C. Sansom - Lamentation

We parted at the head of Thames Street. ‘So what happened?’ Barak asked, when Nicholas had gone.

I told him. He stroked his beard. ‘This is quite some game of hoodman blind we are playing. What will you do now?’ he asked.

‘Go to the palace, try to see Lord Parr, late as it is.’

‘I would have thought you’d had enough for one day.’

‘I must tell them about Rich immediately. What I said to Nicholas applies to you too, Jack,’ I added. ‘I think perhaps you should both walk away now.’

He shook his head. ‘Not after this. My blood’s up.’

‘Your pride, rather. What about all you said earlier? What about Tamasin?’

He frowned. ‘My wife doesn’t rule me.’

‘Jack — ’

‘I want to see this through. Besides,’ he added more quietly, ‘you need someone. You haven’t anyone you can trust, none of those people at court cares what happens to you. What happens to my job if you get killed?’

‘The Queen — ’ I remonstrated.

‘Her first loyalties are to her family,’ he countered impatiently, ‘and to the King, for all that she fears him. You need people you can really trust. I’m sure you can trust Nick, too, you know. And he’s useful. Think about it.’

He turned and walked away homewards. There was a spring in his step now. He had been torn between his current life and his old ways, I realized, and the encounter had changed the balance for him. Barak’s taste for adventure had won out, as it had so easily for Nicholas. I shook my head, and walked down to the river to find a wherry going upriver to Whitehall.

I sat in Lord Parr’s office again. It was late, well past midnight. Whitehall Palace was dark and silent, everyone asleep apart from the guards ceaselessly patrolling the corridors. Lit only by dim candlelight, all the gorgeous decoration was in shadow, hidden.

Lord Parr was still working in his office when I arrived; his room brightly lit with fat buttermilk candles, the shutters closed. He had called for William Cecil, who arrived within minutes; he must have been staying at the palace. After I told them the story of my encounter with Rich, Lord Parr sent for the Queen; she had been with the King that evening but had returned to her own bedchamber. ‘She must be consulted,’ he insisted. ‘This comes so near to her person.’

Sitting behind his desk while we waited, Lord Parr looked exhausted. ‘Richard Rich, eh?’ He shook his head and smiled wearily, the old courtier in him perhaps amused by this turn of the political screw.

‘I thought Rich might be behind all of it,’ I said. ‘The murders and the taking of the book. But it seems not so, not this time.’

‘But if he gets hold of the Lamentation- ’ Cecil began.

‘Yes,’ Lord Parr replied. ‘He would use it. The campaign against the Queen could revive.’ He looked between us. ‘Well, you know the saying: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Let us work with Rich, and keep him close.’

There was a gentle knock at the door. Mary Odell and the Queen’s sister, Lady Herbert, stood in the doorway, bearing candles. They stepped aside to allow the Queen to walk into the room between them. Like the others she was dressed informally, in a gold-and-green caftan; there had been no time for the long labour with pins and corsets necessary for her to be dressed fully. Her auburn hair was tied back under a knitted hood. Under hastily applied whitelead, her face was tense. We bowed to her, my back suddenly stiff after the long day. She dismissed her ladies.

‘What news?’ she asked without preliminaries. ‘Please, tell me my book is found.’

‘Not yet, niece,’ Lord Parr said gently. ‘But there has been another development, a — complication. I am sorry to request your presence at this time of night, but matters are urgent.’

He nodded to me, and again I told my story, though missing out the part about Stice’s threat to send me Nicholas’s head. ‘Rich knows nothing of the Lamentation ,’ I concluded. ‘He believes there may be something in Anne Askew’s writings which would compromise you as well as him.’

‘Rich doesn’t know we have Myldmore,’ Lord Parr added. ‘Shardlake did well in foxing him.’

‘The rogue, though.’ The Queen walked past me to the shutters, a rustle of silk and a waft of scent as she passed. She made to open them. ‘It is so hot-’

‘Please, Kate,’ Lord Parr said urgently. ‘You never know who may be watching.’

The Queen turned back to us, a bitter little smile playing on her lips. ‘Yes. For a moment I forgot, here one must guard one’s every movement.’ She breathed deeply, then took a seat and looked at each of us in turn. ‘Must we cooperate with Rich?’

‘We must at least pretend to,’ Lord Parr answered. ‘Work with his people, but watch them every moment. More pairs of eyes at the docks would be useful.’ He turned to me. ‘That information about Bale is helpful, as well.’

‘But who has the books?’ Cecil asked. ‘The four who have disappeared — McKendrick, Curdy, Vandersteyn, and that wretched guard, Leeman? Or someone else entirely? We do not even know if the missing four are still alive. Who employed Greening’s murderers? We know now it wasn’t Rich.’

I said, ‘I think the four missing men are radicals who want to get both books out of the country. We know from their actions in Germany what the Anabaptists are capable of, even if some have renounced violence now. Greening’s killers could have been henchmen of theirs, employed after an internal falling out. I have said before, if it was the conservatives that took the Lamentation , all they would need to do is lay a copy before the King.’ The Queen winced momentarily, but it had to be said. ‘I think the answer lies with Curdy’s people within the radical group.’

Lord Parr shook his head. ‘We may know the limits of Rich’s involvement, but someone else who bears the Queen ill will at the court could still be hiding the book, and could have employed one of the group as a spy.’ He shook his head again. ‘If so it would almost certainly be a member of the Privy Council, I am sure. But which one? And where is the book now?’

‘We still have no idea,’ Cecil said.

Lord Parr took a deep breath. ‘All right. Shardlake, you liaise with Rich via this man Stice. You and Cecil can work with his people on trying to find the missing men, and keeping an eye on the docks.’ He bent forward and scribbled on a piece of paper. ‘These are our men at the customs house there. Give this to Stice, and get the names of their agents in return. Our men know only that we are looking for someone trying to smuggle out some writings.’

Cecil looked uneasy. ‘There are murderers involved. There could be trouble. We may have to deal with the missing men if they try to escape, and if Stice calls on us we shall need help. We may have to deal with more of Rich’s people, too, if the Lamentation is found. How many fit young men do you have?’

‘There are four in my household whom I would trust with this,’ Parr said. ‘Though naturally I will tell them nothing about the Lamentation .’

The Queen said, ‘I would have no violence.’

‘There may be no alternative, niece,’ Lord Parr answered sadly. ‘Shardlake and Cecil may need to defend themselves, and should have help available.’ He looked at me closely. ‘How much does your man Barak know?’

‘All of it now.’ Lord Parr raised his eyebrows. ‘I had to tell him,’ I explained, ‘when I asked him to watch for me at Needlepin Lane.’

He considered, then said, ‘Then we can use him. And what of your pupil who was kidnapped?’