C Sansom - Sovereign

‘You nearly gave me a seizure.’

‘Sorry.’ He looked around him. ‘Not much of a place, is it?’

‘No.’ I looked at the gravestone. ‘Poor Blaybourne’s parents, they did not live long after their son disappeared. Cecily Neville must have had him declared dead.’ The import of his words earlier suddenly struck me. ‘Wait – you said – you know Giles Wrenne was Blaybourne’s son?’

‘I guessed. And there were some things you said, when you were delirious.’

My eyes widened. ‘What things?’

‘Once you shouted out that Wrenne was England’s true King, and should be set on a great throne. Then you wept. Another time Tamasin said you were shouting out about papers that burned in Hell. I remembered you sitting poking at the fire when Tamasin and I came in that night, and put two and two together.’

I looked at him seriously. ‘You know how dangerous that knowledge is.’

He shrugged. ‘Without those papers, who can prove anything? You burned them all, didn’t you?’

‘Yes. I did not want to tell you, it is better no one else knows the truth.’

He nodded slowly, then looked at me again. ‘You killed him, didn’t you? Wrenne?’

I bit my lip and sighed deeply. ‘It will haunt me till I die.’

‘It was self-defence. There was no alternative.’

‘No.’ I sighed again. ‘I held his head under the water until he drowned. Then I turned the body over so he lay face down and it would look as though he had fallen in and drowned himself. That was how you found him, Jack. With the great lump they found inside him, it was enough for the coroner.’

‘Who was Wrenne going to give the papers to?’

‘He was going to look for supporters of the conspiracy in London. Ironically his original contact was Bernard Locke.’

‘I suppose there still are some conspirators in London.’

I shrugged. ‘I suppose so. Perhaps the King in his foolishness and tyranny will create another opportunity for them to gain support. Perhaps not. Either way I want nothing to do with it.’

We stood looking in silence at the old gravestone. Then Barak asked, ‘Why come here? Curiosity?’

I laughed sadly. ‘When I recovered from my fever and learned Wrenne had been buried in London with none but you and Tamasin and Joan at his funeral, I had a crazed idea of having the body exhumed and burying him again down here. Guilt, I suppose.’ I pointed at the gravestone. ‘They were his grandparents, after all. And King Edward IV’s,’ I added.

‘You owe him nothing,’ Barak said.

‘It was a crazed notion, as I said; perhaps I was still a little delirious.’

‘You should feel no guilt over him.’ Barak paused. ‘Nor over your father.’

I nodded slowly. ‘No. You are right. I have paid my father’s mortgage, put a fine marble headstone over his grave. I shall visit it soon. But I see now that we were always distant, always apart. That was the way it was and there is no point in regretting it now.’

‘No.’

‘But I wanted to come here. To see. I still cannot quite come to terms with how Giles lied to me, tried to kill me at the end. But that is foolish, people betray each other all the time and for far lesser causes than he believed he had.’

‘What will you do with his library?’

‘I do not know.’ We had found Wrenne’s will with his possessions. No mention of his dead nephew, of course. He had bequeathed everything to Madge except the library, which he had left to me as he had promised. ‘I do not want it. But there are certain things – a picture, perhaps some other items – that should be destroyed.’ I looked at him. ‘Will you do that? Go to York again for me, now the winter is ending? Madge plans to keep living in the house, her attorney’s letter said.’

He made a face. ‘Visit the damp demesne of York again? Eat her pottage? Only if I must.’

‘After you have done that I think I will get in touch with Master Leland the antiquarian, see if there is anything he wants. I suppose you had better bring back the old lawbooks. Gray’s Inn library could use those.’ I smiled mirthlessly. ‘There may be some old forgotten cases there that I can quote in court.’

‘I might see Maleverer there. Now he has lost his place on the Council of the North I can thumb my nose at the arsehole.’

I laughed. ‘That he would not like. I suspected him for a while, you know. But you were right, he was too stupid to plot anything. There was nothing behind that bluster of his, he was an empty vessel. Yes, thumb your nose if you see him.’

Barak looked at me. ‘There is something I have been meaning to tell you. Now might be a good time.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘I have asked Tamasin to marry me.’

‘It did not take her too long to bring you round, then.’

‘No.’ He laughed. ‘She has agreed.’ He looked down, nudging a loose stone with his boot. ‘And we were careless. It seems I may have a son myself before long.’ He laughed again, embarrassed. ‘Perhaps one day someone will make him king. He could start another reformation, bring England back to the faith of my Jewish ancestors.’

‘That would be something.’ I looked at him. ‘You are sure it is what you want, this marriage?’

‘Yes,’ he said decidedly.

‘You will suit each other well. Perhaps she will make you tidier in your habits when she is mistress of your home, and we shall have a neater office.’

‘She can try.’

‘Thank you for all you did,’ I said quietly. ‘At York and afterwards. You stayed steadfast and loyal, while I was unfair to Tamasin.’

‘’S all right.’ He smiled. ‘ ’Tis time to settle down at last. Unless you grub up more adventures.’

‘Never,’ I said. ‘Never again so long as I live. But I have grubbed up something else.’

‘Oh?’

‘Cranmer has written to me. I think he feels guilty for my time in the Tower, perhaps for cozening me into that job in York in the first place. He is a complicated man. I think the things he feels he must do bring him disquiet, in a way they never did to Thomas Cromwell. There is a vacancy for an advocate in the Court of Requests, and he has put my name forward. Things are changing again. The Duke of Norfolk has lost his place now Queen Catherine has fallen. His whole family are in disgrace. The reformers like Cran-mer have access to patronage again. The pay could be better, but anyway it will suffice now I have paid off that damned mortgage on my father’s farm. I will be working for common folk, ordinary people. I think I would like that.’

He smiled. ‘No more arse-licking to rich clients.’

I laughed. ‘No.’

‘Then I’d like it too.’

I rubbed my hands together. ‘Then shall we start with Sergeant Leacon, get his family their lands back?’

‘Yes.’ Barak extended his hand, and I shook it. Not all men betray, I thought. We turned away, leaving the true ancestors of our false King to their eternal rest.

The major political significance of Henry VIII’s great Progress to the North of 1541 has been largely overlooked by historians, perhaps distracted by the wholly unexpected exposure just afterwards of Catherine Howard’s liaison with Thomas Culpeper. In Sovereign I have followed David Starkey’s interpretation of their relationship (Six Wives, 2003), that it probably went no further than flirtation. Cranmer was the key figure in Catherine’s interrogation, and her downfall was a setback for the religious conservatives at Henry’s court, especially her uncle the Duke of Norfolk. Henry’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr, whom he married a year later, was a strong reformist.

I have made one alteration to historical fact: Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolk was in fact co-organizer of the Progress along with the Duke of Suffolk and was present in York. However, as he featured so prominently in the last Shardlake novel, Dark Fire, I thought it would overcomplicate the plot if I brought him back in a minor role here. While Henry VIII did seek petitions for justice along the route, I have invented the arbitrations in York.