К Сэнсом - Heartstone

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.’

‘Yes.’ I took the letter back. Remembering the last time I had visited Hampton Court, the thought of presenting myself there again set a knot of fear twisting in my stomach.

IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON when I finished my last brief and sanded my notes. Barak and Skelly had already left and I set off up Chancery Lane for my house nearby.

It was a perfect summer evening. Two days ago had been Midsummer’s Day, but the normal celebrations and bonfires had been curtailed by royal proclamation. The city was under a curfew now, with extra watches set through the night, for fear lest French agents set it alight.

As I reached my house, I reflected that these days I no longer felt the uplift on coming home I had when Joan was alive; rather, a worm of irritation stirred. I let myself in. Josephine Coldiron, my steward’s daughter, was standing on the rush matting in the hall, hands clasped in front of her and a vacant, slightly worried expression on her round face.

‘Good afternoon, Josephine,’ I said. She curtsied and bobbed her head. A tendril of unwashed blonde hair escaped from under her white coif, dangling over her brow. She brushed it away. ‘Sorry, sir,’ she said nervously.

I spoke gently, for I knew she was afraid of me. ‘How is dinner progressing?’

She looked guilty. ‘I haven’t started yet, sir. I need the boys’ help to prepare the vegetables.’

‘Where are Simon and Timothy?’

Josephine looked alarmed. ‘Er, with Father, sir. I’ll fetch them and get started.’

She scurried into the kitchen with her quick, tiny steps, like an agitated mouse. I crossed to the parlour.

Guy, my old friend and current house guest, sat on a chair looking out of the window. He turned as I came in, venturing a weak smile. Guy was a physician, a man of some status, but that had not stopped a gang of apprentices on the lookout for French spies from wrecking his house down near the Old Barge one night two months ago, tearing to shreds the medical notes he had made over the years and smashing his equipment. Guy had been out, or he might have been killed. No matter that Guy’s ancestry was Spanish; he was a well-known foreigner with a dark face and a strange accent. Since I had taken him in he had sunk into a deep melancholy that worried me.

I laid my satchel on the floor. ‘How now, Guy?’

He raised a hand in greeting. ‘I have been sitting here all day. It is strange; I thought if ever I was without work time would pass slowly, but it seems to race away without my noticing.’

‘Barak says Tamasin is feeling the heat.’

I was pleased to see interest come into his face. ‘I am seeing her tomorrow. I am sure she is well, but it will reassure them. Him, rather. I think Tamasin takes it all in her stride.’ He hesitated. ‘I said I would see her here, I hope that was not presumptuous.’

‘Of course not. And you are welcome here as long as you wish, you know that.’

‘Thank you. I fear if I go back home the same thing will happen again. The atmosphere against foreigners grows more poisonous every day. Look out there.’ He pointed through the diamond-paned window to my garden.

I moved over and looked out. My steward William Coldiron stood on the path, hands on his skinny hips and a fierce expression on his cadaverous, grey-stubbled face. My two servant boys, tall fourteen-year-old Simon and little twelve-year-old Timothy, paraded stiffly up and down in front of him across the garden, each with a broomstick over his shoulder. Coldiron watched them keenly from his single eye – the other was covered with a large black patch. ‘Right turn,’ he shouted, and the boys obeyed awkwardly. I heard Josephine call from the kitchen door. Coldiron looked up sharply at the study window. I opened it and called ‘William!’ sharply.

Coldiron turned to the boys. ‘Get indoors and get master’s dinner ready,’ he shouted at them. ‘Making me waste time giving you drilling lessons!’ The boys looked at him, outrage on their faces.

I turned to Guy. ‘God’s death, that man!’ Guy shook his head wearily. A moment later Coldiron appeared in the doorway. He bowed, then stood stiffly to attention. As ever, I found his face difficult to look at. A long, deep scar ran from his receding hairline to his eyepatch and continued down to the corner of his mouth. He had told me when I interviewed him that it was the result of a sword thrust received at the Battle of Flodden against the Scots over thirty years before. I had sympathized, as I always did with those who were disfigured, and that had influenced me in taking him on, though there was also the fact that, with two large instalments of tax due to the King, I had to be careful with money and he did not demand high wages. In truth I had not much liked him even then.

‘What were you doing out there with the boys?’ I asked. ‘Josephine says nothing has been done to prepare dinner.’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he answered smoothly. ‘Only Simon and Timothy were asking me about my time as a soldier. God bless them, they want to do what they can to defend their country from invasion. They pestered me to show them how soldiers drill.’ He spread his hands. ‘Wouldn’t let me alone. It stirs their blood to know I fought the Scots last time they invaded us, that I was the man who cut down King James IV.’

‘Are they going to defend us with broomsticks?’

‘The time may be coming when even such callow boys may need to take up bills and halberds. They say the Scots are up to their old pranks again, ready to march on us while the French threaten us from the south. I believe it, I know those redshanks. And if foreign spies set fire to London –’ He gave Guy a sidelong look, so quick it was barely noticeable, but Guy saw it and turned away.

‘I don’t want you drilling Timothy and Simon,’ I said curtly, ‘however great your knowledge of the arts of war. Those of housekeeping are your work now.’

Coldiron did not turn a hair. ‘Of course, sir. I won’t let the boys press me like that again.’ He bowed deeply once more and left the room. I stared at the closed door.

‘He made the boys go out and drill,’ Guy said. ‘I saw it. Timothy at least did not want to.’

‘That man is a liar and a rogue.’

Guy smiled sadly, raising an eyebrow. ‘You do not think he killed the Scottish King?’