Dark Fire (6 page)

There was a knock at the door and Godfrey came in. He was of an age with me. Twenty years before we had been scholars and ardent young reformers together, and unlike me he had retained his
zealous belief that following the break with Rome a new Christian commonwealth might dawn in England. I saw that his narrow, delicate-featured face was troubled.

‘Have you heard the rumours?’ he asked.

‘What now?’

‘Yesterday evening the king rowed down the Thames to dinner at the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk’s house with Catherine Howard beside him under the canopy. In the royal barge, for all
London to see. It’s the talk of the City. He meant to be seen – it’s a sign the Cleves marriage is over. And a Howard marriage means a return to Rome.’

I shook my head. ‘But Queen Anne was beside him at the May Day jousts. Just because the king has his eye on a Howard wench doesn’t mean he’ll put the queen aside. God’s
wounds, he’s had four wives in eight years. He can’t want a fifth.’

‘Can’t he? Imagine the Duke of Norfolk in Lord Cromwell’s place.’

‘Cromwell can be cruel enough.’

‘Only when it is necessary. And the duke would be far harsher.’ He sat down heavily opposite me.

‘I know,’ I said quietly. ‘None of the privy councillors has a crueller reputation.’

‘He is a lunch guest of the benchers here on Sunday, is he not?’

‘Yes.’ I made a face. ‘I shall see him for myself for the first time. I do not greatly look forward to it. But, Godfrey, the king would never turn the clock back. We have the
Bible in English and Cromwell’s just got an earldom.’

He shook his head. ‘I sense trouble coming.’

‘When has there not been trouble these last ten years? Well, if London has a new topic that may take the heat from Elizabeth Wentworth.’ I had told him yesterday that I had taken on
the case. ‘I’ve been to see her in Newgate. She won’t say a word.’

He shook his head. ‘Then she’ll be pressed, Matthew.’

‘Listen, Godfrey, I need a precedent to say someone who won’t speak because they’re mad can’t be pressed.’

He stared at me with his large blue-grey eyes, strangely innocent for a lawyer’s. ‘Is she mad?’

‘She may be. There’s a precedent somewhere in the yearbooks, I’m sure.’ I looked at him; Godfrey had an excellent memory for cases.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think you’re right.’

‘I thought I might try the library.’

‘When’s gaol delivery – Saturday? You’ve little time. I’ll help you look.’

‘Thank you.’ I smiled gratefully; it was like Godfrey to forget his own worries and come to my aid. His fears, I knew, were real enough; he knew some of the evangelicals in the
circle of Robert Barnes, who had recently been put in the Tower for making sermons with too Lutheran a flavour.

I walked with him to the library and we spent two hours among the great stacks of case law, where we found two or three cases which might be helpful.

‘I’ll send Skelly over to copy these,’ I said.

He smiled. ‘And now you can buy me lunch as a reward for my help.’

‘Gladly.’

We went outside into the hot afternoon. I sighed. As ever, among the law books in the magnificent library I had felt a momentary sense of security, of order and reason; but out in the harsh
light of day I recalled that a judge could ignore precedent and remembered Bealknap’s words.

‘Courage, my friend,’ Godfrey said. ‘If she is innocent, God will not allow her to suffer.’

‘The innocent suffer whilst rogues prosper, Godfrey, as we both know. They say that churl Bealknap has a thousand gold angels in the famous chest in his rooms. Come, I’m
hungry.’

As we crossed the courtyard to the dining hall I saw a fine litter with damask curtains standing outside a nearby set of chambers, carried by four bearers in Mercers’ Company livery. Two
attendant ladies, carrying posies, stood at a respectful distance while a tall woman in a high-collared gown of blue velvet stood talking to Gabriel Marchamount, one of the serjeants.
Marchamount’s tall, plump figure was encased in a fine silk robe, and a cap with a swan’s feather was perched on his head. I remembered Bealknap had been under his patronage once until
he tired of Bealknap’s endless crookery; Marchamount liked his reputation as an honest man.

I studied the woman, noting the jewelled pomander that hung at her bosom from a gold chain, and as I did so she turned and met my eye. She murmured something to Marchamount and he raised his
arm, bidding me to halt. He gave the woman his arm and led her across the courtyard to us. Her attendants followed, their skirts making a whispering noise on the stone flags.

Marchamount’s companion was strikingly attractive, in her thirties, with a direct, open gaze. She wore a round French hood about her hair, which was blonde and very fine; little wisps
slipped out, stirring in the breeze. I saw the hood was faced with pearls.

‘Master Shardlake,’ Marchamount said in his deep, booming voice, a smile on his rubicund face, ‘may I introduce my client and good friend, Lady Honor Bryanston? Brother Matthew
Shardlake.’

She extended a hand. I took the long white fingers gently and bowed. ‘Delighted, madam.’

‘Forgive my intrusion on your business,’ she said. Her voice was a clear contralto with a husky undertone, the accent aristocratic. Her full-lipped mouth made girlish dimples in her
cheeks as she smiled.

‘Not at all, madam.’ I was going to introduce Godfrey but she continued, ignoring his presence. ‘I have been in conference with Master Marchamount. I recognized you from a
description the Earl of Essex gave when we dined last. He was singing your praises as one of the best lawyers in London.’

The Earl of Essex. Cromwell. I had thought, and hoped, that he had forgotten me. And I realized she would have been told to look out for a hunchback.

‘I am most grateful,’ I said cautiously.

‘Yes, he was quite effusive,’ Marchamount said. His tone was light, but his prominent brown eyes studied me keenly. I recalled he was known as an opponent of reform and wondered what
he had been doing dining with Cromwell.

‘I am ever on the lookout for fine minds to strike their wits against each other around my dining table,’ Lady Honor continued. ‘Lord Cromwell suggested you as a
candidate.’

I raised a hand. ‘You compliment me too highly. I am a mere jobbing lawyer.’

She smiled again and raised a hand. ‘No, sir, I hear you are more than that. A bencher, who may be a serjeant one day. I shall send you an invitation to one of my sugar banquets. You live
further down Chancery Lane, I believe.’

‘You are well informed, madam.’

She laughed. ‘I try to be. New information and new friends stave off a widow’s boredom.’ She looked round the quadrangle, studying the scene with interest. ‘How
marvellous it must be to live beyond the foul airs of the City.’

‘Brother Shardlake has a fine house, I hear.’ There was a slight edge to Marchamount’s voice, a glint in his dark brown, protuberant eyes. He laughed, showing a full set of
white teeth. ‘Such are the profits of land law, eh, Brother?’

‘Justly earned, I am sure,’ Lady Honor said. ‘But now you must excuse me, I have an appointment at the Mercers’ Hall.’ She turned away, raising a hand.
‘Expect to hear from me shortly, Master Shardlake.’

Marchamount bowed to us, then led Lady Honor back to her litter, making a great fuss of helping her inside before walking back to his chambers, stately as a full-rigged ship. We watched as the
litter made its swaying way to the gate, her ladies walking sedately behind.

‘Forgive me Godfrey,’ I said. ‘I was going to introduce you, but she gave me no chance. That was a little rude of her.’

‘I would not have welcomed the introduction,’ he said primly. ‘Do you know who she is?’

I shook my head. London society did not interest me.

‘Widow to Sir Harcourt Bryanston. He was the biggest mercer in London when he died three years ago. He was far older than her,’ he added disapprovingly. ‘They had sixty-four
poor men in attendance at his funeral, one for every year of his age.’

‘Well, what’s so wrong with that?’

‘She’s a Vaughan, an aristocrat fallen on hard times. She married Bryanston for his money, and since his death she’s set herself up as the greatest hostess in London. Trying to
build up her family name again, which was trampled down in the wars between Lancaster and York.’

‘One of the old families, eh?’

‘Ay. She specializes in setting reformers against papists over her dinner table, takes a perverse pleasure in it.’ He looked at me earnestly. ‘She’s invited Bishops
Gardiner and Ridley and started a conversation about transubstantiation before now. Matters of religious truth are not to be toyed with like that.’ A sudden hardness entered his voice.
‘They are for hard reflection, on which the fate of our eternal souls depend. As you used to say yourself,’ he added.

‘Ay, I did.’ I sighed, for I knew my loss of religious enthusiasm these last few years troubled my friend. ‘So she’s in with both factions then?’

‘She has both Cromwell and Norfolk at her table, but she’s no loyalty to either side. Don’t go, Matthew.’

I hesitated. There was strength, a sophistication about Lady Honor that stirred something in me that had been quiet a long time. And yet being in the middle of such arguments as Godfrey
described would not be comfortable, and for all he might have kind words for me I had no wish to see Cromwell again. ‘I’ll see,’ I said.

Godfrey looked over to Marchamount’s chambers. ‘I’ll wager the good serjeant would give much to have a lineage like hers. I hear he is still pestering the College of Arms for a
shield, though his father was but a fishmonger.’

I laughed. ‘Ay, he likes mixing with those of breeding.’

The unexpected meeting had lifted me from the concerns of work, but they returned as we entered the dining hall. Under the great vaulted beams I saw Bealknap sitting alone at one end of a long
table. He was shovelling food into his mouth with his spoon while reading a large casebook.
Friars Preachers
v.
the Prior of Okeham
, no doubt, to quote against me at Westminster Hall
in a week’s time.

T
HE
O
LD
B
AILEY
C
OURT
is a small, cramped building
set against the outer side of the City wall opposite Newgate. There is nothing of the panoply of the civil courts in Westminster Hall, although judgements here deal not with money and property, but
maiming and death.

On Saturday morning I arrived in good time. The court did not usually sit on Saturdays, but with the civil-law term starting the following week the judges would be heavily occupied and the
London assize had been brought forward to get the criminal business out of the way. I passed inside the courtroom, clutching my file of precedents, and bowed to the bench.

Judge Forbizer sat on his dais working on papers, his scarlet robes a slash of colour among the dull clothes of the rabble crowding the benches, for the assize was ever a popular spectacle and
the Wentworth case had aroused much interest. I looked for Joseph and saw him sitting at the end of a bench, squashed against a window by the press of people, biting his lip anxiously. He raised a
hand in greeting and I smiled, trying to show a confidence I did not feel. He had visited Elizabeth every day since Tuesday, but she had still not uttered a word. I had met him the evening before
and told him I would try for a plea of madness, which was all that was left to us.

Some distance away I saw a man who looked so like Joseph it could only be his brother Edwin. He wore a fine green robe with a fur trim; his face was drawn with care. He met my look and glared,
pulling his robe closer around him. So he knew who I was.

And then, in the row in front of Edwin Wentworth, I saw the young man who had been watching me near Guy’s shop. Today he wore a sober doublet of dark green. He sat resting his chin on an
elbow placed insolently on the rail separating the spectators’ benches from the court. He stared at me speculatively, large dark eyes keen with interest. I frowned and he smiled briefly,
settling himself more comfortably. So I was right, I thought, they’ve set this ruffian to watch me, try to put me off my stride. Well, that will not work. I hitched my gown and stepped away
to the lawyers’ bench. As this was a criminal trial it was empty, but as I sat down I noticed Bealknap in a doorway. He was talking with an official in clerical dress, the bishop’s
ordinary.

At that time there was still much corrupt use of benefit of clergy. If a man was found guilty of a crime, then by claiming he was a clerk in holy orders he had the right to be handed over to the
bishop for punishment. All one had to do to claim benefit was to prove one was literate by reading aloud the opening verse of psalm 51. King Henry had restricted the use of benefit to non-capital
crimes but the rule still stood. Those who satisfied the test were taken to Bishop Bonner’s gaol until he decided they had repented; a repentance verified by twelve compurgators, men of good
standing who attested to the convict’s truthfulness. Bealknap had a ring of compurgators who for a fee would happily vouch for anyone. His sideline was well known throughout Lincoln’s
Inn, but no barrister would ever inform against another member of the profession.

As I took my place, Forbizer stared at me. It was impossible to gauge his mood; his thin, choleric face always wore the same expression of cold disgust at human sinfulness. He had a long, tidily
clipped grey beard and hard coal-black eyes that stared at me coldly. A barrister appearing at a criminal trial meant troublesome legal interruptions.

‘What do you want?’ he asked.

I bowed. ‘I am here to represent Mistress Wentworth, your honour.’

‘Are you now? We’ll see.’ He lowered his head to his papers again.

There was a stir and everyone turned as the jury, twelve well-fed London merchants, were escorted into the jury box. Then the door from the cells opened and the tipstaff led in a dozen ragged
prisoners. The more serious cases were heard first, the ones that carried the death penalty; murder, burglary and thefts valued at more than a shilling. The accused were manacled together at the
ankles and their chains made a clanking noise as they were led to the dock. They brought a mighty stink with them and some spectators produced nosegays, though the smell did not seem to trouble
Forbizer. Elizabeth was at the end of the line next to the fat woman, the alleged horse thief. The woman was tightly grasping the hand of a ragged young man who was trembling and fighting back
tears, her son no doubt. I had only seen Elizabeth’s face before; now I saw she had a comely figure. She wore a grey indoor dress, crumpled and filthy through being worn over a week at
Newgate. I tried to catch her eye but she kept her head bowed. There was a murmur among the spectators, and I saw the sharp-faced young man studying her with interest.