Sovereign (37 page)

A
S
I
WALKED DOWN
a misty Petergate towards the Minster I saw men in city livery raking the sand and ashes back into place on the
roads; no doubt the King would be returning to the city for more ceremonies and entertainments. I looked at the little houses along Petergate and thought again of the rule preventing citizens from
casting sewage in the streets or in the river while the Progress was here. It would be piling up in their backyards. It was symbolic of the King’s visit: all glitter and show in front, a pile
of turds behind.

I gained entry to the Minster precinct and knocked at Master Wrenne’s door. The old housekeeper answered. Her face was drawn with anxiety. ‘Good morning, Madge,’ I said.
‘How is Master Wrenne? I heard he was ill.’

She sighed. ‘Maister can attend to no work today. He’s happed up in bed. His physician is with him.’

‘I came only to see how he was.’

She hesitated. ‘Come in then, maister. I will see if he can receive thee.’

She left me in the solar. The fire was unlit; the greyfalcon asleep on its perch, head tucked under its wing. It made me think of Barak, out hunting with Tamasin at his side. I had not wanted to
stay at St Mary’s alone, I knew I would feel safe at Wrenne’s.

I looked around the stacked piles of books. It had occurred to me that if I could find a map of Kent somewhere I could confirm where Blaybourne village was. I did not know where that would get
me but it was something and my determination to discover what was happening had grown. It was a counterweight to the shame and anger I felt over what had passed at Fulford Cross.

Madge returned and said Master Wrenne would see me. I followed her up to a small but well-appointed bedroom. Giles lay on a good feather bed. I was shocked at the change in him: his strong
square face was white and it seemed to me some of the flesh had fallen away from it since yesterday. To my surprise, Dr Jibson was there talking to him. He smiled at my entrance.

‘Master Shardlake, good morning.’

Giles reached out a hand. ‘Dr Jibson tells me you are acquainted. He will not say how, professional discretion. But I hope you are not ill too?’

I took his hand, glad the old man’s voice at least seemed strong and clear as ever. His grip, too, remained firm. ‘No,’ I said. ‘But you . . .’

‘Oh, I had a bad moment, but I am recovering. I shall be ready for work on Monday. We have to hear the first petitions then, down at the castle.’

‘I will leave you now, sir,’ Dr Jibson said. ‘I will instruct your housekeeper how to make up that powder.’

The physician left. ‘Draw up a chair, Matthew,’ Giles said. I brought a stool to the bed. He looked at me seriously, then sighed. ‘What the King said yesterday must have caused
you grievous hurt. And for me to have been made part of his evil jest gives me sorrow.’

‘ ’Tis not the first such jest I have had to endure, though never from a King nor in front of such a concourse. But what of you, sir, I heard you were taken ill just
after?’

‘Ay. That was the worst attack I have had so far. I was quite composed until the King looked into my eyes and spoke to me. Then—’ He broke off with a visible shudder.

‘What?’

‘You will think me an old fool.’

‘No.’

‘I felt a sudden horror, that is all I can call it. For a second I did not know where or who I was. When the King turned away I stumbled away into the crowd and almost fell. Fortunately I
know the townsmen and they helped me back to York without anyone seeing my piteous state.’ He reached for a mug by his bed and took a draught. I caught the spicy smell of an ale posset. He
shook his head. ‘When I looked at the King’s eyes it was as though all the power drained out of me.’

‘His eyes are cruel.’

Giles gave a sudden bark of laughter, yet I caught fear in the sound. ‘It made me think of that old legend of the commotion time.’

‘That the King is the Mouldwarp?’

‘Ay.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘You know of it?’

‘I have heard.’

He shook his head. ‘It is dangerous to speak of such things, such foolish superstitions. I had been working too hard, the strain was too much. But still – well, I have often wondered
what the King was really like. Now I know.’ He shook his head. ‘And the Queen, she is so young.’

‘I feel sorry for her.’

‘A buxom little thing. Yet not regal.’

‘She has Howard blood.’

‘The Howards. Their lineage is not as old as they make out.’ He sighed. ‘Perhaps all those trappings of power, all we are told of the ordained power of royalty, perhaps they
addle the mind so that when we see the reality it is a shock.’

‘The reality. Ugly and sordid.’

Giles looked at me. ‘Yet we must have royalty, it is the peak of the social order, without it everything would collapse into chaos.’

‘It has already done that in York, has it not? Five years ago, and nearly this spring too?’

‘Ay, there is a great grudge here. Tell me, how did the city receive the King?’

‘Barak said the cheers were ragged.’

‘How different it was for Richard III.’

‘Richard Crouchback,’ I said softly. ‘I remember . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘Once when I was small, I was playing in the parlour. My father and some of his friends were talking round the table. Someone mentioned something that had happened in Richard’s time.
Richard Crouchback’s time was what they said, forgetting I was there. My father looked at me. I can still see the look on his face. Pity. Disappointment.’

‘You had a hard time of it,’ Giles said gently.

I shrugged. ‘Mayhap.’

He sighed. ‘That was propaganda, anyway. You forget I saw King Richard. His back was straight. He had a hard face, serious. But not cruel.’ He leaned back on his pillows. ‘I
was a boy then, so long ago.’ He looked up at me. ‘Matthew, I had hoped to keep my strength a little longer. But this attack of pain and weakness has been bad. If it goes with me as
with my father, there will be spells of better health but more of these attacks. I may not be an easy companion on the road back to London.’

‘Do not fear. You will have any aid that Barak and I can give.’

‘You are kind.’ He looked at me, and I saw his eyes were wet with tears in the second before he turned away, that I might not see them.

I thought, all my life I never saw tears in my father’s eyes, even when my mother died. There was silence in the room for a moment. Then I said, lightly, ‘I came to ask a small
favour as well as to see you.’

‘Of course. Anything.’

‘I need to check something on a map of southern England. In connection with a matter I have on in London. Are there any maps in your collection?’

His eyes lit up with interest. ‘Why yes, I have some. They are mostly old monkish things but you are welcome to look. Most are of the north but I have one or two of the southern counties,
I think. I wanted to show you my collection, it is in two rooms at the back of the house. Tell Madge to give you the keys. The maps and plans are on the third shelf on the south wall in the first
room. I must stay in bed, I fear.’

‘Of course.’ I rose, for I could see he was tired. ‘I shall send word tomorrow, see how you are. If you are still poorly I will speak to Maleverer about getting someone else to
deal with the petitions. Maleverer will not allow me to chair the arbitrations.’

He smiled and shook his head vigorously. ‘I will be better by tomorrow.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘Do not take what the King said too hard, Matthew. It was part of a political
game. It was not personal.’

‘A chance to praise a Yorker at my expense. That point has been made. No, the worst thing was that I could see the King enjoyed what he did.’

Giles looked at me seriously. ‘Politics is a hard and cruel game.’

‘I know.’

I left him and descended the stairs. In the hall Dr Jibson was talking to Madge. ‘Master Wrenne says I may check something in his archive,’ I told her.

She hesitated a moment, then said, ‘I will get the keys.’

She left me with the doctor. ‘How is he?’ I asked.

Jibson shook his head. ‘He has a wasting sickness.’

‘He told me his father died of the same thing. Is there nothing to be done?’

‘No. These cruel growths eat away at a man. One can only pray for a miracle.’

‘And without a miracle? How long does he have?’

‘It is hard to say. I have felt that lump in his stomach, it is not too large yet, but it will grow. A few months at most, I would guess. He says he plans to go to London. I must say I
think that foolish.’

‘Perhaps. But it is important to him. I have said I will take care of him.’

‘That may not be easy.’

‘Then I will deal with that.’ I paused. ‘Have you seen Broderick again?’

‘Ay. He has thrown off the effects of whatever poisoned him. He is young and strong, for all his ill-treatment.’

I nodded, frustrated the physician never had anything definite to say. Madge reappeared with the keys, and I bade him farewell. I followed the housekeeper back upstairs, to a passage beyond
Wrenne’s bedroom.

‘Maister doesn’t let many in here,’ she said, looking at me dubiously. ‘Tha won’t disturb his books and papers, will tha? He likes them kept in order.’

‘I promise.’

She unlocked a stout door and ushered me into a room that smelt of dust and mice. It was big, the master bedroom in fact, and half a wall had been knocked through to another room beyond. The
walls of both were covered from floor to ceiling with shelves filled to bursting with books and papers, rolled parchments and piles of manuscript. I looked round in astonishment.

‘I had no idea the collection was so big,’ I said. ‘There must be hundreds of books alone.’

‘Ay. Maister has been collecting near fifty years.’ The old woman looked round the library and shook her head, as though Wrenne’s occupation was beyond reason.

‘Is there an index?’

‘Nay, it is all in his head, he says.’

I saw that a little picture of the points of the compass had been set on the wall. The third shelf by the south wall was full of rolled-up papers, as he had said.

‘I will leave you, sir,’ Madge said. ‘I must prepare the powder the physician prescribed, to ease maister’s pain.’

‘He suffers, then?’

‘Much of the time.’

‘He conceals it well.’

‘Ay, that he does.’ She curtsied and went out.

Left alone, I stood looking round the shelves. I went to investigate the maps, and my wonder grew. The collection Wrenne had rescued was astonishing, and fascinating. I unrolled ancient painted
maps of the Yorkshire coast and countryside, illuminated by monkish scribes with pictures of pilgrim shrines and places where miracles had been wrought. There were maps of other counties, too, and
among them I found a large one of Kent, perhaps two hundred years old. It was none too accurately drawn, but full of place names.

There was a desk by the window, giving a view of the Minster. I sat and studied the map. I located Ashford, and then, to the southwest, saw the name Braybourne. To the west I saw the Leacon,
where the young sergeant hailed from. I stroked my chin. So, a man called Blaybourne or Braybourne might have come from Kent some time last century, and left a confession in York that was of
concern to kings. But where did that get me? I realized I had been hoping for some further clue, some lead, from the map, but there was just the name – a village off the main routes.

I returned the map to its place and walked along the shelves, wondering at the variety and the age of the books and papers. There were biographies, histories, books on medicine and horticulture
and the decorative arts, books in English and Latin and Norman French. It struck me I had seen no books on law, but when I walked into the other room there were whole shelves of them, classic works
like Bracton, old casebooks and yearbooks and volumes of Acts of Parliament. Some of them, I saw with excitement, had dates that were missing from Lincoln’s Inn library, for there were many
gaps in the records of law cases there.

I took some of the yearbooks and went back to the desk. These were indeed lost casebooks. I sat reading the old cases, becoming lost to time. Since I was a child, whenever I was troubled I had
always been able to escape into the world of books, and as I delved through Wrenne’s collection I felt my mind and body settling, relaxing. By the time I came to myself again with the thought
that Lincoln’s Inn would pay well to have copies of some of these casebooks, I realized that hours had passed. I went downstairs to the kitchen, feeling a little embarrassed. Madge sat there
sewing. I coughed.

‘I am sorry, Madge, I lost myself in the books up there.’

She smiled, the first smile I had had from her, a surprisingly sweet one. ‘ ’Tis good to see someone take an interest in maister’s collection. Few do. People now say we must
forget the past and the old ways, bury them.’

‘It is a remarkable library.’

‘Maister is sleeping.’ She looked out of the window, where the rain still fell through the mist. ‘It’s still mizzling. Would tha like something to eat?’

‘Ay, thank you.’ I realized I was hungry.

‘I can bring it to the library if you wish. And a candle.’

I thought, why not. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think I will stay. Thank you.’

I went back upstairs, where Madge soon brought me some bread and beer, more of her tasteless but filling pottage, and a big beeswax candle which she set upon the desk. As I ate I looked round
the library. It was an oddly Spartan place: no furniture apart from the desk, the floorboards bare, not even any rushes laid. How many years had Giles laboured here alone, I wondered? And what
would happen to his collection when he died?

A thought struck me, and I went to the shelves where the books of Acts of Parliament stood. It was a long shot, but just as some of the yearbooks were unique, so some of the collections of Acts
might be. I looked along the shelves until I found a volume that covered the latter third of the preceding century. A big book with a brown leather cover and the Minster’s coat of arms on the
front. I took it to the desk. I was glad of the candle, for the sky was starting to darken.