C. Sansom: Lamentation

‘God’s pestilence!’ Barak was shouting at Nicholas as he untied the ribbon from a brief and began riffling through the papers. ‘Can’t you even remember when you last saw it?’

Nicholas turned from searching through another pile of papers, the freckled face beneath his unruly light-red hair downcast. ‘It was two days ago, maybe three. I’ve been given so many conveyances to look at.’

Skelly studied Nicholas through his glasses. It was a mild look but his voice was strained as he said, ‘If you could just remember, Master Overton, it would narrow the search a bit.’

‘What is going on?’ I asked from the doorway. They had been so busy with their frantic search they had not seen me come in. Barak turned to me, his face an angry red above his new beard.

‘Master Nicholas has lost the Carlingford conveyance! All the evidence that Carlingford owns his land, which needs to be presented in court on the first day of the term! Dozy beanpole,’ he muttered. ‘Bungling idiot!’

Nicholas’s face reddened as he looked at me. ‘I did not mean to.’

I sighed. I had taken Nicholas on two months before, at the request of a barrister friend to whom I owed a favour, and half-regretted it. Nicholas was the son of a gentry family in Lincolnshire, who at twenty-one had, apparently, failed to settle to anything, and agreed to spend a year or two at Lincoln’s Inn, learning the ways of the law to help him run his father’s estate. My friend had hinted that there had been some disagreement between Nicholas and his family, but insisted he was a good lad. Indeed he was good-natured, but irresponsible. Like most other such young gentlemen he spent much of his time exploring the fleshpots of London; already he had been in trouble for getting into a sword fight with another student over a prostitute. The King had closed the Southwark brothels that spring, with the result that more prostitutes had crossed over the river to the city. Most gentry lads learned sword fighting, and their status allowed them to wear swords in the city, but the taverns were not the place to show off such skills. And a sharp sword was the deadliest of weapons, especially in a careless hand.

I looked at his tall, rangy form, noticing that under his short student’s robe he wore a green doublet slashed so the lining of fine yellow damask showed through, contrary to the Inn regulations that students must wear modest dress.

‘Keep looking, but calm down, Nicholas,’ I said. ‘You did not take the conveyance out of this office?’ I asked sharply,

‘No, Master Shardlake. I know that is not permitted.’ He had a cultivated voice with an undertone of a Lincolnshire burr. His face, long-nosed and round-chinned, was distressed.

‘Nor is wearing a slashed silken doublet. Do you want to get into trouble with the Treasurer? When you have found the conveyance, go home and change it.’

‘Yes, sir,’ he answered humbly.

‘And when Mistress Slanning comes this afternoon, I want you to sit in on the interview, and take notes.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And if that conveyance still isn’t found, stay late to find it.’

‘Is the burning over?’ Skelly ventured hesitantly.

‘Yes. But I do not want to talk about it.’

Barak looked up. ‘I have a couple of pieces of news for you. Good news, but private.’

‘I could do with some.’

‘Thought you might,’ he answered sympathetically.

‘Come into the office.’

He followed me through to my private quarters, with its mullioned window overlooking Gatehouse Court. I threw off my robe and cap and sat behind my desk, Barak taking the chair opposite. I noticed there were odd flecks of grey in his dark-brown beard, though none yet in his hair. Barak was thirty-four now, a decade younger than me, his once lean features filling out.

He said, ‘That arsehole young Overton will be the death of me. It’s like trying to supervise a monkey.’

I smiled. ‘Fie, he’s not stupid. He did a good summary of the Bennett case papers for me last week. He just needs to get himself organized.’

Barak grunted. ‘Glad you told him off about his clothes. Wish I could afford silk doublets these days.’

‘He’s young, a bit irresponsible.’ I smiled wryly. ‘As you were when first we met. At least Nicholas does not swear like a soldier.’

Barak grunted, then looked at me seriously. ‘What was it like? The burning?’

‘Horrible beyond description. But everyone played their part,’ I added bitterly. ‘The crowd, the city officials and Privy Councillors sitting on their stage. There was a little fight at one point, but the soldiers quelled it quickly. Those poor people died horribly, but well.’

Barak shook his head. ‘Why couldn’t they recant?’

‘I suppose they thought recantation would damn them.’ I sighed. ‘Well, what are these pieces of good news?’

‘Here’s the first. It was delivered this morning.’ Barak’s hand went to the purse at his waist. He pulled out three bright, buttery gold sovereigns and laid them on the table, together with a folded piece of paper.

I looked at them. ‘An overdue fee?’

‘You could say that. Look at the note.’

I took the paper and opened it. Within was a scrawled message in a very shaky hand: ‘ Here is the money I owe you for my keep from the time I stayed at Mistress Elliard’s. I am sore ill and would welcome a visit from you. Your brother in the law, Stephen Bealknap. ’

Barak smiled. ‘Your mouth’s fallen open. Not surprised, mine did too.’

I picked up the sovereigns and looked at them closely, lest this was some sort of jest. But they were good golden coins, from before the debasement, showing the young King on one side and the Tudor Rose on the other. It was almost beyond belief. Stephen Bealknap was famous not only as a man without scruples, personal or professional, but also as a miser who was said to have a fortune hidden in a chest in his chambers which he sat looking through at night. He had amassed his wealth through all manner of dirty dealings over the years, some against me, and also by making it a point of pride never to pay a debt if he could avoid it. It was three years since, in a fit of misplaced generosity, I had paid a friend to look after him when he was ill, and he had never reimbursed me.

‘It’s almost beyond belief.’ I considered. ‘And yet — remember, late last autumn and into the winter, before he became ill, he had behaved in an unexpectedly friendly manner for a while. He would come up to me in the courtyard and ask how I did, how my business was, as though he were a friend, or would become one.’ I remembered him approaching me across the quadrangle one mellow autumn day, his black gown flapping round his thin form, a sickly ingratiating smile on his pinched face. His wiry fair hair stuck out, as usual, at angles from his cap. ‘Master Shardlake, how do you fare?’

‘I was always short with him,’ I told Barak. ‘I did not trust him an inch, of course, I was sure there was something behind his concern. I think he was looking for work; I remembered him saying he was not getting as much from an old client. And he never mentioned the money he owed. He got the message after a while, and went back to ignoring me.’ I frowned. ‘Even back then he looked tired, not well. Perhaps that was why he was losing business; his sharpness was going.’

‘Maybe he’s truly repenting his sins, if he is as ill as they say.’

‘A growth in his guts, isn’t it? He’s been ill a couple months now, hasn’t he? I haven’t seen him outside. Who delivered the note?’

‘An old woman. She said she’s nursing him.’

‘By Mary,’ I said. ‘Bealknap, paying a debt and asking for a visit?’

‘Will you go and see him?’