C. Sansom - Lamentation

We passed the King’s Stairs: a wide covered gallery painted in green and white, jutting out fifty feet into the water, and ending in a broad, covered landing stage where the King’s barge would pull up. Beyond, the long line of the palace facade was beautiful, the red brickwork mellow in the late afternoon sun, interspersed with projecting, richly glazed bastions, with tall glass windows, and at the south end the Lady Mary’s new lodgings, covered in scaffolding. I paid the boatman and walked back up the Whitehall Road, beside the west wall of the palace, to the Gatehouse. I was hot in my robe, dusty, tired and troubled.

This time there was no one to meet me, but my name was on the list and the guard at the gate allowed me in. I walked underneath the Gatehouse, across the courtyard, then up the stairs and into the King’s Guard Chamber; my name checked at every door.

I went up to the King’s Presence Chamber. A brown-robed servant carrying a silver ewer of water hurried past as I entered, almost colliding with me. I looked around. It was strange; already the effect of all the fantastic magnificence had worn off a little, though I was conscious of the Gentlemen Pensioners around the wall; their dress magnificently decorative. But they were big men, and carrying heavy poleaxes. Here I saw fewer young men come to fish for a name of fame standing around. My eye was drawn again to the picture of the royal family, the square solid frame of the King a total contrast to the grotesque, sad figure I had seen earlier that day.

Two of the would-be courtiers sat gambling with silver dice. One suddenly stood and shouted, ‘You cheat! That is the third time you have thrown a five!’

The other stood up, moving his short Spanish cloak aside to free his arm. ‘Dirt in your teeth! You insult me — ’

Two of the Gentlemen Pensioners instantly moved forward, each grasping one of the popinjays by an arm. ‘You forget where you are, churls!’ one of them shouted. ‘Do you dare think you can make a bray in this place, as though it were a common tavern? Get out! The King’s Chamberlain will hear of this!’ The two gamblers were marched to the door, now watched by everyone in the room.

I drew in my breath sharply at the sight of two men in black robes and gold chains, who had entered from the stairs and stood staring at the brawlers. I had seen both of them at the burning. One was Chief Secretary William Paget, his square face frowning above the bushy brown beard that framed his odd, downturned slash of a mouth. The other, his spare frame contrasting with Paget’s solid build, and with a sardonic smile on his thin face, was Sir Richard Rich. They had not seen me; I moved quickly to the door leading to the Queen’s Presence Chamber and whispered my name to the guard. He opened the door and I slipped through. On the other side another guard in the Queen’s livery looked at me interrogatively. ‘Serjeant Shardlake,’ I said breathlessly. ‘Here to see Lord Parr.’

The Queen’s uncle was already waiting for me in the chamber; someone below must have told him I had arrived. Among all the magnificent decoration, and the sumptuous clothes of a pair of courtiers, Lord Parr made a sober figure in his black robe, the only colour the Queen’s badge on his chest and the heavy gold chain around his neck. I bowed low. He said, ‘Come to my private office, Master Shardlake.’

I followed him through another door. He led me on down a corridor, our footsteps making no sound on the thick rush matting that covered the floors from wall to wall. Through an open door I glimpsed the Queen’s Presence Chamber, and caught sight of the Queen herself sitting sewing at a window, dressed in red, with some of the ladies who had been also present earlier. Gardiner, the Duchess of Suffolk’s spaniel, sat on the floor, playing with a bone.

‘We are passing on to the Queen’s privy lodgings,’ Lord Parr said. ‘My office is there. The Queen likes me close to her since I was recalled from the country in the spring.’ He opened the door to a small, dark office, with a window giving onto another courtyard, the papers on chests and the little desk in neatly ordered piles. ‘Here,’ he said, taking a lawyer’s robe in fine silk from a chair and handing it to me. ‘Change into this.’ The Queen’s brightly coloured badge of St Catherine, I saw, was sewn onto the breast. Before taking his place behind the desk he went over and closed the window. Then he bade me sit.

‘I prefer it open these summer days,’ he said ruefully. ‘But in this place one never knows who may be listening from the next window.’ Lord Parr sighed. ‘As you have probably realized, the court is a place full of fear and hate; there is no real amity anywhere. Even among families; the Seymours quarrel and scratch like cats. Only the Parr family is united; we are loyal to each other.’ He spoke with pride. ‘It is our strength.’

‘You have been here only since the spring, my Lord?’ I ventured.

‘Yes. For much of the last few years I have delegated my duties and stayed on my estates. I am old now, not always well. No longer the man I was, when I served the King.’ He smiled in reminiscence. ‘As did my brother, the Queen’s father; and the Queen’s mother was lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon. The Parrs have been a part of the court for a long time. The Queen’s mother died just before the full storm of the King’s Great Divorce broke. Well, she was spared that.’ He looked up, eyes sharp again under the white brows. ‘I have stood in loco parentis for my niece since then. I will do anything to protect her. When she asked me to come back to court, I did so at once.’

‘I understand.’

‘I should swear you in.’ He took a Testament from a drawer, and I solemnly swore to serve the Queen loyally and honestly. Lord Parr nodded brusquely, returned the Testament to the drawer, and said, ‘Well, what news?’

I took a deep breath. ‘Not good, my Lord.’ I told him that the first of the attacks on Greening had taken place before the Lamentation was stolen, that the authorities had given up on the case, that Greening’s friends seemed to have gone to ground and might even be Anabaptists. Finally I explained how Elias had fled. I had promised to tell only the Queen of anything that might endanger the boy, but Lord Parr had to know of his plight. None of it made good hearing, and I had to mention Nicholas’s careless use of the name Bertano, which had caused such distress to Elias, though I praised his discovery of the scrap of silk. I had brought it with me, and now laid it on the table. Lord Parr examined it.

‘A fine piece of work, expensive,’ he said. ‘The blackwork decoration is distinctive.’ He turned it over. ‘The Queen’s embroiderer, Hal Gullym, has worked all his life at the Queen’s Wardrobe in Baynard’s Castle; he knows all the fine shirt-makers in London. He might be able to find out who made this.’

‘From a mere piece of sleeve?’

‘Of this quality, possibly.’ He frowned. ‘The apprentice was certain that the first attack on Greening happened before the Lamentation vanished?’

‘Certain. I am sorry he ran away. When that name Bertano was mentioned he became terrified.’

‘I have never heard it before. And Okedene, he overheard them talking of this Bertano as one who would bring down the country, an agent of the Antichrist?’

‘He is quite sure. And I believe Okedene is an honest man.’ I added hesitantly, ‘He asks that we leave him alone now; he fears for his family.’

‘As I fear for mine,’ Lord Parr answered bluntly. ‘And yet — eleven days now since the book was stolen and not a word, nothing. Who could have taken it?’

‘Not a religious radical, surely.’

‘And yet if it was a papist, surely the book would be public knowledge by now, and God knows what would have happened to my niece. The King has a hard view of anything that smacks of disloyalty.’ He bit his lip.