C.J. Sansom: Heartstone

'Is it eight weeks now?'

'So Guy says. He's coming to visit her tomorrow. Still, she has Goodwife Marris to look after her. Tammy was glad to see me go to work. She says I fuss.'

I smiled. I knew Barak and Tamasin were happy now. After the death of their first child there had been a bad time, and Tamasin had left him. But he had won her back with a steady, loving persistence I would once not have thought him capable of. I had helped them find a little house nearby, and a capable servant in Joan's friend Goodwife Marris, who had worked as a wet nurse and was used to children.

I nodded at the window. 'I saw Bealknap turn to avoid you.'

He laughed. 'He's started doing that lately. He fears I'm going to ask him for that three pounds he owes you. Stupid arsehole.' His eyes glinted wickedly. 'You should ask him for four, seeing how the value of money's fallen.'

'You know, I sometimes wonder if friend Bealknap is quite sane. Two years now he has made a fool and mock of himself by avoiding me, and now you too.'

'And all the while he gets richer. They say he sold some of that gold he has to the Mint for the recoinage, and that he is lending more out to people looking for money to pay the taxes, now that lending at interest has been made legal.'

'There are some at Lincoln's Inn who have needed to do that to pay the Benevolence. Thank God I had enough gold. Yet the way Bealknap behaves does not show a balanced mind.'

Barak gave me a penetrating look. 'You've become too ready to see madness in people. It's because you give so much time to Ellen Fettiplace. Have you answered her latest message?'

I made an impatient gesture. 'Let's not go over that again. I have, and I will go to the Bedlam tomorrow.'

'Bedlamite she may be, but she plays you like a fisherman pulling on a line.' Barak looked at me seriously. 'You know why.'

I changed the subject. 'I went for a walk earlier. There was a View of Arms in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The officer was threatening to make pikemen of those who hadn't been practising their archery.'

Barak answered contemptuously, 'They know as well as anyone that only those who like archery practise it regularly, for all the laws the King makes. It's hard work and you've got to keep at it to be any good.' He gave me a serious look. 'It's no good making laws too unpopular to be enforced. Lord Cromwell knew that, he knew where to draw the line.'

'They're enforcing this. I've never seen anything like it before. And yesterday I saw the constables sweeping the streets for the beggars and vagabonds the King's ordered to be sent to row on the galleasses. Have you heard the latest word—that French troops have landed in Scotland and the Scots are ready to fall on us too?'

'The latest word,' Barak repeated scoffingly. 'Who sets these stories running about the French and Scots about to invade? The King's officials, that's who. Maybe to stop the people rebelling like they did in '36. Against the taxes and the debasement of the currency. Here, look at this.' His hand went to his purse. He took out a little silver coin and smacked it down on the desk. I picked it up. The King's fat jowly face stared up at me.

'One of the new shilling coins,' Barak said. 'A testoon.'

'I haven't seen one before.'

'Tamasin went shopping with Goodwife Marris yesterday in Cheapside. There's plenty there. Look at its dull colour. The silver's so adulterated with copper they'll only give eightpence worth of goods for it. Prices for bread and meat are going through the roof. Not that there is much bread, with so much being requisitioned for the army.' Barak's brown eyes flashed angrily. 'And where's the extra silver gone? To repay those German bankers who lent the King money for the war.'

'You really think there may be no French invasion fleet at all?'

'Maybe. I don't know.' He hesitated, then said suddenly, 'I think they're trying to get me for the army.'

'What?' I sat bolt upright.

'The constable was going round all the houses in the ward last Friday with some soldier, registering all men of military age. I told them I'd a wife and a child on the way. The soldier said I looked a fit man. I flipped my fingers at him and told him to piss off. Trouble is Tamasin told me he came back yesterday. She saw him through the window and didn't answer the door.'

I sighed. 'Your over-confidence will be the end of you one day.'

'That's what Tamasin says. But they're not taking married man with children. Or at least, not many.'

'The powers that be are serious. I think there is going to be an invasion attempt, or why recruit all these thousands of soldiers? You should take care.'

Barak looked mutinous. 'None of this would be happening if the King hadn't invaded France last year. Forty thousand men sent over the Channel, and what happened? We were sent running back with our tails between our legs, except for the poor sods besieged in Boulogne. Everyone says we should cut our losses, abandon Boulogne and make peace, but the King won't. Not our Harry.'

'I know. I agree.'

'Remember last autumn, the soldiers back from France lying in rags, plague-ridden, on all the roads to the city?' His face set hard. 'Well, that won't happen to me.'

I looked at my assistant. There had been a time when Barak might have seen war as an adventure. But not now. 'What did this soldier look like?'

'Big fellow your age with a black beard, done up in a London Trained Bands uniform. Looked as if he'd seen service.'

'He was in charge of the View of Arms. I'd guess a professional officer. No man to cross, I'd say.'

'Well, if he's viewing all the mustered men, hopefully he'll be too busy to bother any more with me.'

'I hope so. If he does return, you must come to me.'

'Thank you,' he said quietly.

I reached for the letter on the corner of my desk. 'In return, I'd like your view on this.' I handed it to him.

'Not another message from Ellen?'

'Look at the seal. It's one you've seen before.'

He looked up. 'The Queen's. Is it from Master Warner? Another case?'

'Read it.' I hesitated. 'It worries me.'

Barak unfolded the letter, and read aloud.

'I would welcome your personal counsel on a case, a private matter. I invite you to attend me here at Hampton Court, at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon.'

'It's signed—'

'I know. Catherine the Queen, not lawyer Warner.'

Barak read it again. 'It's short enough. But she says it's a case. No sign it's anything political.'

'But it must be something that affects her closely for her to write herself. I can't help remembering last year when the Queen sent Warner to represent that relative of her servant who was accused of heresy.'

'She promised she would keep you out of things like that. And she's one who keeps her promises.'

I nodded. More than two years before, when Queen Catherine Parr was still Lady Latimer, I had saved her life. She had promised both to be my patron and never to involve me in matters of politics.

'How long is it since you saw her?' Barak asked.

'Not since the spring. She granted me an audience at Whitehall to thank me for sorting out that tangled case about her Midland properties. Then she sent me her book of prayers last month. You remember, I showed you. Prayers and Meditations. '

He pulled a face. 'Gloomy stuff.'

I smiled sadly. 'Yes, it was. I had not realized how much sadness there was in her. She put in a personal note saying she hoped it would turn my mind to God.'

'She'd never put you in harm's way. It'll be another land case, you'll see.'

I smiled gratefully. Barak had known the underside of the political world from his earliest days, and I valued his reassurance.

'The Queen and Ellen Fettiplace in one day!' he said jokingly. 'You will have a busy day.'