C. Sansom - Lamentation

After a while, Leeman groaned and began to stir. Barak took some water from a bucket and squeezed a cloth over his face. Leeman coughed, then sat up, clutching his head. Grimacing with pain, he looked down at his bound arm.

‘I did that,’ Nicholas said. ‘’Tis but a flesh wound.’

Leeman’s pale face darkened suddenly. ‘Where am I?’ he asked. He sounded angry but I detected an undertone of fear there, too.

I stood up. ‘You are held, Master Leeman, if not by friends then not by the enemies you may think, either.’

Leeman looked round the room, gradually taking in the student messiness. ‘This is not a prison,’ he stuttered, confusion on his face.

‘No,’ I replied gently. ‘You are not under arrest, not yet. Though others will be coming here for you in a while. I am Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer. It would certainly be better for you to talk to me first. I may be able to do something to help you, if you help us.’

Leeman only glared at me. ‘You are the agents of Bertano, emissary of the Antichrist.’

‘That name again,’ Nicholas said.

I pulled a stool over to the bed and sat face to face with Leeman. ‘We have heard that name many times recently, Master Leeman,’ I said. ‘But I swear to you I do not know who Bertano is. Perhaps you could tell me.’ I considered a moment. ‘By the Antichrist I take it you mean the Pope.’

‘The Beast of Rome,’ Leeman confirmed, watching carefully for our reaction.

I smiled. ‘Nobody here is a friend of the Pope, I assure you.’

‘Then who do you work for?’

I took out the Queen’s seal which I had been given on the day of my appointment and held it up for him to see. ‘For her majesty. Privately. I am trying to find out what happened to a certain book.’

Leeman frowned, then said, ‘Lawyer or courtier, ’tis all the same. You all steal bread from the mouths of the poor.’

‘Actually I am an advocate at the Court of Requests, and most of my work is done on behalf of the poor.’ His look in response was contemptuous; no doubt he despised the charitable doings of the rich. But I persisted. ‘Tonight we were looking for a manuscript which we believe you and your friends were trying to smuggle abroad. I also seek, by the way, the murderers of Armistead Greening.’

‘Who is now safe in heaven,’ Leeman said, looking at me defiantly.

‘There is another manuscript, also missing, by the late Mistress Askew, who was cruelly burned at Smithfield.’

‘It is gone.’ There was a note of triumph in Leeman’s voice now. ‘Vandersteyn had it with him.’ He paused. His face paled. ‘Curdy — your people killed him. Good McKendrick, I saw him run. Did you catch and kill him, too?’

‘He escaped. And it was not us who killed Curdy, but some others we have been forced to work with. They are concerned with finding Anne Askew’s writings, but we are not.’ I spoke slowly and carefully: I saw I had his attention. ‘I am interested only in the other manuscript, which they do not know about. The one stolen from the Queen.’ I leaned forward. ‘A book which, if published, could do great damage to the Reformist cause. Just when her majesty’s troubles appeared to be over, and the tide beginning to swing against Bishop Gardiner, you steal it. Why, Master Leeman?’

He did not reply, but looked at me through narrowed eyes, calculating. A slight blush appeared on his pale cheeks and I wondered if he was remembering his oath to the Queen, which he had broken. I continued quietly. ‘I traced you through the guard Gawger, whom you bribed, and the carpenter who gave you the substitute key for the Queen’s chest.’

‘You have learned much.’

‘Not enough. Where is the book now?’

‘I do not know. Greening had it. Whoever killed him took it.’

‘And who was that?’ He did not answer, but I sensed he knew more. He looked at me, then surprised me by saying, in a scoffing tone, ‘You think the danger to the Queen is ended, if the book I took is recovered?’

‘So it has seemed. I have lately been at court, Master Leeman.’

He answered, weariness and scorn mingling in his voice: ‘It is not over. How did you learn the name Bertano, if you do not know who he is?’

‘Greening’s neighbour, Okedene, heard you arguing loudly in Greening’s shop, shortly before Greening was killed. He heard the name Bertano mentioned as an emissary of the Antichrist.’

Leeman nodded slowly. ‘Yes. The Queen may be a good woman, and perhaps in her heart she recognizes the Mass as a blasphemous ceremony, but because of Bertano she is doomed anyway. The King is about to receive a secret emissary from Rome. That can only mean he is going to return to papal servitude. Many would fall then, Catherine Parr chief among them.’And then I felt a chill as I understood. ‘Bertano is the official emissary of the Pope,’ I breathed.

‘Whether that is true or not,’ Nicholas said angrily, ‘you broke your oath to guard and protect her.’

‘In the end she is no more than another of the idle rout of nobles and princes, the refuse of mankind.’ Leeman spoke so fiercely, I wondered again whether his conscience pricked him.

Nicholas frowned. ‘God’s death, he is an Anabaptist. That mad company of schismatics. He’d have all gentlemen murdered and their property given to the rabble.’

I turned round and gave him a warning look. ‘I am in your hands,’ Leeman said fiercely. ‘And know that I will soon be killed.’ He swallowed hard. His angry tones held the defiance of a martyr, but his voice also trembled slightly. Yes, I thought, he is afraid; like all men he fears the flames.

‘Indeed,’ he continued. ‘I am what your boy calls an Anabaptist. I understand baptism may only be allowed once one has come to true knowledge of God. And that just as the Pope is the Antichrist, seducing men’s hearts while living in pomp and magnificence, so earthly princes and their elbowhangers are likewise thieves and must be overthrown if Christians are to live as the Bible commands!’ His voice rose. ‘With all goods held in common, in true charity, recognizing we are all of the same weak clay, and that our only true allegiance is to Our Lord Jesus Christ.’ He leaned back, breathing hard, staring at us defiantly.

‘That’s some lecture,’ Barak said sardonically.

‘So,’ I began quietly, ‘you would overthrow the King, who is said to be, by God’s decree, Supreme Head of the Church in England?’

‘Yes!’ he shouted. ‘And I know I have just committed treason with those words, and could be hanged and drawn and quartered at Tyburn. As well as burned for heresy for what I said about the Mass.’ He took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Best to get it all out now. I can only die once. It is what I believe, and because of that I will be received in Heaven when you kill me.’

‘I told you earlier, Leeman, that we are not necessarily your enemies. If you can help guide us to the Queen’s book, I may be able to help you.’ I looked at him closely before continuing. ‘You come from the gentle classes. You must do, to have been appointed to the position of status and trust you held. So what brought you to your present beliefs?’

‘You would have me incriminate others?’ Leeman took another breath. ‘That I will not do.’

‘You have no need to. Master Myldmore has already told us all about your group. We have him safe. We know the names — the three who came with you tonight: Curdy who was killed, Vandersteyn who got away in the boat, and McKendrick who fled. And Master Greening and the apprentice Elias, both of whom were murdered.’

A look of astonishment crossed his face. ‘Elias, too, is dead?’

‘Yes, and by the description and methods of the killers, by the same hands that murdered Greening.’