C. Sansom - Lamentation

‘It would be a dangerous matter, stealing from the Queen. He’d hang if he was caught.’

‘We both know the things people are capable of risking for the sake of money. Especially those who have gained status and wish to keep it.’

Barak looked at me askance. ‘You said we’ll let him sweat a little.’

‘A slip of the tongue, I’m sorry. I told you, I just wanted your help with the chest and lock.’

He looked around the courtyard. Another cart was unloading. ‘Jesu,’ he said again, ‘all this to keep fine clothes on the backs of great ladies. Just as well we didn’t bring Tamasin. We’d never have got her out.’

‘Remember she doesn’t know you’re here. And would be displeased if she did.’

‘I won’t forget. What do you want to see the embroiderer for?’

I sighed. He was interested now; he would not easily let it go. ‘I’m only trying to trace a piece of fine silk sleeve Nicholas found, that may be connected to the case,’ I answered. ‘The embroiderer may be able to help me, perhaps suggest who might have made it.’

‘If he gives you a name you may need someone to pay him a visit.’

‘I think that might be a job for Nicholas. He found the sleeve, after all.’

Barak looked disappointed, then nodded. ‘You’re right, it’s a job for a junior.’

‘And now I have an appointment with the embroiderer.’

He fingered his beard, reluctant to leave, but I raised my eyebrows. ‘All right,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders, and quickly walked away to the gate.

I nodded to the guard and he took me back into the hall, knocking at another side door before entering. Within, a man was working at a desk set close by the window to get the best light. He was embroidering flowers on a piece of fabric, flowers so tiny he needed to look through a large magnifying glass on a stand. To my surprise, he was a big, black-bearded fellow, though I saw his fingers were long and delicate. He stood up at my entrance, wincing a little. For a man of his height, a life spent constantly hunched over was a recipe for a bad back.

‘Master Gullym,’ I asked, ‘the Queen’s head embroiderer?’

‘I am.’ His voice had a Welsh lilt.

‘Matthew Shardlake. I am investigating the theft of a jewel from the Queen.’

‘I’d heard something about a ring gone missing.’ Gullym sounded curious, but unlike Barwic, unconcerned. But of course he was not under any suspicion. I took the piece of torn silk and laid it on the desk. ‘We think this may belong to the thief. Is there any way of identifying who made it?’

Gullym picked up the scrap of silk, wrinkling his features in distaste, for it was a little dirty now. ‘Looks like an English design,’ he said. ‘Very fine, expensive. Someone in the embroiderers’ guild made it, I’d warrant.’ Carefully he slid the delicate silk he was working on from under the magnifying glass and replaced it with the piece of cuff. ‘Yes, very well made indeed.’

‘If the maker of this piece could tell me who commissioned it, it might help us. They would gain the favour of the Queen,’ I added.

Gullym nodded. ‘I can write you a list of names. Perhaps a dozen embroiderers in London could have made this. It was done recently, I would say, that design of little vines has only been popular this year.’

‘Thank you.’

With slow, deliberate steps, Gullym crossed to a desk, wincing again as he moved. He took quill and paper and wrote out a list of names and addresses, then handed it to me. ‘I think these are all the people who might help you.’ He smiled complacently. ‘I have been in the guild since I came to London thirty years ago, I know everyone.’

I looked at the list. Someone would have to visit all these London shops.

‘Thank you, Master Gullym,’ I said. ‘By the way, I could not help but notice you have some problems with your back.’

‘Goes with the job, sir.’

‘I do, too, as perhaps you may imagine.’

Gullym nodded tactfully.

‘There is a physician who has helped me much. He practises down at Bucklersbury, Dr Guy Malton.’

‘I have been thinking I should see someone. It gets bad in the afternoons.’

‘I can recommend Dr Malton. Tell him I sent you.’

That evening, after dinner, I rode down to Bucklersbury to visit Guy. We had not parted on the best of terms three nights before, and I wanted to try and mend fences. I also hoped he might tell me about that name, Bertano.

The cloud had disappeared during the afternoon and the sun was out again, setting now, casting long shadows on the row of apothecaries’ shops. Although Guy had come originally from Spain and qualified as a physician in the great French university of Louvain, his status as a foreigner — a Moor — and a former monk, had meant a long struggle for acceptance as a member of the College of Physicians. Before qualifying, he had practised as an apothecary and, although he now had a large practice and the status of an English denizen and could have moved to a good-sized house, he preferred to stay here; partly because of his old monkish vow of poverty, and because he was getting old and preferred the familiar.

As I dismounted and tied Genesis to the rail outside his house, I reflected that, apart from Guy, all my friends and contacts now were either reformers or people who preferred to keep out of the religious struggles. But I knew there were plenty in London, and many more in the countryside, who would welcome a return to the Catholic church.

Francis Sybrant, the plump, grey-haired man of sixty who served as Guy’s general assistant these days, answered my knock. I liked Francis; he had worked for a neighbouring apothecary and when the man’s business failed last year had come to work for Guy. He was grateful to have found a new berth at his age. A cheerful fellow, he was a good counter to Guy’s habitual melancholy.

‘Master Shardlake.’ He bowed.

‘God give you good evening, Francis. Is Master Guy at home?’

‘In his study. Working with his books as usual of an evening.’ He led me down the narrow hall, knocking gently on the door of Guy’s study. Guy was sitting at his desk, reading his copy of Vesalius, with its gruesome anatomical diagrams, using the light of a candle to compare what was on the page with a human thigh bone he held up. He put it down carefully and stood. ‘Matthew. This is a surprise.’

‘I hope I am not interrupting you.’

‘No. My eyes are getting tired.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Francis says I should get spectacles, but I cannot face the thought somehow.’

‘I am sorry I had to leave you so suddenly on Friday. After we — ’ I hesitated — ‘disagreed.’

He smiled sadly. ‘That argument resounds all over England, does it not?’

‘I was not myself that day.’

‘I understand. You still look tired. A glass of hippocras?’

‘That would be welcome. I have been working hard.’

Guy called to Francis, who fetched two mugs of warm spiced wine. I sat looking into mine then said, ‘My old foe Stephen Bealknap is dead. A growth in his guts.’

Guy crossed himself. ‘God pardon him.’

I smiled sadly. ‘He did not want God’s pardon. I was with him near the end, he said he had no faith. He has left all his money to build a great memorial to himself in Lincoln’s Inn chapel.’

‘Had he no family?’

‘Nor friends. Nor God.’

‘That is sad.’

‘Yes.’ I looked into my wine again, then pulled myself together. ‘Guy, there is a piece of information I seek. About a foreign name. I have only my Latin and poor French, and with your experience of languages I hope you may be able to help me.’