C. Sansom - Lamentation

‘Brother Shardlake.’ His voice was scarce above a whisper. ‘Ah, I knew if I sent you the gold, you would come.’

I brought one of the chairs over to the bed. Bealknap looked at the nurse. ‘Go, Mary,’ he said curtly. She curtsied and left.

‘Is there anything I can get you?’ I asked.

He shook his head wearily. ‘No. I just wanted to see you one last time.’

‘I am sorry to find you in this condition.’

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Let us speak the truth. You have always hated me, and I you.’

I did not reply. Bealknap’s breath rasped painfully in his chest. Then he whispered, his breath in my face stinking, rotten, ‘What is going to happen now?’

‘None of us can know that for certain, Brother Bealknap,’ I said uncomfortably. ‘We must all hope for God’s mercy on our souls — ’

His eyes stayed fixed on mine. ‘You and I know better than that. I think it is the one thing we agree on. We both know men have no souls, any more than cats or dogs. There is nothing afterwards, nothing. Only darkness and silence.’

I shook my head. ‘I am not so sure as you. There is no way to know for certain. I do not know what or who God is, but — perhaps he exists.’

‘No.’ Bealknap sighed. ‘I have had the rites, but only because that was necessary if my legacy is to be fulfilled.’ He smiled again, and a dreamy quality came into his eyes. ‘All my money, all my gold, is to go to the building of a great marble tomb in the Inn church, gilded and painted, with a stone image of me in my robes atop the tomb edged with gold so that all future generations of Lincoln’s Inn lawyers will remember Brother Stephen Bealknap. I have been arranging the details with the man who will build it.’ He laughed weakly. ‘Treasurer Rowland took much persuading, but gold won the argument, as it wins them all.’

For a moment I could not think what to say. Bealknap must know how he was disliked. Was the commissioning of this memorial a last act of defiance? I thought sorrowfully, a lifetime’s earnings put into such a thing. But something puzzled me. ‘You said you are certain there is no afterlife, yet just now you asked what will happen now.’

He gave a throaty, painful laugh. ‘I did not mean what will happen to me , Matthew Shardlake. I meant, what is going to happen to you ?’

‘I do not understand you.’

‘I wanted to live to see what would happen to you.’ He took a breath, winced with pain. ‘Together with your good friend the Queen.’

My eyes widened. All the inn knew that I had not worked for the Queen for a year. What could he know? ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked sharply, leaning over him. Bealknap gave me a look of satisfaction, then closed his eyes. I was angry now, realizing that he was playing games to the end. I shook him, but he had gone back to sleep and did not stir. I looked at him for a long moment. Then I could stand the terrible fug no longer; I was starting to feel sick. I went to the window and threw the shutters wide. The figure on the bed, now caught in full sunlight, lay white and wasted.

The door opened and the nurse came in. She went over to Bealknap, checked his breathing, then crossed to me, looking angry. ‘Master, what are you doing? He wants the shutters closed. If he finds you have opened them he will complain fiercely when he wakes. Please.’

I let Mistress Warren close the shutters again. She looked at Bealknap. ‘You must leave now, sir. Every effort tires him.’

‘There is something I need to ask him.’

‘Then return a little later. After lunch. Come now, please.’ She took my arm, and I let her lead me to the door. From the bed I heard a grunt, then another. Bealknap was dreaming, and from those sounds, not of anything pleasant.

I sat in my room in chambers, nursing a mug of small beer. I had been there for over an hour, trying to make sense of what Bealknap had said. Him, involved in all this? But how? He knew I once worked for the Queen, and must have heard the gossip that she was in trouble. But it was well known by everyone that I had stopped working for her a year ago. No, I thought, it is just that Bealknap knew that I had worked for Catherine Parr, knew she was in trouble as so many did, and hoped I might fall with her. I looked across the sunlit courtyard at the chamber where Bealknap lay. I would have to go over there again later, try to get more information from him. I shook my head. Vicious to the end. I thought of that great memorial Bealknap had planned; it would become a joke, a jest round Lincoln’s Inn. But he would not foresee that. He had always been blind in so many ways.

I heard the outer door of my chambers open, then close again. I had locked it when I came back; it must be Barak come in for something. I got up and opened the door. To my surprise I saw Nicholas taking papers from a table to his desk. His freckled face still looked tired, and there was a beer-stain on his robe. He stared at me.

‘Nicholas? Here on a Sunday?’

He looked a little shamefaced. ‘Some notes of cases came in yesterday from the Court of Requests, matters for the Michaelmas term. With your being busy, Barak asked me to summarize them. I was at the Inn for the service, and thought I might as well come in here and do some work.’ To my amusement he looked embarrassed at being caught out coming in to work extra hours. It did not fit with the image he liked to convey.

‘Nicholas,’ I said. ‘I was too sharp with you yesterday. You asked the apprentice Elias that question at the wrong time, and you must learn to judge more carefully. But — I should have made allowance for your youth, your inexperience. I apologize.’

He looked at me in surprise. ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Are you getting a taste for the law?’

‘I confess at first I found it — well — boring, but now — it seems less so. There are some matters I find interesting.’

‘Most of all if a hunt for a murderer is involved, eh?’

He smiled. ‘Does that not add some spice?’

‘That is one way of putting it. The law is seldom so exciting, as you know. But it is necessary to see all aspects of it if you are to return to Lincolnshire and help manage your father’s lands.’

The boy’s face fell, the first time I had seen him look sad. ‘I doubt I will go back, sir.’

I realized how little I knew of Nicholas; he had volunteered almost nothing about himself. ‘How so?’ I asked.

He looked at me with his dark green eyes. ‘I was sent to law because my father disapproved of something I did.’ He hesitated. ‘Involving a proposed marriage.’

I nodded sympathetically. ‘You wished to marry someone below your station?’ I knew such cases were not uncommon.

Nicholas shook his head vigorously. ‘No, sir. I am of age, I may marry where I like.’ His eyes flashed with sudden anger, his chin jutting forward.

‘Of course,’ I soothed.

He hesitated. ‘As my father’s only son, the marriage I make is important. Our estates have suffered from the fall in money like so many, the value of our rents has fallen and the tenants can afford no more. A marriage to the wealthy daughter of a neighbouring estate would have brought a valuable dowry.’

‘Yes. I know such arrangements can be — difficult. What is it they say of gentlefolk? Marry first and learn to love later.’

Nicholas’s face brightened a little. ‘You understand, sir. Well, a marriage was planned for me, with the daughter of a large estate near our manor at Codsall.’

‘And you did not like her? Or she you?’ I smiled sadly. ‘Neither position is easy.’

His face set hard. ‘We liked each other very much. But we did not love each other. I am no great catch, and nor in truth was she, so they thought we would go well together.’ He spoke bitterly. ‘So my father and mother put it to me. But Anys and I both desire, in God’s good time, to marry for love. We have seen enough marriages of convenience that have ended in discord. So she and I made a pact, during one of the walks we were encouraged to take in my father’s garden, as they watched us from the windows. We agreed to tell our parents we would not marry. My father was sore angry; he was already discontented with me for spending too much time hunting and hawking rather than helping on the estate, so he sent me here. As a sort of punishment, I think, though I was glad enough to leave the country and see London,’ he added. ‘Anys and I still write to each other, as friends.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Well, sir, now you know me for a truly disobedient fellow.’