Lamentation (The Shardlake Series Book 6) (8 page)

I thought again, Queens do not beg or ask a subject to visit them; they order. Before her marriage to the King, Catherine Parr had promised that while she would pass legal cases my way she would never involve me in matters of politics. This, clearly, was something big, something dangerous, and in wording her message thus she was offering me a way out. I could, if I wished, say no to young Cecil.

‘You can tell me nothing now?’ I pressed.

‘No, sir. I only ask, whether you choose to come or no, that you keep my visit entirely to yourself.’

Almost everything in me wanted to refuse. I remembered what I had witnessed that morning, the flames, the screams, the blood. And then I thought of Queen Catherine, her courage, her nobility, her gentleness and humour. The finest and most noble lady I had ever met, who had done me nothing but good. I took a deep, deep breath. ‘I will come,’ I said. I told myself, like a fool, that I could see the Queen and then, if I chose, still decline her request.

Cecil nodded. I got the sense he was not greatly impressed with me. Probably he saw a middle-aged hunchback lawyer deeply troubled by the possibility of being thrown into danger. If so, he was right.

He said, ‘Come by road to the main gate of the palace at nine. I will be waiting there. I will take you inside, and then you will be conducted to the Queen’s chambers. Wear your lawyer’s robe but not your serjeant’s coif. Better you attract as little notice as possible at this stage.’ He stroked his wispy beard as he regarded me, thinking perhaps that, as a hunchback, I might attract some anyway.

I stood. ‘Till nine tomorrow, then, Brother Cecil.’

He bowed. ‘Till nine, Serjeant Shardlake. I must return now to the Queen. I know she will be glad to have your reply.’

I
SHOWED HIM OUT
. Martin appeared from the dining room bearing another candle, opened the door for Cecil and bowed, always there to perform every last detail of a steward’s duty. Cecil stepped onto the gravel drive, where his servant waited beside the link-boys with their torches to light him home, wherever that was. Martin closed the door.

‘I took the liberty of serving the marchpane to Dr Malton,’ he said.

‘Thank you. Tell him I will be with him in a moment. But first send Timothy to my study.’

I went back into my room. My little refuge, my haven, where I kept my own small collection of law books, diaries and years of notes. I wondered, what would Barak think if he knew of this? He would say bluntly that I should cast aside my sentimental fantasy for the Queen and invent an urgent appointment tomorrow in Northumberland.

Timothy arrived and I scribbled a note for him to take round and leave at chambers, asking Barak to prepare a summary of one of my more important cases which I had intended to do tomorrow. ‘No, pest on it! Barak has to chase up those papers at the Six Clerks’ office . . .’ I amended the note to ask Nicholas to do the job. Even if the boy came up with a jumble, it would be a starting point.

Timothy looked at me, his dark eyes serious. ‘Are you all right, Master?’ he asked.

‘Yes, yes,’ I replied irritably. ‘Just harried by business. There is no peace under the sun.’ Regretting my snappishness, I gave him a half-groat on his way out, before returning to the dining chamber, where Guy was picking at Agnes’s fine marchpane.

‘I am sorry, Guy, some urgent business.’

He smiled. ‘I, too, have had my meals interrupted when a crisis overtakes some poor patient.’

‘And I am sorry if I spoke roughly before. But what I saw this morning unmanned me.’

‘I understand. But if you think all those who oppose reform – or those of us who, yes, would have England back in the bosom of the Roman family – support such things you do us great injustice.’

‘All I know is that I hear thunder rolling all around the throne,’ I said, paraphrasing Wyatt’s poem. I then remembered again Philip Coleswyn’s words at the burning and shuddered. Any of us may come to this now.

E
ARLY NEXT MORNING
Timothy saddled Genesis and I rode down to Chancery Lane. My horse was getting older; round in body, his head growing bony. It was another pleasant July day; hot but with a gentle cooling breeze stirring the green branches. I passed the Lincoln’s Inn gatehouse and rode on to Fleet Street, moving to the side of the road as a flock of sheep was driven into London for slaughter at the Shambles.

Already the city was busy, the shops open and the owners’ apprentices standing in doorways calling their wares. Peddlers with their trays thronged the dusty way, a rat-catcher in a wadmol smock walked nearby, stooped under the weight of two cages hung from a pole carried across his shoulders, each one full of sleek black rats. A woman with a basket on her head called out, ‘Hot pudding pies!’ I saw a sheet of paper pasted to a wall printed with the long list of books forbidden under the King’s recent proclamation, which must be surrendered by the 9th of August. Someone had scrawled ‘The word of God is the glory of Christ’ across it.

As I reached the Strand the road became quieter. The way bent south towards Westminster, following the curve of the river. To the left stood the grand three- and four-storeyed houses of the wealthy; the facades brightly painted and decorated, liveried guards at the doorways. I passed the great stone Charing Cross, then turned down into the broad street of Whitehall. Already I could see the tall buildings of the palace ahead, turreted and battlemented, every pinnacle topped with lions and unicorns and the royal arms, gilded so they flashed in the sun like hundreds of mirrors, the brightness making me blink.

Whitehall Palace had originally been Cardinal Wolsey’s London residence, York Place, and when he fell the King had taken it into his possession. He had steadily expanded it over the last fifteen years; it was said he wished it to be the most lavish and impressive palace in Europe. To the left of the broad Whitehall Road stood the main buildings, while to the right were the pleasure buildings, the tennis courts where the King had once disported, the great circular cockpit and the hunting ground of St James’s Park. Spanning the street, beyond which became King Street, and connecting the two parts of the palace was the Great Gate designed by Holbein, an immense towered gatehouse four storeys high. Like the walls of the palace itself, it was tiled with black-and-white chequer-work, and decorated with great terracotta roundels depicting Roman emperors. The gateway at the bottom was dwarfed by the size of this edifice, yet wide enough to enable the biggest carts to pass two abreast.

A little before the Great Gate, the line of the palace walls was broken by a gatehouse, smaller, though still magnificent, which led to the palace buildings. Guards in green-and-white livery stood on duty there. I joined a short queue waiting to go in: behind me, a long cart pulled by four horses drew up. It was piled with scaffolding poles, no doubt for the new lodgings being constructed for the King’s elder daughter, Lady Mary, by the riverside. Another cart, just being checked in, was laden with geese for the kitchens, while in front of me three young men sat on horses with richly decorated saddles, accompanied by a small group of servants. The young gentlemen wore doublets puffed and slashed at the shoulders to show a violet silk lining, caps with peacock feathers, and short cloaks slung across one shoulder in the new Spanish fashion. I heard one say, ‘I’m not sure Wriothesley’s even here today, let alone that he’s read Marmaduke’s petition.’

‘But Marmaduke’s man has got us on the list; that’ll get us as far as the Presence Chamber. We can have a game of primero and who knows who might pass by once we’re in.’

I realized these young men were aspiring courtiers, gentry most likely, with some peripheral connection to one of Sir Thomas Wriothesley’s staff, some of the endless hangers-on who haunted the court in the hope of being granted some position, some sinecure. They had probably spent half a year’s income on those clothes, hoping to catch the eye or ear of some great man – or even his manservant. I remembered the collective noun used for those who came here: a threat of courtiers.

My turn came. The guard had a list in his hand and a little stylus to prick off the names. I was about to give mine when, from an alcove within the gatehouse, young Cecil appeared. He spoke briefly to the guard, who marked his paper and waved me forward. As I rode under the gatehouse arch I heard the young men arguing with the guard. Apparently they were not on the list after all.

I dismounted beyond the gatehouse near some stables; Cecil spoke to an ostler, who took Genesis’s reins. His voice businesslike, he said, ‘I will escort you into the Guard Chamber. Someone is waiting there who will take you to see the Queen.’ Cecil wore another lawyer’s robe today, a badge sewn onto the chest showing the head and shoulders of a young woman crowned: the Queen’s personal badge of St Catherine.

I nodded assent, looking round the cobbled outer courtyard. I had been there briefly before, in Lord Cromwell’s time. To the right was the wall of the loggia surrounding the King’s Privy Garden. The buildings on the other three sides were magnificent, the walls either chequered in black and white, or painted with fantastic beasts and plants in black relief to stand out more against white walls. Beyond the Privy Garden, to the south, I could see a long range of three-storey buildings reaching along to the Great Gate, which I remembered were the King’s private apartments. Ahead of us was a building fronted with ornately decorated pillars. More guards stood at the door, which was ornamented with the royal arms. Behind soared the high roof of the chapel.

The courtyard was crowded, mostly with young men. Some were as richly dressed as the three at the gate, wearing slashed and brightly decorated doublets and hose in all colours, and huge exaggerated codpieces. Others wore the dark robes of senior officials, gold chains of office round their necks, attended by clerks carrying papers. Servants in the King’s livery of green and white, HR embroidered on their doublets, mingled with the throng, while servants in workaday clothes from the kitchens or stables darted between them. A young woman accompanied by a group of female servants passed by. She wore a fashionable farthingale dress; the conical skirt, stitched with designs of flowers, was wide at the bottom but narrowed to an almost impossibly small waist. One or two of the would-be courtiers doffed their hats to her, seeking notice, but she ignored them. She looked preoccupied.

‘That is Lady Maud Lane,’ Cecil said. ‘The Queen’s cousin and chief gentlewoman.’

‘She does not seem happy.’

‘She has had much to preoccupy her of late,’ he said sadly. Cecil looked at the courtiers. ‘Place-hunters,’ he said. ‘Office-seekers, opportunists, even confidence tricksters.’ He smiled wryly. ‘But when I first qualified I, too, sought out high contacts. My father was a Yeoman of the Robes, so I started with connections, as one needs to.’

‘You also seek to rise?’ I asked him.

‘Only on certain terms, certain principles.’ His eyes locked with mine. ‘Certain loyalties.’ He was silent a moment, then said, ‘Look. Master Secretary Paget.’ I saw the man with heavy, slab-like features, brown beard and slit of a downturned mouth, who had been at the burning, traverse the courtyard. He was attended by several black-robed servants, one of whom read a paper to him as they walked, bending close to his ear.

‘Mark him, Serjeant Shardlake,’ Cecil said. ‘He is closer to the King than anyone now.’

‘I thought that was Bishop Gardiner.’

He smiled thinly. ‘Gardiner whispers in his ear. But William Paget makes sure the administration works, discusses policy with the King, controls patronage.’

I looked at him. ‘You make him sound like Cromwell.’

Cecil shook his head. ‘Oh, no. Paget discusses policy with the King, but goes only so far as the King wishes, no further. He never tries to rule him. That was Cromwell’s mistake, and Anne Boleyn’s. It killed them both. The great ones of the realm have learned better now.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Or should have.’

He led me across the cobbles. Two burly men in the King’s livery, each with a ragged boy in his grasp, passed us, went to the gate, and threw them outside with blows about the head. Cecil said disapprovingly, ‘Such ragamuffins are always getting in, claiming to be the servant of a servant of some junior courtier. There aren’t enough porters to throw them all out.’