Lamentation (The Shardlake Series Book 6) (78 page)

T
HE OLD HOUSE
was quiet as ever. Nearby a barber had opened his shop, but there was little custom and he stood leaning disconsolately against a wall under his striped pole. I remembered Rowland saying I needed to shave before taking my place for d’Annebault’s progress through London tomorrow; I would do so after visiting Vowell. I knocked at the door.

He opened it at once. He looked agitated, his eyes wide. He stared at us in surprise, then leaned forward and spoke quietly, his voice shaking. ‘Oh, sir, it is you. I sent for Master Dyrick.’ He frowned. ‘I didn’t think he would send you in his place. Sir, it may not be safe for you.’ I lowered my voice in turn. ‘What do you mean, fellow? I have not come from Dyrick.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I came to tell you poor Edward Cotterstoke is dead.’

Vowell wrung his hands. ‘I know, and by his own hand. One of his servants told someone who knows me. Wretched gossiping women, everybody knows already. Mistress Slanning—’

‘Isabel knows?’

‘Knows, sir, and is here.’ He cast a backward glance at the gloomy hall. ‘In such a state as I have never seen anyone. She insisted I let her in. She has a knife, sir, a big knife she took from the kitchen. I fear she may do as her brother did—’

I raised a hand; the frightened old man’s voice was rising. ‘Where is she?’

‘In the parlour, sir. She just stands looking at the painting – she will not move, nor answer me – holding that knife.’

I looked at Nicholas. ‘Will you come with me?’ I whispered.

‘Yes.’

We stepped inside, past Vowell. The door to the parlour was open. I walked in quietly, Nicholas just behind. There, with her back to me, stood Isabel. She wore one of her fine satin dresses, light brown today, but had cast her hood on the floor. It left her head bare, long silvery-grey tresses cascading down her shoulders. She was staring at the wall painting, quite motionless, and as Vowell had said, a broad, long-bladed knife was clutched in her right hand, so tightly that each bony white knuckle stood out. The image of her mother and father, of little Edward and her own young self, stared back at her, appearing more real than ever to me at that terrifying moment.

She did not even seem to be aware that we had come in. Vowell stayed outside; I heard him breathing hard in the corridor.

Nicholas stepped quietly forward, but I put up a hand to restrain him. I said softly, ‘Mistress Slanning.’ Strange, even in that extremity, I could not allow myself the presumption of calling her by her first name.

I would not have thought her body could have tensed any further but it did, becoming quite rigid. Then, slowly, she turned her head to look at me. Those blue eyes, so like her brother’s, were wild and staring. Her brows drew together in a frown.

‘Master Shardlake?’ she said in a quiet, puzzled voice. ‘Why are you here?’

‘I came to speak to Vowell. To tell him your brother is dead.’ I moved my right hand a little. ‘Mistress Slanning, please let me have that knife.’ She did not reply; her breath came in short pants, as though she were trying to hold it in, to stop breathing. ‘Please,’ I implored. ‘I wish only to help you.’

‘Why would you help me? I tried to destroy you, and Edward and that lawyer Coleswyn. I called you heretics. As you are.’ Her grip on the knife tightened, and she lifted the blade slightly.

‘I think you were not yourself. Please, mistress, give me the knife.’ I took half a step forward, stretching out my hand.

She slowly lifted the knife towards her throat.

‘No!’ Nicholas cried out, with such force and passion that Isabel paused, the blade almost at her neck, where the arteries pulsed under the wrinkled white skin.

‘It’s not worth it!’ he said passionately. ‘Whatever you did, madam, whatever your family did, it’s not worth that!’

She stared at him for a moment. Then she lowered the knife, but held it pointing outwards. I raised my arm to protect myself, fearing she would attack: Isabel was a thin, ageing woman, but desperation gives strength to the weakest. But it was not us she attacked; instead she turned round again and thrust the knife into her beloved picture, stabbing at it with long, powerful slashes, so hard that a piece of plaster broke off beside the crack in the wall that the experts had noticed. She went on and on, making desperate grunting sounds, as more of the paint and plaster crumbled. Then her hand slipped and the knife gashed her other arm, blood spurting through the fabric of her dress. She winced at the unexpected pain and dropped the knife. Clutching her arm, Isabel crumpled in a heap on the floor, and began to cry. She lay there, sobbing desperately with the grief and guilt of a lifetime.

Nicholas stepped forward quickly, picked up the knife and took it outside to Vowell. The old servant stared at Isabel in horror through the doorway. The painting was now scored with innumerable slashes, spaces where pieces of plaster had fallen revealing the lath behind. A tiny stream of plaster dust trickled down. I saw that the section of the painting she had attacked most fiercely, now almost entirely obliterated, was her mother’s face.

I looked at Nicholas, who was pale and breathing hard. Then I knelt beside Isabel. ‘Mistress Slanning?’ I touched her shoulder lightly. She flinched, huddling further away from me, as though she would squeeze herself into the floor, clutching at her injured arm.

‘Mistress Slanning,’ I said gently. ‘You have cut yourself, your arm needs binding.’

The sobbing ceased and she turned her head to look at her arm. Her expression was bereft, her hair wild. She looked utterly pitiful. Lifting her eyes, she met mine briefly before shuddering and turning her face away. ‘Do not look at me, please.’ She spoke in an imploring whisper. ‘No one should look at me now.’ She took a deep, sobbing breath. ‘He was innocent, our stepfather, a good man. But we did not see it, Edward and I, till it was too late. Our mother was cruel, she left that Will so we would quarrel, I understand it now. It was because both Edward and I loved the painting so. Mother never wanted us to visit her, but I would come sometimes, to see the painting. To see our father again.’

I looked at their mother’s empty chair, facing what was left of the painting, the embroidery still lying on the seat.

‘He died so suddenly, our father. Why did he leave us? Why?’ She wept again, the tears of a lost child. ‘Oh, Edward! I drove him to that unclean act. All these years I could have confessed; the old faith allows that if you repent and confess your sins it is enough, you are forgiven. His faith did not allow even that. But I – ’ her voice fell to a whisper – ‘my hardened heart would not allow me to confess. But it was both of us together did that thing, both of us!’

I jumped at the sound of a sharp knock at the door. I heard Vowell and another voice, and then Vincent Dyrick strode into the room, gown billowing theatrically behind him, his lean hawk face furious. He looked at Nicholas and me, at Isabel weeping on the floor, then gaped at the wrecked painting.

‘Shardlake! What have you done? Why is my client in this state?’

I rose slowly to my feet, my knees cracking and my back protesting in pain. Isabel was looking at Dyrick; it was the same puzzled, otherworldly look Edward had worn in the Tower, as though she barely understood who he was.

‘Ask her,’ I answered heavily.

Dyrick was staring again at the painting. Perhaps he saw the prospect of endless fees from this case trickling away like the plaster dust still falling from the ruined wall. ‘Who did this?’

‘Isabel, I fear.’

‘Christ’s wounds!’ Dyrick looked down at his client. Isabel was still hunched over, so ashamed she could not meet our eyes. ‘See her condition – ’ He pointed at me. ‘I cannot be held responsible for anything she has done! It was she who insisted on sending a copy of that complaint to the Privy Council. I tried to dissuade her!’

‘I know. And I may tell you, since Isabel is your client and you must keep it confidential, that Edward and Isabel conspired to murder their stepfather the best part of half a century ago. Edward has killed himself, and Isabel might have done the same had we not come in time.’ I looked again at the painting. ‘This is a tragedy, Dyrick. One made worse by the tangles of litigation, as their mother intended. My efforts with Brother Coleswyn to find a settlement only uncovered a horror,’ I added sadly.

I stepped wearily to the door. Dyrick looked down at Isabel.

‘Wait!’ he said, turning. ‘You cannot leave me alone with her, in this state – ’

‘Vowell will help you bind her wound. Then, if you will take my honest advice, you should send for her priest. Make sure it is him, she is of the old religion and it matters to her. He may be able to help her, I do not know.’ I turned to Nicholas. He was looking at the face of Isabel’s father, still staring out from the wreckage with his benevolent, confident, patrician air. ‘Come, lad,’ I said. We walked past Dyrick, past old Vowell, out into the street.

There, in the August sunshine, I turned to Nicholas. ‘You saved her.’

‘She came to this, even with a good and loving father,’ he said quietly. And I realized with a chill that his parents’ letter had brought thoughts of suicide to Nicholas as well. But he had rejected them, and that was why he had been so passionate with Isabel. ‘What will happen to her?’ he asked.

‘I do not know.’

‘Perhaps it is too late for that poor woman now.’ Nicholas took a deep breath and stared at me, his green eyes hard and serious. ‘But not for me.’

E
ARLY THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON
I stood at the front of a great concourse outside the church of St Michael le Querne, which gave onto the open space at the west end of Cheapside. More crowds lined the length of Cheapside, along which Admiral d’Annebault would shortly progress. Mayor Bowes, whom I had last seen at Anne Askew’s burning, stood alone on a little platform. I waited in a line with the aldermen and other leading citizens of London, all wearing our gold chains. As at the burnings, a white-robed cleric stood at a makeshift lectern, but on this occasion he was to deliver an oration in French, welcoming the admiral to the city. There was a steady murmur of voices, while water tinkled in the conduit by the church.

The admiral had come by boat from Greenwich to the Tower that morning, all his galleys following. The previous evening I had taken Nicholas with me to visit Barak and Tamasin, and had spent a quiet night playing cards. I had not told them what had happened to Isabel – it was no thing for Tamasin to hear in her condition. Then I had gone home and slept late, to be woken by the crash of guns from the Tower welcoming the admiral. Even out at Chancery Lane the noise rattled the windows. From the Tower d’Annebault would progress through the city, finishing at St Michael’s Church, accompanied by the Queen’s brother, William Parr, the other great men of the realm following.

Martin helped dress me in my very best. I put on the gold chain which I had set him to cleaning last night. Neither of us said a word. Then I walked down to the church. As I left I saw Timothy peering through the half-open door of the stable, looking disconsolate. I knew I must speak to him about Martin’s betrayal; but for now Lord Parr had sworn me to secrecy and I gave the boy only a severe look. Too severe, perhaps, but I was still sore troubled by what he had done, and by my experiences of recent days.

A royal official lined us up, peremptorily ordering the mayor and aldermen into position like children. The sun beat down, making our heads hot under our caps and coifs. The golden links of our chains sparkled. Streamers and poles bearing the English flag beside the fleur-de-lys of France fluttered in the breeze, and bright cloths, too, had been hung from the upper windows of houses and shops. I remembered how only a year before I had seen dummies wearing the fleur-de-lys used in target practice by new recruits to the army – hundreds of men who had marched to Portsmouth from London to resist the threatened invasion.

Next to me Serjeant Blower of the Inner Temple stood proudly, his fat belly sucked in and his chest thrust out. He was in his fifties, with a short, neatly trimmed beard. I knew him slightly; he was too full of himself for my taste. It was said that Wriothesley was considering appointing him a judge. ‘We have a fine day to greet the admiral,’ he said. ‘I cannot remember such ceremonial since Anne Boleyn’s coronation.’

I raised my eyebrows, remembering how that much-acclaimed marriage had ended.

‘Are you going to be present when Prince Edward meets the admiral tomorrow?’ Blower asked. ‘And at the Hampton Court celebrations?’

‘Yes, representing Lincoln’s Inn.’

‘I too,’ he said proudly. He looked askance at my chain. ‘Have you had that long? By the smell of vinegar you have just had it cleaned.’

‘I only wear it on the most special occasions.’

‘Really? It looks somewhat scratched.’ Blower glanced proudly down at the broad, bright links of his own chain. Then he leaned closer and said quietly, ‘Could you not find time to shave, brother? We were instructed to. It is a pity your hair is dark, your stubble shows.’

‘No, Brother Blower. I fear I have been very busy.’

‘In the vacation?’

‘I have had some hard cases.’