US – me, Barak, Tamasin and Giles – each had tiny cabins in the stern, no bigger than cupboards, with space only for a narrow bunk nailed to the floor. Across the way I caught a glimpse of a servant unpacking his master’s bag in a larger cabin. A little further down the two soldiers that had brought Broderick aboard stood guard outside a heavy door; the ship’s lock-up, no doubt. I wondered if Radwinter was in there with the prisoner. We four went back on deck. It was cold even with the sea calm and the skies clear. I dreaded to think what it would be like in rough weather.

The crew were busy with the sails, under the eye of the mate, a stocky man with a weatherbeaten face. Satisfied, he marched off, boots ringing on the planks. There was a bump, a creak and the ship began moving away from the wharf. Giles, who was wearing a cap, doffed it at the Yorkshire shore as we moved away.

‘I should keep that off,’ I said. ‘Or you’ll lose it in the wind. You should really be below.’

‘I’ll manage.’ But as he pulled his coat tightly round him I noticed his face seemed drawn. He went to sit down on a bench nailed to the deck, while Barak, Tamasin and I watched as Hull faded slowly from view, a light swell in the Humber estuary making the ship rise and fall. I felt a little sick, and recalling what someone had told me once I fixed my eyes on the mudbanks on the horizon.

I heard a murmur behind me. ‘That was him, at Fulford. The King made him bare his back to the crowd.’ I turned to see a pair of clerks looking over their shoulders at me. I frowned at them and they turned away. So the story of what had happened at Fulford Cross was already growing in the telling, I thought bitterly, as stories do. Would I never be allowed to forget my humiliation by King Henry? I wondered what they would say if they knew he might be no more than a Kentish archer’s grandson.

‘Oh, God.’ Barak lurched abruptly, then bent forward and vomited on the deck. He lost his balance, pitched forward and fell with a thud on the boards. There was a burst of laughter from the clerks, and the sailors working at the mast looked over and grinned. I helped him to his feet. Tamasin took his other arm and we led him to sit down next to Giles. The acid smell of vomit made my own stomach heave. Barak’s face was white as paper. He put his head between his knees and groaned, then lifted it and looked at me.

‘I hate being ill, and having only one fucking leg that works properly!’ he burst out. ‘I hate it!’ He glared at the clerks. ‘I’d make those arseholes laugh if I was fit!’

‘You’ll be back to normal soon.’

‘You can rest when you get back to London, Jack,’ Tamasin said. She looked at me appealingly behind Barak’s back. ‘Perhaps Master Shardlake will let you stay at his house for a while, so his housekeeper can look after you, speed your recovery.’

‘Yes,’ I said awkwardly. ‘Yes, we can do that.’

‘I don’t want any favours. Oh, God.’ He put his head between his knees again.

I walked to the rail to escape the smell of vomit. I felt annoyed at Tamasin’s request; the calculating little piece had made it when I could least refuse. But she was right, he could not yet cope on his own; he would try to do too much and injure himself again.

After a few minutes I went back to where Barak still sat with his head between his knees, Tamasin’s arm round him. On his other side Giles was slumped heavily on the bench. His stillness sent a momentary chill down my spine, until I touched him and his eyes opened.

‘Giles?’ I asked gently. ‘Are you all right?’ He winced with pain.

‘I must have fallen asleep.’

‘Barak has been sick, he fell over. Did you not hear?’

He looked tired, tired to death. He essayed a smile. ‘Not a good sailor, eh? It is a long time since I was at sea, but fortunately I have never got sick.’ He looked over to the mudbanks in the distance. ‘We are still in sight of Yorkshire, then.’

‘I gather it will be many hours before we are out of the estuary.’

‘I wonder how Madge is coping, without me to fuss over.’

‘When we get to London, Giles, my first task will be to help you find your nephew. Barak will help too.’

Giles lowered his voice. ‘How are things between you and him?’

‘Ah. You have noticed something was amiss.’

‘It has been hard not to, these last days. Something to do with the girl?’

‘In a roundabout way.’ I looked at the coastline, a little further off now. ‘But do not worry about that. We will be all right once all this is over, once we are back in our routine at Lincoln’s Inn.’ I smiled at him. ‘And then we will find your nephew.’

He looked at me thoughtfully. ‘How will you go about it? Finding Martin?’

‘We can go to Garden Court, and if he is not there, the Inn Treasurer can tell us where he practises.’

He nodded. ‘So it should be quite simple.’

‘Yes.’ I said, hoping to God it would be.

FOR THE NEXT three days the weather stayed calm and bright, and though it was uncomfortable sitting around on deck or cramped in those tiny cabins, it could have been a great deal worse. We saw nothing of Rich or Maleverer; doubtless they were in comfortable quarters below decks. Giles too spent most of his time in his cabin, in his tiny bunk. He lay quietly, seeming withdrawn. I suspected he was in much pain, and worried about him.

Although the weather made life easier for the passengers, we heard the captain was unhappy, for in place of the gale there was now only the lightest of winds and the ship had to tack endlessly. On the fourth day the news went round that we would have to pull in at Great Yarmouth on the Norfolk coast, for we had not enough supplies left to complete the voyage. I saw Maleverer arguing fiercely with the captain, saying enough time had been lost, but the captain stood his ground.

We were at Great Yarmouth two days, taking on supplies. We learned the Progress had now dissolved at Lincoln. The King was hurrying south as fast as possible, for he had had word that Prince Edward was ill.

‘The life on which the Tudor dynasty depends,’ Giles said as we sat together on the deck, watching as the ship pulled away from Great Yarmouth. He had come up for some air, saying he felt better, though to me he still looked ill and frequently made those little winces of pain that cut me to the heart. Barak, who had found his sea-legs, was standing at the rail with Tamasin. We had spoken little in the last few days.

‘Unless Queen Catherine becomes pregnant,’ Giles ruminated. ‘But they’ve been married over a year now, and nothing. Perhaps the King can father no more children.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said hesitantly. Knowing what I knew about the Queen, I did not want to get involved in a discussion along those lines.

‘If the Prince dies,’ Giles continued, ‘who then will be heir to the throne? The Countess of Salisbury’s family wiped out, both the King’s daughters disinherited. What confusion King Henry would leave us then.’ He gave a bitter little laugh.

I got up. ‘I must stretch my legs, Giles, they are stiff.’ He wrapped the rug he had brought up more tightly around his big frame. ‘It will get cold now we are out at sea,’ I told him. ‘Perhaps you should go down again,’ I added, hesitantly for I knew how he disliked being treated like an invalid. But he said, ‘Yes, I will go below. Help me, would you?’

I saw him down to his cabin and returned to the deck. Tamasin and Barak were still talking at the rail, laughing. I felt excluded. I saw Barak incline his head to where a sailor was walking along the deck. To my astonishment, half a dozen rats swung by their tails from one hand, their long black bodies dripping blood on to the deck.

‘The ship’s ratcatcher,’ Barak said to Tamasin with a grin. She screwed up her pretty face and turned her head away. He nudged her. ‘D’you know what the main perk of his job is?’

‘No. I don’t want to.’

‘He gets to eat the rats.’

‘Sometimes you are disgusting,’ she said.

‘Better than the weevilly old biscuits they get.’ He laughed.

Just then the two soldiers climbed out of the hatchway leading below deck. They waited as Broderick followed them up, his hands and feet chained, a scrawny pitiful figure beside the two big men. He was followed up by Sergeant Leacon, and then Radwinter.

The soldiers led Broderick across to the rail. He stood there, looking out to sea, a man on either side in case he thought to jump over the rail. Sergeant Leacon looked out over the deck, taking deep breaths of fresh air. Radwinter, seeing me, came over.

‘Master Shardlake.’

His face had a tired, pinched look, and his hair and beard were longer, unkempt. He must have been below decks with Broderick nearly all the time since we left Hull. It struck me it was a long time since he had been as neat and dapper as when I first saw him at York Castle.

‘Well, Radwinter,’ I said. ‘Not long now to London, let us hope.’

‘No.’ He looked up at the sails. ‘I fancy there is more of a wind. I heard the captain say this was an unlucky voyage.’

‘Superstition.’

‘Yes. We will be in London in a few days.’ He smiled, his old wicked smile. ‘Then Sir Edward will have a merry time in the Tower.’

‘Is he well?’

‘Well enough. Do you know, he cried like a woman when I told him we had left Spurn Head behind. Said it was because he would never see Yorkshire again. I told him they may nail his quarters over the York gates once they are done with him.’

I shook my head. ‘You have no pity for him, have you?’

Radwinter shrugged. ‘In my work it does not do to have pity. You said I was mad once –’ his eyes glinted and I saw that indeed he had not forgotten that – ‘but to be a gaoler of traitors and heretics and be soft-hearted with them, that would be madness. Nor would it be God’s will.’

‘God’s will is torture and bloodshed?’

‘Where necessary to preserve true religion.’ He looked at me with contemptuous pity. ‘Have you not read your Testament, all the blood and battles? The world God made is full of violence and we must work in that world. The King knows that, he is not afraid of harshness.’

‘Does it not say somewhere the meek shall inherit the earth?’

‘Not until the strong have made it safe.’

‘When will that be? When the quarters of the last papist are nailed above York’s gates?’

‘Perhaps. You have to be strong to do right in this world, Master Shardlake. You have to be ruthless, as ruthless as our enemies.’

I turned away. Sergeant Leacon was walking towards me. He gave Radwinter a look of distaste, then turned to me. ‘Master Shardlake, good day.’

‘Good day, sergeant. I called Radwinter mad once,’ I said in a low voice. ‘He seems more so every time I see him.’

Leacon nodded. ‘I have been put over him now, by Sir William.’ He looked at Radwinter, who had gone over to the rail and stood looking out to sea. ‘I think Sir William has lost trust in him; he did not deal well with what happened in York.’

‘No. It was outside his experience, I think.’

‘He hates losing his authority. I see him looking at me sometimes and think he would like to kill me.’

‘Not long now till we reach home, with luck. How is Broderick? Radwinter said he cried when he heard we were out of sight of Yorkshire.’

‘Ay. He has been quiet since then.’ He hesitated. ‘When he saw you he asked to talk to you for a minute.’

I glanced to where Broderick stood, looking out to sea, ignoring the soldiers. I sighed. ‘Very well. For a minute.’

Leacon looked over at his men. ‘Move away there. And stand up straight, can’t you?’ He turned to me as they stepped away from Broderick. ‘Maleverer gave me two of the surliest idiots in the troop to guard Broderick. I’ve already had to dock the pay of one for being drunk.’

Broderick turned to me as I approached. His thin face was drawn with pain above his yellow unkempt beard, which, like his long hair, glinted with spray. He looked more like a little old man than a young one. As he turned to me he winced as he moved his left arm.

‘What ails your arm?’

‘The rack.’ He looked at me. The wildness had gone from his eyes, he seemed strangely calm. There had been some change in his state of mind since I saw him last.

‘I hear you were nearly killed at Howlme,’ he said quietly. ‘By Bernard Locke’s fiancée.’

‘Yes.’

‘I knew Locke a little. He is a man to get a woman to do his bidding. I wanted you to know it was nothing to do with me. Maleverer questioned me about it. He used forceful methods.’

‘I am sorry for it. And I know Jennet Marlin acted alone.’ I hesitated. ‘We never found the papers she took. If it was she that took them.’

He did not answer.

‘I wonder if it was someone else who stole them, whether perhaps they are in the hands of the conspirators now. Maleverer thinks I am a fool.’

He met my gaze evenly, but still said nothing.

‘I am right, aren’t I? You know?’

Again, no reply. I sighed and changed the subject.

‘So, you are sorry Jennet Marlin tried to kill me?’

‘Yes. I would not have you die. You have shown me kindness in your way.’

I looked at him. ‘Yet if it served your purposes you would kill me, would you not?’

‘Not with pleasure,’ he said in an oddly matter-of-fact way. ‘I view no one’s death with pleasure. Even where it may be necessary. Nor would you, I think.’

‘Mistress Marlin spoke of necessary deaths. I do not like the idea that anyone’s death is necessary.’

‘Mine is.’ He gave his old sardonic smile. ‘You accepted that, or you would not have taken the mission from Cranmer to look after my welfare.’

I sighed.

‘Why did you do it? You do not belong with a company of brutes like Maleverer and Radwinter.’

‘I let myself become obligated to the Archbishop.’

He nodded, then said, ‘They will not make me talk in London.’

‘They will, Broderick,’ I answered quietly.

‘No.’ A faint smile, one that chilled me, the smile of one who has secret knowledge. He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘They will not. And remember, Master Shardlake, what I told you once. The time of the Mouldwarp is almost over.’ He looked at me sadly. ‘You know, I think you could have been one of us. You may be yet.’

I turned away. Sergeant Leacon was standing nearby.

‘I have never seen him so calm,’ I told him.

‘He is in a strange mood. Did he say anything of importance?’

‘He said they will not break him.’

‘They will.’

‘I know.’

I walked away to the hatch. Radwinter was still leaning over the rail, staring out to sea.

THAT EVENING, after supper eaten from bowls on the deck, I sat on the bench as the sun sank below the horizon. The sea was quiet, only a little swell. A red sun, in a sky that had begun to fill with clouds. I hoped more bad weather was not coming. Tamasin had gone to her cabin and Barak was talking to a group of servants a little way off.

There was more of a wind now, enough to make some headway. I was glad, for I was increasingly worried about Giles, who still spent most of his time asleep in his cabin. All around dim forms, huddled against the evening cold, dozed or spoke quietly or played at cards or chess. The moon rose, a silvery line on the sea. A man swathed in furs came up the stair-ladder from below to take the air. Beneath a jewelled cap I recognized the thin features of Richard Rich. He walked down the deck, head sunk on his chin, thinking. The sailors working on deck moved quickly out of his way as he passed. Then he walked up the deck again. As he reached the bench where I sat his eyes held mine for a second. Then he gave his little smile, turned and walked away again. He descended the steps, his footsteps fading away. When he had gone I rose. Barak came over to me.

‘That arsehole.’

‘Ay.’ I was pleased by his concern.

‘Did he say anything?’

‘No, just gave me an evil look. I think I will go down.’

‘Ay, it is getting cold.’

‘I feel colder still for seeing Rich.’

Below decks all was quiet. As I passed Broderick’s cell, though, I noticed with surprise that the two soldiers standing outside were drinking beer from a flagon they were passing between them. Seeing me, the one holding it tried to hide it behind his back. I frowned and went on to my room. As I was settling on to my bunk I heard raised voices outside. I rose and quickly opened the door. Other doors were opening, people looking out.

‘What in God’s name do you think you are doing?’ It was Sergeant Leacon’s voice, furious. The two soldiers stood red-faced, one holding the flagon at his side. The sergeant kicked it out of his hand and it crashed on the floor, the beer spilling out. The soldier staggered.

‘God’s wounds, you’ll suffer for this. You’ll both come with me to Maleverer, now.’

The soldiers paled. The door to the cell opened and Radwinter looked out. ‘What in hell is going on?’ he snapped.

Leacon turned to him, red-faced. ‘These churls are drinking on duty. I’m taking them to Maleverer.’ And with that he grabbed the two men by the collars and marched them away. Radwinter watched him go, smiling at his rival’s discomfiture. I shut my door before he saw me.

A ROUGH HAND, shaking me hard. I opened my eyes, blinking. Someone holding a lamp. My cabin door was open. Outside, voices were murmuring excitedly. I sat up, and found myself looking into Maleverer’s grim face. In the shadows behind him I saw Barak in his shirt, his hair tousled.

‘Wake up!’ Maleverer snapped his fingers angrily in my face. ‘Come on! Get up!’

I rose to my feet. In the doorway I saw Giles, clutching blankets around his big form and looking bemused, and Tamasin with Barak’s coat draped round her. Maleverer turned and shouted at them and the other people who had wakened and come into the corridor.

‘Get back to bed!’ he bawled. ‘I’ll have the lot of you arrested!’

‘What is this commotion?’ Giles asked, a new querulousness in his voice.

‘Come back to bed, Master Wrenne,’ Tamasin said. She took his arm and led him away. Other doors closed. Barak alone stayed in the doorway. Maleverer turned back to me.

‘You spoke to Broderick yesterday,’ he rasped. ‘What did he say to you?’

My heart jumped as I remembered Broderick’s words: you could have been one of us. I think you may be yet. ‘I – nothing of note,’ I said. ‘I tried to question him about Jennet Marlin but he made no answer, as usual. What has happened?’

‘I’ll show you. Come with me.’

He shouldered his way out of the cabin. I got up; fortunately I had gone to bed in my shirt and hose. ‘What is it?’ I asked Barak.

‘I don’t know. I was woken up by voices and footsteps down there.’ He nodded down the corridor to Broderick’s cell. To my surprise the door was ajar. Radwinter sat slumped on the floor outside, his head in his hands, Sergeant Leacon standing over him.

‘Here!’ Maleverer called. I followed him reluctantly down the corridor. He threw open the door of Broderick’s cell and stood aside. Barak had followed me; I felt warmed by the fact he was still loyal.

The cell was one of the larger rooms, a bunk against each wall and some space between. In that space Broderick hung from the ceiling. He was bare to the waist; his shirt had been twisted into a thick length of material and one end slung over a large beam. The other end had gone round his neck. He was dead, his body swinging in the light swell, the chains that bound his arms and legs making a slight rattle. His feet hung two or three inches above the floor. If he had been any taller he could not have done it in the low cabin. His eyes were closed and his head was bent over at a sickening angle. I looked away from his emaciated, lacerated chest. ‘Dear God.’ I looked at Maleverer. ‘How –’

‘The soldiers got drunk. Leacon brought them to me and I sent them to sleep it off. They’ll suffer later. He and Radwinter were left alone to guard Broderick. Later Leacon came to me to discuss what was to be done with the soldiers. When he came back Radwinter was lying on the ground by the bench. Radwinter says someone knocked on the door. When he stepped out he saw no one there, then someone struck him from behind, knocked him out, stole his keys, then unlocked the chains and killed Broderick.’ He stepped over to Radwinter, who looked up at him. He seemed stunned, confused. Ironically, that made him look normal, human, for the first time since I had known him.

‘Couldn’t he have killed himself?’ I asked.

‘No.’ Maleverer almost snarled. He had lost his prisoner, this would go hard for him. ‘Look at his wrists, they’re manacled together behind him, there’s only six inches of chain between them. Broderick was manacled if ever he was left alone, precisely so he could not harm himself. Someone helped him to this. They tied the rope to the rafter, helped Broderick to stand on the bed, got the rope round his neck. Then he jumped.’

I nodded. ‘Yes.’ I made myself look at the body again. ‘And his helper pulled on his feet when he was dangling, to break his neck and stop him from strangling slowly. They were merciful. They helped him kill himself. He did it after all.’ I looked at Broderick’s face again. It was turned slightly away, his expression oddly peaceful. At last he had shut us all out, for ever.

‘Radwinter’s story doesn’t add up, to me,’ Maleverer said, glowering down at the gaoler. ‘He says he was hit on the head from behind but I see no mark of a blow.’ He addressed Radwinter. ‘I am placing you under arrest for the murder of your prisoner. And by God, when we get to London we will find out why, one way or another.’

Radwinter stared up at him, then let out a terrible sound, somewhere between a screech and a moan. Maleverer nodded to Leacon. ‘Lock him up, then take the body down. And by Jesu, you and your men will have to make answer too, for this mess.’ Maleverer turned to me. ‘So that’s it,’ he hissed. ‘The last chance of finding out more about the conspirators. Gone!’

But it had not been Radwinter, I was sure. Maleverer merely needed a culprit and he had found one. I realized something that set my heart hammering against my ribs. I had been right that it was not Jennet Marlin who had knocked me out at King’s Manor. It was someone else. They were on this ship, and now they had helped Broderick die.