C. Sansom - Lamentation

I looked at the old man. ‘I imagine the nature of the theft would make enquiries within the household — difficult.’

He shook his head. ‘We dare tell nobody. But I checked with the guards who had been in and out of the Queen’s bedchamber during those crucial hours. Nothing unusual: two pages to clean, a maid-in-waiting to prepare the Queen’s bed. And Jane her fool, wandering in to see if the Queen was about. Jane Fool is allowed to go everywhere,’ he added crossly. ‘But she has not the wit to steal an apple.’

‘Finding out who was seen to enter the chamber during those hours is important,’ I said. ‘But someone could have found out about the book earlier, and chosen the hours when her majesty was with the King to make the theft.’

‘How could anyone have known,’ the Queen asked, ‘when I wrote it in secret, told no one, and kept it locked away?’

Lord Parr nodded agreement. ‘We cannot see how this has been done — we have not known what to do. We have felt — paralysed.’

The Queen closed her eyes, clutching the pearl round her neck hard. We all watched her with concern. Finally she unclenched her hand. ‘I am all right.’

‘Are you sure?’ Lord Parr asked.

‘Yes. Yes. But you continue the story, Uncle.’

Lord Parr looked at me. ‘It was then,’ he said, ‘that we heard of the murder by St Paul’s.’

‘Murder?’ I asked sharply.

‘Yes, there is murder in this, too. The book was stolen from the coffer sometime on the evening of the sixth of July. At dusk last Saturday, the tenth, a printer in a small way of business in Bowyer Road, hard by St Paul’s, was murdered in his shop. You know how these little places have multiplied round the cathedral these last few years. Printers, booksellers, often just tiny businesses in ramshackle sheds.’

‘I do, my Lord.’ I knew, too, that many printers and booksellers were radicals, and that several had had their premises raided in recent months.

‘The printer was a man called Armistead Greening,’ Lord Parr continued. ‘His shop was one of those little sheds, with only a single printing press. He had been in trouble before for publishing radical literature; he was investigated in the spring but nothing was found against him. Recently he had been printing schoolbooks. Last Saturday evening he was working in his shop. Several of the local printers were at work nearby; they toil away until the last of the light, to make the most use of their presses. Greening had an apprentice, who left at nine.’

‘How do you know these details?’

‘From the apprentice, but mainly from his neighbour, who owns a larger print-shop next door. Geoffrey Okedene. At around nine, Master Okedene was closing down his shop when he heard a great commotion, shouts and cries for help, from Greening’s shed. He was a friend of Greening’s and went to investigate. The door was locked, but it was a flimsy thing; he put his shoulder to it and broke it open. He caught a glimpse of two men running through the other door, at the side — these print-shops get so hot, and full of vile smells from the ink and other concoctions they use, that even small ones have two doors. Master Okedene did not pursue them, for an attempt had been made to set Greening’s print-shop on fire. His stock of paper had been strewn around and set light to. Okedene was able to stamp it out — you may imagine that if such a place caught it would burn like a torch.’

‘Yes.’ I had seen these poorly erected wooden sheds that were built against the cathedral walls or in vacant plots nearby, and heard the loud rhythmic thumping that constantly resounded from them.

‘Only when he had put out the fire did Okedene see poor Greening lying on the earthen floor, his head beaten in. And, clutched in Greening’s hand, this. .’ Lord Parr reached into a pocket in his robe and carefully extracted a small strip of expensive paper covered in neat writing and dotted with the brown stains of dried blood. He passed it to me. I read:

The Lamentation of a Sinner, Made by Queen Catherine, Bewailing the Ignorance of her Blind Life.

Most gentle and Christian reader, if matters should be rather confirmed by their reporters than the reports warranted by the matters, I must justly bewail our time, wherein evil deeds be well worded, and good acts evil turned. But since truth is, that things be not good for their praises, but praised for their goodness, I do not. .

There the page ended, torn off. I looked at the Queen. ‘This is your writing?’

She nodded. ‘That is the opening of my book. Lamentation of a Sinner .’

Lord Parr said, ‘Okedene read it and of course grasped its import from the heading. By God’s mercy he is a good reformer. He brought it personally to the palace and arranged for it to be delivered into my hands. I interviewed him at once. Only then did he call the coroner. He has told him all he saw, except, at my instruction, about this piece of paper. Fortunately, the coroner is a sympathizer with reform, and has promised that if anything comes to light he will inform me. And he has been very well paid,’ he added bluntly. ‘With the promise of more to come.’

The Queen spoke then, an edge of desperation in her voice, ‘But he has discovered nothing, nothing. And so I suggested we come to you, Matthew. You are the only one whom I know outside the court who could carry out such an investigation. But only if you will. I know the terrible dangers-’

‘He has promised,’ Lord Parr said.

I nodded. ‘I have.’

‘Then I thank you, Matthew, from the bottom of my heart.’

I looked at the torn paper. ‘The obvious conclusion is that Greening was trying to keep the manuscript from the intruders, and whoever killed him snatched it out of his hands, but part of the top page tore away.’

‘Yes,’ said Lord Parr. ‘And whoever killed him heard Master Okedene breaking down the door and fled. So desperate were they to avoid identification that they did not even pause to prise the piece of paper from the dead man’s hands.’

‘Or did not notice it at the time, more likely,’ I said.

Lord Parr nodded. ‘You should know that this was not the first attempt on Greening’s life. He lived as well as worked in that hovel, in the most wretched poverty.’ He wrinkled his nose in aristocratic distaste. ‘As I mentioned, he has a young apprentice. Five days before, this boy arrived for work early in the morning and found two men trying to break into the shed. He called the alarm and they fled. From the apprentice’s account they were different men from those who attacked and killed Greening shortly after.’

Cranmer said, ‘Our first thought was that Greening had the manuscript given to him for printing. But that makes no sense. A Catholic might print it, so the book could be distributed around the streets, to the Queen’s ruin, but no reformer.’

‘Yes.’ I considered. ‘Surely if it fell into Greening’s hands and his views were as you say, he would do exactly what Okedene did, return it. Could Greening have been a secret Catholic?’

Cranmer shook his head. ‘I have had discreet enquiries made. Greening was a radical, a known man, all his life. And his parents before him.’ He gave me a meaningful look.

A ‘known man’. That meant Greening’s family belonged to the old English sect of Lollardy. Over a hundred years before Luther, the Lollards had come to similar conclusions about the centrality of the Bible in the cause of salvation, and were known for their radical views about the Mass. Many of them had gravitated to the most extreme edges of Protestantism; with their long history of persecution, they had experience of being an underground community. They were as unlikely as any radicals to wish the Queen harm.