C.J. Sansom - Revelation

'Do you know many foreign merchants?' Roger asked curiously.

'We of alien looks or words must stick together.' Guy smiled sadly. He brought our coats, and Roger left his fee of a mark. Guy promised the inserts for his shoes would be ready in a couple of weeks at most.

We left, Roger thanking Guy again profusely for his help. When the door was closed Roger clasped my arm. 'I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your guiding me to Dr Malton. I will ever be in your debt.'

'There are no debts between friends,' I said with a smile. 'I am glad to have helped.'

'I could have done without the dissection book, though,' he added as we rode away.

WE RODE ON, up Bucklersbury. We passed the ancient mansion from Henry Ill's time, the Old Barge, long converted into a warren of crumbling tenements. Barak and Tamasin lived there.

'Roger, do you mind if I leave you to go on?' I asked. 'There is a visit I would like to pay.'

He looked up at the Barge, raising his eyebrows. 'Not some doxy?' he asked. 'I hear many live there.'

'No, my clerk and his wife.'

'And I should go and see my new client.'

'What is the case?'

'I do not know yet. A solicitor has sent me a letter about a client of his, who has some property dispute over in Southwark. His client is too poor to pay for a barrister, but he says the case is a worthy one and asked if I will act pro bono. It is all a bit vague, but I agreed to go and meet the client.'

'Who's the solicitor?'

'A man called Nantwich. I've never heard of him. But there are so many jobbing solicitors looking for work around the Inns these days.' He drew his coat round him. 'It is cold for riding, I would rather go home and quietly celebrate the end of my fears.' He turned his horse, then paused. The air was heavy with wood-smoke and chill with frost. 'Where is spring:' he asked, then waved a hand in farewell and rode off into the dark night. I dismounted, and walked towards the lighted windows of the Old Barge.

I HAD VISITED Barak's tenement in the days before he married Tamasin, and remembered which of the several unpainted street doors to take. It gave on to a staircase leading to the ramshackle apartments into which the crumbling old mansion was divided. The stairs creaked loudly in the pitch-black, and I recalled thinking on my previous visit that the whole place seemed ready to fall down.

I remembered Barak's apartment as a typical young man's lodging: dirty plates piled on the table, clothes strewn about the floor and mouse droppings in the corners. I had been glad when he announced, on marrying Tamasin, that they would move to a little house somewhere near Lincoln's Inn, and sorry when the plan was abandoned. The Old Barge was no place for a young girl, especially one as fond of domesticity as Tamasin.

On the second floor I knocked on the door of their tenement. After a minute the door opened a fraction, and I saw a coiffed head dimly outlined against the candlelight within. 'Who is it?' she asked nervously. '

'Tis I. Master Shardlake.'

'Ah, sir. Come in.' Tamasin opened the door and I followed her into the big room that served as dining-room, bedroom and parlour. She had been at work here; everything was clean, the plates stacked in a scuffed old dresser, the bed tidily made. But the place stank of damp, and patches of black mould spotted the wall around the window. Rags had been stuffed between the rotting shutters to keep out the wind. Attempts had been made to clean the wall, but the mould was spreading again. Barak, I saw, was absent.

'Will you sit, sir?' Tamasin indicated a chair at the table. 'May I take your coat? I am afraid Jack is out.'

'I will keep it. I - er - will not be long.' In truth it was so cold in the fireless apartment that I did not want to remove it. I sat and took a proper look at Tamasin. She was a very pretty young woman, still in her early twenties, with high cheekbones, wide blue eyes and a full mouth. Before her marriage she had taken pride in dressing as well as her purse would allow; perhaps a little better. But now she wore a shapeless grey dress with a threadbare white apron over it, and her blonde hair was swept under a large, white housewife coif. She smiled at me cheerfully but I saw how her shoulders were slumped, her eyes dull.

'It has been a long time since I saw you, sir,' she said. 'Near six months. How are you faring, Tamasin?'

'Oh, well enough. I am sorry Jack is not here.'

'No matter. I was passing on my way from taking a friend to consult Dr Malton.'

'Would you like a cup of beer, sir?'

'I would, Tamasin. But perhaps I should go . . .' I was breaking the proprieties in being with her alone.

'No, sir, stay,' she said. 'We are old friends, are we not?'

'I hope so.'

'I should like a little company.' She went and poured some beer from a jug on the dresser and brought it over, taking a stool opposite me. 'Was Dr Malton able to help your friend?'

I took a draught of the beer, which was pleasantly strong. 'Yes. He had taken to falling over without warning, he thought he was taking the falling sickness, but it turns out he only has something amiss with his foot.'

Tamasin smiled, something like her old warm smile. 'I should think he is mightily relieved.'

'He is. I imagine when he gets home he will be dancing round his lodgings, bad foot and all.'

'Dr Malton is a good man. I believe he saved you when you had that fever the winter before last.'

'Yes. I think he did.'

'But he could not help my poor little Georgie.'

'I know.'

She stared at an empty spot against the far wall. 'He was born dead, laid dead in his little cot over there that we had made.' She turned to me, her eyes full of pain. 'Afterwards I did not want Jack to take the crib away, it was as though some part of Georgie remained while it was there. But he hated the reminder.'

'I am sorry I did not come to see you after the baby died, Tamasin. I wanted to, but Jack said you were both better alone.'

'I used to get upset a lot. Jack would not want you to see.' She sighed, frowning a little. 'And you, are you in good health, sir?'

'Yes. Working hard and doing well, with Jack's help.' I smiled.

'He looks up to you, sir. Always saying how Master Shardlake managed to win this case by undermining the opposition, that one by turning up new evidence.'

'Does he?' I laughed. 'Sometimes the way he talks, I feel he thinks I am a noddle.'

'That is just his way.'

'Yes.' I smiled at her. When we first met two years before, on the King's Great Progress to York, I had been suspicious of Tamasin's confidence and lively personality, which had seemed unwomanly. But in the course of shared perils I had developed an almost fatherly affection for her. Looking at the tired housewife before me, I thought, where has all that spirit gone?

Something of my thoughts must have shown in my face, for her mouth trembled, then two large tears rolled down Tamasin's cheeks. She lowered her head.

'Tamasin,' I said, half rising. 'What is the matter? Is it still the poor child?'

'I am sorry, sir.'

'Come, after all we went through in Yorkshire a few tears are nothing. Tell me what ails you.'

She took a shuddering breath and wiped her eyes on her sleeve before turning her tear-stained face to me. 'It began with the child,' she said quietly. 'His death was a shock to Jack as well as me. They say when a child dies his mother will always have him quick in her heart, but he is in Jack's too. Oh, he is so angry.'

'With you?'

'With everything. With God himself, he felt it cruel of Him to take his child. He was never much of a churchgoer but now he does not want to go at all. It is Easter tomorrow, but he has refused to go to service or confession.'