C Sansom - Sovereign

‘Ay. I have never had such a task as this Progress. Everywhere I have been going ahead to work with the harbingers to ensure everyone has accommodation at each stop. The problems with the rains, the King ever changing his plans.’

‘You have been with the Great Progress from the start?’

‘Ay. There has never been one anything like so large.’ He shook his head. ‘The problems, you cannot imagine. Dealing with the waste has been the worst thing. Everywhere we stop vast pits have to be dug. With three thousand people, five thousand great horses, you may imagine?’

‘Cannot the local people use the dung for manure?’

‘There was far more than they need. And the stink, you can imagine…’

‘I can.’

‘Even with the pits, all the road from London to Hull is littered with rubbish. It has been a nightmare, sir, a nightmare.’ He shook his head. ‘And my poor wife left behind in London.’

‘You are married?’

‘Ay. Seven children we have.’ He smiled with pride. ‘And you, sir?’

‘No, I have never married. This, by the way, is my assistant. Master Barak.’

Craike studied Barak solemnly with his pale-blue eyes. ‘You will need him, all the work there is here. As for me, I am surrounded by incompetents. So much to be got ready. Indeed I fear I cannot spare much time now, though I am glad to see you again. But I will show you your quarters.’

I nodded at the manor house. ‘That is a fine building.’

‘Ay. It was the abbot’s house. The King will be staying there when he arrives – it has been renamed King’s Manor in his honour.’

‘Perhaps we may have an opportunity to meet later, discuss old times.’

‘I should like that, sir. I will if I can -’ He broke off, as the two women came round the corner, and a hunted look came into his face. ‘God’s death,’ he muttered, ‘not Lady Rochford again.’

I started, for that was a name whose mention could send a shudder through any group. The three of us bowed hastily. As we rose I looked more closely at the square-faced woman. Her high-coloured features were still set in an angry frown, and I noticed she seemed strung tight with nervous tension. Her companion, who was holding the plan the official had been showing them, saw me studying her mistress and gave me another disapproving look.

‘Master Craike!’ Lady Rochford snapped. ‘Your churl of a planmaster cannot answer the simplest question. I want to know, sir, is there a privy way out of this house on this side that the Queen might take? She is terrified of fire, when she was a girl in Horsham the house near burned down -’

‘I am sorry, my lady-’

‘Pox on sorry! Jennet, the plan! Hurry, woman!’

Her companion held it up. Craike laid it out on his desk, studied it a moment and then pointed out a door. ‘There. The privy kitchen is nearest.’

‘Is it guarded?’

‘No, madam.’

‘Then I will need a set of keys. Arrange it. Jennet, come on, do not stand there like a lost sheep!’ And with that, Lady Rochford snatched the plan and the two women left, holding their skirts up above the muddy ground.

Craike wiped his brow. ‘By heaven, that woman’s an ogre.’

‘Ay. I know her history. Who is her sour-faced companion?’

‘Mistress Jennet Marlin, a maid in waiting. She has cause to look sour. Her fiancé is in the Tower, accused of a part in the conspiracy.’

‘She’s local, then?’

‘Ay, she was picked to come to York for her local knowledge. There’s no taint of disloyalty against her, her family are reformers.’ Craike made a little moue of distaste, faint but enough to show me where he stood in matters of religion. ‘Come, I’ll take you to your accommodation. It’s not the best, I fear, but in a few days there will be thousands here. Thousands.’ He shook his head.

‘Four days now until they come, is it not?’

‘Ay. I have to send my officers to the inns today, to check all is ready. Something can always go wrong. By Our Lady, the trouble we had during the rains in July. The number of carts broken and stuck in the mud, they nearly called the whole thing off.’

‘I am sure all will be well,’ I said with a smile. I had a sudden memory of Craike as a student in the Lincoln’s Inn library, working late on his exercises – surrounded by papers, his hands stained with ink, determined everything should be exactly right.

‘I hope so,’ he answered with a sigh. ‘The itinerary has been constantly changed, it has driven me half mad. The King was supposed to be in Pontefract two days and stayed near two weeks, and now he’s diverted to Hull.’

‘Perhaps to allow time to finish all this work going on in the forecourt, those pavilions. What is it all for?’

Craike looked uncomfortable. ‘I am sorry, I may not say. It will be announced when the Progress arrives.’ He stepped away, leading us to the monastic church. ‘But the work – it is a nightmare, a nightmare!’

Barak grinned at his back. He seemed to be in a better mood since meeting the girl. ‘Was he always like this?’ he whispered.

‘He was the most conscientious student I ever met. Everything had to be done just right.’

‘That’s a recipe for a seizure.’

I laughed. ‘Come, or he’ll leave us behind.’

As we reached the church I saw that many of the stained-glass windows had been removed, while others were broken. A dark-haired, middle-aged man stood on a ladder some distance off, carefully removing a pane. At the foot of the ladder an enormous black horse stood grazing beside a high-sided wagon.

‘The glass is all going, then,’ I observed to Craike. ‘It’ll make the church look bleak when the King comes.’

‘That glazier is trying to get as many windows as possible out before the Progress arrives, for the King will want to see it has been put beyond use.’

At the sound of our voices, the glazier stopped working and looked down. He had a thin, careworn face and sharp, watchful eyes.

Craike called up to him. ‘How goes it, Master Oldroyd?’

‘Well enough, maister, thank you.’

‘Will you have all the windows out before the King comes?’

‘Ay, sir. I’ll be here at first light every day till ’tis done.’

Craike led us up the worn steps of the church. The great door stood half open, a trail of muddy footprints leading in; evidently the church had become a thoroughfare.

It had been a magnificent place once. Great decorated arches and pillars rose to dizzying heights, richly painted in green and ochre; the floor was of decorated tiles in many designs. Lit with candles, it would have been an awesome sight. Now, though, the many empty windows cast a cold dim light on side-chapels stripped of furniture and empty niches where statues had stood, some now lying in pieces on the floor. A trail of mud and broken tiles marked a shortcut leading to another half-open door at the south end of the nave. As we walked down the gutted church, our footsteps echoed eerily in a silence that contrasted strangely with the bustle outside. I shivered.

‘Ay, ’tis cold,’ Master Craike said. ‘We’re near the river here, ’tis a damp and foggy place.’

I saw that a considerable number of wooden stalls had been erected along the walls. Some horses already stood there though many were empty. Piles of straw spilled out on to the aisle.

Barak pointed at a stall. ‘There’s Sukey and Genesis.’

‘They’re using this place as a stable?’ I asked incredulously.

‘The horses of the courtiers and the senior servants will all be stabled here. ’Tis a sensible use of the space, though it seems sacrilegious, even if the church has been deconsecrated.’

We stepped out of the south door into a second large courtyard, just as bustling. More buildings were set along the walls, and there was an imposing gatehouse and another smaller church. This was still in one piece, the parish church perhaps. In the yard all manner of produce was being unloaded from carts: apples and pears by the sackful, heaps of charcoal and bundles of faggots, armfuls of candles of every size, and bale after bale of hay. Servants were carrying the goods to the buildings and to a series of temporary huts. Rows of stockades had been erected, accommodating a whole flock of sheep, numerous cows and even some deer. In one enclosure hundreds of fowls, jumbled together, were pecking the ground bare. I saw hens and ducks, turkeys and even a pair of great bustard, their giant wings docked. Nearby a gang of men was laying pipes in a trench that ran down to the south wall of the monastery. There, through an open gate, I glimpsed mudflats and a wide grey river. I shook my head. ‘I’ve never seen such labour.’