Revelation

MACMILLAN

First published 2008 by Macmillan an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London ni 9rr Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world www.panmacmillan.com

Copyright © C.J. Sansom 2008

The right of C.J. Sansom to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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135798642

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Map artwork by Neil Cower

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Chapter One

The high chandeliers in the Great Hall of Lincoln's Inn were ablaze with candles, for it was late afternoon when the play began. Most members of Lincoln's Inn were present, the barristers in their robes and their wives in their best costumes. After an hour standing watching, my back was starting to ache, and I envied the few elderly and infirm members who had brought stools.

The performance of a play at Lincoln's Inn, traditionally held in March, had been cancelled earlier in the month because of heavy snow; late in the month now, it was still unseasonably cold, the breath of actors and audience visible, wafting up like smoke to the high roof' beams. The play that year was a new Interlude, The Trial of Treasure, a heavy-handed moral fable with the gorgeously robed actors portraying the vices and virtues of mankind. As the actor playing Virtue, resplendent in pale robes and a long, white, false beard, lectured Dissimulation on his deceitful ways — appropriately, perhaps, to an audience of lawyers — my attention wandered. I cast my eyes over the shadowed faces of the audience. Treasurer Rowland, a thin-faced, acerbic old man, was eyeing the actors as though wondering whether it might have been better hiring a troupe with less expensive costumes even if this play required no elaborate scenery. Across from me I saw my old enemy Stephen Bealknap, his greedy pale blue eyes studying his fellow lawyers. Those eyes were never still, would never meet yours, and as he saw me looking at him his gaze slid away. He was perhaps the crookedest lawyer I had ever come across; it still smarted that eighteen months before I had been forced to abandon a case against him through the ruthless machinations of his patron, Richard Rich. It struck me that he looked tired, ill.

Some distance away my friend Roger Elliard, to whose house I was invited to a dinner afterwards, held his wife's hand. A new scene had begun; Lust had made a pact of fellowship with Inclination To Evil. Embracing him, Lust was suddenly seized with pain and crouched on his knees.

Out alas, what sudden passion is this,

I am so taken that I cannot stand,

the cramp, the cramp has touched me,

I shall die without remedy now out of hand.

The actor, struck down by divine judgement, stretched out a trembling hand to the audience. I saw Bealknap look at him with a sort of puzzled contempt; Roger, though, turned suddenly away. I knew why; I would talk to him later.

At last the play ended; the players bowed, the audience clapped, and we got our cold limbs into motion and stepped out into Gatehouse Court. The sun was just setting, illuminating the redbrick buildings and the melting snow in the courtyard with an umber light. People walked away to the gate, or if they lived at Lincoln's Inn stepped homewards, wrapping their coats around them. I waited in the doorway for the Elliards, nodding to acquaintances. The audience were the only ones abroad, for it was a Saturday out of law term, Palm Sunday Eve. I looked across to the Elliards' lodgings. All the windows were lit and servants could be seen within, bustling with trays. Dorothy's dinners were well known around the Inn, and even at the end of Lent, with red meat forbidden, I knew that she would have large tabling and good belly cheer for the group they had invited.

Despite the cold I felt relaxed, more peaceful than I had for a long time. In just over a week it would be Easter Sunday, and also the twenty-fifth of March, the official start of the New Year of 1543. Sometimes in recent years I had wondered at this time what grim events the coming year might bring. But I reflected that now I had only good and interesting work, and times with good friends, to look forward to. That morning while dressing I had paused to study my face in the steel mirror in my bedroom; something I seldom did, for the sight of my humped back still distressed me. I saw streaks of grey in my hair, deepening lines on my face. Yet I thought perhaps they gave me something of a distinguished look; and I had passed forty the previous year, I could no longer expect to look young.

That afternoon, before the performance, I had walked down to the Thames, for I had heard the ice was breaking up at last after the long, bitter winter. I stood at Temple Stairs and looked down at the river. True enough, huge chunks of ice tumbled against each other with great crashes and creaks amid roiling grey waters. I walked back through soft, melting snow, thinking that perhaps spring was coming at last.

Standing in the doorway of the Hall, I shivered suddenly despite my heavy fur-lined coat, for though the air was definitely warmer today it was still chill and I had never put back the flesh I lost in my bad fever eighteen months before. I jumped slightly as someone clapped me on the shoulder. It was Roger, his slim form swathed in a heavy coat. Beside him his wife Dorothy, her plump cheeks red with cold, smiled at me. Her brown hair was gathered under a round French hood set with pearls.

'You were in a brown study, Matthew,' Roger said. 'Reflecting on the high moral sentiments of the play?'

'High as a house but heavy as a horse,' Dorothy said.

'That they were,' I agreed. 'Who chose it?'

'The Treasurer.' Roger looked to where Rowland was talking to an ancient judge, nodding his head gravely. Roger lowered his voice. 'He wanted something that wasn't politically contentious. Wise in these days. But an Italian comedy would have been better.'

We walked across the courtyard together. I noticed the snow on the Gatehouse Court fountain, which had been frozen this last three months, was almost gone, revealing patches of grey ice. Soon perhaps the fountain would be working again, its gentle plashing sounding across the court. A few coins were exposed on the ice; even with the fountain frozen people still threw money in with a prayer for victory in a case or luck in an affair of the heart; for though they might deny it, lawyers were as superstitious as other men.

Roger's steward, an old man called Elias who had been with the family for years, greeted us at the door and took me upstairs to wash my hands. Then I went into the parlour, where fat candles cast a warm buttery light on the chairs and cushions. A dozen guests, all barristers and their wives, already sat or lounged, served with wine by Elias and a boy. A roaring fire warmed the room, bringing sweet smells from the scented herbs on the wooden floor, its light glinting on the silverware on the clotlvcovered table. The walls were decorated with framed portraits in the new fashion, mostly of biblical characters. Above the large fireplace stood one of the best pieces of furniture in Lincoln's Inn, Roger's pride and joy. It was a large, carved wooden frieze of intricate design, the branches of trees in full leaf interlaced with flowers and fruits, the heads of animals peering through, deer and boar and even a unicorn. Roger stood beside it, talking to Ambrose Loder from my chambers. His slim form was animated, his fine hands waving as he made some point to the plump barrister, who stood immobile, a sceptical look on his red face.

Dorothy stood beside him, wearing an expression of good-natured amusement, her colourful clothes a contrast to the black robes of the two lawyers. She wore a green damask dress with gold piping down the front, and a high collar open at the throat; it suited her well. Seeing me, she excused herself and came across.

I had known Dorothy near twenty years. She was the daughter of a serjeant in my first chambers. We had both been in our early twenties then and I had at once been attracted to Dorothy's elegance, wit and kind nature — a rare combination. She seemed to like my company too, never seemed to mind my bent back, and we became good friends. After a while I dared to think of trying to turn friendship into something more. I had given no signs of my real feelings, though, and therefore had only myself to blame when I learned that Roger, my friend and colleague, had already proposed marriage and been accepted. He later said — and I believed him — that he had not realized my feelings for Dorothy. She had guessed, though, and tried to sweeten the pill by saying she had had a difficult choice to make. I had found that hard to believe, for Roger was handsome as well as clever, with a quicksilver, energetic grace to his movements.

Dorothy was, like me, past forty now; though apart from little wrinkles visible around her eyes she looked a good deal younger. I bent and kissed her on her full cheeks.

'A merry Palm Sunday to you, Dorothy.'

'And to you, Matthew.' She squeezed my hand. 'How is your health?'

'Good these days.' My back had often given me trouble, but these last months I had been conscientious in the exercises my physician friend Guy had prescribed, and had felt much better.

'You look well.'

'And you look younger each New Year, Dorothy. May this one bring peace and prosperity.'

'I hope so. Though there has been a strange portent, have you heard; Two huge fish washed up by the Thames. Great grey things half the size of a house. They must have been under the ice.' The twinkle in her eyes told me she found the story, like so much in the world, delightfully absurd.

'Were they alive?'

'No. They lie on the mudbanks over at Greenwich. People have been crossing London Bridge in hundreds to see them. Everyone says that coming the day before Palm Sunday it portends some terrible happening.'

'People are always finding portents these days. It is a passion now among the busy Bible-men of London.'

'True.' She gave me a searching look, perhaps catching a bitter note in my reply. Twenty years ago Dorothy and Roger and I had all been reformers, hoping for a new Christian fellowship in the world. They still did. But though many of their guests had also been reformers in the early days, most had now retreated to a quiet professional life, frightened and disillusioned by the tides of religious conflict and repression that had flowed ever higher in the decade since the King's break with Rome. I wondered if Dorothy guessed that, for me, faith was almost gone.

She changed the subject. 'For us at least the news has been good. We had a letter from Samuel today. The roads to Bristol must be open again.' She raised her dark eyebrows. 'And reading between the lines, I think he has a girl.'

Samuel was Roger and Dorothy's only child, the apple of their eye. Some years before, the family had moved to Bristol, Roger's home town, where he had obtained the post of City Recorder. He had returned to practise at Lincoln's Inn a year before, but Samuel, now eighteen and apprenticed to a cloth merchant, had decided to stay behind; to the sorrow of both his parents, I knew.

I smiled gently. 'Are you sure you are not reading your wishes into his letter?'

'No, he mentions a name. Elizabeth. A merchant's daughter.'

'He will not be able to marry till after his apprenticeship.'

'Good. That will allow time to see if they are suited.' She smiled roguishly. 'And perhaps for me to send some spy to Bristol. Your assistant Barak, perhaps. I hear he is good at such jobs.'

I laughed. 'Barak is busy with my work. You must find another spy.'

'I like that sharp humour of his. Does he well?' 'He and his wife lost a child last year. It hit him hard, though he does not show it.' 'And she?'

'I have not seen Tamasin. I keep meaning to call on them at home. I must do it. She was kind to me when I had my fever.'

'The Court of Requests keeps you busy, then. And a Serjeant. I always knew you would reach that eminence one day.'

'Ay.' I smiled. 'And it is good work.' It was over a year now since Archbishop Cranmer had nominated me as one of the two barristers appointed to plead before the Court of Requests where poor men's pleas were heard. A serjeancy, the status of a senior barrister, had come with the post.

'I have never enjoyed my work so much,' I continued. 'Though the caseload is large and some of the clients - well, poverty does not make men good, or easy.'

'Nor should it,' Dorothy replied vigorously. 'It is a curse.'

'I do not complain. The work is varied.' I paused. 'I have a new case, a boy who has been put in the Bedlam. I am meeting with his parents tomorrow.'

'On Palm Sunday?'

'There is some urgency.'

'A mad client.'

'Whether he is truly mad or not is the issue. He was put there on the Privy Council's orders. It is one of the strangest matters I have ever come across. Interesting, though I wish I did not have to tangle with a Council matter.'

'You will see justice done, that I do not doubt.' She laid her hand on my arm.

'Matthew!' Roger had appeared beside me. He shook my hand vigorously. He was small and wiry, with a thin but well favoured face, searching blue eyes and black hair starting to recede. He was as full of energy as ever. Despite his winning of Dorothy all those years before, I still had the strongest affection for him.

'I hear Samuel has written,' I said.

'Ay, the imp. At last!'

'I must go to the kitchen,' Dorothy said. 'I will see you shortly, Matthew. Talk to Roger, he has had an interesting idea.' I bowed as she left, then turned back to Roger. 'How have you been?' I asked quietly.

He lowered his voice. 'It has not come on me again. But I will be glad when I have seen your doctor friend.'

'I saw you look away when Lust was suddenly struck down during the play.'

'Ay. It frightens me, Matthew.' Suddenly he looked vulnerable, like a little boy. I pressed his arm.

In recent weeks Roger had several times unexpectedly lost his balance and fallen over, for no apparent reason. He feared he was developing the falling sickness, that terrible affliction where a man or woman, quite healthy in other ways, will periodically collapse on the ground, out of their senses, writhing and grunting. The illness, which was unbeatable, was regarded by some as a kind of temporary madness and by others as evidence of possession by an evil spirit. The fact that spectacular symptoms could erupt at any moment meant people avoided sufferers. It would mean the end of a lawyer's career.

I pressed his arm. 'Guy will find the truth of it, I promise.' Roger had unburdened himself to me over lunch the week before, and I had arranged for him to see my physician friend as soon as possible - in four days' time.

Roger smiled crookedly. 'Let us hope it is news I shall care to hear.' He lowered his voice. 'I have told Dorothy I have been having stomach pains. I think it best. Women only worry.'

'So do we, Roger.' I smiled. 'And sometimes without cause. There could be many reasons for this falling over; and remember; you have had no seizures.'

'I know. 'Tis true.'

'Dorothy tells me you have had some new idea,' I said, to distract him.

'Yes.' He smiled wryly. 'I was telling friend Loder about it, but he seems little interested.' He glanced over his guests. 'None of us here is poor,' he said quietly.

He took my arm, leading me away a little. 'I have been reading Roderick Mors' new book, the Lamentation of a Christian against the City of London.'

'You should be careful. Some call it seditious.'

'The truth affrights them.' Roger's tones were quiet but intense. 'By Jesu, Mors' book is an indictment of our city. It shows how all the wealth of the monasteries has gone to the King or his courtiers.

The monastic schools and hospitals closed down, the sick left to fend for themselves. The monks' care was niggardly enough but now they have nothing. It shames us all, the legions of miserable people lying in the streets, sick and half dead. I saw a boy in a doorway in Cheapside yesterday, his bare feet half rotted away with frostbite. I gave him sixpence, but it was a hospital he needed, Matthew.' 'But as you say, most have been closed.'

'Which is why I am going to canvass for a hospital funded by the Inns of Court. With an initial subscription, then a fund for bequests and donations from the lawyers.'

'Have you spoken to the Treasurer?'

'Not yet.' Roger smiled again. 'I am honing my arguments on these fellows.' He nodded towards the plump form of Loder. 'Ambrose there said the poor offend every passer-by with their dangerous stinks and vapours; he might pay money to have the streets cleared. Others complain of importunate beggars calling everywhere for God's penny. I promise them a quiet life. There are arguments to persuade those who lack charity.' He smiled, then looked at me seriously. 'Will you help;'

I considered a moment. 'Even if you succeed, what can one hospital do in the face of the misery all around;'

'Relieve a few poor souls.'

'I will help you if I can.' If anyone could accomplish this task it was Roger. His energy and quick wits would count for much. 'I will subscribe to your hospital, and help you raise subscriptions, if you like.'

Roger squeezed my arm. 'I knew you would help me. Soon I will organize a committee—'

'Another committee;' Dorothy had returned, red'faced from the heat of the kitchen. She looked quizzically at her husband. Roger put his arm round her waist.

'For the hospital, sweetheart.'

'People will be hard to persuade. Their purses smart from all the King's taxes.'

'And may suffer more,' I said. 'They say this new Parliament will be asked to grant yet more money for the King to go to war with France.'

'The waste,' Roger said bitterly. 'When one thinks of how the money could be used. But yes, he will see this as the right time for such an enterprise. With the Scotch King dead and this baby girl on their throne, they cannot intervene on the French side.'

I nodded agreement. 'The King has sent the Scotch lords captured after Solway Moss back home; it is said they have sworn oaths to bring a marriage between Prince Edward and the baby Mary.'

'You are well informed as ever, Matthew,' Dorothy said. 'Does Barak still bring gossip from his friends among the court servants?'

'He does.'

'I have heard that the King is after a new wife.'

'They have been saying that since Catherine Howard was executed,' Roger said. 'Who is it supposed to be now?'

'Lady Latimer,' Dorothy replied. 'Her husband died last week. There is to be a great funeral the day after tomorrow. 'Tis said the King has had a fancy for her for some years, and that he will move now.'

I had not heard that rumour. 'Poor woman,' I said. I lowered my voice. 'She needs fear for her head.'

'Yes.' Dorothy nodded, was quiet for a second, then raised her voice and clapped her hands. 'Dinner is ready, my friends.'

We all walked through to the dining room. The long old oaken dining table was set with plates of silver, and servants were laying out dishes of food under Elias' supervision. Pride of place went to four large chickens; as it was still Lent the law would normally have allowed only fish to be eaten at this time, but the freezing of the river that winter had made fish prohibitively expensive and the King had given permission for people to eat white meat.

We took our places. I sat between Loder, with whom Roger had been arguing earlier, and James Ryprose, an elderly barrister with bristly whiskers framing a face as wrinkled as an old apple-john.

Opposite us sat Dorothy and Roger and Mrs Loder, who was as plump and contented-looking as her husband. She smiled at me, showing a full set of white teeth, and then to my surprise reached into her mouth and pulled out both rows. I saw the teeth were fixed into two dentures of wood, cut to fit over the few grey stumps that were all that was left of her own teeth.

'They look good, do they not'' she asked, catching my stare. 'A barber-surgeon in Cheapside made them up for me. I cannot eat with them, of course.'

'Put them away, Johanna,' her husband said. 'The company does not want to stare at those while we eat.' Johanna pouted, so far as an almost toothless woman can, and deposited the teeth in a little box which she put away in the folds of her dress. I repressed a shudder. I found the French fashion some in the upper classes had adopted for wearing mouthfuls of teeth taken from dead people, rather gruesome.

Roger began talking about his hospital again, addressing his arguments this time to old Ryprose. 'Think of the sick and helpless people we could take from the streets, maybe cure.'

'Ay, that would be a worthwhile thing,' the old man agreed. 'But what of all the fit sturdy beggars that infest the streets, pestering one for money, sometimes with threats? What is to be done with them; I am an old man and sometimes fear to walk out alone.'

'Very true.' Brother Loder leaned across me to voice his agreement. 'Those two that robbed and killed poor Brother Goodcole by the gates last November were masterless servants from the monasteries. And they would not have been caught had they not gone bragging of what they had done in the taverns where they spent poor Goodcole's money, and had an honest innkeeper not raised the constable.'

'Ay, ay.' Ryprose nodded vigorously. 'No wonder masterless men beg and rob with impunity, when all the city has to ensure our safety are a few constables, most nearly as old as me.'

'The city council should appoint some strong men to whip them out of the city,' Loder said.

'But, Ambrose,' his wife said quietly. 'Why be so harsh; When you were younger you used to argue the workless poor had a right to be given employment, the city should pay them to do useful things like pave the streets. You were always quoting Erasmus and Juan Vives on the duties of a Christian Commonwealth towards the unfortunate.' She smiled at him sweetly, gaining revenge perhaps for his curt remark about her teeth.

'So you were, Ambrose,' Roger said. 'I remember it well.'

'And I,' Dorothy agreed. 'You used to wax most fiercely about the duties of the King towards the poor.'

'Well, there's no interest from that quarter, so I don't see what we're supposed to do.' Loder frowned at his wife. 'Take ten thousand scabby beggars into the Inn and feed them at High Table?'

'No,' Roger answered gently. 'Merely use our status as wealthy men to help a few. Till better times come, perhaps.'

'It's not just the beggars that make walking the streets a misery,' old Ryprose added gloomily. 'There's all these ranting Bible-men springing up everywhere. There's one at the bottom of Newgate Street, stands there all day, barking and railing that the Apocalypse is coming.'

There were murmurs of agreement up and down the table. In the years since Thomas Cromwell's fall, the King's patronage of the reformers who had encouraged him to break with Rome had ended. He had never fully endorsed Lutheran beliefs, and now he was moving gradually back to the old forms of religion, a sort of Catholicism without the Pope, with increasingly repressive measures against dissentients; to deny that the bread and wine of the sacrament were transformed into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ was now a heresy attracting the death penalty. Even the doctrine of purgatory was becoming respectable again. All this was anathema to the radicals, for whom the only truth was to be found in the Bible. The persecution had only driven many reformers towards the radical fringes, and in London especially they were daring and vocal.

'Do you know what I saw in the street today?' another guest said. 'Outside one church people were laying branches in the snow for the Palm Sunday ceremonies tomorrow. Then a rabble of apprentices appeared and kicked the branches away, calling out that it was a papist ceremony and the Pope was the Antichrist!'

'This religious radicalism gives apprentices another excuse to run wild,' Loder observed gloomily.

'There could be trouble tomorrow,' Roger said.

I nodded. On Palm Sunday the traditional churches would be having the usual ceremonies, the churchwardens dressed as prophets and a child riding in on a donkey, while the radical preachers in their churches would be calling it papist blasphemy.

'There'll be another purge,' someone said gloomily. 'I've heard rumours Bishop Bonner is going to crack down hard on the Bible-men.'

'Not more burnings,' Dorothy said quietly.

'The city wouldn't stand for that,' Loder said. 'People don't like the radicals, but they like burnings less. Bonner won't go that far.'

'Won't he?' Roger said quietly. 'Isn't he a fanatic too, on the other side? Isn't the whole city becoming divided?'

'Most people only want a quiet life,' I said. 'Even those of us who were once radicals.' I smiled wryly at Roger. He nodded in acknowledgement.

'Fanatics on both sides,' old Ryprose said gloomily. 'And all we poor ordinary folk in the middle. Sometimes I fear they will bring death to us all.'

The company broke up late, and I was one of the last to leave. I stepped out into a night that had become colder again, refrozen slush crunching under my boots. My mood was much less cheerful after the conversation round the dinner table. It was true that London was full of both beggars and fanatics now, an unhappy city. And a purge would make things worse. There was, too, something I had not told the company; the parents of the boy in the Bedlam were members of a radical Protestant congregation, and their son's mental problems were religious in nature. I wished I had not had to take the case, but I was obliged to deal with the Requests cases that were allocated to me. And his parents wanted their son released.

I paused. A quiet footstep, crunching on the slush behind me. I turned, frowning. The precincts of Lincoln's Inn were supposed to be secure, but there were places where entry could be gained. The night was dark, the moon half hidden by clouds, and at this hour only a few lighted windows cast squares of light on the snow.

'Who's that!' I called.

There was no reply, but I heard the slush crackling again as someone walked rapidly away. Frowning, I followed. The sound came from the far end of the building where the Elliards lived; it adjoined the rear wall of Lincoln's Inn. I put my hand to my dagger as I rounded the corner of the building. The outer wall was ahead of me. Whoever was there was trapped. But no one was there. The little square of ground between the buildings and the twelve-foot-high rear wall, lit by the windows of the Elliards' apartment, was quite empty. A shiver trickled down my spine.

Then I saw the snow on top of the wall had been disturbed. Whoever it was had climbed over. I stood and stared; to scale that wall would require a good deal of strength and agility. I was not sure I would have said it was possible, but the empty yard and the disturbed snow told their own tale. I frowned and turned away; I would tell the watchman that broken glass should be set atop the wall.

Chapter Two

Next morning I set out early for my chambers; the parents of the boy who had been put in the Bedlam were due at nine. The details the Court of Requests had sent me were sketchy, but enough to be worrying. The Privy Council itself had put him there, 'for blaspheming true religion in his madcap frenzy', as their resolution put it, without even an indictment in the bishop's court. The matter was therefore political, and dangerous. I tried to reassure myself again that any involvement I had would be in a purely legal capacity, but cursed the luck that had sent this case to me rather than to my fellow pleader.

The papers described the boy, Adam Kite, as the son of a master stonemason and a communicant at St Martin's church, Creek Lane. I had got Barak to investigate and he had reported back that the vicar was, as he put it, a 'great railer and thunderer'.

This was unwelcome news. In the dealings I had had with the godly men I had found them difficult to deal with, crude hard men who drove at you with biblical verses like a carpenter hammering in nails.

I was jerked from my worrisome thoughts as I slipped on a patch of slush and almost fell over. Somebody laughed.

All over the city, church bells were ringing for the Palm Sunday services. These days I only went to church when it was expected; next Sunday I would have to take Mass and make my annual confession. I was not looking forward to it. The topsy-turvy weather was warmer again, and Chancery Lane was muddy as a farmyard. As I passed under Lincoln's Inn Gatehouse I wondered if the Treasurer would do anything to secure that wall. I had told the gatekeeper to inform him of my near-encounter last night.

I felt something wet hit my face; another drop followed and I realized it was raining, the first rain after two months of snow. By the time I reached my chambers it was coming on heavily and my cap was soaked. To my surprise, Barak was already in the outer office. He had lit the fire and sat at the big table, getting papers in order for tomorrow's court session. Plaints, affidavits and statements were piled around him. His handsome, impish features looked tired, his eyes bloodshot. And his face was stubbly.

'You need to get a shave, or the judge will be calling you out for a disrespectful demeanour.' Though I spoke roughly, Barak and I had a fast friendship. We had originally come together on an assignment for Barak's late master, the King's Minister Thomas Cromwell. After Cromwell's execution three years before, Barak had come to work for me, an unorthodox assistant but an efficient one.

'All right,' he said grumpily. 'The madwag's parents are due soon.'

'Don't call him that,' I said as I looked through the papers he had prepared. Everything was in order, annotations made in Barak's spidery handwriting. 'In on Sunday?' I asked. 'You were here yesterday too? You are neglecting poor Tamasin.'

'She's all right.' Barak rose and began filing away books and papers. I looked at his broad back, wondering what was wrong between him and his wife that he should thus drag out his time at work and, by the look of him, stay out all night. Tamasin was a pretty girl, as spirited as Barak, and he had been happy to marry her last year even though they had been forced into a speedy wedding by her pregnancy. Their son had died the day he was born and in the months since, though Barak had been as cheerfully irreverent as ever, there was often something forced about his banter, at times something haunted in his eyes. I knew the loss of a child could bring some couples closer, but drive others apart.

'You saw Adam Kite's parents yesterday when they called to make their appointment,' I said. 'Goodman Kite and his wife. What are they like?'

He turned back to me. 'Working people, he's a stonemason. He started on about God's mercy in allowing them to take their case to Requests, how He doesn't abandon the true faithful.' Barak wrinkled his nose. 'They look like some of the busy Bible folk to me. Though the godly folk I have seen mostly seem very satisfied with themselves, and the Kites looked like a pair of squished cats.'

'Not surprising given what's happened.'

‘I know.' Barak hesitated. 'Will you have to go there, among all the lunatics tearing their clothes and clanking their chains?'

'Probably.' I looked again at the papers. 'The boy is seventeen. Brought before the Council on the third of March for frantic and lewd behaviour at the Preaching Cross in St Paul's churchyard, railing there "with strange moans and shrieks". Committed to the Bedlam in the hope of a cure. No further order. No examination by a doctor or jury of his state of health. That's improper.'

Barak looked at me seriously. 'He's lucky they didn't arraign him for a heretic. Remember what happened to Richard Mekins and John Collins.'

'The Council are more careful now.'

Mekins was a fifteen-year-old apprentice who eighteen months before had been burned alive at Smithfield for denying the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. The case of John Collins had been worse still, a youth who had shot an arrow at a statue of Christ inside a church. Many had also thought him insane; but the previous year the King had passed an act to allow insane persons to be executed, and Collins too was burned to death. The cruelty of these cases had turned the populace against Bishop Bonner's harsh religious rule of the city. There had been no burnings since.

'They say Bonner's after the radicals again,' Barak observed.

'So people were saying at dinner last night. What do you think's going on, Jack?' Barak still had friends among those who worked on the more shady fringes of the King's court, those who frequented the taverns and alehouses and reported back on the state of public opinion. I had gained the impression that recently he had spent a lot of time drinking with these disreputable old friends.

He looked at me seriously again. 'The word is that now Scotland has been removed as a threat, the King wants to make an alliance with Spain and go to war against France. But to be acceptable to the Emperor Charles he'll have to be seen to be hard on heretics. They say he's going to try and get a law through this Parliament banning women and common folk from reading the Bible, and give Bishop Bonner encouragement to crack down on the London Bible-men. That's what they're saying at Whitehall, anyway. So I'd be careful in handling this one.'

'I see. Thank you.' This only made matters more delicate. I essayed a smile. 'The other thing they were gossiping about last night is that the King is after a new wife. Lady Latimer.'

'That's true as well, from what I'm told. But he's having trouble this time. The lady doesn't want him.'

'She has refused him?' I asked, surprised.

'So they say. Can't blame her. The King's got ulcers on both legs now, they have to carry him around Whitehall in a cart half the time. They say he gets fatter every month, and worse tempered. They say she is interested in someone else too.'

'Who?'

'That's not spoken of.' He hesitated. 'This Adam Kite looby might be better off if he stays in the Bedlam. So might you, rather than tangle with the Privy Council again.'

I sighed. 'I'm only acting as a lawyer.'

'You can't hide behind the law once these people get involved. You know that.' I could see Barak was as worried as I of going near some of the mighty enemies we had made in the past. The Duke of Norfolk and Richard Rich both sat on the Privy Council.

'It's ill luck they passed this to me instead of Herriott to deal with,' I said. 'But I've got it now, so I'll just have to handle it with care. I'll take tomorrow's papers through. Send the Kites in directly when they arrive.'

I went to my inner office and closed the door. Barak's words had unsettled me. I crossed to the mullioned window. The rain was coming down harder, splashing on the pane and distorting my view of Gatehouse Court. I shivered a little, for the sound of hard rain always brought back the terrible night eighteen months before, when for the first and only time I had killed a man. If I had not he would certainly have murdered me, yet even now his awful drowning gasps haunted me. I sighed deeply, ruefully recalling my good mood the evening before. Had my acknowledgement that I felt happy tempted a malign fate?

Bedlam, I thought. The very name brought fear and disgust in London. For a long time the Bethlehem Hospital had been the only hospital in London that treated the insane, and although mad folks were a common enough sight begging in the streets, and many people knew some friend or family member who had been touched by sickness of the mind, people avoided the mad. For not only were they feared as dangerous or even possessed, but they reminded folk that madness could strike anyone suddenly, and in a variety of terrible forms. That was why Roger feared the falling sickness so, for the fits that attended it were a fearful sight. The Bedlam, I knew, housed only severe cases of lunacy, some of them patients from rich families, others supported by charity. Occasionally, some like Adam Kite who were a nuisance to the powers that be were deposited there out of the way.

There was a knock on the door, and Barak ushered in a middle- aged couple. I was disconcerted to see that a third person accompanied them, a clergyman in a long cassock. He was tall and spare, with bushy eyebrows, thick, iron-grey hair and a red, choleric face. The middle-aged couple were dressed in sober black, and both looked deeply dejected; the woman close to tears. She was small and thin, birdlike; her husband tall and broad with a craggy face. He bowed, and his wife curtsied deeply. The cleric gave me a bold, appraising stare, not at all intimidated by being in Lincoln's Inn, or by the sight of me in my robe, in my office full of law books.

'I am Serjeant Shardlake. You must be Master and Mistress Kite.' I smiled at the nervous couple to put them at their ease, concentrating my attention on them. I knew from long experience that when clients are accompanied by a third party, the supporter is usually far more aggressive than the client. I guessed the clergyman was their vicar, and that he would be a problem.

'Daniel Kite, at your service,' the man said, bowing. 'This is my wife, Minnie.' The woman curtsied again, and smiled uncertainly. 'It is good of you to see us on a Sunday,' Daniel Kite added.

'Palm Sunday,' the clergyman said with distaste. 'At least if we are here, we do not have to see those papist ceremonies.' He gave me a challenging look. 'I am Samuel Meaphon. This afflicted family are of my congregation.'

'Please sit,' I said. They sat in a row on a bench, Meaphon in the middle. Minnie fiddled nervously with the folds of her dress. 'I have seen the papers the court forwarded,' I told them, 'but they tell only a bare story. I would like you to tell me what happened to your son, from the beginning.'

Daniel Kite cast a nervous look at Meaphon.

'I would prefer to hear it from you and your wife, sir,' I added quickly. 'No disrespect to the good reverend, but first-hand evidence is best.' Meaphon frowned slightly, but nodded for Master Kite to continue.

'Our son Adam was a good boy until six months ago,' the father began in a sad, heavy voice. 'A lively, strapping lad. Our blessing from the Lord, for we have no other children. I had him as apprentice in my workshop, out by Billingsgate.'

'You are a stonemason;'

'Master stonemason, sir.' Despite his distress, there was a note of pride in his voice. I looked at his hands: big, callused, a mass of little scars. 'I hoped Adam might follow me into the business. He was a hard worker; and a faithful attender at our church.'

'That he was.' Reverend Meaphon nodded emphatically. 'We are true Bible folk, sir.' A slight note of challenge crept into Kite's voice.

'However the sinful world may look on us,' Meaphon added, looking at me with fierce eyes under those bushy brows.

'Whatever you tell me of your beliefs will be held in confidence,' I said.

'You do not believe as we do, I see.' There was sorrow rather than anger in Daniel Kite's voice.

'It is not my beliefs that are at issue,' I replied with what I knew was a strained smile.

Meaphon's eyes swept over me. 'I see that God has seen fit to afflict you, sir. But he has done so only that you may turn to Him for succour.'

I felt myself flush with anger that this stranger should take it on himself to refer thus to my hunched back. Minnie Kite interrupted hastily. 'We only want you to help our poor boy, sir, to tell us if the law may help us.'

'Then tell me what happened, from the beginning, straight and simple.'

Minnie quailed at the sharp note in my voice. Her husband hesitated, then continued his story.

'I told you Adam was a fine boy. But about six months ago he started to become very quiet, withdrawn into himself, sad seeming. It worried us both. Then one day I had to leave him in the shop; I came back and found him crouched on his knees in a corner. He was praying, begging the Lord to forgive him for his sins. I said, "How now, Adam. God has ordained a time for prayer and a time for work." He obeyed me then, though I remember he rose to his feet with a great sigh like I'd never heard.'

'We've heard it often enough since,' Minnie added.

'That was the start of it. We've always encouraged Adam to pray, but from then on he — he wouldn't stop.' Kite's voice broke, and I sensed the fear in him. 'Any time of day, in the workshop or even in company, he'd just drop to his knees and start praying, frantically, for God to forgive his sins and let him know he was saved. It got so he wouldn't eat, he'd lie crouched in the corner and we'd have to pull him to his feet while he resisted, made himself a dead weight. And when we made him stand, always that terrible sigh.'

'The despair in it,' Minnie added quietly. She lowered her head, but not before I saw tears in her eyes. Kite looked at me. 'He is certain that he is damned, sir.'

I looked at the three of them. I knew that the religious radicals believed with Luther that God had divided humanity into the saved and the damned, that only those who came to Him through the Bible would be saved at the Day of Judgement. The rest of humanity were condemned to burn in Hell, for ever. And they believed that the Day of Judgement, the end of the world foretold in the Book of Revelation, would soon be upon us all. I did not know how to reply. I was almost grateful to Meaphon for ending the silence.

'These good people brought their son to me,' he said. 'I spoke with Adam, tried to reassure him, told him God sometimes sends doubt to those he loves most, to try their spirits. I stayed for two whole days with him, fasting and praying, but I could not break through to him.' He shook his head. 'He resisted me sorely.'

Minnie looked up at me. Her face was bleak, bereft. 'By then, Adam was naught but skin and bone. I had to feed him with a spoon while my husband held on to him to prevent him sinking to the floor. "I must pray," he kept on. "I am not saved!" To think I should dread to hear prayer or salvation mentioned.'

'What sins does Adam believe he has committed;' I asked quietly.

'He does not say. He seems to think he has committed every sin there is. Before this he was just an ordinary cheerful boy, sometimes noisy and thoughtless, but no more than that. He has never done anything wicked.'

'Then he started leaving the house,' Daniel Kite said. 'Running away to alleyways and corners where he could pray unhindered. We had to go chasing after him.'

'We feared he would die in the cold,' Minnie added. 'He would slip away without putting on his coat and we would follow his footprints in the snow.' She banged a little fist into her lap with sudden anger. 'Oh, that he should treat his parents so. That is a sin.'

Her husband laid a work-roughened hand on hers. 'Now, Minnie, have faith. God will send an answer.' He turned back to me. 'Ten days ago, in that snowy weather when no one was going abroad unless they had to, Adam disappeared. I had him in my workshop where I could keep an eye on him, but he's become crafty as a monkey and when my back was turned he sneaked off, unlocked the door and disappeared. We went searching up and down but could not find him. Then that afternoon an official from Bishop Bonner came to see us. He said Adam had been found on his knees in the snow before the Preaching Cross in St Paul's churchyard, begging God for a sign he was saved, that he would be allowed into heaven as one of the elect. He screamed that the end of the world was coming, begged God and Jesus not to take him down to Hell at the Last Judgement.'

Minnie began to cry, and her husband stopped and bowed his head, overcome with emotion as well. The depth of the simple couple's suffering was terrible to contemplate. And what their son had done was deeply dangerous. Only licensed preachers were allowed at St Paul's, and the King's doctrine was firm that faith alone, sola fide, did not suffice to bring a man to heaven. Even less orthodox was the doctrine of mankind divided between God's elect and the damned. I looked at Meaphon. He was frowning, running his hand over the top of his thick hair.

'So then Adam was brought before the Council,' I prompted Daniel gently.

'Yes. From the bishop's jail where they put him. I was summoned to appear. I went to Whitehall Palace, to a room where four men all dressed in rich robes sat at a table in a great room.' His voice shook and a sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead at the memory. 'Adam was there, chained and with a gaoler.' He glanced at his vicar. 'Reverend Meaphon came too but they wouldn't let him speak.'

'No, they would not hear me,' Meaphon said. 'I did not expect them to,' he added with scorn.

That was probably just as well, I thought. 'Who were the men?'

'One in white robes was Archbishop Cranmer; I've seen him preach at St Paul's. There was another cleric, a big angry-looking man with brown hair. I think the two others wore robes with fur and jewels. One was a little pale man, he had a sharp voice. The other had a long brown beard and a thin face.'

I nodded slowly. The little pale man would be Sir Richard Rich, Thomas Cromwell's former protege who had joined the conservatives when Cromwell fell; a ruthless, vicious opportunist. The other man resembled descriptions I had heard of Lord Hertford, brother of the late Queen Jane and a reformer. And the angry4ooking cleric was almost certainly Bishop Bonner of London.

'What did they say to you?'

'They asked me how Adam had got into the state he was and I answered them honestly. The pale man said it sounded like heresy and the boy should be burned. But just then Adam slipped off his chair and before his guard could grab him he was down on the floor frantically asking God to save him. The councillors ordered him to rise but he took no more notice of them than if they were flies. Then the Archbishop said Adam was clearly out of his wits and he should be sent to the Bedlam to see if they could find a cure. The pale man still wanted him accused as a heretic but the other two wouldn't agree.'

'I see.' Rich, I guessed, would think having another radical Protestant burned would raise him in the favour of the traditionalists. But Cranmer, as well as being naturally merciful, would not want to further inflame London. Having Adam shut away in the Bedlam would dispose of the problem, for a while at least.

I nodded slowly. 'That raises the crucial issue.' I looked at them. 'Is Adam in fact mad?'

'I think he must be,' Minnie replied.

'If he is not mad, sir,' Daniel Kite said, 'we fear the case may be something even worse.'

'Worse?' I asked.

'Possession,' Meaphon said starkly. 'That is my fear. That a demon has hold of him and is urging him to mock God's mercy in public. And if that is so, then only by praying with Adam mightily, wrestling with the devil, can I save him.'

'Is that what you believe?' I asked the stonemason.

He looked at Meaphon, then buried his head in his big hands. 'I do not know, sir. God save my son if that should be true.'

'I think Adam is only in great confusion and fear.' Minnie looked up and met Meaphon's eye, and I realized that she was the stronger of the pair. She turned to me. 'But whatever the truth, being in the Bedlam will kill him. Adam lies in the chamber they have locked him in. It is cold, no fire. He will do nothing for himself, he just crouches there, praying, praying. And they only allow us to visit for an hour a day. They ask us for three shillings a month in fees, more than we can afford, yet they will not make him eat nor take care of himself. The keeper will be happy if he dies.' She looked at me imploringly. 'They are afraid of him.'

'Because of the fear he is possessed?'

She nodded.

'And you doubt he is?'

'I don't know, I don't know. But if he stays in the Bedlam he will die.'

'He should be released to my care,' Meaphon said. 'But they will not do that. Not the backsliders and papists on the Council.'

'Then on one thing you are all agreed,' I said. 'That he should not be in the Bedlam.'

'Ay, ay.' The boy's father nodded eagerly, relieved to find some common ground.

I thought hard a moment, then spoke quietly. 'There are two problems with this case. One is jurisdiction. Anyone who cannot afford a lawyer may bring his case before the Court of Requests, but the judge may say the matter is one of state, and should go back before the Privy Council. However, if you cannot afford the fees they charge in the Bedlam, the court may ask the Council to pay. And the court may intervene to stop poor treatment. But the matter of releasing Adam is much more difficult.' I took a deep breath. 'And what if he were released; If he were to escape again, if there were a repeat of what happened at St Paul's, he might find himself accused of heresy after all. If we could get his conditions improved, in all honesty the Bedlam may be the safest place for him, unless he can be brought to his right mind. To tangle with the Privy Council could be very dangerous.' I had not mentioned poor John Collins, but I could tell from their faces that they remembered the horror of what had happened to him.

'He must be released from that place,' Meaphon said. 'The only cure is for Adam to understand that God has sent him this trial, and he must not doubt His grace. Whether a devil has entered into him or his mind is stricken from some other cause, only I can help him, with aid from fellow ministers.' The minister looked at Adam's parents. Daniel Kite said 'Amen,' but Minnie looked down at her lap.

'His release will not happen unless the Council become convinced that he is sane,' I said. 'But there is one thing we can do. I know a physician, a clever man, who would be able to assess Adam, might even be able to help him.'

Daniel Kite shook his head firmly. 'Physicians are godless men.'

'This physician is most godly.' I thought it better not to tell them my friend Guy was a former monk, still at heart a Catholic.

Kite still looked dubious, but Minnie grasped eagerly at the straw. 'Bring him in, sir, we will try anything. But we have no money to pay him . . .'

'I am sure some arrangement can be made.'

She looked at her husband. He hesitated, looked at Meaphon and said, 'It can do no harm, sir, surely.' Meaphon looked as though he was about to disagree, and I jumped in. 'I have no doubt that is the sensible thing to do, from the point of view of Adam's interests. And in the meantime I will apply to have Adam's care monitored, and the fees remitted. There are so many cases in Requests just now that the judge is sitting out of term to clear the backlog. With luck an urgent application might be heard in a week or so.' 'Thank you, sir,' Minnie said.

'But I would not even like to try and list the matter of release without some change in Adam to report.' I looked at Meaphon. 'Such a request would simply fail.'

'Then it seems we must wait and see what the doctor says.' He spoke quietly, but his eyes were hostile.

And I think I ought to visit the Bedlam, perhaps put some fear into this keeper. And see Adam.'

The Kites exchanged uncomfortable glances. 'That would be good of you, sir,' Daniel Kite said. 'But I must tell you, my poor boy's dismal frenzy is a terrible thing to behold.'

'I have seen many sad things in my career,' I said, though in truth I quailed at the thought of this visit.

'We are going to see Adam tomorrow, at nine, sir,' Minnie said. 'Could you come then?'

'Yes, I will have time before court.'

'Do you know how to get there? Go through the Bishopsgate, sir, then look for the Bedlam gates.'

'I will be there.' I smiled at her and stood up. 'I will do what I can. But this is a most difficult matter.'

I showed them out. Meaphon hung back in the doorway after the Kites passed into the outer office. 'I do not think this doctor will have success,' he said quietly. 'God moves in strange and marvellous ways, and for all their trials and persecutions in this world, He will lead true Christians into his peace at last. Including Adam.' The grey eyes burned beneath his shaggy brows; yet it struck me that there was something oddly actorish about him, as though he were playing Virtue in a play whose audience was all London.

'Indeed,' I answered. 'I pray the poor boy may find peace.'

'We are going to our church service now,' he said. 'We shall pray hard for him.'

After they had gone I returned to my desk, looked again at the papers. Then I went and stared out at the rain-drenched court. The Kites passed the window, holding on to their caps as they bent their heads against the driving rain. 'He is not one of us,' I heard Meaphon say. 'He will not be saved at the end-time.'

I watched them as they crossed to the gate. One thing I was certain of in my own mind. Adam Kite was my responsibility now. I had to judge what was in his best interests, and I doubted very much whether an early release from the Bedlam would serve those, whatever Meaphon might say. Minnie Kite, I felt sure, would put her son's interests first and listen to me.

I went back to the outer office. Barak was sitting at the table, looking into the fire, a serious expression on his face. He jumped when I called his name.

'You look thoughtful,' I said.

'I was just wondering whether to go for a shave now or see if the rain stops. That vicar gave me a nasty look as he went by.'

'Recognized you for a godless fellow, no doubt. I overheard him kindly condemning me to eternal fire as they passed my window.' I sighed. 'Apparently he stuck Adam Kite in a room and prayed with him for two days. Made the boy fast as well, though he was already skin and bone. I almost wonder if Bonner purging the lot of them might not be a good thing. All right,' I added, as Barak looked at me in surprise. 'I didn't mean that.' I sighed. 'But I begin to wonder whether these people are the future, whether they are what religious reform is turning into. And that thought frightens me.'

'But you're taking the case?'

'I must. But I shall be very careful, do not worry about that. I want Guy to see the boy. But first I must visit him myself 'At the Bedlam?' I sighed. 'Yes, tomorrow.' 'Can I come?'

'No. I should go alone. But thank you.'

'Pity,' Barak said. 'I'd like to see if it's true the groans and shrieks can be heard across the streets, making folk scurry by.'

Chapter Three

Later that morning the rain eased off. The sun came out and the weather grew clear and cold again. My meeting with the Kites had given me much food for thought and I decided to go for a walk. Everything seemed sharper in the clear air; the naked branches of the trees were outlined against a blue sky, patches of snow were still visible in the corners of the bare brown fields behind the houses. I walked through the nearby suburbs, along Holborn and down Shoe Lane. The Palm Sunday services were under way now, and I noted as I passed how some churches had garlands on the lychgates and church doors, and greenery spread in the street outside, while others presented only their normal aspect. In one churchyard an outdoor service was taking place, a choir of white-surpliced boys singing a hymn before a garlanded cross, where three men stood dressed as prophets in long robes, with false white beards and brightly decorated headgear. I was reminded of yesterday's play.

I remembered the guest at Roger's table talking of apprentices disrupting a palm-laying ceremony. There were many stories of the religious divisions in London's forest of tiny parishes: a radical vicar in one church whitewashing over ancient wall paintings and replacing them with texts from the Bible, a conservative in another insisting on the full Latin Mass. I had recently heard of radical congregants in one church talking loudly while the sacring bell sounded, causing the traditionalist priest to lose his temper and shriek 'Heretics! Faggots! Fire!' at them. Was it any wonder that many, like myself, stayed away from church these days? Next weekend it would be Easter, when everyone was supposed by law to take confession. In London those who failed to attend were reported to Bishop Bonner, but illness or urgent pressure of business were accepted as excuses, and I decided I would argue the latter. I could not bear the thought of confessing my sins to my parish priest, a time-server whose only principle in the doctrinal struggle was to follow the wind and preserve his position. And if I were to confess, I knew that one of my sins was a long' growing, half-buried doubt whether God existed at all. That was the paradox - the vicious struggle between papists and sacramentaries was driving many away from faith altogether. Christ said, by their fruits shall you know them, and the fruits of the faithful of both sides looked more rotten each year.

As I walked down Shoe Lane, one set of decorated church doors opened and the congregation stepped out, the service over. These were very different people from those I had seen in the churchyard, the women in dark dresses, the men's doublets and coats all sober black, their manner severely reverent. Meaphon's church would be like this, the congregation a tight-knit group of radicals, for some people would up sticks and move house to find a parish where the vicar agreed with their views. If Bishop Bonner were to try to enforce all the old practices on these churches there would be serious trouble, rioting even. But he was tightening his net; a new index of prohibited books had recently been published, unlicensed preachers were being arrested. And if harsh measures were successfully enforced, I thought, what then? The radicals would only go underground; already groups of them held illegal meetings in people's houses to discuss the Bible and bolster their radical beliefs.

I was tired when I arrived back at my house in Chancery Lane, a little way up from Lincoln's Inn. The smell of broiling fish from the kitchen where my housekeeper Joan was preparing lunch was welcome, although I looked forward to the end of Lent next week when it would be legal to eat meat again. I went into my parlour and sat down by the fire, but even my welcoming hearth could not dispel the tension I felt, not just because the case of Adam Kite had drawn me into the threatening doctrinal currents washing through the city, but because they made it hard for me to avoid awareness of my own deepening unbelief.

Early next morning I set out for the Bedlam. Under my coat I wore my best robe, and I also put on my Serjeant's coif. It would do no harm to impress the warden. I confess that I was nervous at the thought of going to the asylum. I knew next to nothing of madness; I was fortunate enough never to have encountered it among my family or friends. I knew only the doctors divided the brain-sick between those suffering from mania, who often engaged in wild and frenzied behaviour, and the melancholies who withdrew from the world into sadness. Melancholy was more common, and usually less serious; I knew I had a melancholic turn of mind myself. And Adam Kite, I thought. Which is he? What is he?

The inconstant weather had turned bitter again; during the night there had been another dusting of snow, which glittered in the cold sunlight. I rode out on my good horse Genesis. I was sorry to take him from his stable but the streets were too slippery to make for easy walking and the Bedlam was on the other side of the city.

I passed under London Wall at Newgate and rode along Newgate Street to the market. Traders were setting up their stalls under the looming bulk of the abandoned church of the dissolved St Martin's friary, a few white-coifed goodwives already looking over the produce as it was laid out. As I rode past the market I heard someone shouting. On the corner where Newgate Market met the Shambles, a man in a dark doublet, coatless despite the cold, stood on an empty box waving a large black Testament at the passers-by, who mostly averted their eyes. This must be the ranter old Ryprose had mentioned at the dinner. I looked at the man: a young fellow, his face red with passion.

The butchers in the slaughterhouses behind the Shambles had already started work. Lent would be over on Thursday and already they were killing sheep and cattle. Trails of blood were trickling from the yards to the sewer channel in the centre of the frosty street. The preacher pointed to them with his Bible. 'So it will be for mankind in the last days of the world!' he shouted in a deep voice. 'Their eyeballs will melt, the skin will drop from their bones, all that will be left is their blood, deep as a horse's bridle for two hundred miles! So it is foretold in Revelation!' As I rode off down the Shambles I heard him cry, 'Only turn to God, and you will know the sweet joy of his salvation!' If the constables took him he would be in serious trouble for preaching without a licence.

Along Cheapside the bluccoated apprentices were setting up their masters' shops for the day's trade, erecting brightly coloured awnings, their breath steaming in the cold. Some were ordering away the beggars who had sought shelter in the doorways overnight, with kicks and blows if they did not move fast enough. A host of destitute men and women had already limped over to the Great Conduit to beg from those who came for water, huddling against each other on the steps that surrounded it like a flock of starveling crows. As I passed I looked into their pinched, chapped faces. One, an old man with a shock of grey hair, drooling and trembling, caught my eye. He held out a hand and called, 'Help an old monk of Glastonbury, sir. They hanged my master the abbot!' I threw a sixpence to him, and he dived for it with a sudden turn of speed, before others could.

So many homeless in the streets now. To live in London since the monasteries were dissolved was to be inured to pitiful scenes everywhere. Most people simply looked away, made the sufferers invisible. Many beggars were former monastic servants, others poor folk who had come in from the countryside where much land was being enclosed to pasture sheep, their villages demolished. And the sick who had once been able to find at least temporary shelter at the monastic hospitals now lay in the streets, and often died there. I thought, I will help Roger with his hospital scheme; I shall at least do something.

I passed under the city wall again and rode up the Bishopsgate

Street. The hospital was beyond the city walls, where new houses encroached more every year. I had gone back to Lincoln's Inn the previous afternoon, and read what I could find about the Bedlam in the library. It had been a monastic foundation, but had survived the Dissolution since some of its patients came from families of means and it was therefore a potential source of profit. The King appointed the warden, currently a courtier named Metwys, who in turn appointed a full-time keeper. The man, his parents believed, who hoped that Adam Kite would die.

Near Bishopsgate I was held up. A rich man's funeral train was passing, black horses, black carriages and poor men dressed in black following behind, singing psalms. A dignified-looking old man walked at the head of the procession carrying a white stick — the steward of the dead man's household carrying the symbolic staff of office he would break and cast into the grave. From its great size I guessed this must be the funeral of Lord Latimer, whose wife the King apparently coveted. I took off my cap. A large carriage passed; the shutters were open. A woman looked out, her face framed by a jet-black hood. She was about thirty; a receding chin and small mouth made a face that otherwise would have been pretty, merely striking. She stared at the crowd with wide, unseeing eyes as she was borne along. It seemed to me that there was fear in them.

The carriage rumbled past, and the Lady Catherine Parr disappeared from view.

At Bishopsgate I passed under London Wall. A little beyond I came to a pair of large wooden gates in a high wall. They were open, and riding through I found myself in a wide, earthen courtyard, stippled with snow, a chapel at its centre. The backs of houses formed three sides of the yard; a long, two-storied building of grey stone, which looked very old, made up the fourth. Some of the unpainted wooden shutters on the windows were open. People were passing to and fro across the yard, and I saw a couple of narrow lanes running between the houses. The Bedlam was not, then, a closed prison. And I heard no shrieks or rattling of chains.

I rode to a large door at one end. My knock was answered by a thickset man with a hard, sardonic face, who wore a dirty grey smock. A big key-ring dangled from his greasy leather belt.

'I am Master Shardlake,' I said. 'I have an appointment to see Adam Kite.'

The man studied my robe. 'Lawyer, sir?'

'Yes. Are you Keeper Shawms?'

'No, sir. He's out, though he's due back soon. I'm another of the keepers, Hob Gebons.'

'Are young Kite's parents here?' 'No.'

'I will wait.'

He stood aside to let me enter. 'Welcome to the chamber of the mad,' he said as he closed the door. 'You think you can get Adam Kite released?'

'I hope so.'

'We'd be glad to see him go, he makes the other lunatics nervous. We keep him shut away. Some think him possessed,' he added in a low voice.

'What do you think, Gebons?'

He shrugged. 'Not for me to think.' The man leaned close. 'If you've a bit of time, sir, I could show you some of our prize specimens. King Commode and the Chained Scholar. For a shilling.'

I hesitated, then handed over the coin. The more I knew about what went on here, the better.

Gebons led me along a whitewashed corridor running the length of the building, windows on one side and a row of green-painted wooden doors on the other. It was cold and there was a faint smell of ordure.

'How many patients do you have?' 'Thirty, sir. They're a mixed lot.'

I saw that viewing-hatches had been cut in the green doors, at eye height. Another grey-smocked attendant stood in an open doorway, looking in.

'Is that my washing water, Stephen:' I heard a woman's voice call. 'Ay, Alice. Shall I take your pisspot:'

The scene appeared civilized enough, almost domestic. Gebons smiled at me. 'Alice is sane enough most of the time. But she has the falling sickness bad, she can be on the floor foaming and spitting in the wink of an eye.'

I looked at Gebons, thinking of Roger.

'She's allowed to come and go. Unlike this fellow.' The warder had stopped at a closed door with a heavy bolt on it. He grinned at me, showing broken grey teeth. 'Behold His Majesty.'

He opened the viewing hatch, and stood aside to let me look. I saw a square cell, the windows shuttered, a candle guttering in an old bottle on the floor. The sight within made me gasp and step back. An old man, large and enormously fat, sat on a commode that had been painted white. He had a short beard cut in the same way that the King's was depicted on the coins. An extraordinary, muldv coloured robe, made of odds and ends of cloth patched together, swathed his heavy form. He was holding a walking stick with a wooden ball jammed on the end to resemble a sceptre. On his bald head was a paper crown, painted yellow.

'How are you today, Your Majesty:' Hob asked.

'Well enough, fellow. You may bring my subject in, I will receive him.'

'Maybe later, sire. I have to clean the jakes first!' 'You insolent fellow—'

Gebons closed the hatch, cutting him off. He turned to me, laughing hoarsely.

'He's convinced he's the king. He used to be a schoolteacher. Not a good one, his charges used to mock him, play football in his classes. Then he decided he was the king and his mind flew away from all his troubles.'

'Mocking the King,' I said. 'That's dangerous.'

Gebons nodded. 'That's why his family put him here, out of the way. Many lunatics proclaim many dangerous things, being loobies they forget you must be careful what you say these days. Now,' he grinned again and raised his eyebrows. 'Come and see our Chained Scholar. He's two doors down. A fine educated fellow.' He looked at my robe, mockery in his smile. 'A doctor of common law from Cambridge. Failed to get a post there that he wanted, and attacked his college principal, half killed him. He's all right with the likes of me, but hates seeing anyone educated. You should see his rage then. If you went into his room he'd leap at you and scratch your face off. He's one we keep locked up carefully. But I could open the hatch up for you to have a look.'

'No, thank you.'

'He loves drawing maps and plans, he's redesigning the sewers for us. You'll note there's a stink in here.' 'Indeed, a bad one.'

I heard voices nearby, and recognized Daniel Kite's, raised in anger. 'Where is he;' I asked.

'The parlour. They must have come in the back way. Sure you don't want to see the scholar?' he added, the mockery now clear in his voice.

'No,' I answered curtly. 'Take me to the Kites.'

Gebons led me into a small room with cheap stools set around, a scuffed table and a fire lit in the grate. The walls were bare. Minnie Kite sat on a stool, looking utterly dejected, while her husband argued with a plump, surly-faced man in a black jerkin.

'You could try to make him eat!' Daniel was shouting.

'Oh, ay. Get one of my keepers to force him to his feet then another to force the food into his mouth. They haven't the time, and they don't like doing it, he frightens them. And by Mary he's frightening enough the way he lays there gobbling and muttering and calling God's name, no wonder half my keepers say he's possessed! The food's put in there and he can eat it or no as he wills.'

'Is there a problem?' I asked quietly. 'You must be Keeper Shawms,' I added as the fat man turned. 'I am Master Shardlake, the Kites' lawyer.'

Shawms looked between me and the Kites. 'How come you can afford a lawyer, when you say you can't afford my fees?' he asked them in a bullying voice.

'I have been appointed by the Court of Requests,' I said.

'Oh,' he sneered. 'Poor man's lawyer, then, for all your fancy rig.'

'Who can apply to the court to have your fees waived, and any question of mistreatment considered,' I replied sharply. 'Tomorrow, if I am unsatisfied with what I see today.'

Shawms looked at me from deep-set piggy eyes. 'That boy's hard to take care of. . .'

'He only needs feeding,' Minnie said. 'And someone to put a blanket round his shoulders when it slips off.' She turned to me. 'It's so cold in there, and this wretch won't lay a fire—'

'Fires cost money!'

I turned back to the Kites. 'Perhaps I could see Adam.' 'We were about to go in.'

'See him if you want to,' Shawms said. 'You'll get no sense from him.' He glared at me. I realized that for him Adam was a troublesome nuisance; he would not be sorry if he died. Nor would the Council; for them it would be a problem solved.

'And afterwards, Master Shawms,' I said, 'I would like a word.'

'All right. Come on then. I've no time to waste.'

We were led to another of the green doors. It was locked; Shawms unlocked it and glanced in. 'He's all yours,' he said, and walked away.

I followed Daniel Kite into the room. It was light, whitewashed, the shutters partly open. As Minnie had said, it was bitterly cold. There was a dreadful stench, a mixture of ordure and unwashed skin. The place was furnished only with a truckle bed and a stool.

A tall teenage boy with filthy black hair knelt in a corner, his face to the wall, whispering to himself, the words coming so fast they were hard to follow. 'I repent my sins I repent please listen please listen in Jesu's name . . .'

He was dressed in a food-stained shirt and leather jerkin. A large dark stain on his hose showed he had soiled himself. There was a fetter round his ankle, a chain running from there to an iron ring in the floor. Minnie approached and knelt by her son, putting an arm round his shoulders. He took no notice at all.

'The chain's to stop him running out to the churchyards,' Daniel Kite said quietly. He did not approach Adam, merely stood beside him with his head bowed.

I took a deep breath and went over to the boy, noticing he was a broad-shouldered lad, though reduced now to skin and bone. I bent to look at Adam's face. It was a pitiful sight. The boy might once have been handsome, but now his features showed such misery as I had never seen. His brows were contorted into an agonized frown, his wide terrified eyes stared unseeingly at the wall, and his mouth worked frantically, strings of spittle dripping on his chin. 'Tell me I am saved,' he went on. 'Let me feel Your grace.' He stopped for a moment, as though listening for something, then went on, more desperately than ever. 'Jesu! Please!'

Adam,' his mother said in a pleading voice. 'You are dirty. I have brought you new clothes.' She tried to pull him to his feet, but he resisted, squeezing himself into the corner. 'Leave me!' he said, not even looking at her. 'I must pray!'

'Is he like this all the time?' I asked Minnie.

'Always, now.' She relinquished her hold, and we both stood up. 'He never wants to rise. His sighs of despair when he is forced to stand are piteous.'

'I will get my physician friend to call,' I said quietly. 'Though in truth, while he is like this, if I can make sure he is cared for he may be better off here.'

'He must be cared for,' she said. 'Or he will die.'

'I can see that. I will talk to Keeper Shawms.'

'If you would leave us, sir, I will try and clean him a little. Come, Daniel, help me lift him.'

Her husband moved to join her.

'I will speak to the keeper now,' I said. 'I will meet you in the parlour when you are finished.'

'Thank you, sir,' Minnie gave me a trembling smile. Her husband was still avoiding my eye. I left them and went in search of Shawms, full of anger at the way Adam had been left to wallow in his own shit. The horror of what his broken mind was experiencing was beyond my understanding, but lazy, venal officials I could deal with.

Shawms was in a little room of his own, sitting drinking beer and looking into a large fire. He stared at me truculently.

'I want that boy fed,' I snapped. 'By force if need be. His mother is changing his clothes and I want to see he is kept clean. I shall be applying to the court for an order that his welfare is properly attended to, and that the Council be responsible for his fees.'

'And till then who's to pay for all this work my keepers will be put to with him, to say nothing of calming the patients who fear they have a possessed man in their midst?'

'The Bedlam's own funds. By the way, do you have a doctor in attendance?'

'Ay. Dr Frith comes once a fortnight. He's a great one for his own potions, but they do no good. There was a herb-woman used to call, some of the patients liked her but Dr Frith sent her away. I don't appoint the doctors, that's for Warden Metwys.' 'Does a priest come?'

'The post is vacant since the old priest died. The warden hasn't got round to dealing with it.'

I looked into his fat red face, angry at the thought of the helpless mad being left to such as he and the lazy warden.

'I want a fire made up in that room,' I said.

'You go too far now, sir.' Shawms protested. 'Fires are extra, I won't pay for those out of the Bedlam funds. Warden Metwys would have my job.'

'Then I'll apply for the fees to be waived, not for the Council to pay them.'

Shawms glowered at me. 'You take liberties, crouchback.' 'Fewer than you. Well?' 'I'll order a fire set.'

'See you do.' I turned and left him without another word.

I returned to the parlour, and sat there, deep in thought. Adam Kite had shaken me; whatever ailed him so terribly, there was no question of applying to the court for a declaration he was compos mentis. My only hope was that Guy could help him in some way.

I looked up as the door opened. A white-haired woman was led in by a younger woman in a keeper's grey smock. I was surprised to see a woman keeper, but guessed they would be needed if the female patients were to preserve any modesty. The white-haired woman's head was cast down, and she walked with a leaden tread as the keeper guided her to a chair by the window. She slumped there, heavy and lifeless as a sack of cabbages. Seeing me, the woman keeper curtsied. She had an arresting face, too long-featured to be pretty but full of character and with keen, dark blue eyes. The hair round the sides of her white coif was dark brown. She looked to be somewhere in her thirties.

'I would like Cissy to sit here for a while, sir,' she said. 'Of course.'

'She's very mopish today and I want her out of her room. I've brought you some sewing, Cissy, you like making the smocks whole again.' It was strange to see her speak to the much older woman as though she were a child. Cissy raised dull eyes as the keeper took a sewing bag and a torn smock she had been carrying in the crook of her elbow. She laid the smock on Cissy's knees and placed a threaded needle in her plump hand. 'Come on, Cissy, you're a wonderful needlewoman. Show me what you can do.' Reluctantly, Cissy took the needle.

'She won't be any trouble.' The woman curtsied and left me with Cissy, who began sewing, never looking up at me. So not all the keepers are brutes, I thought. Shortly after, the Kites returned. I rose and told them of my conversation with Shawms.

'So Adam must stay here;' Minnie asked.

'This is the safest place for him, until he can be brought to his right mind.'

'Perhaps this is meant,' Daniel Kite said. He looked at me with sudden defiance. 'Sometimes God visits the most terrible trials on those he loves most, like Job, Reverend Meaphon says.'

'This may be a warning, to remind folk the end-time is coming, that they must give up their sinful ways. Perhaps that is why Adam frightens folk, he reminds them that they too should pray for salvation.'

'No!' Minnie rounded on her husband. 'God would not try a poor believer so.'

'Who are you to say what God may do in His wisdom?' he snapped. 'If this is not God's work, it is Satan's, and he is possessed as some people say.'

They were both at breaking point, I saw. 'He is ill,' I said gently.

'You would say so,' Daniel Kite replied. 'You are not a right believer!' He looked between his wife and me, then turned and went out.

'Do not be angry with him, sir,' Minnie said. 'He casts around in desperation for answers. He loves our boy.'

'I understand, mistress. I promise I will do all I can. Adam will be looked after now and I will see what can be done for his poor mind. I will be in touch again very soon. And tell me at once if his care does not improve.'

'I will. We visit every day.' She curtsied, and went out after her husband. I turned to see Cissy looking at me, a spark of curiosity in her dull eyes, but when I met her gaze she dropped her head to her sewing. I heard footsteps, and the woman keeper came in, looking concerned.

'I heard raised voices,' she said. 'Is Cissy all right;'

'Yes.' I smiled ruefully. 'It was only my clients.'

She went and looked at Cissy's sewing. 'This is good work, t'will be as good as new.' She was rewarded by a fleeting smile from the old woman. She turned to me again.

'You have been visiting Adam Kite, sir?'

‘Ay.'

'His poor parents.' She hesitated, glancing at the open door. Then she said quietly, 'Many here are afraid of Adam, fear he is possessed. And Keeper Shawms hopes that without care he will waste away and die.' She frowned. 'He is a bad man.'

'I have just given Keeper Shawms a warning. He will find himself in trouble with the courts if he does not give Adam proper care. Thank you for your information.' I smiled at her. 'What is your name?'

'Ellen Fettiplace, sir.' She hesitated, then added, 'What ails poor young Adam, sir? I have never heard of a case like his.'

'Nor I. I am having a doctor come to look at him. A good man.'

'Dr Frith is no use.'

'I am glad to see at least one keeper here cares for her patients.' She blushed. 'You are kind, sir.' 'How did you come to work here, Ellen?' She looked at me, then smiled sadly. 'I used to be a patient.' 'Oh,' I said, taken aback. She had seemed the sanest person I had met there today.

'They offered me a position as an under-keeper when I was — was better.'

'You did not want to leave?'

The sad smile again. 'I can never leave here, sir,' she said. 'I have not been outside in ten years. I will die in the Bedlam.'

Chapter Four

I was busy in court over the next two days, but Thursday afternoon was free and I had arranged to take Roger to see Guy. It was Maundy Thursday, the day before Easter, and as I walked back from the court at Westminster to Lincoln's Inn I saw the churches were again full. Tomorrow the great veil that shrouded the chancels during Lent would be removed, and those who cleaved to the old traditions would creep to the Cross on their knees. After Mass the altars would be stripped of their vestments in commemoration of Christ's betrayal after the Last Supper, while down at Whitehall the King would wash the feet of twelve poor men. I felt sad at how little any of it meant to me now. There were four days' holidays to come, but to me they would be empty and dull. At least when Lent was over Joan, my housekeeper, had promised me roast saddle of beef.

The weather was still cold, the sky iron-grey although there had been no more snow. I called in at my chambers before going to fetch Roger, and was pleased to see that a large fire had been lit. Barak and my junior clerk, Skelly, were both busy at their desks. Barak looked up as I took off my fur-edged coat and warmed my hands before the fire. He had had a shave on Sunday, but I noticed his brown doublet had a button missing, and there was what looked like a beer stain on the chest. I wondered if he had been out all night, and thought again about Tamasin. The two lived quite near Guy's shop, and I resolved that on the way back from taking Roger I would call in on them, as though by chance.

'I called at the court office,' Barak said. 'They're going to hear

Adam Kite's application next Tuesday, at the same time as the Collins case.'

'Good.' I was tempted to tell him to get his doublet cleaned up, but did not want to sound like an old woman. And he knew enough not to come carelessly dressed to court. I looked quickly through a couple of new briefs that had come in, then donned my coat again.

'I am going to take Master Elliard to Guy,' I said.

Barak had risen and was looking out of the window. 'What's wrong with that rogue Bealknap?' he said curiously.

'Bealknap;' I rose and joined him.

'Looks like he's about to peg out.'

Through the window I saw my old rival sitting on a bench next to the still-frozen fountain. A knapsack lay on the snow beside him. Even at this distance, his lean face looked an unhealthy white.

'What's the matter with him?' I said.

'They say he's been faint and ill for weeks,' Skelly said, looking at us earnestly from his table.

'I thought he looked under the weather at the play.' 'Let's hope it's nothing minor,' Barak said. I smiled enigmatically. 'I must go.'

I left them and walked back into Gatehouse Court. I had to pass the fountain to get to Roger's rooms. Bealknap had not moved. His thin form was swathed in an expensive coat lined with marten, but even so this was not weather to be sitting outside. I hesitated as I passed him.

'Brother Bealknap,' I asked. 'Are you all right:'

He looked at me quickly, then glanced away. He could never meet anyone's eye. 'Perfectly, brother,' he snapped. 'I just sat down for a moment.'

'You have dropped your knapsack. It will get wet.'

He bent and picked it up. I saw his hand trembled. 'Go away!' he said.

I was surprised to see that he looked frightened. 'I only wished to help,' I said stiffly.

'You, help me!' He gave a snort of mocking laughter, then forced himself to his feet and stumbled off towards his lodgings. I shook my head and passed on.

Roger was in his outer office. A candle had been lit against the gloomy afternoon and he stood before it, an affidavit in his long fingers.

'A moment, Matthew,' he said with a smile. His head moved rapidly, scanning the document, then he passed it to the clerk with a nod. 'Well done, Bartlett,' he said. 'A very fair draft. Now, Matthew, let us go and see this leech.' He smiled nervously. 'I see you have your riding boots. Sensible. I will get mine, these shoes would be ruined in the slush.'

He collected his boots, strong old leather ones he often wore, and we walked to the stables. 'No more sudden falls?' I asked him quietly.

'No, thank God.' He sighed deeply; I could see he was still worried.

'Have you much work on?' I asked, to distract him.

'More than I can handle.' Roger was an excellent litigator, and since returning to London had built up a formidable reputation. 'And I have to go and see a new pro bono client tonight, after we have been to the doctor's.'

A voice calling Roger's name made us turn. Dorothy was hurrying towards us, an amused expression on her face, carrying a package wrapped in oilskin. 'You forgot this,' she said.

Her husband reddened as he took the package. 'His urine bottle for the physician,' Dorothy explained.

Roger gave me a wry smile. 'What would I do without her?' he asked.

'Forget your head, husband.' Dorothy smiled again, then shivered, for she wore only an indoor dress.

'Go back in, sweetheart,' Roger said, 'or you will have need of a doctor too.'

'I will. Good luck, my love. Goodbye, Matthew. Come to supper next week.' She turned and walked away, hugging herself against the cold.

'I hate deceiving her,' Roger said. 'She still thinks I have a bad stomach. But I would not worry her.'

'I know. Now come, and take care you do not drop that package.'

Roger was preoccupied, saying little as we rode along Cheap- side. The traders were packing up their stalls and we had to pick our way between the few late shoppers and the discarded wooden boxes thrown in the road. A pair of barefoot children in rags darted perilously close to the horses' hooves, picking up rotten vegetables, the dregs of last year's produce which the traders had thrown away. The beggars were crowded around the Conduit again, and one was waving a stick with a piece of rotten bacon on the end, shout' ing maniacally from the steps. 'Help Tom o'Bedlam! Help a poor man out of his wits! See my broken heart here, on the end of this rod!'

'He's probably never been anywhere near the Bedlam,' I said to Roger. 'If all the beggars who say they've been there had truly been patients, the place would be the size of Westminster Hall.'

'How is your client that has been put there?'

'Grievous sick in his mind. It is harrowing to see. I wish to ask Guy to visit him, and I hope he can make sense of it, for I cannot.'

'Dr Malton specializes in madness, then?' Roger gave me an anxious look.

'Not at all,' I answered reassuringly. 'But he has been practising medicine for nearly forty years and has seen every type of illness there is. And he is a good doctor, not like so many physicians who know of no remedies save bleeding and purging. 'Tis but your own fear that tells you you might have the falling sickness. Symptoms of falling over can have a hundred causes. And you have never had a ghost of a fit.'

'I have seen those fits, though. I once had a client who suffered from them and he fell down in my office, gibbering and foaming with only the whites of his eyes showing.' He shook his head. 'It was a dreadful sight. And it came on this man late in life.'

'You experience these falls and fix your mind on the most frightening thing you have seen. If I did not know you for a clever lawyer I would call you a noddle.'

He smiled. 'Ay, perhaps.'

To take his mind from his worries I told him the story of the preacher who had stood at Newgate promising great rivers of blood. 'Can a man who preaches such things possibly be a good man, a Christian man?' I asked. 'Even though the next minute he was proclaiming the joys of salvation.'

He shook his head. 'We are in a mad and furious world, Matthew. Mundus furiosus. Each side railing against the other, preaclv ing full of rage and hatred. The radicals foretelling the end of the world. To the conversion of some, and the confusion of many.' He looked at me, smiling with great sadness. 'Remember when we were young, how we read Erasmus on the foolishness of Indulgences granted by the church for money, the endless ceremonial and Latin Masses that stood between ordinary people and the understanding of Christ's message?'

'Ay. That reading group we had. Remember Juan Vives' books, about how the Christian prince could end unemployment by sponsoring public works, building hospitals and schools for the poor. But we were young,' I added bitterly. 'And we dreamed.'

'A Christian commonwealth living in gentle harmony.' Roger sighed. 'You realized it was all going rotten before I did.'

'I worked for Thomas Cromwell.'

'And I was always more radical than you.' He turned to me. 'Yet I still believe that a church and state no longer bound to the Pope can be made into something good and Christian, despite the corruption of our leaders, and all these new fanatics.'

I did not reply.

'And you, Matthew?' he asked. 'What do you believe now? You never say.'

'I no longer know, Roger,' I said quietly. 'But come, we turn down here. Let's change the subject. The buildings are close together here, the voices echo, and we must be careful what we say in public these days.'

The sun was setting as we rode into the narrow alley in Bucklersbury where Guy lived and worked. It was full of apothecary's shops, and Roger's face became uneasy as he saw the stuffed aligators and other strange wonders displayed in the windows. As we dismounted and tied our horses to a rail, he looked relieved to see that Guy's window contained only a selection of ornate apothecary's jars.

'Why does he practise in this godforsaken place if he is a physician?' Roger asked, retrieving his sample from his horse's pannier.

'Guy was only admitted to the College of Physicians last year, after saving a rich alderman's leg. Before that his dark skin and his being an ex-monk kept him out, despite his French medical degree. He could only practise as an apothecary.'

'But why stay here now?' Roger's face wrinkled in distaste at the sight of a baby monkey in a jar of brine in the adjacent window.

'He says he has grown used to living here.'

'Among these monsters?'

'They are just poor dead creatures.' I smiled reassuringly. 'Some apothecaries claim their powdered body parts can work wonders. Guy is not of that opinion.'

I knocked at his door. It was opened almost at once by a boy in an apprentice's blue coat. Piers Hubberdyne was an apprentice apothecary whom Guy had taken on the year before. He was a tall, dark-haired lad in his late teens, with features of such unusual comeliness that he turned women's heads in the streets. Guy said he was hard-working and conscientious, a rarity among London's notoriously unruly apprentices. He bowed deeply to us.

'Good evening, Master Shardlake. And Master Elliard?'

'Yes.'

'Is that your sample, sir? May I take it?'

Roger handed it over with relief, and Piers ushered us into the shop. 'I will fetch Dr Malton,' he said, and left us. I inhaled the sweet, musky scent of herbs that pervaded Guy's consulting room. Roger looked up at the neatly labelled jars on the shelves. Little bunches of herbs were laid out on a table beside a mortar and pestle and a tiny goldsmith's weighing balance. Above the table was a diagram of the four elements and the types of human nature to which they correspond: melancholic, phlegmatic, cheerful and choleric. Roger studied it.

'Dorothy says I am a man of air, cheerful and light,' he observed.

'With a touch of the phlegmatic, surely. If your temperament was all air, you could not work as you do.'

'And you, Matthew, were always melancholic. Your dark colouring and spare frame mark you out.'

'I was not so spare before my fever eighteen months ago.' I gave him a serious look. 'I think that would have carried me off without Guy's care. Do not worry, Roger, he will help you.'

I turned with relief as Guy entered the room. He was sixty now and his curly hair, black when first I knew him, was white, making the dark brown hue of his lean features even more striking by contrast. I saw that he was beginning to develop an aged man's stoop. When we had first become friends six years before, Guy had been a monastic infirmarian; the monasteries had housed many foreigners and Guy came originally from Granada in Spain, where his forebears had been Muslims. Having abandoned a Benedictine habit for an apothecary's robe, he had now in turn exchanged that for the black high-collared gown of a physician.

When he came in I thought his dark face seemed a little drawn, as though he had worries. Then he looked at us and smiled broadly.

'Good day, Matthew,' he said. His quiet voice still carried an exotic lilt. 'And you must be Master Elliard.' His penetrating dark eyes studied Roger closely.

'Ay.' Roger shuffled nervously.

'Come through to my examination room, let us see what the problem is.'

'I have brought some urine, as you asked. I gave it to the boy.'

'I will look at that.' He smiled. 'However, unlike some of my colleagues, I do not place entire reliance on the urine. Let us first examine you. Can you wait here a while, Matthew?'

'Of course.'

They left me. I sat on a stool by the window. The light was growing dim, the jars and bottles casting long shadows on the floor. I thought again of Adam Kite, and wondered uneasily whether Guy, still secretly loyal to the old church, might also say Adam was possessed. I had found myself thinking too over the last few days about the dark-haired woman keeper. What had she meant by saying she could never leave the Bedlam; Was she under some permanent order of detention?

The door opened and the boy Piers entered, carrying a candle and with a large book under his arm. He placed the book on a high shelf with several others, then went and lit the candles in a tall sconce. Yellow light flickered around the room, adding the smell of wax to the scent of herbs.

He turned to me. 'Do you mind if I continue my work, sir?' he asked.

'Please do.'

He sat at the table, took a handful of herbs and began grinding them. He rolled back the sleeves of his robe, revealing strong arms, the muscles bunching as he crushed the herbs.

'How long have you been with Dr Malton now?' I asked.

'Just a year, sir.' He turned and smiled, showing sparkling white teeth.

'Your old master died, did he not?'

'Ay, sir. He lived in the next street. Dr Malton took me on when he died suddenly. I am lucky, he is a man of rare knowledge. And kind.'

'That he is,' I agreed. Piers turned back to his work. How different he was from most apprentices, noisy lewd lads forever looking for trouble. His self-possessed, confident manner was that of a man, not a boy.

It was an hour before Guy and Roger returned. It had grown dark, and Piers had to bend closely to his work, a candle beside him. Guy put a hand on his shoulder. 'Enough for tonight, lad. Go and get some supper, but first bring us some beer.'

'Yes, sir.' Piers bowed to us and left. I looked at Roger, delighted to see an expression of profound relief on his face.

'I do not have the falling sickness,' he said and beamed.

Guy smiled gently. 'The strangest matters may have a simple resolution. I always like to start by looking for the simplest possible explanation, which William of Ockham taught is most likely to be the true one. So I began with Master Elliard's feet.'

'He had me standing barefoot,' Roger said, 'then measured my legs, laid me on his couch and bent my feet to and fro. I confess I was surprised. I came expecting a learned disquisition on my urine.'

'We did not need that in the end.' Guy smiled triumphantly. 'I found the right foot turns markedly to the right, the cause being that Master Elliard's left leg is very slightly longer. It is a problem that has been building up for years. The remedy is a special shoe, with a wooden insert that will correct the gait. I will get young Piers to make it, he is skilled with his hands.'

'I am more grateful than I can say, sir,' Roger said warmly.

There was a knock, and Piers returned with three pewter goblets on a tray which he laid on the table.

'Let us drink to celebrate Master Elliard's liberation from falling over.' Guy took a stool and passed another to Roger.

'Roger is thinking of starting a subscription for a hospital,' I told Guy.

Guy shook his head sadly. 'Hospitals are sorely needed in this city. That would be a good and Christian thing. Perhaps I could help, advise.'

'That would be kind, sir.'

'Roger still holds to the ideals of Erasmus,' I said.

Guy nodded. 'I once studied Erasmus too. He was in high favour when I first came to England. I thought when he said the church was too rich, too devoted to ceremony, he had something — though most of my fellow monks did not, they said he wrote with a wanton pen.' His face grew sombre. 'Perhaps they saw clearer than I that talk of reform would lead to the destruction of the monasteries. And of so much else. And for what?' he asked bitterly. 'A reign of greed and terror.'

Roger looked a little uncomfortable at Guy's defence of the monks. I looked from one to the other of them. Guy who was still a Catholic at heart, Roger the radical reformer turned moderate. I was not so much between them as outside the whole argument. A lonely place to be.

'I have a case I wanted to ask your advice about, Guy,' I said to change the subject. 'A case of religious madness, or at least perhaps that is what it is.' I told him Adam's story. 'So the Privy Council have put him in the Bedlam to get him out of the way,' I concluded. 'His parents want me to get him released, but I am not sure that is a good idea.'

'I have known of obsessive lovers,' Roger said, 'but obsessive praying — I have never heard of such a thing.'

'I have,' Guy said, and we both turned to look at his dark grave face. 'It is a new form of brain-sickness, something Martin Luther has added to the store of human misery.'

'What do you mean?' I asked.

'There have always been some people who hate themselves, who torture themselves with guilt for real or imagined offences. I saw such cases sometimes as an infirmarian. Then we could tell people that God promises salvation to any who repent their sins, because He places no one outside His mercy and charity.' He looked up, a rare anger in his face. 'But now some tell us that God has decided, as though from caprice, to save some and damn others to perpetual torment; and if God does not give you the assurance of His Grace you are doomed. That is one of Luther's central doctrines. I know, I have read him. Luther may have felt himself a worthless creature saved by God's grace, but did he ever stop to think what his philosophy might mean for those without his inner strength, his arrogance?'

'If that were true,' Roger said, 'surely half the population would be running mad?'

'Do you believe you are saved?' Guy asked suddenly. 'That you have God's grace?'

'I hope so. I try to live well and hope I may be saved.'

'Yes. Most, like you, or I, are content with the hope of salvation and leave matters in God's hands. But now there are some who are utterly certain they are saved. They can be dangerous because they believe themselves special, above other people. But just as every coin has two sides, so there are others who crave the certainty, yet are convinced they are unworthy, and that can end in the piteous condition of this young man. I have heard it called salvation panic, though the term hardly does justice to the agonies of those who suffer it.' He paused. 'The question perhaps is why the boy became consumed with guilt in the first place.'

'Maybe he has committed some great sin,' I said. I was glad to see Guy shake his head.

'No, usually in such cases their sins are small, it is something in the workings of their minds that brings them to this pass.'

'Will you help me try to find what it is, Guy? Some in the Bedlam think Adam is possessed. I fear they may do him harm.'

'I will come and see him, Matthew,' Guy said. 'I will go as a doctor, of course, not an ex-monk, or he would probably fear he was indeed in the hands of the devil.' Suddenly my friend looked old and tired.

'Thank you,' I said. 'Young Piers seems a hard worker,' I observed.

'Yes, he is. A good apprentice. Perhaps better than I deserve,' he added quietly.

'How so?' I asked, puzzled.

He did not answer. 'Piers is very clever, too. His understanding is marvellous quick.' Guy gave a sudden smile that transformed his face. 'Let me show you something I have been discussing with Piers, something new in the world of healing, that many of my fellow physicians disapprove of He rose and crossed to his shelf of books. He took down the big volume that Piers had replaced earlier. He cleared a space on the table and placed it there carefully. Roger and I went over to join him.

'De Humani Corpora Fabrica,' Guy said quietly. 'The workings of the human body. Just published, a German merchant friend brought it over for me. It is by Andreas Vesalius, a Dutch physician working in Italy. They have been allowed to practise dissection of bodies there for years, though it has been forbidden here till recently.'

'The old church disapproved,' Roger said.

'They did, and they were wrong. Vesalius is the first man to dissect human bodies on a large scale for centuries, perhaps ever. And you know what he has found? That the ancients, Hippocrates and Galen, the ultimate authorities whom a physician may not question without risking expulsion from the College of Physicians, were wrong.' He turned to us, a gleam in his dark eyes. 'Vesalius has shown that the ancients erred in many of their descriptions of the inner form of the body. He concludes they too were not allowed to dissect bodies, and that their descriptions came from studies not of men but of animals.' He laughed. 'This book will cause a great stir. The college will try to have it discredited, even suppressed.'

'But how can we know Vesalius is right, and the ancients wrong?' I asked.

'By comparing his descriptions and drawings here with what we can see for ourselves when a body is opened. Four bodies of hanged criminals the barber-surgeons' college is allowed now, for public dissection.' I quailed a little as his words, for I was ever of a squeamish disposition, but he went on. 'And there is another way I have been able to see for myself

'How so?' Roger asked.

'A London coroner can call for a body to be opened and examined if it is needed to find out how a man died. Most physicians think the work beneath them and the pay is not great, but I have offered my services and already I have been able to test Vesalius' claims for myself. And he is right.' Guy opened the book slowly and almost reverentially. It was in Latin, illustrated with drawings that were marvellously executed but with something mocking and even cruel about them; as Guy flicked over the pages I saw a skeleton leaning on a table in the pose of a thinker, a flayed body hanging from a gibbet, all its innards exposed. In the corner of a drawing of exposed bowels, a little cherub sat passing a turd and smiling at the reader.

Guy laid the book open at a picture of a human heart cut open on a table. 'There,' he said. 'Do you see; The heart has four chambers, four, not the three we have always been taught.'

I nodded, though all I could see was a horrible tangle of valves and tissue. I glanced at Roger. He was looking a little pale. I said, 'That is very interesting, Guy, but a little beyond us, I fear. And we must be getting back to Lincoln's Inn.'

'Oh. Very well.' Guy, normally the most sensitive of men, did not seem to realize the book had disturbed us. He smiled. 'Perhaps this new year heralds in a time of wonders. I hear a Polish scholar has published a book proving by observation of the planets that the earth goes round the sun, not the other way around. I have asked my friend to bring me a copy. This new year of 1543 may find us on the threshold of a new world.'

'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.

Chapter Five

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.'

'Will you go?'

'Yes, though — though I feel the faith has been squeezed from me too. But you know me,' she added with a touch of her old humour. 'I prefer to keep on the right side of the powers that be.'

'That is wise these days.'

'Jack says I only go to show off my best clothes.' She looked down at her apron. 'Well, 'tis true that after wearing these things all week I like to go out in something nice. But I fear if Jack absents himself continually, questions will be asked, he could be in trouble with the churchwardens. Especially as he is known to have Jewish blood.' She set her lips. 'He wanted to carry on his bloodline through our child. It comes out when he is drunk.'

'Is he drunk often?' I remembered his dishevelled look that morning.

'More and more. He goes out with his old friends and sometimes does not come back all night. That will be where he is now. And I think he goes with other women too.'

I was shocked. 'Who?'

'I do not know. Perhaps with female neighbours. You know what some of them are here.' 'Can you be sure?'

She gave me a direct look. 'From the smell of him some mornings, yes.'

I sighed. 'Is there no sign of — another child?'

'No. Perhaps I am like old Queen Catherine of Aragon, and cannot produce healthy children.'

'But it is only — what — six months since your baby died. That is no time, Tamasin.'

'Time enough for Jack to turn away. Sometimes when he is drunk he says that I would rule him, make him into some weak domesticated creature.' She looked around the room. 'As though you could domesticate anyone in this place.'

'Sometimes Jack can be insensitive. Even cruel.'

'Well, at least he does not beat me. Many husbands do.'

'Tamasin—'

'Oh, he apologizes when he is sober again, he is loving then, calls me his chick and says he did not mean his words, it is only his fury that God took our child. That I can share. Why does God do such cruel things?' she asked, in sudden anger.

I shook my head. 'I am not the man to answer that, Tamasin. It puzzles me too.'

'Sir,' she said, sitting up and looking at me. 'Can you speak to Jack, find out what is in his mind? He is so unpredictable these days, I do not know whether — whether he still wants me at all.'

'Oh, Tamasin,' I said. 'I am sure he does. And talking to him of such matters would be no easy thing. If he even discovers you have been talking to me of his marriage he will be angry with us both.'

'Yes. He is proud. But if you could try to find out somehow.' She looked at me beseechingly. 'I know you have a way of making people talk. And I have no one else to ask.'

'I will try, Tamasin. But I will have to pick my time carefully.'

She nodded gratefully. 'Thank you.'

I stood up. 'And now I should go. If he were to come in now and find you telling me your sorrows he would certainly be cross.' I laid a hand on hers. 'But if things become too much, or you want someone to talk to, a note to my house will bring me.'

'You are kind, sir. Some days I just sit staring mopishly at that damp patch for hours, I have no energy and wonder what is wrong with me. The mould will not go away. However I clean it the black spots are soon creeping over the wall again.' She sighed. 'It is not like the old days, when I worked in poor Queen Catherine Howard's household. Oh, I was only the lowest of servants, but there was always something of interest to see.'

'Danger, too,' I said with a smile. 'As it turned out.'

'I know.' She paused. 'They say there will be a new queen soon. A widow. Catherine, Lady Latimer. She will be the sixth. Fantastic, is it not?'

'Strange indeed.'

She shook her head wonderingly. 'Was there ever such a king?'

I left her. As I descended the dark staircase, I remembered when Barak and Tamasin had married, on a fine spring day the year before. I had felt envious of their content. A single man can easily assume all marriages are blissful, the couple devoted like Roger and Dorothy. But tonight I had seen the sad things that could lurk beneath the surface. I had been right to guess something was amiss, but had not known things were as bad as this. 'Damn Barak!' I said aloud as I stepped out on to the road, startling a gentleman going into the Barge, perhaps to see one of the prostitutes.

I spent most of Good Friday and Easter Saturday at home, working on papers. I did not go to church on Easter Sunday. The weather remained unseasonably cold, with a further light fall of snow. I was in an unsettled, restless mood. On Saturday I even took out my pencils and drawing pad; this last year I had gone back to my old hobby of painting and sketching, but that day I could think of nothing to draw. I looked at the blank paper but nothing came to mind but vague circles and dark lines and a sane man could hardly make a drawing of those. I went to bed but could not sleep. I lay thinking how I might broach the subject of Tamasin to Barak without making matters worse. Then when I did get to sleep I dreamed of poor mad

Adam Kite. I came into his wretched room at the Bedlam to find him crouched on the floor, praying desperately. But as I approached I realized it was not God's name nor Jesus' that he was invoking, but mine — it was 'Master Shardlake' that he was begging for salvation. I woke with a start.

It was still dark, but dawn was not far off and I thought I might as well go into work, even though it was Easter Sunday. There was more paperwork to do in chambers. My housekeeper was already up, chivvying the boy, Peter, to light the fire and bring some heat to the cold morning. I breakfasted, then donned my robe and wrapped myself in my coat to walk up Chancery Lane to Lincoln's Inn.

As I turned out of my gate I fancied it was less cold again, the remaining snow turning once more to muddy slush. I looked back at my house. The tall chimneys rising from the tiled roof were outlined against a strange-coloured sky, streaks of faint blue interspersed with banks of cloud tinged pink underneath by the rising sun. I set off, turning my mind to the cases to be heard on Tuesday, including Adam Kite's. I passed under the Great Gate, past the still-shuttered porter's lodge, and walked across the slushy yard towards my chambers.

It was not yet full day. Almost all the windows were unlit, but to my surprise I saw a light in my own chambers; Barak must have come straight here from wherever he had been last night, not gone home at all. Damn the wretch, I thought.

Then I jumped at the sound of a cry. A man's voice, yelling out in terror. I made out two figures standing by the fountain, looking into the water. 'Oh God!' one cried.

I turned and crossed to them. I saw the ice was broken into pieces. The water under the ice was red, bright red. My heart began thumping painfully.

By their short black robes, the two young men standing staring into the fountain were students. One was short and thickset, the other tall and thin. They looked red-eyed, probably returning to their quarters from some all-night roister.

'What is it:' I asked sharply. 'What is happening:'

The thickset student turned to me. 'There's — there's a man in the fountain,' he said in a trembling voice.

The other student pointed at something sticking out of the water. 'That - that's a foot.'

I looked at them sharply, wondering if this was some prank. But as I stepped close I saw in the growing light that a man's booted leg was sticking out between the chunks of ice. Taking a deep breath, I leaned over. I made out the shape of a long dark robe billowing out in that bright red water. This was a lawyer. I felt a moment's giddiness, then pulled myself together and turned to the students. 'Help me get him out,' I said sharply. The one who had spoken shrank back but the tall thin one approached.

'You'll have to pull on that leg,' I said. 'Then I'll take hold of him.'

The student crossed himself, then grabbed the leg by the ankle, took a deep breath, and pulled. The ice heaved up in big fragments as the leg emerged, then the body. The other student joined me in seizing hold of the stone-cold corpse.

We hauled it out, then laid it on the slushy ground. The gown had ridden up over the head, hiding the man's face. I looked at the body: a small, thin man.

'Look at that water.' The tall student spoke in a whisper. It was almost full light now, showing a bright vermilion circle.

'It's full of blood,' the other said. 'Sweet Jesus.'

I turned back to the body. I was shivering, and not just from the cold water that had soaked me as we pulled the body out. I crouched down, took the hem of the robe and pulled it away from the face.

'Oh Christ Jesus!' one of the students cried out. He turned away and I heard a retching sound. But I sat transfixed by what was, for me, a double horror. The first was the great gaping wound in the man's throat, red against the dead-white skin and stretching almost from ear to ear. The second was the face. It was Roger.

Chapter Six

For a few moments I stood transfixed, staring at that awful corpse, the terrible wound in the throat. Roger's eyes were closed, the alabaster face looked peaceful. I thought, surely his face should be contorted with horror as he suffered that appalling death; For a second, in the shadowy early morning light, I hoped madly that the thing on the ground might not be Roger at all, but a plaster figure some crazed artist had created as an evil joke. But even as I watched, some dark blood from the ripped neck seeped on to the snow.

'Please, sir, cover him!' the stocky student called in a shrill voice. I removed my coat and bent down to the body. Suddenly I was overcome by emotion. 'Oh, my poor friend!' I cried out, tears starting to my eyes as I gently touched Roger's face. It was icy cold. I covered it with my coat and knelt by him, letting the tears come.

A hand on my shoulder made me jump. I looked up at the anxious face of the tall student who had helped me. 'Please, sir,' he asked tremulously. 'What shall we do? People will be coming in soon.'

I rose shakily to my feet and took a deep breath. 'Go and tell the gatekeeper to rouse the constable, who must fetch the coroner. Can you do that, lad?'

'Yes, sir.' The boy nodded and ran off towards the lodge. I turned and stared again at that great stone bowl of bright red water. The sun was almost fully risen now, bringing an unaccustomed warmth but showing the corpse and the fountain in their full horror. The other boy, who was leaning against the fountain, his back to that awful red water, was shivering violently. 'You,' I said, 'will you run across the court to my chambers — see, there where there is already a light? My assistant is there; tell him to come at once. His name is Barak.'

The boy gulped, nodded and staggered away. I looked up at the windows of the Elliards' quarters. There were no lights; I prayed Dorothy was still abed. I realized with sinking heart that I would have to tell her that Roger was dead. I could not leave that task to some stranger.

Moments later, to my relief, I saw Barak running towards me; the student was following more slowly. His mouth fell open when he saw the body by the fountain.

'Judas' bowels! What the devil's happened here?' He looked red' eyed and smelled of drink; he must have been out all night again. But for all that there was no one I would rather have by me now. 'Roger Elliard is dead,' I said, my voice shaking. 'He has been murdered.'

'Here?' Barak asked disbelievingly.

'During the night. Someone cut his throat and put him in the fountain.'

'Jesu.' Barak bent gently, twitched back the corner of my coat and stared at the dead face. He quickly replaced the coat. He looked at the fountain. 'His throat must have been cut in there. There's no blood on the ground.' He frowned, puzzled. 'And no signs of a struggle in the snow. Unless. . .' he hesitated.

'What?'

'Unless he did it himself. Didn't you say he feared he was ill?'

'He wasn't ill, not seriously. I took him to Guy on Thursday. Do you think anyone would kill himself like this, in the middle of Gatehouse Court?' I heard my voice rising. 'Don't be so stupid! Roger was as content as any man I know. He had everything to live for! He was planning a campaign to build a hospital, he was happily married to the best of women—' I realized I was shouting, and broke off. I put one hand to my damp brow and raised the other in a gesture of apology.

'I am sorry, Jack.'

'It's all right,' he said quietly. 'You've had a shock.'

'No,' I said, and heard my voice tremble. 'I am angry. This was meant as a terrible display.'

Barak thought for a moment. 'Yes,' he said slowly. 'If those students hadn't come by, he would have been found when the resident barristers left chambers to go to the Easter services.'

I looked again at the body. I clenched my fists. 'Who could do such a monstrous thing to a good and peaceful man, cut his throat and let him to bleed to death in there? On Easter day. And why?'

I heard a murmur of voices. Three or four barristers had emerged from their quarters and were approaching. Perhaps they had heard my shouting. At the sight of the body one cried, 'By Our Lady!'

A tall elderly man in a silk robe pushed through. I was relieved to see the Treasurer, Rowland. His unbrushed white hair stuck up over his head.

'Brother Shardlake?' he asked. 'What is going on? The porter roused me—' He broke off, looked at the covered body, then his eyes bulged in horror at the red fountain.

I told him what I knew. He took a deep breath, then bent and uncovered Roger's face again. I fought an urge to tell him to leave him alone. There was a murmur of horror from the onlookers, a dozen of them now. I saw Bealknap among them. Normally eager for scandal, he stood looking on silently, still pale and sick4ooking. I thought, Dorothy will hear their gabbling, I must tell her. Then Barak spoke quietly at my elbow. 'There is something you should see. Over here.'

'I must tell Roger's wife—' I said.

'You should see now.'

I stood undecided for a moment, then nodded. 'Master treasurer,' I said. 'Could you excuse me for a moment?'

'Where are you going?' he asked crossly. 'You and those boys, you were the first finders, you must stay for the coroner.'

'I will be back in a minute. Then I will tell Mistress Elliard what has happened. I am a friend.'

The old man turned as he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a newly arrived student approaching the body. 'Get back, you crawling clerk!' he shouted. I took the chance to get away.

Barak led me to a point twenty feet away. 'See these footprints?' he asked.

I looked down. Around the fountain the students and I had churned the snow to slush, and the onlookers had left a mess of prints converging on the murder scene. But Barak was pointing to a separate double trail, one approaching and another leading away from the fountain, that went round the side of the building where the Elliards lived. It was the spot where I had heard the unknown intruder a week before.

Barak bent to study the footprints. 'Look how deep the ones leading to the fountain are. Deeper than the ones returning. Like he was carrying something heavy.'

'I heard someone there on New Year's Night,' I breathed. 'He got over the wall—'

'Let's follow the prints.'

'I have to tell Dorothy—'

'These will melt soon.' In truth the morning sun had brought the first real warmth of spring; I could hear meltwater dripping from the eaves. I hesitated, then followed Barak round the side of the building.

'They look like prints of a man of ordinary size,' Barak said.

'Bigger than Roger, anyway.'

The footprints went up to the wall, then turned sharply right. They ended at a heavy wooden door. 'He got through here,' Barak said.

'He came over the wall last time. If it was him the other night.' 'He wasn't carrying a body then.' Barak tried the gate. 'It's locked,' he said.

'Only the barristers have keys. The orchard is on the other side, then Lincoln's Inn Fields. I've got a key, but it's in chambers.'

'Help me up,' Barak said. I made a stirrup of my hands and Barak climbed up, resting his elbows on top of the wall. 'The footsteps go on into the orchard,' he said. He jumped down. 'He carried poor Master Elliard in from the orchard? Jesu, he must be strong. Tell me which drawer the key's in and I'll run and get it.'

I hesitated. 'I should go back. It should be me that tells Dorothy. The fountain is visible from her window—'

'I'll go by myself. But I must go now, before the footprints melt.'

'You don't know what you may find at the other end,' I cautioned.

'He's long gone. But I'll follow the footsteps as far as they go. We need to find out all we can. You know as well as I that if a murderer is not taken quickly, he is often never found.' He took a deep breath. 'And this is no normal killing, done for money or lust. The killer knocked him unconscious then carried him into Lincoln's Inn and put him in the fountain. He was still alive when his throat was cut or he wouldn't have bled. He must have knocked him out hard enough to keep him unconscious for a good time but not hard enough to kill him. That's very chancy. What if he had woken and started struggling? It looks like some sort of awful vengeance.'

'Roger hadn't an enemy in the world. Was it another barrister? Only a member of Lincoln's Inn would have a key to that door.'

'We should go now, sir.' Barak looked at me seriously. 'If you are to tell the lady.'

I nodded, biting my lip. Barak squeezed my arm, an unexpected gesture, then began running back to Gatehouse Court. I followed more slowly. As I rounded the corner I heard a woman's scream. I felt a violent shiver down my spine as I started to run.

I was too late. In the middle of the growing crowd around the fountain, Dorothy, dressed in a nightgown, was kneeling on the wet ground by her husband's body, wailing piteously, a howl of utter desolation. My coat had been removed from Roger's head; she had seen that awful face. She wailed again.

I ran to her, knelt and grasped her by the shoulders. Under the thin material her skin was cold. She lifted her face to me; she looked utterly stricken, her eyes wide, mouth hanging open, her brown hair wildly disordered.

'Matthew:' she choked.

'Yes. Dorothy — oh, you should not have come out, they should not have let you see. . .' I glared accusingly at the crowd. People shuffled their feet, looking embarrassed.

'I could not stop her,' Treasurer Rowland said stiffly.

'You could have tried!'

'That is no way to talk to me—'

'Shut up,' I snapped, anger bursting out again. The Treasurer's mouth fell open. I lifted Dorothy up. As soon as she stood she began trembling. 'Come inside, Dorothy, come—'

'No!' She fought me, trying to break loose. 'I cannot leave Roger lying there.' Her voice rose again.

'We must,' I said soothingly. 'For the coroner.'

'Who - killed him?' She stared at me, as though trying to seize hold of something to make sense of the horror around her.

'We will find out. Now come inside. Treasurer Rowland will ensure no one does anything disrespectful. Will you not, sir?'

'Yes, of course.' The old man actually looked sheepish. Dorothy allowed me to lead her inside, where Roger's clerk, Bartlett, stood in his office doorway, looking shocked. He was a conscientious middle-aged man who had come with Roger from Bristol.

'Sir?' he asked in a whisper. 'What - what has happened? They say the master is murdered.'

'I fear so. Listen, I will come down to you later and see what should be done with his work.'

'Yes, sir.'

Dorothy was staring at Bartlett as though she had never seen him before. Again I took hold of her arms, leading her gently up the wide staircase to their rooms. Old Elias stood in the open doorway, half dressed, his white hair standing on end. A young maid in a white apron and coif stood beside him.

'Oh, my lady,' the maid said in an Irish accent. She turned her tearful face to me. 'She had just got up, sir, she must have gone through to the front and looked from the window. She screamed and ran out and—'

'All right.' I studied the girl. She was plump and dark-haired. She seemed sensible, and genuinely upset for her mistress. Dorothy would have to rely on her much in the days to come. 'What is your name?' I asked.

'Margaret, sir.'

'Do you have some strong wine, Margaret?' 'I've some aqua vitae sir. I'll get it. Sir — out there — is it truly the master?'

'Yes, I am afraid it is. Now please, get the aqua vitae. And fetch your mistress a thicker gown. She must not get cold.'

I led Dorothy into the parlour and sat her in a chair before the fire. I looked round, remembering my pleasant evening there a week before. Dorothy sat trembling. She had passed, I realized, from horror to shock.

The maid returned, draped a warm gown round Dorothy's shoulders and passed her a glass of spirits, but Dorothy's hand trembled so much I took it from her fingers.

'Stay,' I said to Margaret. 'In case she needs anything.'

'The poor master . . .' Margaret brought a stool to her mistress's side and sat on it heavily, herself shocked.

'Come,' I said gently to Dorothy. 'Drink this, it will help you.' She did not resist as I held the glass to her lips, helping her drink as though she was a child. Her face was pale, her plump cheeks sagging. I had told her at the banquet that she looked years younger than her age. Now she was suddenly haggard and old. I wondered with sorrow if her warm, impish smile would ever return.

Her face grew pink from the spirit and she seemed to come slowly back to herself, though she still trembled.

'Matthew,' she said quietly. 'They said you found Roger.'

'Some students did. I came on them, helped them lift the body out.'

'I came into the parlour and heard a noise outside.' She frowned, as though remembering something from a long time ago. 'I saw the fountain all red, the people standing there, and I thought, what on earth has happened; Then I saw the body on the ground. I knew it was Roger. I recognized his boots. His old leather boots.' She gulped and I thought she would start crying but instead she looked at me with eyes full of anger.

'Who did this;' she asked. 'Who did this cruel wicked thing; And why;'

'I do not know. Dorothy, where was Roger yesterday evening;'

'He - he was out. His new pro bono client.'

'The same client he went to see on Thursday; When I left him after we had visited Dr Malton he said he was going to see a pro bono client. He said he had had a letter about the case.'

'Yes, yes.' She gulped. 'It came on Tuesday, from some solicitor. Yes. I remember. A man called Nantwich.'

'Did Roger say where he was writing from;'

'Somewhere by Newgate, I think. You know those jobbing solicitors, half of them haven't even got proper offices. He had heard Roger did free work for poor people. He asked if Roger could meet his client at a tavern in Wych Street on Thursday evening, as the man worked during the day.'

'Did you see the letter;'

'I did not ask to. I thought it odd, asking to meet in a tavern, but Roger was curious about it, and you know how good-natured he is.' She stopped dead and gave a sobbing gasp. For a second, talking, she had forgotten Roger was dead and the horror hit her with renewed force. She stared at me wildly. I clutched her hand. It felt cold.

'Dorothy. I am so sorry. But I must ask. What happened at the meeting;'

'Nothing. The man never turned up. But then another letter arrived, pushed through the door on Good Friday, apologizing that the client had not been able to get to the tavern and asking Roger to meet him yesterday night, at the same place. I did not see that letter either,' she added in a small voice.

'And Roger went, of course.' I smiled sadly. 'I would not have done.' Something struck me. 'It was cold last night. He would have worn a coat.'

'Yes. He did.'

'Then where is it?' I frowned.

'I do not know.' Dorothy was silent for a moment, then went on. 'I was surprised when it got to ten o'clock and he had not returned. But you know how he would get caught up in something and stay talking for hours.' Would, not will. It had sunk in properly now. 'I was tired, I went to bed early. I expected him to come in. But I drifted off to sleep. I woke in the small hours, and when he wasn't beside me I thought he had bedded down in the other bedroom. He does that if he comes in late, so as not to disturb me. And all the time—' She broke down then, burying her head in her hands and sobbing loudly. I tried to think. The client had asked to meet Roger at Wych Street, on the other side of Lincoln's Inn Fields. The easiest way to get there was to go through the orchard. So he would have taken his key to the orchard door. But why had the man not turned up on Thursday? My heart sank at the thought that Roger, like any barrister, would have taken his letter of instruction with him. There was little chance it would have been left on the body, and the coat he would have worn was gone. But at least we had the name, Nantwich. An uncommon one.

I looked at Dorothy, my heart full of pity. Her sobs ceased. She glanced at me and I saw an anger in her eyes that reflected my own.

'Who has done this?' she asked quietly. 'Roger did not have an enemy in the world. Who is this devil?'

'I will see him caught, Dorothy. I promise you.'

'You will make sure?'

'I will. On my oath.'

She scrabbled for my hand, gripped it fiercely. 'You must help me with things now, Matthew. Please. I am alone.'

'I will.'

Her face crumpled suddenly. 'Oh, Roger!' And then the tears came again, great racking sobs. Margaret put an arm round her mistress, while I held her hand. We were still there, like some pitiful tableau, when Elias came in to say the coroner was below, and must see me at once.

Archibald Browne, the Middlesex coroner, was an old man and a sour one. He was one of the old corrupt breed, who would leave a body lying stinking in the street for days till someone paid them to hold an inquest, not one of the more competent paid officials the Tudors had brought in. Small, bald and squat, his round face was pitted with smallpox scars. When I came out he was standing beside the Treasurer, arms in the pockets of his thick coat, looking down at Roger's body. Passers-by stopping to stare were being moved on with curt gestures from Treasurer Rowland. I saw the sun had melted most of the snow now. I wondered wearily where Barak was.

Rowland gestured to me. 'This is Brother Matthew Shardlake,' he told Browne. 'He had the constable roused.'

'I hope I'll get more sense out of him than those two lads.' Coroner Browne grunted. He turned bleary eyes on me. 'You've spoken with the widow?'

'Yes, sir.'

'How is she?'

'Weeping,' I said shortly.

'I'll have to question her. You can come with me if you know her. Now, tell me what in Jesu's name has happened.'

I told him about finding Roger's body, about Barak following the footprints and what Dorothy had told me about the strange client.

'Nantwich?' Treasurer Rowland frowned. 'I've never heard of him. I thought I knew most of the solicitors.'

Browne's eyes narrowed as he studied me. 'Shardlake, I know that name.' He grinned. 'You're the Lincoln's Inn man the King made mock of at York a couple of years ago, aren't you? I recognize the description.'

Of a hunchback, I thought. That story would haunt me, I knew, till I died. 'We need to find out who Roger was meeting,' I said coldly.

Browne looked down at Roger's face, then he stirred the awful head with his toe. I clenched my hands with anger. 'This is a dreadful business,' he went on. 'Putting him in the fountain. He looks very calm. Couldn't have cut his own throat, could he?'

'No. He was a happy man.'

'Then it's a strange one.' He shook his head. 'A fountain turned to blood.' He addressed the Treasurer. 'You should get that drained.'

I frowned. That phrase, a fountain turned to blood. I had heard it before somewhere, I was sure.

'Where's this man of yours who went to follow the prints?' Browne asked.

'I don't know. He set off half an hour ago.'

'Well, have him report to me when he comes back. I shall have to visit the King's coroner before impanelling a jury.' I recalled that the King was at Whitehall now, and cursed the fact. Any murder within twelve miles of the royal residence and outside the City of London boundary — even just outside, like Lincoln's Inn — came under the authority of the King's coroner. He would have to be involved along with Browne.

'That will cause delay,' I said.

Browne shrugged. 'Can't be helped.'

'How long will it take to impanel a jury?'

'Depends if the King's coroner agrees to impanel a jury of lawyers. And it's Easter Sunday. Doubt we'll get an inquest before the middle of the week.'

I set my lips. It was vital in any murder to investigate at once, before the trail went cold. As Barak had said, most murders were solved quickly or not at all.

'I think the lawyers of the Inn will want the inquest to be held as soon as possible,' I said. 'As one of their own is involved.'

Treasurer Rowland nodded in agreement. 'Yes, we shall want an inquest soon.'

'We need to hunt this solicitor Nantwich. Could you do that, sir — just a general query under the Treasurer's authority?'

Rowland nodded. 'Yes. That must be done.'

And if I may suggest something else,' I said to the coroner, pressing home my advantage. 'The manner of his death is so strange, apparently knocked unconscious and kept that way till he was put in the fountain, it might be good to have the body opened.' It was a grim thought, but Guy might find something that would help us. 'I know Dr Malton, who does that duty for the London coroner. His fees are low. I could send him to you.'

'Oh, that old Moor.' Browne grunted. 'And who's to pay?'

'I will, if need be. Roger Elliard was my friend. And could I please ask' — my voice rising — 'to have him covered up?'

All right.' The coroner casually pulled my coat back over Roger's face, then turned to me, rubbing his pudgy hands together.

'What was the deceased's name again?'

'Roger Elliard.'

'Right. I'll see the widow. That body can be taken away now. Master treasurer, have a cart take it to my shed.'

Dorothy had somewhat recovered her composure when old Elias, dressed now but stricken-faced, led us to her parlour. She sat by the fire, staring into it as she held the maid Margaret's hand.

'Dorothy,' I said gently. 'This is Coroner Browne. He would ask you some questions, if you feel able.'

The coroner looked at the frieze above the fireplace, the carved animals peering through the branches. 'My, that is a fine thing,' he said.

Dorothy stared at it. 'A piece got broken off when we moved back here,' she said dully. 'Roger got it replaced but it was badly done.' I noticed a corner of the frieze was rather poorly executed, a slightly different colour.

'It is still fine,' Browne said, clumsily trying to put Dorothy at her ease. 'May I sit?'

Dorothy waved him to the chair where I had sat. He repeated the questions about the pro bono client, and asked about Roger's recent movements, in which nothing else unusual was revealed. I saw the coroner was not taking notes, which worried me. He did not look like a man with great powers of memory.

'Had your husband any enemies?' Browne asked.

'None. He had barristers he did not like particularly, whom he had won or lost against in court. But that is true of every barrister in London, and they do not murder their fellows in' - her voice faltered — 'this ghastly, wicked way.'

'And no question he could have done it himself?'

The bluntness of the question appalled me, but it brought out the best in Dorothy. 'No, master coroner, none at all. Anyone would tell you the idea he did this to himself is nonsensical. I wish you had had the grace to talk to others before baldly asking me if my husband might have cut his own throat.' I felt admiration for her; her spirit was returning.

Browne reddened. He rose from his chair. 'Very well,' he said stiffly. 'That will do for now. I must go to the palace, see the King's coroner.'

He bowed to us stiffly, then left. His heavy footsteps clumped slowly down the stairs.

'Old fat fustilugs!' Margaret said warmly.

Dorothy looked up at me. Her red-rimmed eyes were despairing. 'He does not seem to care,' she said. 'My poor Roger.'

'This is just one more job to him,' I said. 'But I promise you, I will be at his heels.'

'Thank you.' She laid a hand on my arm.

'And now I will go down to Roger's chambers. I will take on what work of his I can. If you wish.'

'Yes, please. Oh, and someone must write to our son. Tell Samuel.' Her eyes filled with tears again.

'Would you like me to?' I asked gently.

'I should not ask. I—'

'No. I will do all I can, Dorothy. For you. For Roger.'

Outside, to my relief, I saw Barak watching as Roger's body was loaded on to a cart, my coat wrapped round it. He looked downcast. I saw he was carrying a dark coat that I recognized. 'You found Roger's coat;'

'Yes. In the orchard. I thought it must be his, from the size.' I shivered, missing my own coat. 'Did you follow the prints;' 'As far as I could. They led through the orchard into Lincoln's Inn Fields, but the snow there was pretty well gone.' 'Was there anything in the pockets;'

'A set of house keys. The killer must have kept the key to the orchard. And his purse, he left his purse, with near two pounds in it.'

'Were there any papers; Any notes;' 'Nothing.'

'He went to meet a new client at an inn in Wych Lane last night.'

Barak looked over at the wall. 'Taken somewhere in Lincoln's Inn Fields, then. That's a hell of a way to haul a body.' He looked at me, frowning. 'What on earth is going on;'

Chapter Seven

Two days later, on the Tuesday after Easter, Barak and I walked down to the river to catch a boat to Westminster. I had on a new coat; I had left my old coat with the coroner; stained as it was with Roger's blood, I could never wear it again. I had a busy day ahead, five poor men's pleas to be heard before the Master of Requests. I hoped I would also get a date for hearing Adam Kite's application.

The morning had a real touch of spring at last, the breeze gentle and moist. Normally that would have lifted my spirits; but not with what lay on my heart now. As we crossed Fleet Street on our way down to Temple Bar, we saw a penitent heretic being led along to St Paul's. He was dressed in a grey smock and carried a faggot of birch twigs in trembling hands. Ashes had been tipped over his head and shoulders, turning his hair and face grey. A rope was round his neck, and he was led along by one of Bishop Bonner's men. Three halberdiers followed, wearing swords, the little procession led by a man beating a drum. Passers-by stopped, some jeering and others looking serious. Someone called, 'Courage, brother!' and the soldiers looked round angrily. I was taken aback to see that the tethered man was the wild preacher from Newgate market; he must have been taken for unlicensed preaching. He would be brought to St Paul's Cross where Bonner would preach to him of the evils of heresy. If he were caught again he could burn.

The ice had quite gone from the river now, which was high, the grey water flowing rapidly. The wherrymen had had a hard winter, as always when the river froze, and the man at the oars of the boat we took at Temple Stairs had a pinched, hungry look. I told him to make for Westminster.

'The stairs there are broken, sir. The ice has crushed the supports, they'll have to be replaced.'

'Whitehall Stairs, then,' I said with a sigh, not relishing a walk through the Westminster crowds. The man pulled out. I sat staring over the river. I had spent much of the previous day looking through Roger's cases and giving instructions to his clerk. Then I had written a letter to young Stephen Elliard in Bristol. When I went up to see his mother again in the evening, I found she had retreated into herself and sat staring into the fire, her maid holding her hand. At length she was persuaded away to bed.

"Eard about those great fish?' the wherryman asked, interrupting my sad thoughts.

'What? Oh, yes.'

'Just bobbed up from under the ice. Almost as big as houses they are.' He nodded and smiled. 'I've seen 'em.'

'What are they like?' Barak asked curiously

'Grey, with huge heads full of the strangest teeth you ever saw. They're starting to stink now. They're cutting them open to get the fish oil, though some say they're cursed. My vicar claims they are the Leviathan, the great monster from the deep whose appearance portends the Second Coming.'

'Maybe they're whales,' I said. 'A kind of giant fish that lives in the deep sea. Fishermen speak of them.'

'This ain't the deep sea, sir. And they're bigger than any fish could be. Giant heads they've got. I've seen them, like half London.'

The boat pulled up at Whitehall Stairs. We walked under the Holbein Gate and down into King Street. I kept a hand on my purse, for Westminster was as disorderly a place as could be found in England. Ahead of us loomed the vast bulk of Westminster Abbey, dwarfing even its neighbour, Westminster Hall, where most of the courts sat. Behind Westminster Hall lay a warren of buildings, those which had survived the fire a generation ago that destroyed much of the old Westminster Palace. The House of Commons met in the Painted Chamber there, and the Court of Requests was near by.

Around Westminster Hall and the abbey was a chaos of buildings, shops, inns and taverns, serving the lawyers and churchmen and MPs who came to Westminster. Pedlars, hucksters and prostitutes always thronged the streets, and the presence of the Sanctuary at Westminster had long drawn rogues to the area. Westminster's government was chaotic, for the requests of rich citizens to have it incorporated as a city had always been rejected, and now that the abbey had been dissolved, the old secular powers of the abbot had gone.

Parliament was in session, and King Street was even more crowded and colourful than usual. Shops and houses were set higgledy-piggledy along the road, the large houses of rich traders with their overhanging top stories next to run-down hovels. The street stank of the many tanneries and of the brickworks on the outskirts. I remembered the complaints the judges had made last year, that during their robed annual procession to Westminster Hall they had had to squeeze their way past sheep and cattle being led to the market.

We jostled our way down to Palace Yard, past shopkeepers calling their wares. There were innumerable pedlars, some calling from donkey carts, others with trays of cheap, skimble-skamble stuff round their necks. Barak waved them off if they approached. I saw a gang of ragged but muscular young men watching as a haughty- looking middle-aged man dressed in a long sable-lined coat and a fine doublet slashed to show the silk lining, walked slowly along. An MP up from the country, probably, who knew no better than to parade his wealth in King Street. Had it been after dark, I would not have given much for his chances.

'The inquest is tomorrow,' I told Barak. I had a message first thing. 'I am sorry, I forgot to tell you.'

'Will I need to be there?'

'Yes. Dorothy too, poor woman. It will be terrible for her. They were devoted.'

'Will she be up to the inquest?'

'I hope so. She is strong. I went in to see her first thing. She is still very quiet, white as a sheet.' I bit my lip. 'I hope the pamphleteers do not get hold of the story and start spreading it round the city.'

'They would love it.'

'I know. God's death, that coroner Browne is useless. The inquest should have been yesterday. The killer could be in another county by now.' I shook my head. 'I am taking it on myself to visit Guy later, see what he has found about the state of the body.'

A ragged pedlar with a tray of cheap trinkets round his neck stepped into my path. 'Rings and brooches, sir, for your lady, straight from Venice—' I sidestepped him. We were almost at New Palace Yard now; the great gate that led to Westminster Abbey precinct was just ahead. The crowds were thicker and as I walked under the gate I almost tripped over a card sharper sitting beside it with his marked cards, calling people to try their luck. We passed into Westminster Yard, the wide space already busy with lawyers. The big clock tower showed half past nine. We were in time, almost.

'Tammy says you called in a few nights ago,' Barak said. 'Came to visit us.'

So she had told him. Was that to pressure me into speaking to him? This was not the time. I made my voice light. ‘I passed the Old Barge on the way home from Guy's. That tenement of yours is very damp.'

He shrugged, looked sullen. 'I'd have moved if the baby lived. But it didn't.'

'Tamasin seemed a little — downcast.'

'She should get over the baby, I've had to.' His voice went hard. 'She's full of womanish weakness. I don't know where her old spirit's gone.' He did not meet my eyes as he spoke, which was rare for him. I saw that the domed fountain in the centre of the yard, frozen through the winter, was working again, water splashing merrily. I remembered the fountain at Lincoln's Inn, and closed my eyes for a moment.

The White Hall was a small chamber. A crowded little entrance hall was set with benches along the walls. There plaintiffs sat huddled, watching the lawyers talking in the body of the hall. Poor folk from all over the country came to have their suits pleaded here, by me and my fellow state-funded barrister, and many wore the homespun clothes of country gruffs. Most seemed overwhelmed to find them- selves among these great old buildings, though some had determined expressions. I saw my first client sitting there: Gib Rooke, a short stocky man in his thirties with a square face. He wore a red sur- coat, far too gaudy for court. He was frowning at two men who stood talking in the body of the hall. One was a tall, expensively dressed man; the other, to my surprise, was Bealknap. I saw that my old rival looked gaunt in his black gown as he fiddled with some papers in his knapsack. The tall man did not look pleased with him.

'How now, Gib,' Barak said, sitting beside Rooke. 'You're richly dressed for it.'

Rooke nodded to Barak, then looked up at me. 'Good day, Master Shardlake. Ready for the fight?'

I gave him a stern look. Having their own barrister went to some of my clients' heads, and they would take the chance to strut and mock; to their own detriment, for the courts demand sober respect. 'I am ready,' I said. 'We have a good case. If we lose, it may be because the court judges you insolent. So watch your words in there. Dressing like a peacock is a bad start.'

Gib reddened. He was one of the many cottars who had set up market gardens on the Lambeth marshes across the river over the last fifteen years; the growth of London meant an endless demand for food in the city. Draining patches of empty bogland, the cottars squatted there without permission from the owners, who had never developed the land and might live far away. Recently, however, the landlords had realized there were profits to be made, and sought to use the manor courts to turn the cottars out and reap the benefits of their work. Gib had applied to Requests against eviction, citing ancient laws, for which I had been able to find rather shadowy precedents, that if a man occupied land under two acres in extent for a dozen years unchallenged, he could remain.

Gib nodded at Bealknap. 'That old swine Sir Geoffrey seems unhappy with his lawyer.'

'I know Bealknap. Don't underestimate him.' And, in truth, he was a clever lawyer. Today, though, he seemed to have a problem with his papers; he was searching frantically through his bag now. Raising his head briefly and seeing me, he whispered to his client, Gib's landlord, and they moved away.

I sat on the other side of Gib. He looked at me, eyes greedy with curiosity. 'They say there's been a terrible murder at Lincoln's Inn,' he said. 'A lawyer found in the fountain with his throat cut. On Easter Sunday.'

It was as I had feared, the story was spreading. 'The killer will be rooted out,' I said.

Gib shook his head. 'They say they don't know who it is. What a way to kill someone. Ah well, 'tis the times.'

'I suppose you mean signs and portents,' I said wearily, remembering the boatman.

Gib shrugged. 'I don't know about that. But there have been some nasty killings lately. One of the marsh cottars was found murdered horribly in January. That was another strange one. I wouldn't be surprised if his landlord killed him,' he added loudly. People turned to look.

'If you don't control your mouth you'll lose this case,' I snapped at him.

'Here's trouble,' Barak whispered. Bealknap had left his client and come over to us.

'May I speak with you, Brother Shardlake?' he asked. I noticed he was sweating, though the unheated hall was cold.

I stood. 'Very well.'

We stepped away a few paces. 'Your client should not make insulting remarks about landlords in the precincts of the court,' he said pompously.

I raised my eyebrows. 'Is that all you have to say;'

'No no . . .' Bealknap hesitated, bit his lip, then took a deep breath. 'There is a problem, Brother Shardlake. I have not filed my client's title to the land.'

I stared at him, astonished. The most routine piece of a lawyer's work was to ensure the paperwork was properly filed in court. Many were the stories of junior barristers who failed to get their proper paperwork in on time and found their cases thrown out. But Bealknap had been a lawyer twenty years. For once he actually looked straight at me with his light blue eyes. I saw panic there. 'Assist me, Brother Shardlake,' he whispered desperately. 'Assist a fellow-lawyer. Get the case adjourned. I can file the deeds then.'

'If you file them now the judge might hear you. The plaints office is open.'

'I have lost them,' Bealknap said, a sudden frantic blurt. 'I appeal to you, Shardlake. I was going to bring them today, I thought they were in my bag. I have been ill! Dr Archer has purged me again and all last night my arse was in a bloody sweat—'

Many lawyers would have helped him for the sake of the fellowship of the bar; but I had always set my face against such arrangements at a client's expense.

'I am sorry, Bealknap,' I said quietly. 'My duty is to my client.'

Bealknap let out a sound between a sigh and a groan. Then he leaned forward, almost hissing. 'I knew you would not help me, you — you bent-backed toad. I won't forget this!'

I saw his client, standing a little way off, eyeing Bealknap curiously. Without a word I turned and went back to Barak and Gib Rooke.

'What was that about?' Barak asked. 'He looked ready to fly at you.'

'He hasn't filed proof of title. He's lost the deeds somewhere.'

Barak whistled. 'Then he's in the shit.' I set my lips. Bealknap's insult only strengthened my determination to stand by Gib Rooke, who for all his bravado was a mere child in the face of the law.

'What?' he asked eagerly. 'What's happened?'

I explained. 'If he'd make a clean breast of it, the judge might agree an adjournment if he's in a good mood. But Bealknap will lie and fudge.'

'Sir Geoffrey's done for, then?'

'He may be.'

Bealknap was crouched on the floor now, looking through his pannier again, frantically, hopelessly. His arms were shaking as he rifled through the bag. Then the usher appeared in the doorway of the courtroom.

'Let all who have business before His Majesty's Court of Requests step forward

Bealknap looked at him in despair. Then he rose and joined the crowd as everyone stepped forward into the old white-painted hall with its high dirty windows, the judge on his bench in his scarlet robes the only splash of colour.

Sir Stephen Ainsworth, Judge of Requests, was fair but sharp- tongued. As soon as he came to our case he said the court record was incomplete. As I had expected, Bealknap rose and said he had filed the deeds but the court clerk must have lost them, asking quickly for an adjournment.

'Where is your receipt for the deeds?' Ainsworth asked.

'I left it with my clerk, but he has the key to the office and has not arrived. I had to leave early to get here, the Westminster stairs being down—' I had to give Bealknap credit for quick thinking. But Ainsworth turned to the usher.

'Have the Clerk of Requests brought here,' he said.

Bealknap looked ready to collapse as the clerk was brought and confirmed the deeds had never been lodged. 'I suspect you lied to me there, Brother Bealknap,' Ainsworth said coldly. 'Be very careful, sir. Your client's claim against Gilbert Rooke is dismissed for lack of title. Goodman Rooke, you may remain on your land. You have been lucky.'

Gib grinned from ear to ear. Bealknap sat down, his face grey. His client leaned close and began whispering fiercely, his face furious. I caught the gleam of white teeth, brown wood above. Another who had taken to false teeth.

'Brother Shardlake,' Ainsworth continued. 'I am told you have filed an application in the case of a boy sent to the Bedlam by the Privy Council.'

'Yes, your honour.'

He tapped his quill on his table, frowning thoughtfully. 'Do I have the jurisdiction to hear this?'

'The issue, your honour, is that no enquiry has been made into the boy's state of mental health. That should be done before a person is deprived of their freedom. It is a matter of due process.' I took a deep breath. 'I propose to get a doctor to examine him, sir. But in the meantime, if you will consent to hear the matter, there is also the issue of who should pay the fees they charge in the Bedlam, and of the need to report on his progress. The boy's parents are poor.'

'Those at least I can deal with. Very well, the court will set an early date for a hearing. But, Master Shardlake —' He looked at me seriously. 'These are deep waters. Politics and madness.'

'I know, your honour.'

'Tread carefully, for your client's sake as well as your own.'

'Bealknap looked sick,' I said.

'Sicker still after his case was thrown out.'

'He has always been such a crafty rogue, but today he was pitiable. He will be a greater enemy than ever now.'

We looked across the quadrangle to the Painted Hall, where the Commons of Parliament were sitting. Candles had been lit, yellow flashes of light visible through the high windows. Barak grunted.

'They say every bill the King has put before them is being passed this session.' He spat on the ground. 'Those members not in the King's pocket already can be bought off with bribes and threats.'

I was silent, for I could not disagree.

'Adam Kite's folks will be pleased he has a hearing,' he said.

'Yes. Judge Ainsworth was nervous of taking on the Council, but he is an honest man. That reminds me, I did not tell you, I saw Lord Latimer's funeral passing the day I went to the Bedlam. I saw the Lady Catherine Parr, or at the least I think it was her. She was in a big carriage.'

'What was she like;' Barak asked curiously.

'Not a great beauty. But something arresting about her. I thought she looked frightened.'

'Afraid to say yes to the King, perhaps, and afraid to say no.'

I nodded sadly, for the woman's fear had impressed itself on

me.

'Well,' I said. 'I must catch a boat to Guy's, learn what he has found. Will you go to Lincoln's Inn and draw the orders for today's cases; And write to the Kites, asking them to come and see me tomorrow;'

We walked back to Whitehall Stairs. A row of brightly made up whores had taken places by the gate into New Palace Yard, standing in a row to catch the eye of the MPs walking past when the house rose. As I passed two bent forward to show me ample cleavages.

'They're bold,' I said. 'They'll be whipped at the cart's tail if the authorities catch them.'

'That won't happen.' Barak smiled wickedly. 'The MPs would object. The chance of a bit of sport in the stewhouses is all that makes those long debates worthwhile for some.'

'Maybe that is why they are granting all the King wants so quickly.'

It was dark by the time I arrived at Guy's. His shop was closed, but he answered my knock. He invited me gravely to sit down. He sat opposite me in the consulting room, clasped his hands together and looked at me seriously. The candlelight emphasized the lines in his dark face.

'How is poor Mistress Elliard?' he asked.

'Distraught. We are no further forward in investigating Roger's murder. We can find no solicitor by the name of Nantwich, which was the name in the letters Roger was sent. It begins to look as though the killer sent them.'

'And you? You look strained, Matthew. And recently you have seemed so well. You are still doing your back exercises?'

'Yes. I cope, Guy. I always cope.' I took a deep breath. 'And I will try to have the stomach for whatever you have to tell me of your investigation of Roger's body. But the less detail the better, please.'

'I visited the place where the body is stored this morning. I took Piers—'

I frowned. The idea of Guy opening Roger, examining his innards, was horrible enough. But a stranger, a mere boy . . .

'I am training him, Matthew. The licence I have to open bodies offers a unique chance to study human anatomy. He may be able to use it to help others in the future.'

I still did not like the notion. 'What did you find?' I asked.

'So far as I could see, Master Elliard's health at the time of his death was good.'

'It always was. Till someone knocked him out and cut his throat.'

'I don't think he was knocked out,' Guy said in the same grave, even tones. 'Not as we understand that phrase.'

I looked at him, appalled. 'You mean he was conscious when he went in there?'

'Not that either. Have you ever heard of dwale?' I shook my head.

'There is no reason you should. It is a liquid compound of opium and certain other elements, such as vinegar and pig's bile, which induces unconsciousness. Depending on how much is used it can bring relaxation, unconsciousness — or death. It has been used on and off for hundreds of years to render people unconscious before surgery.'

'Then why have I never heard of it? That would save terrible pain.'

He shook his head. 'There is a severe problem with it. The correct dose is very hard to determine, very hard indeed. It depends on many factors: the age of the ingredients, the size and age and health of the patient. It is very easy to give the patient too much and then the physician is left with a corpse. For that reason very few use it now. But I think Master Elliard's killer did.'

'Why?'

'Let me show you something.' He left the room, returning a moment later. I feared what dreadful thing he might return with, but it was only one of Roger's boots. He laid it across his knee and brought the candle to it, illuminating a large dark stain.

'This boot was dry, it must have been on the leg that was sticking out of the water. When I saw that stain I smelt it, then put my finger to it and tasted. The taste of dwale is quite distinctive.' He looked at me. 'The first stage after it is taken is nearly always a sense of euphoria, then unconsciousness. That explains your poor friend's peaceful look.'

'You said it is out of use now. So who would use it?'

'Very few physicians or surgeons, because of the risks. Some of the unlicensed healers.' He hesitated. 'And there was a tradition of its use in certain monasteries.'

There was a moment's silence. Then I said, 'You used it, didn't you?'

He nodded slowly. 'Only when I thought the shock of severe surgery might kill a patient. And I have a long skill in determining dosages. But though it is not used now, the formula is well known among practitioners. It is no secret.'

'But needs great skill to administer.'

He nodded. 'The killer would not have wanted to give Roger a fatal dose. He meant to make that terrible display in the fountain. Drugged him so he would not wake even when his throat was cut.'

'Did the body tell you anything else?'

'No. The organs were otherwise all healthy. They might have been those of a younger man.'

'You make it sound very impersonal, Guy.'

'I have to be impersonal, Matthew. How else would I cope with the things I see?'

'I cannot be impersonal. Not with this.'

'Then perhaps it should be left to others to investigate.'

'I have given Dorothy a promise. I am committed.'

'Very well.' For a moment Guy's face took on that tired, strained look I had seen when I brought Roger to see him. 'There was one thing, a lump on the back of his head. I think whoever your friend went to meet that night knocked him out. When he came round he was forced — somehow — to drink dwale. He passed out, and the killer brought him to Lincoln's Inn.'

'Across the fields and through the orchard door.' I told him about the footprints Barak had followed. 'Roger was a small man, but this brute must still be very strong.'

'And determined. And vicious.'

I shook my head. 'And an educated man. From what you say he has knowledge of the medical profession and perhaps the legal world too, if he could fake a letter from a solicitor well enough to take Roger in, which it seems likely he did. But why? Why kill a man who has harmed no one, and leave that terrible spectacle?'

'He had no enemies?'

'None.' I looked at Roger's boot again, and suddenly it was all too much. My stomach lurched violently. 'Your privy, Guy—' I gasped. 'You know the way.'

I went to the privy at the rear of the house, the usual wooden shack over a cesspit, yet less noisome than most, something scented in the air to minimize the stinks. There I was violently sick. As I walked back to the house I felt weak, my legs shaking.

Low voices came from the consulting room. The door was open and I saw Guy and the boy Piers sitting close together at the table. They had brought the candle over and were looking, rapt, at an open book. I recognized Vesalius' horribly illustrated anatomy book. Piers brushed a lick of dark hair from his face and pointed to the drawing. 'See,' he said eagerly. 'That illustration is just like Elliard's heart.' Piers broke off suddenly, his face reddening, as he saw me. 'Master Shardlake! I - I did not know you were still here. I brought in the book—'

'I saw,' I said curtly. 'Poor Roger. I wonder what he would have thought if he knew the intimate details of his body would become chatter for apprentices. Well, perhaps he would have been amused, though I cannot say I am.' I looked with distaste at the picture, a human abdomen torn open, all the organs exposed.

"Tis only to gain better knowledge, sir,' Piers mumbled. I gave him a cold look, thinking Guy gave him far too much latitude.

'No, Piers, it was my fault.' Guy for once looked discomfited.

'You will be giving evidence at the inquest tomorrow morning?' I asked him.

'Yes. Of course.'

'And Adam: Do you know when you may be able to visit him: I ought to come too. The court is not sitting on Friday morning, if that would be convenient for you.'

He brought a little leather-bound notebook from his pocket and studied it. 'Yes, Friday at noon?'

'Then I will leave you,' I said, with an angry glance at the book, which still lay open on the desk, and at Piers, who still stood quietly at his master's side. Guy raised a hand.

'No, Matthew, stay, please.' I hesitated. Guy closed the Vesalius book and handed it up to Piers. 'Take it out, my boy, and bring some wine. Then continue studying the book if you wish.'

'Yes, sir.'

Guy patted Piers' shoulder in an affectionate gesture, and he left the room. 'I am so sorry, Matthew,' he said. 'We meant no disrespect to Roger Elliard. It is just — the implications of Vesalius for the practice of medicine are so great — but Matthew, even as I investigated how your friend died, as you asked me to do, I prayed for his departed soul.'

I smiled. I knew Guy too well, knew his goodness, to be angry for long. 'Is Vesalius so very remarkable, then?' I asked.

'Oh yes, yes. It is a change of approach that is much needed, study based on observation, not merely acceptance of blind doc trine.'

'It will not be popular among physicians, then.'

'No. It challenges their monopoly of arcane knowledge. And who knows where it may end?' He looked at the chart on his wall. 'The very doctrine of the humours itself could be challenged and tested.'

I followed his gaze to the chart, with its complex equations and symbols. The notion that the human body was composed of four humours, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood, corresponding to the four elements of earth, fire, water and air that made up everything in the world, was so universally accepted I could not imagine it ever being challenged: nor the doctrine that every human ailment was caused by imbalances between the four elements in the individual body. I remembered discussing our respective humours with Roger, on the last evening I saw him.

'Then I will not be recommended to eat salad when I am low in spirits,' I said. 'To moisten the dryness of black bile. That would be a relief.'

Guy smiled sadly. 'I would rather recommend attending a musical evening, or a long walk over Lincoln's Inn Fields.'

'Not Lincoln's Inn Fields, Guy. It seems that was probably where Roger met his assailant.'

Piers knocked at the door and brought in a large jug of wine and two glasses. When he had gone I said, 'I have promised Dorothy to find the killer, but I do not know how he can be caught.'

'You have resolved such matters before, as I know better than anyone. You underestimate yourself. I know that too.'

'I would be a fool to underestimate the difficulties of this case. And because of Easter and the wretched politics of the coroner's offices, the inquest will be four days after the murder. Four days with no official investigation. I thought the royal coroner might hurry things up, but he has not. Ten to one the murderer is out of London now; though for all the chance we have of finding him he could still be in the city, laughing at the coroners and the constables and their stupidity.' I shook my head.

'If he is an educated man, that must limit the numbers. You know as well as I that both the law and medicine are closed worlds, their practitioners seeking to keep their secrets to themselves.'

'Perhaps. But many of our class have some knowledge of both. Though the knowledge of dwale is unusual.'

'And how to administer it. Wait until the inquest tomorrow, see if anything more is revealed.'

I nodded, took a drink of wine from my cup. I saw that Guy had finished his already, which surprised me for he was a believer in moderation in all things.

'Thank you for taking on Adam Kite,' I said.

He nodded slowly. 'Salvation panic. A strange obsession. How prone people are to become fixated on ideas, or religion, or people. And of course fanatic religion is everywhere. Perhaps the surprise is there are not more people like Adam.' He turned his cup in his hand pensively.

A wherryman told me today that those huge fish they found in the river are the Leviathans, and foretell the second coming of Christ, the end of the world.'

Guy shook his head. 'There was only one Leviathan.'

'So I thought.'

'It has become a world of black and white, Matthew, a Manichean world where preachers encourage everyone to rush towards a conflict between good and evil. Each knowing, of course, that their own side is entirely in the right.'

I smiled, inclined my head. 'Protestants and Catholics alike?'

'Yes. Do not forget my parents were moriscos, Moorish Spaniards made to leave Spain by the Inquisition. I too have seen the wildness that follows when fanatics without self-doubt gain power.' He looked at me gravely. 'But mark this. Whatever wrongs it has done, the Catholic Church has always believed in free will, that men by their actions as well as their faith may choose to come to God. This new Protestant radicalism will not allow for that, everyone is either saved or damned through God's will, not free will. They may pray to be saved once and for all, may feel they are saved once and for all, but for them it is God's decision, not man's. And so we have Adam Kite, who thinks that God will not have him.'

'And his wretched vicar, because he cannot cure him, believes he is possessed.'

'It is a way of explaining failure.'

'I never supported Luther on predestination, Guy. I was on Erasmus' side in their debate on free will.' I looked at him seriously. 'I saw a non-licensed preacher taken to St Paul's in sackcloth and ashes this morning. Bonner is going to crack down on the Protestants, and they will not take it quietly. It is not going to be a good time for outsiders.'

'Yes, you are right. With my dark face and monkish past, I am best to keep quiet and stay indoors when I can. And not talk too widely about the discoveries of Vesalius, still less this Polish scholar who says the earth goes round the sun. But what peace of mind is there even at home?' he added, so quietly I barely heard him. His face was suddenly full of pain and sadness.

'Are you all right, Guy?' I asked quietly. 'Have you some trouble of your own?'

'No.' He smiled. 'Only the aches and pains of old age. And I have had enough of wine and should go to bed.' He rose. 'Good- night.'

'I shall tell Adam Kite's parents you will see them. They will be relieved.'

We shook hands and I left. I was glad we had parted on good terms after all. But I did not believe him when he said nothing was wrong.

Chapter Eight

Next morning I went to fetch Dorothy to accompany her to the inquest. She had not been out of doors since Roger's death, and I was worried about how she would cope. Crossing Gatehouse Court I saw that as at Westminster the fountain's underground valve had been turned and the water had come on; it splashed merrily into the huge bowl. The weather was still mild, the birds chirking in the trees. The world of nature was being reborn, though I could take no pleasure in it.

Dorothy sat in her chair by the fire, the faithful Margaret beside her. Both were dressed in deepest black and wore coifs with long black wings behind, the pale oval of Dorothy's face staring out starkly. I was reminded of that other mourner I had recently seen, Catherine Parr. Dorothy gave me a brave smile.

'Is it time? Yes. I see from your expression that it is.' She sighed, looking at the frieze above the fireplace. I followed her gaze. A weasel looked out at me from between thick wooden vines. 'How lifelike that is,' I said.

'Ay, Roger was so fond of it. He was displeased with the repair of that corner after it was damaged.'

'Are you sure you can bear this?' I asked, looking at her white face and sunken cheeks.

'Yes,' she said with a touch of her old firmness. 'I must see Roger's killer caught.'

'I will do the identification of the body, if you wish.'

'Thank you. That — that might be too much.'

'We shall take the boat to the Guildhall.'

'Good.' She hesitated, then asked suddenly, 'What are they saying, in the streets?'

'Just that there was a nasty murder here.'

'If I hear anyone speak badly of Roger I shall fly at them.'

'That's the way, mistress,' Margaret said approvingly. She helped Dorothy rise to her feet.

The great pillared vestibule of the London Guildhall was as busy as usual. Unusually, a pair of constables in city livery were posted by the door. Within, council and guild officials scuttled to and fro. Some glanced curiously at a large group of black-robed lawyers gathered in a corner. I recognized the stern face of Treasurer Rowland; the others were all Lincoln's Inn barristers - the jury. I was surprised that apart from Treasurer Rowland they were all very young; there was no one else there of any seniority. Some looked distinctly uneasy, as did the two students who had found the body and who stood on the fringe of the group. Guy stood a little apart, talking to Barak.

Dorothy looked at the crowd, hesitated, then moved to a bench by the wall. She sat, signalling Margaret to join her. 'We will wait here until the court opens,' she told me. 'I cannot face talking to anyone.'

'Very well.'

I crossed to Barak and Guy. 'Good day, Matthew,' Guy said. He looked across at Dorothy. 'Is that the poor widow? She is very pale.'

'It has cost her much to come today. But she is brave.'

'Yes, one senses strength beneath her suffering.' He nodded at Barak. 'Jack here has noticed something strange.'

'What?'

Barak looked red-eyed, a little bilious. Had he had yet another night in the taverns? He leaned close; his breath was sour.

'A spectacular death like this,' he said, 'you'd think there'd be a crowd here to fill the public gallery. But those constables are turning folk away.'

'Really?' That would be good for Dorothy, but it was unheard of; the coroner's court, like all jury courts, was supposed to be public.

'Brother Shardlake, a word.' Treasurer Rowland appeared at my elbow. I followed him away from the group.

'My clerk tells me no spectators have been allowed in,' I said.

'The usher says the coroners have decided the hearing is to be private, to prevent idle babble. I have never heard of such a thing.'

We were interrupted by a black<-robed usher calling from a doorway. I went back to Dorothy. She rose to her feet; lips set, a spot of red in each cheek. 'Take my hand, Margaret,' she said quietly. The jurors parted to let her enter the courtroom.

'That's Sir Gregory Harsnet,' Barak whispered. 'The King's assistant coroner. He used to be in Lord Cromwell's camp, he's one of the few reformers who's kept his place.'

Browne let out a little belch; Harsnet frowned at him and he turned another belch into a cough and sat up straight. No doubt who was master here. The doors were closed.

'We will come to order, please.' Harsnet spoke in a clear, quiet voice with a west country accent, his eyes roving round the room. 'We are here today to adjudicate on the sudden and dreadful death of Roger Elliard, barrister of Lincoln's Inn. As the jurors are all lawyers

I do not need to tell you that today we shall view the body, hear the evidence and decide whether we can come to a verdict.'

The jury was sworn in, the young barristers stepping up to take the Testament from the usher. Then Harsnet addressed us again.

'Before we view the body I would call Dr Guy Malton, who has been charged with examining it, to tell us what he found.'

Guy stood and recited his impressive medical qualifications, the jurors staring curiously at his brown skin. He spoke of how he believed Roger had been rendered unconscious using the drug called dwale, then carried to the fountain where his throat had been cut.

'He was alive when he went in,' he said. 'He died from a massive loss of blood, not drowning. That means' — he hesitated - 'that means his throat was cut, then he was held over the fountain until he died, and then was thrown in.'

There was silence in the courtroom for a moment, as the full horror of the scene Guy described sank in. Then Harsnet asked, 'How long was he dead before he was found?'

'Some hours. Rigor mortis would be delayed by the cold.' He looked at me. 'And I believe a skin of ice had had time to re-form on the fountain.'

'It had,' I said.

I glanced across Barak to Dorothy, who sat with Margaret on Guy's other side. She was quite still, her face expressionless. She seemed smaller somehow, as though shrinking into those heavy black clothes.

Harsnet frowned at Guy. 'What object could anyone have in creating such a terrible spectacle? A man dead in a fountain of blood.'

Guy spread his hands. 'I cannot say.' Again I thought, that phrase is familiar. A fountain of blood. But from where?

'A ghastly thing.' Harsnet shook his head; he looked troubled. He then rose slowly. 'Jurors,' he said quietly, 'you will now accompany me to view the body. Dr Malton, please come too in case there are questions. I see a Brother Shardlake is to identify the body.' He looked at me. 'That is you?'

'Yes, master coroner.'

He gave me a long, considering stare. 'How long did you know the deceased;'

'Twenty years. I wished to spare his widow.'

Harsnet looked at Dorothy. 'Very well,' he said quietly, and rose to lead us out.

'What we have to determine today is how Roger Elliard died. Murder, clearly, but by whom; I would like to call Jack Barak.'

He asked Barak a series of questions about the footprints he had followed.

'The footsteps led to the fountain and then went back in the oppc site direction.' Barak said. 'He was carrying something on the way in, not on the way back. The snow was melting fast but the impressions were quite clear.'

Harsnet looked at him. 'No ordinary man, surely, could carry an unconscious body as far as you have suggested.'

'A very strong and determined man could.'

'You used to work for Lord Cromwell, I believe;' I wondered, how did Harsnet know that;

'I did. Before I became a law clerk.'

'In what capacity;'

'This and that,' Barak answered cheerfully. 'As my master commanded.'

'Sit down,' Harsnet said coldly, clearly not liking Barak's attitude. Beside him, Coroner Browne gave a little smirk. He was taking no part in the proceedings, his presence evidently a mere formality.

Other witnesses were called: the two boys, then I, to attest to the time and circumstances of the body's discovery, then Treasurer Rowland. Asked about Roger's state of mind, he replied clearly and precisely that he was a happy, cheerful man, respected in the profession, with many friends and no enemies anyone knew of.

'He had one enemy,' Harsnet said. 'A vicious and clever one. This killing was planned, with patience and cunning.' I looked at him. He was no fool. 'Someone hated Roger Elliard,' he continued. He turned to Rowland.

'What about this solicitor who wrote to Master Elliard;'

'Fictitious, sir. No one knows anything of a solicitor with the unusual name of Nantwich. I have made enquiries at all the Inns of Court. As no one else seemed to be doing so,' he added, pointedly glancing at Browne. Harsnet frowned at him, but the crotchety old man was hard as teak and his eyes did not waver.

'If I may remind the court of something;' Guy stood and spoke quietly.

'Yes,' Harsnet snapped. I was puzzled. I could understand the coroner becoming a little annoyed by witnesses who kept speaking up, but Rowland's point was not trivial, and Guy's was unlikely to be.

'Sir, even the most skilled physician would find it hard to gauge the dose of this drug. This man has at least a degree of specialized knowledge.'

'He may have,' Harsnet said. 'But unfortunately that does not take us any further. In a case of savage vengeance such as this, I would expect there to be an obvious culprit, yet there seems to be none. With the delays necessitated by Easter, I find it hard to see how this murderer can be quickly caught.'

I looked at him in surprise. It was not for a coroner to discourage investigation like this. I sensed he was uneasy with what he was saying. Browne gave a slight smirk, as though he had expected this outcome.

'We must be realistic,' Harsnet went on. 'I foresee a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown, and I fear that they may remain unknown.'

I was astonished. This was blatant leading of the jury. Yet none of the young men who had been selected dared speak up.

Then I heard a swish of skirts. Dorothy had risen to her feet and stood facing the King's coroner.

'I have not been asked to speak, sir, but if anyone has that right it is me. I will see my husband's murderer caught, though it costs me all. With the help of faithful friends, I will.' She was shaking from head to toe but her voice, though quiet, cut the air like a knife. With her last words she turned to me. I gave her a vigorous nod. She sat down.

I expected some sort of explosion from Harsnet, but he merely sat with his lips pressed into a narrow line. His face had reddened. Browne was grinning at his discomfiture; I would have liked to rise and wipe that smirk from his froggy face. At length, Harsnet spoke.

'I can make allowances for Mistress Elliard's state of mind, I will not censure her. Perhaps we need more evidence before the jury can deliver a verdict. Therefore I will not ask it to deliver a verdict now; the matter will be left open while I undertake an investigation myself-—'

I rose to my feet. 'With the help of the jury, sir, I take it. As is normal?'

'A coroner may investigate without a jury if he feels it appropriate; as I do here. The jurors, like the deceased, are all lawyers. Less heat and more light will be generated if I act alone. Now sit down, sir.'

I sat, but glared at him.

'And now all of you note something, and note it well.' Harsnet looked over the room. He spoke slowly, his accent noticeable. 'I will not have the details of this case hawked around London. There is a royal order going out today banning the printing of any pamphlets on the subject. Everyone here is ordered to keep these matters secret, and discourage those who come to pry, as they will. There is too much loose talk in London now. That is my order, as the King's deputy coroner, and anyone who disobeys it will be punished.' Then he rose, Browne heaving himself to his feet beside him. 'This inquest is adjourned sine die. It will be recalled when I have more evidence. Good morning, gentlemen.' The usher opened the door, and the coroners left. There was an immediate babble of talk.

'This has to be the devil's work. Such a dreadful display, on a Sunday. This killer was possessed—'

I stared round at the young fool of a juror who had spoken. Loose talk, indeed.

'His unnatural strength. That is always seen in cases of pos- session—'

Margaret turned to me. 'We should get my mistress out of here.' And indeed Dorothy looked as though she might faint. I rose and helped Margaret steer her out of the room. Her arm felt light as a bird's; I wondered if she was eating. We led her to a bench and sat her down. Barak and Guy followed. Treasurer Rowland emerged, looking angry. I hoped he might come and offer some words of encouragement to Dorothy but he only gave me a nod and swept away, shoes clicking on the tiles; his concern was with the Inn's reputation and power, not a grieving widow. Turning back to her, I reflected the Inn would want her out of her lodgings before long.

She had closed her eyes, but now she opened them and heaved herself upright. She looked at each of us in turn: me, Margaret, Barak and Guy.

'Thank you for your help, all of you, and for refusing to be swayed from the truth.' She turned to me. 'They won't investigate, will they? They think the killer has got away, and it will be too much trouble.'

'There's something going on. Harsnet wanted the matter kept entirely to himself.'

'Who is that man:'

'I know nothing of him.'

'They want it buried,' she said bitterly. 'Don't they?' 'Well. . .'

'Come, Matthew, I was not married to Roger near twenty years without learning a good deal about the law. They want this dropped and forgotten.'

'It looks like it.' I shook my head. 'If we waste more time the killer may never be found.'

'Will you help me, Matthew, please? I am a woman, they will take no notice of me.'

'I give you my word. I will start by talking to Coroner Harsnet. Guy, will you wait with Dorothy?' I sensed she was holding on by her fingertips. He nodded.

'Then come, Barak.'

'You've taken something on there,' Barak said as he followed me to the Guildhall steps. 'Seems to me finding the killer is all she has to hold on to. I don't know what would happen to her if we fail.'

'We will not fail,' I said firmly.

Outside in the paved square I saw the black-robed figure of Harsnet. He was talking to a tall, strongly built man in his thirties with a long, copper-coloured beard, richly dressed in a green jerkin with gold piping, a shirt decorated with intricate Spanish lacework showing beneath, and a red cap with a white feather worn at a jaunty angle. The scabbard for the sword he wore at his waist was leather decorated with gold. He carried a heavy coat. Normally I would have hesitated in challenging a royal official in public, especially when he was engaged with a man of obviously high status; but I was fired by anger as seldom before in my life.

The two men turned to us as we approached. The bearded man, whose long face was handsome yet with something harsh about it, turned to Harsnet with a smile. 'He was right,' he said. 'Here he is.'

I looked from one to the other, noticing the younger man was sunburned. 'What do you mean, sir?' I asked. 'I do not understand. Who told you what?'

Harsnet took a deep breath. Close to, he looked strained, burdened. 'I was told you might to be unhappy with the verdict, Brother Shardlake.' 'Told? By whom?'

The young man waved at Barak. 'Get rid of your minion and we'll tell you.'

Barak gave him a nasty look, but I nodded. 'Jack, tell Dorothy I may be some time, she had best go home. I will visit her later. Go back with them.'

He went reluctantly back to the Guildhall. I turned to Harsnet, who eyed me keenly. So did his friend. I began to feel uneasy.

'I dare say you have come to ask why I adjourned the hearing,' Harsnet said quietly.

'Yes.' I took a deep breath. 'It seems you do not want the killer discovered.'

The tall man laughed bitterly. 'Oh, you mistake us there, lawyer.' He spoke in a deep, musical voice. 'There is nothing in this world we want more.'

'Then why . . . ?'

'Because this matter has political implications,' Harsnet said. He glanced round to ensure nobody was in earshot. 'I was told you would contest my decision. By Archbishop Cranmer.'

'What?'

He fixed those keen blue eyes on me. 'Do you truly seek to find Master Elliard's killer, above all else?'

A chill had run down my back at Cranmer's name. Somehow Roger's death was involved with high politics, which I had sworn never to involve myself in again. But then I remembered Roger's brutalized corpse, Dorothy's ravaged face.

'Yes,' I said.

The richly dressed man laughed. 'There, Gregory, he has courage after all.'

'Who are you, sir?' I asked boldly. He frowned at my insolence. 'This is Sir Thomas Seymour,' Harsnet said. 'Brother of the late Queen Jane.'

'So watch your manners, churl,' Seymour growled.

I was lost for words for a moment. 'If you questioned my actions,' Harsnet continued, almost apologetic, 'my instructions were to bring you to Archbishop Cranmer.'

'What is this about?'

'Much more than the death of Master Elliard.' He looked me in the eye. 'Something truly dark and terrible. But come, we have a wherry waiting to go to Lambeth Palace.'

Chapter Nine

One of Archbishop Cranmer's own boats was waiting for us at Three Cranes Stairs, four oarsmen in the Archbishop's white livery in their places. Harsnet told the men to row fast for Lambeth Palace.

After the thaw the river was thronged with white sails as wherries carried customers to and fro; heavy barges pulled upriver, blowing horns to warn smaller craft out of the way, all under a pale blue sky, the river breeze light and cool. But I thought of the depths beneath us that had spewed up those giant fish.

Behind us I saw London Bridge with its crowds of houses and shops, the great bulk of the Tower looming beyond. Atop the arch at the south end of the bridge long stakes thrust into the sky, the heads of those who had defied or angered the King set atop them mercifully indistinct. Among them, still, those of my old master Thomas Cromwell and those of Dereham and Culpeper, alleged lovers of the executed Queen Catherine Howard. I remembered Thomas Culpeper at York, in all his peacock pride and beauty, and shuddered at the thought that now I was sailing back into the world of the King's court.

'Ay, 'tis still cold,' Seymour said, mistaking my tremor. He had wrapped his heavy coat around him. I studied him covertly. I knew he was the younger brother of Henry's third queen, Jane Seymour, who died giving birth to his heir Prince Edward. It was said she was the only one of his five wives that Henry mourned. Seymour's older brother, Edward, Earl of Hertford, held high office at court, and had been appointed Lord Admiral of the Navy. Barak had told me that

Sir Thomas was something of an adventurer; he would never be trusted with a place on the Privy Council, but he had been awarded a number of lucrative monopolies and had recently been ambassador in Austria where the emperor was fighting the Turks. Lord Hertford, with Cranmer, was one of the few serious reformers to have survived on the Privy Council after Cromwell's fall three years before. He was known as a serious and capable politician, and a successful military commander who had led the campaign against Scotland the previous autumn; his brother Thomas, though, had the reputation of an irresponsible ladies' man. Looking at his handsome face I could believe it: the way he wrapped his coat round himself, gently stroking the long fur collar while his eyes roved over the water, the full lips held in a half smile under the heavy, fashionably long brown beard, all spoke of a sensualist. Harsnet, with his rugged features, serious eyes and worried expression, was an entire contrast. As the boat bobbed through the choppy water of mid-river I wondered fearfully what Thomas Seymour could have to do with poor Roger.

We reached the far bank in silence and sculled quickly down to Lambeth Palace. We pulled past the empty niche where the statue of St Thomas Becket had stood, that all the London boatmen bowed to; that image of an archbishop who had defied a king now removed and destroyed. We passed the Lollards' Tower where heretics were held. I recalled Cranmer's brutal gaoler whom I had met in York, and shuddered anew. Cranmer, knowing Cromwell had trusted me, had forced me into undertaking a dangerous mission there; yet his conscience had pricked him afterwards and led him to find me my position at Requests. Now, it seemed, I would meet that passionate, troubled, God-haunted man again.

I remembered the plain oaken door of Cranmer's study from my last visit. Harsnet knocked and entered, and I followed him and Seymour inside.

The Archbishop of Canterbury sat behind a large desk, wearing a white robe with a black stole, his head with its greying dark hair bare. He looked strained and worried. The twin furrows on his cheeks had deepened in the last year, drawing the corners of his full mouth downward. Cranmer was far from an extreme reformer, but he was always under threat from the conservatives at court. Many of them would have had him burned if they could. The King's long affection for him was all that kept him safe. His large blue eyes were as I remembered, full of passion and conflict.

Another man stood beside him, wearing a plain but expensive dark robe. His prominent nose, long face and athletic frame were so like Thomas Seymour's that it could only be his brother. Yet where Thomas was handsome, the same elements, slightly recast, made Lord Hertford an ugly man. His eyes were large and protuberant, the face too long and thin, the long beard straggly. Yet I sensed a depth of character and purpose in the plainly dressed Hertford that his brother lacked. I recalled that it was he who, with Cranmer, had sent Adam Kite to the Bedlam when Richard Rich wanted a worse fate for him. Sir Thomas removed his cap with a flourish and seized his brother's hand. 'It is good to see you, Edward.' He turned to Cranmer and bowed. 'My lord. As you see, we have brought him.'

'Yes, Thomas.' Cranmer's tones were weary, and there was dislike in the look he gave the younger Seymour. He turned to me and gave me one of his characteristic sad smiles.

'Well, Matthew Shardlake, we meet once again on strange business. Serjeant Shardlake,' he added, reminding me of the rank I had gained through his patronage.

He turned to Harsnet. 'Is it as we feared?'

Harsnet nodded. 'Yes, my lord. Exactly the same as the other.'

Cranmer exchanged a look with Lord Hertford, then stared for a moment into the dancing flames of the wood fire burning in the grate. These, I realized, were worried men. The two most powerful reformers at court, working together. Cranmer turned to me, forcing a smile. 'Well, Matthew, how is the Court of Requests?'

'It flourishes, my lord. I thank you again for helping me to that post.'

'You were owed it.' He stared at me again. I was conscious that they were all looking at me: Cranmer, Harsnet and Lord Hertford seriously, Sir Thomas with a cynical smile. I shifted uneasily. It was Sir Thomas who broke the silence.

'Well, can we trust the hunchback?'

'Do not call him that!' Cranmer looked genuinely angry. 'I am sorry, Matthew.' He turned to Sir Thomas. 'Yes, I believe we can.'

'He was after us like a rabid dog when the coroner adjourned the hearing.'

Cranmer looked at me intently. 'Matthew,' he said quietly, 'you found the body, and you were a close friend of Lawyer Elliard and his widow, I believe. How deep are you in this?'

'I promised Mistress Elliard to find her husband's killer,' I said.

'Would you do that for yourself, or for her?' The question came from Hertford. I turned and met his eye.

'For both, my lord. But what I have promised Mistress Elliard is a debt of honour.'

'And would you still work to redeem that debt, even if it turned out to be a matter of politics?' Cranmer asked. 'Think carefully before you answer, Matthew, for you once told me you wished never to be involved in such matters again. Yet you must be, if you are to help us fish out the bottom of this.'

I hesitated. Thomas Seymour gave a bark of laughter. 'He has not the stomach for it! And you said he failed you last time, he never found those papers.'

I bowed my head. I did not want him reading my expression; in fact, that time I had not failed, only decided to keep secret the things I had found out. My heart beat faster, remembering what these men could do to me.

'You have a fine mind, and much experience,' Cranmer said. 'And discretion.'

I took a deep breath. For a second I saw Roger's face in my mind; smiling, animated, full of life. I faced the Archbishop. 'If I can help you in this, my lord, I am yours.' And now I had a sense of bridges crashing in flames behind me.

Cranmer looked at the other three. Harsnet and Lord Hertford nodded; Thomas Seymour shrugged. Cranmer frowned at him. 'You are only here, Thomas, because your household may be useful and because of your particular association with — her.' Seymour reddened and for a moment looked ready to burst out angrily. He looked at his brother.

'The Archbishop is right, Thomas,' Lord Hertford said seriously. Sir Thomas set his lips, but nodded. Cranmer turned to me.

'You will wonder, Matthew, what the political link is to your friend's murder.' 'Yes, my lord.'

He took a long breath, holding in his secrets for a last second, then said, 'Your friend was not the first to be killed in that terrible manner.'

My mouth fell open. 'Another; The same?'

'In every horrid detail. It was kept secret because of who the victim was.' The Archbishop nodded to Harsnet. 'Tell him, Gregory.'

Harsnet looked at me. 'One morning a month ago, in late February, a labourer was walking to work along the river, past the mudbanks over on the Lambeth shore.' He paused. 'There was snow on the banks then, and the river was frozen a yard deep; but the tide still ebbed and flowed underneath the ice into the tidal pools along the south bank. That morning the labourer saw that one of the pools was red, with something floating in it.' My eyes widened. Harsnet nodded seriously. 'Yes. He found a man lying there with his throat cut. Exactly as Elliard was in that fountain, and again in a public place where he was bound to be discovered.'

'Dear God.'

'Our labourer went to the constable, who fetched the coroner.' Harsnet's look at me now was keen, probing. 'My colleague the Surrey coroner is a good reformer and he keeps himself up on court news. When he realized who the man was, he came to me, as he knew of my connection with the Archbishop.'

'Has there been an inquest?' I asked.

'No.' It was Lord Hertford who answered. 'It was vital the matter be kept secret.' He looked at me firmly with those protuberant eyes. 'It still is.'

Harsnet spoke again. 'The dead man was a physician, Dr Paul Gurney. An eminent man.' He paused. 'And physician to Lord Latimer, late husband of Lady Catherine Parr. Dr Gurney had attended Lord Latimer since he sickened last autumn, and visited him constantly at his home by the Charterhouse.'

So that was the connection. 'They say the King is courting Lady Latimer,' I ventured.

'They say right,' Cranmer agreed.

'We can't tell him all,' Thomas Seymour burst in. 'If this leaks out it could be to the peril of that good lady.'

'Matthew will not break a confidence,' Cranmer said. 'If he gives me his word to keep secret all we tell him, he will not break it. And I think he will have some sympathy for our position. Will you swear, Matthew, to say nothing of this matter, except to us? Remember, it means that if the killer is found you may not be able to tell your friend's widow the circumstances.'

I hesitated, then said, 'May I tell her the killer is caught and dealt with?'

'Yes. And he will be,' Lord Hertford said grimly. I caught a sense of this dour man's strength, and ruthlessness. 'Then I swear, my lord.'

Cranmer leaned back, satisfied. 'Then continue, Gregory. Tell him everything. All.'

'I investigated, quietly,' Harsnet said. 'But I found no clues. As with Master Elliard, Dr Gurney was a man respected in his profession, with many friends and no enemies. He was a childless widower, and we had his friends told he had died suddenly in his sleep. Diligent enquiry has offered no clues as to who killed him, or why. Nothing. According to discreet enquiries, he had left Lord Latimer's house late the evening before. He was staying there, for Latimer was near his end — he had a great growth on his back. He told the steward he had an urgent "errand of mercy" somewhere in the town.'

'Was a note delivered to him: As with Roger:'

'Not that we know of, though one may have been. Dr Gurney too helped poor people in need of his advice. And died for it, perhaps.'

'Was the body examined:'

'No. Perhaps I should have had that done.' Harsnet frowned. 'That Moor gave us an important clue today, about the drug. It means we should look for someone with medical connections.'

'Legal, too. A man of wide knowledge.'

Cranmer spoke again. 'I consulted Lord Hertford, and we decided it was vital as few people knew as possible. Catherine Parr had been married to Lord Latimer for ten years. Both were welhknown figures at court, and the King has long had an eye on her. When it became known in January that Lord Latimer would die soon, the King let his interest be known. He has now proposed marriage.'

'Another older husband.' Thomas Seymour spoke with bitterness in his voice. I recalled Barak saying there was a rumour that someone else was interested in Catherine Parr. Could it be Seymour? He and she would be of a similar age. 'Latimer was past forty.'

Cranmer clasped his hands together. 'This would be a sensible, safe marriage and Jesu knows we have had few of those.' He hesitated before explaining his remarks, then continued, looking straight at me. 'The Lady Catherine has an interest in religious reform. She has kept it quiet, for Lord Latimer was a conservative. And God knows we need an ally now. Bishop Gardiner of Winchester is back in the King's councils working with Bishop Bonner of London to crush the reformers.' He looked at me. 'Even I may not be safe.'

Hertford gave Cranmer a quick shake of the head, but the

Archbishop raised a beringed hand. 'No, Edward, if we are to tell him we should tell him all. And it will be public soon enough, heaven knows. Matthew, the conservatives are moving on a number of fronts. Bishop Bonner's campaign against the London Bible-men will soon escalate. And a bill will be laid before Parliament shortly, restricting reading of the Bible to nobles and gentlemen only. No common folk, and no women.'

He hesitated. Harsnet interjected, quietly but bitterly. 'They will pluck Christ's holy word from the people.' I looked at him; the phraseology was that of a radical. Cranmer frowned slightly.

'And finally,' he continued, 'they seek to attack me. Lord Hertford too perhaps, but principally me. There have already been arrests of radicals among my staff at Canterbury, and among some of the junior courtiers at Windsor. They will be charged with heresy. Young men with foolish tongues, who may end by bringing me down.' His cheek twitched uncontrollably, and I saw the Archbishop was afraid. He collected himself, looked at me again.

Lord Hertford spoke, quietly and seriously. 'What protects us more than anything is that the King still has moderate reformers in his household, men he trusts. His physician, Dr Butts. His new secretary, William Paget. When those like Gardiner and Norfolk whisper venom in his ear, their private access to the King means they can counter it. A Queen of reformist sympathies could help us more than anyone.'

'But would this marriage be safe for her' Thomas Seymour interjected. 'Anne Boleyn pressed the King too far on religion and was executed. And Catherine Howard was beheaded not much more than a year ago.' I remembered again that glimpse of Catherine Parr I had caught in the funeral procession, her expression of fear.

Cranmer nodded. 'Yes. It is no wonder she has not yet accepted. For the first time, Matthew, a prospective wife has refused the King's proposal. But he wants a companion in his old age. Lady Catherine has placed her decision in God's hands, I know. The situation could not be more delicate. An extraordinarily brutal murder close to her, still more now there has been a second, would worry the King, for he is a superstitious man. Two of these shocking pointless deaths. People will start to say this murderer is possessed.'

'They are already,' Harsnet said. 'At first we feared the killer's purpose was to make a scandal that would imperil these marriage negotiations. But if so, why strike again?'

'To make a spectacle that would be linked firmly to the doctor's death?' I suggested.

'It has not been so far,' Cranmer said. 'And it must not be. That is why we wished to send Master Elliard's death officially to sleep. Unofficially I will leave no stone unturned to find the killer. And Catherine Parr, like the rest, thinks Dr Gurney had a sudden seizure.'

Now I understood the strain in their faces. The King did not look kindly on those who kept secrets from him. I realized I was involved again in something that could get me in bad odour with the King. Something dangerous. A second time, I might not survive. Yet I had sworn; there was nothing to do but go on.

'The manner of these deaths was monstrous,' Cranmer said, fingering the silver pectoral cross that hung round his neck.

Thomas Seymour laughed scornfully. 'No more than the things I have seen in Hungary.' He laid a hand on his gold'embroidered scabbard. 'I saw the Emperor's defeated army returning from Budapest. They failed to take it from the Turks, but they brought back as a trophy a great cart full of the heads of slain Turks, with one live Turk on top, slipping and rolling, covered with blood and bits of rag from the dead men's turbans. Everyone laughed as the cart tail was opened and the Turk rolled out screaming among all his comrades' heads.' Sir Thomas smiled; he had laughed too.

'That was war,' his brother said. 'Cruel but honourable.'

I looked at Hertford, wondering what he might have seen and done in Scotland.

'Well, Matthew,' Cranmer said. 'You come fresh to this matter, and you knew poor Elliard well. Where do you think we should go next;'

They all looked at me. I squared my shoulders. 'I would suggest we find out whether Roger and Dr Gurney had any acquaintances, or any clients, in common. Though it would be strange for someone to hate two men so viciously.'

'I have made an extensive list of Dr Gurney's patients and friends,' Harsnet said.

'And I can do the same for Roger.' I looked at them. 'With his widow's help.'

'Very well.' Cranmer nodded. 'But she is to know nothing of Gurney.' I hated the thought of not being frank with Dorothy, but saw it must be so.

'How old was Dr Gurney;' I asked.

'Old. Past fifty.'

'And his build;'

'His build;' Harsnet looked puzzled. 'He was a small, spare man, by the look of his body.'

'As was Roger. Our killer had to carry Roger to the Lincoln's Inn fountain, and no doubt Gurney to the marshes. Almost as if he chose small men to kill, men he could carry.'

'What were Master Elliard's views on religion;' Harsnet asked.

'He was a reformer.'

'As was Dr Gurney. A safely moderate one, though, these days.' He sounded almost disapproving.

'So was Roger. There seem to be more and more things in common between them.'

'Which encourages the view that this has been done by the papists to scotch the King's marriage,' Harsnet said. 'Jesu, they are capable of anything. They would devour poor Protestants as beasts eat grass.'

'And you, Master Shardlake,' Hertford asked quietly. 'What are your religious views; They say you are a Laodicean, a man of little faith.'

'Matthew would not harm our cause,' Cranmer interposed. 'So long as he thought our methods just, eh;' That sad smile of his again. 'That will not be a problem here.'

'Who is he to tell us what is just?' Thomas Seymour scoffed. 'A crookback lawyer.'

His brother turned on him with sudden anger. 'God's wounds, Thomas, I will have you kept out of this if you say another word! I'll warrant this man will be far more help than you!'

Thomas Seymour looked chastened at the fresh reminder of where the power lay. Cranmer turned to me. 'Matthew, I apologize again for Sir Thomas.'

'It does not matter, my lord.' Though it did. Why was this foolish boor involved? 'If I may,' I went on, 'I would like to talk to the labourer who found the first body, and visit the scene. These correspondences with Roger's death are so close, they may help us.'

Cranmer looked at Harsnet. 'Where is the man now, Gregory?'

'I had him locked up for a few days to impress the need for silence on him. He's back home now, I'll have him sent for.' 'Thank you, coroner.'

'I want you and Gregory to work together on this,' Cranmer said.

'Might I bring in my man Barak? He could be of much use.'

Cranmer smiled. 'Ah, yes, him. Yes, I know Lord Cromwell trusted him. But no one else. And not that ex-monk doctor. He cannot help us over Dr Gurney; he has been buried for weeks.'

'I understand.'

'You will keep me closely informed. Contact me here and only through my secretary, Ralph Morice. I trust no one else.' 'Yes, my lord.'

Cranmer stood up. Harsnet and I followed, bowing low.

'Gregory, Matthew,' Cranmer said, 'I pray to Our Saviour you may be able to resolve this.'

'Amen, my lord,' Harsnet answered feelingly.

'I believe you have put Adam Kite's case into the Court of Requests?' Cranmer asked me suddenly.

'Yes, my lord. I have applied to have his fees remitted, and to make sure he is cared for. And I am having a physician examine the question of his sanity.'

'I will see the Privy Council does not stand in your way,' he said. 'So far as Kite's fees and his care are concerned, it was mentioned yesterday, and your name was a provocation to Sir Richard Rich. Who is the doctor you have instructed — Dr Malton;'

'Yes, my lord.'

Cranmer nodded, considering, then looked at me again seriously. 'Neither Lord Hertford nor I would want the boy released, unless he was cured to the extent that it was certain there would be no more crazed public demonstrations. He must be kept secure.'

'In times of trial, Christians must show the wisdom of serpents as well as the innocence of doves,' Hertford said. He looked sad for a moment.

'I understand, my lord.'

Cranmer smiled. 'Good. Make sure that old ex-monk does not turn him papist.' I looked at him. So he knew about Guy's past, he had probably had enquiries made about him. Lord Hertford, over- hearing, looked at me curiously as he stepped past me. He bowed and swept away, leaving me alone with Harsnet in the corridor. We walked away together. Harsnet seemed a little uneasy with me. He seemed to ponder a moment, then said, 'I am sorry for the way I had to conduct the inquest. I hope you understand now why that was necessary.'

'I understand why you did it, sir,' I answered neutrally. I looked at him, wondering what he would be like to work with. A clever man, but a religious radical, I guessed. When the King had defied the Pope to marry Anne Boleyn ten years before, he had allowed Thomas Cromwell to install in the Royal household men who were far more radical reformers than he was — even Lutherans. Since Cromwell's fall, the King was steadily moving back towards the old religious practices, and most reformers bent to the wind, at least in public. But some radicals remained, clinging on to their posts through ability and cunning.

'I fear for the Lady Catherine Parr,' he said. 'I have met her, a good, sweet lady. I hope the killer did not get to the doctor through someone in her household.'

'That is not how he got to Roger.'

'No. But then what is the connection?' He looked me seriously. 'We must find it, Serjeant Shardlake. I agree it would be useful for you to talk to the man who found Dr Gurney. I will arrange that, send the message to your house. And you will prepare a list of everyone that Master Elliard knew — clients, friends, possible enemies.'

'Yes I will speak to his clerk.' I took a deep breath. 'And his widow.' I looked at him. 'What of the body? May it be released for the funeral?'

'Of course.' Harsnet looked uncomfortable again. 'Thank you.'

Somewhere a clock struck one. I had an appointment with the Kites that afternoon at Lincoln's Inn, and I had to see Dorothy.

We passed into Lambeth Palace yard, where the sweet smell of wet grass met us, unfamiliar after those weeks of snow. I turned to Harsnet. 'I do not understand Sir Thomas Seymour's involvement. He seems—'

'Unreliable? A foolish braggart?' The coroner smiled wryly. 'He is all that and more. A man of proud conceit, born to mischief. An elbow-hanger on his brother. But we are stuck with him.'

'Why?'

'Thomas Seymour wished to marry Catherine Parr. And she was in love with him. Heaven knows why, though even sensible women may have their heads turned. He has had to step aside for the King. But he has made his brother involve him in this. To protect her interests, he says. If Lord Hertford has one weakness, it is devotion to Thomas. But Thomas is something even worse than a papist.'

'What?'

I saw disgust in Harsnet's look. 'An atheist,' he said. 'A man who denies God.'

Chapter Ten

Harsnet left me at the river, where I caught a wherry back to Temple Stairs and walked up to Lincoln's Inn. The fierce anger I felt after the inquest had been replaced by sober fear; as I thought of the mighty men in that room my stomach twisted and knotted with anxiety. Yet I told myself that at least this time there was no ambiguity, we were all clearly on the same side in wanting this killer caught.

It was a relief to find Barak in chambers, working at his desk beside young Skelly. I inclined my head to Barak that he should follow me to my room. Skelly looked at us through the glasses he wore for his weak sight, his expression sad. I guessed he felt excluded, left out of the events whirling round Lincoln's Inn. Well, he was safer out of it all.

I told Barak all that had transpired at Lambeth Palace. I had expected him to show pleasure at the prospect of some excitement, but he heard me in silence and then sat frowning. 'That Thomas Seymour's a dangerous character,' he said. 'Lord Cromwell distrusted him and blocked his advancement, though he respected his brother.'

'His romantic interest in Catherine Parr complicates matters.'

'He's known as an indiscreet woman-chaser. Sounds like an indiscreet man is the last thing this business needs, if Cranmer's keeping this from the King.'

'I know. But I am bound to assist them, I promised Dorothy.' I looked at him. 'But you do not need to be involved if you do not wish,' I said. 'There is no reason for you to place yourself in danger.'

'No,' he said. 'I'll help.' But he still looked uneasy. 'Though I don't understand any of it. One man killed as your friend is strange enough, but two?

'Could the killer be mad? Someone who conceived a wild hatred for Roger and that doctor, perhaps developed a belief they had wronged him?'

'A mad person couldn't have organized and carried through something like these murders.'

'No. The killer tricked Roger cleverly with those letters. Maybe did something similar with the doctor. Took them to a lonely spot, drugged them somehow, then carried them to the fountain and the tidal pool, and slit their throats.' I shuddered.

'That time you disturbed an intruder near the Elliards' lodgings, maybe he was looking over Gatehouse Court? Preparing the way.'

'That would mean he was unfamiliar with Lincoln's Inn. Yet he knew enough about the law to fake a solicitor's letter for Roger, and enough about medicine to be able to make dwale.' I shook my head. It occurred to me that if I had come out from Roger and Dorothy's a little earlier that night I might have encountered the killer. Would he have killed me too, lest I identify him later?

'I don't understand how this arsehole got to know them,' Barak said. 'And he must have done.'

'Yes. And who could possibly have hated Roger enough to make that ghastly display in the fountain?' I looked at him seriously. 'It was a display, wasn't it? He was meant to be found like that, in a public place. And by the sound of it, Dr Gurney too.'

Barak nodded slowly. 'I came across some strange things when I worked for Lord Cromwell, some grim things. But I never heard of anything like this before, never.'

'Nor I.' We said nothing for a moment, then I roused myself. 'Come, we do not know enough yet to speculate. We must think of practical steps.'

'All right. Where do we start?'

'First I am going to prepare a list of Roger's clients and acquaintances, to see if he had any in common with Dr Gurney. I will go across now and speak to Roger's clerk, and to Dorothy. How was she on the journey back?'

'Quiet. But you could see she was upset at how the inquest went.'

'Yes.' I sighed. 'I must be careful how much I tell her. I should like you to come with me to meet the man who found the doctor's body, out by the river. Harsnet is arranging it.'

'What's Harsnet like on closer acquaintance?'

'One of the pure Bible-men, I think. But his feet are on the ground. Clever, efficient.' Something struck me. 'But many coroners are not. And we are at the junction of four coroners' jurisdictions — Surrey, Kent, Middlesex and London. I think Harsnet should check there have been no other killings like this in the other jurisdictions. I'll suggest it to him.'

'Gib Rooke said a cottar had been killed horribly.'

'Not in the same way as Roger, or he would have said. But it might be worth talking to him. Good idea. Thank you, Barak,' I added encouragingly. 'See how you help me?'

'Glad I help someone,' he said gloomily.

I hesitated, then said, 'Is that aimed at Tamasin?'

He shrugged. 'She's been complaining I go out too much. I won't be told where I can and can't go by a woman.'

'Maybe she worries about who you might be seeing.' I ventured.

'She'd do better to stop her complaining and mopishness. Then her company might be worth cultivating.'

'She is still suffering the loss of the child, Barak,' I said quietly. 'As I think you are. Surely that is something you could share?'

I saw from the anger that leaped into his face that I had gone too far. 'That's our business,' he said roughly. 'If you are going across to see Mistress Elliard, sir, remember Adam Kite's parents will be here at three.' With that, he turned and left the room.

As I walked across Gatehouse Court I got curious looks from the passing lawyers. News of the adjourned inquest would have been brought by the jurors, some of whom had seen me leave with Harsnet and Seymour. Well, their curiosity would have to go unsatisfied. I went into Roger's chambers and greeted his clerk.

'Good day, Bartlett,' I said. 'How are things here?'

'We're coping, sir,' he replied in his Bristol burr. 'Mistress Elliard has asked me to arrange the funeral. Can the body be released now?'

'Yes. The coroner has approved it.' 'And there's two cases in court this week.'

I bit my lip. I would have little enough time for my own work now, let alone Roger's. 'I think we must pass his cases on,' I said. 'To barristers we can trust to pay for work Roger has already done. I can give you some names.'

'And I will chase them and see they do pay, sir.'

'Thank you.' I smiled gratefully.

'Master Elliard was always good to me. He was a fine man.' The clerk blinked back tears.

'Yes, he was.' I hesitated. 'But a lawyer always makes enemies. Could there possibly have been someone, a client perhaps, or even a lawyer he had bested, who might have taken against him?'

'I can't think of anyone, sir. No one at all. Everyone liked Master Elliard, sir.'

'I know. But can you make me a list of all the clients and lawyers he had professional dealings with since he came back from Bristol; Can you have that for me by this evening;'

'I'll set to it, sir.' He hesitated. 'If I may ask, what is to happen now; The inquest was adjourned, they say.'

'There is to be an investigation, and I am part of it. That is all I can say now, Bartlett. That list may help.' I looked at his honest face. 'What will you do now; Go back to Bristol;'

'I'd as soon stay in London, all my family are with me here.'

'Then I'll see if I can get you a job in another chambers when Roger's work is wound up.'

His face lit up. 'Thank you. You - you are a good man, sir.' 'I hope so, Bartlett. Though not all would agree.'

I mounted the stairs to the rooms above. Old Elias answered my knock and bowed me in. He still looked stricken. Margaret came out of the parlour. 'How is your mistress?' I asked in a whisper.

'Quiet, sir. She was so angry after that hearing I thought she'd break down, but she hasn't. She's sitting in her usual place by the fire.' She hesitated. 'She's been hoping you would bring news.'

'Thank you, Margaret. I will go to her.' I noticed the girl's full cheeks were pale. The servants' lives had been turned upside down too, their futures suddenly uncertain.

Dorothy was sitting in her chair under the frieze. She looked up and ventured a smile, but her white face was tight with anger.

'What happened?' she asked. 'Why did you go off with that coroner?'

'To discuss the investigation. There will be one, Dorothy, and I will be part of it. I promise you. And I will get the body released tomorrow. You can arrange the funeral.'

She stared at me intently. 'If they know he was murdered, why that — performance?'

'Politics. I may not say more. I wish I could.'

Her eyes widened. 'Dear God. But Roger had naught to do with politics. He despised all courtiers.'

'I know. But there must be some link to — this political matter. I have undertaken to help find it.'

'Undertaken to whom, Matthew?'

'Cranmer. And I have already told you more than I should.' 'But you hate politics as much as Roger did. You have said so often.'

'But working with these people is the only way I can ensure Roger's killer is found. They and I want the same thing.' I hesitated. 'I will be working with Coroner Harsnet.'

'That man. The way he tried to twist things.'

'That was to get the case adjourned, out of the public gaze. For what it is worth, I do not think he enjoyed deceiving you.'

She looked at me with sad, exhausted eyes. 'What if I free you from your promise to find Roger's killer, Matthew? I know you fear those great men, as anyone should with any sense.'

I smiled sadly. 'I have promised Cranmer, Dorothy. It is out of our hands now.'

'I am become a burden,' she said flatly. 'As a middle-aged woman alone will always be.'

I leaned forward and ventured to take her hand. 'No, Dorothy. You are a strong woman. Just now it is all too much to bear, I know, but you will regain your strength. In time.'

'I have heard people say that when a loved one has died they feel them near in spirit. I have been sitting here waiting, hoping, but — there is nothing. I feel only that Roger is gone, ripped out of all existence.'

'Time, Dorothy, you will need time to grieve.'

'I have years of empty time now.'

I felt my heart clench at her suffering. 'Dorothy,' I said quietly, 'there is something I must ask you. This is not the best time, but it is urgent. We need to see if Roger and — this other man who died — knew anyone in common. Bartlett is preparing a list of professional contacts. Can you make me a list of anyone else he knew? Any non- lawyer friends—'

'We had none. The law was Roger's life.'

'Then tradesmen, his barber, his tailor. Your servants - have you dismissed any recently?' 'No. There is no one.' 'Anyway, a list may help.' 'Then I will prepare it now,' she said.

I got Margaret to fetch some paper, and Dorothy sat thinking, then wrote down the names of everyone Roger had known in London. She passed the list to me.

'That is them all,' she said.

I looked at it. 'Good, that will help.'

'Anything else I can help with, come at any time. The funeral must wait till next week. Samuel will be here from Bristol, I have had a letter. And afterwards, Matthew, come and eat with us. Let us sit and remember Roger then, in peace.'

'I shall be glad to.'

I hastened back across Gatehouse Court to my chambers, for it was now near three o'clock. I was hungry, I had missed lunch. Among those passing to and fro I saw, at a little distance, Bealknap. He was walking slowly, his long thin body hunched and stooped. Feeling eyes upon him he turned, gave me a look of concentrated fury, and walked on. I thought, Roger may not have had an enemy, but I have, all the more now. I dismissed the wretched man from my mind.

Daniel and Minnie Kite were waiting in my outer office. Meaphon sat beside them in his cassock, frowning. Today he held a copy of the New Testament in his lap. 'Good day,' I said to Daniel and Minnie, pointedly ignoring Meaphon.

'I have had word from the Requests Office,' Skelly called over from his desk. 'Master Kite's hearing will be on the fourth of April.' He handed me a paper. I looked at it as I led the Kites and Meaphon into my office.

'Good news,' I said, when all were seated. 'My request to have Adam's care supervised by the court, and his fees remitted, will be heard in nine days. And I have arranged for the doctor I spoke of to attend him. On Friday. I will go too.'

'We saw Adam yesterday,' Daniel Kite said. 'He is no better.'

'He spoke to me,' Minnie said. 'It was the first time my son spoke to me since they put him in that place. And do you know what he said: He said he could smell the fire, feel the sharp pricks of the devil's imps scratching at his arms. It was only lice, he is crawling with them, but that is what he made of it.' She shook her head, setting her lips into a tight line, trying not to cry.

'Minnie,' Daniel said.

'This is why I do not want him released from the Bedlam till there is some sign of a cure,' I said gently. 'He could get into deadly trouble. If his welfare is taken care of he is better there for now. Not all the keepers are bad.' I thought again of the kindly woman Ellen and her strange statement that she could never leave the Bedlam. I glanced at Meaphon, expecting opposition, but to my surprise he nodded, patting his thick hair.

'Perhaps, after all, that is best. The papist wolves are abroad once more. Honest preachers have been arrested, one was paraded as a heretic only yesterday.'

'I saw,' I said.

'But if I could be allowed to spend time with Adam, if I could try again to persuade him to accept that he can and will be saved—'

'We should see what the doctor says,' I said, temporizing.

'Doctors,' he said contemptuously. 'What if he is possessed; That is my fear, more and more.'

'What if they report to the Privy Council that you have been there:' Minnie spoke up. 'What if they have spies there, and they report you are preaching doctrine they do not approve:'

Meaphon shook his head. 'I should do what I can to save Adam.' He gripped the Testament in his hands tightly, like an icon, a talisman.

'My wife is right.' Daniel spoke up. 'Were Adam to leave he might — do something dangerous. And he is in no fit state to choose martyrdom.' He looked at me. 'We shall see what the doctor says. That is what we must do next.' He looked at Meaphon.

'Am I to meet with uncertain heart in my own congregation that I may not go and pray with him:' Meaphon asked bitterly. This time both Daniel and Minnie met his gaze, though both reddened.

'I will tell you what the doctor says,' I told them, rising. I felt an unprofessional degree of pleasure at their defiance of Meaphon, despite his raising again the dread idea of possession. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

Chapter Eleven

The following day a letter arrived from Harsnet. It came by a fast rider from Whitehall, reminding me that the coroner commanded sizeable resources. He asked me to meet him by the Southwark bear pits at eight the next morning.

I set off early on Friday to ride through the city to London Bridge, where I had arranged to meet Barak. Though I had slept I felt tired, weighed down, as I had since Roger's death. There was a cool breeze and high clouds scudded rapidly across the blue sky. I saw a patch of budding crocuses had appeared in a grassy corner by Newgate Market under the great shadow of St Paul's.

There were few people about as yet, and as I walked down the Shambles, avoiding the butcher's offal in the piss-channel in the middle of the road, my attention was drawn by the sound of a scuffle. On the corner of Bladder Lane a burly man in a bloodstained apron was struggling with three London constables. A plump woman in a smock had hold of the arm of one of them and was trying to pull him off. Three small children ran howling and screaming around the adults' feet. As I watched, the constable shook himself free and pushed the goodwife over. She landed in a filthy puddle, skirts billowing and the wings of her coif hanging loose. The children ran to her, yelling.

'Now come quietly,' one of the constables shouted at the man, who ceased struggling and allowed himself to be manhandled away. I hesitated, then went to the woman, who was rising slowly to her feet, covered in filth, the children milling around her.

Are you all right, madam?'

She gave me a suspicious look. 'I'm not hurt.' 'What happened?'

'They say my husband was selling meat in Lent, they're taking him to Bishop Bonner.' She looked at my robe. 'A lawyer won't help if they prosecute him, and we've no money anyway. You must seek trade elsewhere!' And with that she limped into a shop followed by the children. One of them, emboldened by his mother's tone, looked round and shouted 'Crookback' at me as she shepherded them in.

I walked on, angry for I had only wished to help. But if her husband was guilty, he might face the rope. I remembered what Cranmer had said about Bonner working to crush the reformers.

Barak was waiting at London Bridge. He looked bright and alert, no sign of a hangover today, and he greeted me cheerfully enough. He had put on his sword, I saw.

'Well, let's see what awaits us over the river,' he said with a touch of his old swagger.

'Some answers, I hope.'

We walked across London Bridge to the Southwark waterfront where Harsnet was to meet us. He was already there, wearing a coat lined with marten fur over his lawyer's robe, looking every inch the royal official. I saw that he had donned sturdy riding boots in anticipation of walking through the tidal mud.

Harsnet was staring up to where the great circular structure of the bear-baiting ring reared over the rooftops. He turned to us with a sombre expression on his face.

'Good day, Master Shardlake. And you are Barak, yes.' Barak bowed to him. Harsnet looked up at the bear ring again, and sighed. 'Is it not sad that we make merry with the bleeding miseries of those poor harmless beasts?'

'Harmless?' Barak said, looking at me. He was recalling the time I had been attacked and nearly killed by an escaped bear. But in fact I agreed with Harsnet.

'Yes,' I said. 'It is a cruel sport. I never go.'

He nodded approvingly. 'Did you bring the list of those known to Master Elliard?'

I produced the list from my coat. 'Master Elliard's wife and clerk helped me. They knew of none who wished him harm.'

'Dr Gurney had no enemies either. I have his list.' He produced a paper from his coat and we stood together to read. Dr Gurney had some courtiers and prominent London merchants among his patients, I saw. Lord and Lady Latimer's names were there. It was as comprehensive a list as mine, but there were no names that matched.

'Nothing.' Harsnet frowned. 'If I may keep your list?'

'Of course.'

He rolled both documents up, putting them in his coat. 'Yet those men had so much in common — religion, professional status, even their size. What made this monster choose them?'

'I do not know. But I wondered—'

'Yes?' His look was eager, anxious.

'Whether there might have been any other killings. We are on the borders of Kent and Surrey here. The coroners do not always liaise and are not always efficient. Like Coroner Browne.'

Harsnet nodded agreement. 'You are right, sir, thank you.' He gave me an approving look. 'I will speak to the other coroners.'

'I know of at least one strange killing this side of the river recently. One of my clients told me. I thought I might ask him for details.'

'Yes. Good idea. Thank you.' He raised his eyebrows, took a long deep breath. 'And now we must walk over to Lambeth. The man who found the body will meet us there.'

We walked along the south bank. Soon the houses gave way to wide marshes, high green reeds waving in the breeze among deep stagnant pools. Here and there patches of higher ground were cultivated, fields of vegetables laid out beside little mud-and-daub houses the cottars had built. It must be a lonely life out here.

'Archbishop Cranmer speaks highly of you,' Harsnet said. 'He said that but for a treacherous servant you might have saved Lord Cromwell from falling, three years ago.'

'That is kind of him. Though I prefer to avoid such matters these days.'

'You do this for your friend, for honour.' He nodded. 'Well, that is a godly thing. There is little honour among the circles I move in, at court.'

I found I was warming to him despite our bad beginning. 'Have you been the King's coroner long?' I ventured.

'Only the assistant. Most of my work is with deaths in London. I got my post six years ago.' He looked at me seriously. 'In Lord Cromwell's time, God rest him. These days are hard for reformers. We hang on by our fingertips.'

'I saw a butcher taken into custody on the way here. His wife said it was for selling meat in Lent.'

He nodded slowly, and I saw he looked worried. 'The order went out to the constables this morning to seize all butchers suspected of selling meat in Lent. They will be asked, none too gently, to inform on their customers. So those who place their faith in the word of God rather than ancient dietary rules will find themselves under arrest. That is how Bonner will prosecute us this time.' He gave a harsh smile that made his face look unpleasant. 'Though they may find some fish caught in their net they would rather not swallow. The Earl of Surrey is charged with Lent-breaking, the Duke of Norfolk's son. Have you read any of his poetry?'

'I fear not.' I knew though that the son of a principal figure in the conservative faction was a religious radical as well as a poet.

'He has written a new poem in prison. About London.' Harsnet quoted:

Oh member of false Babylon!

The shop of craft! The den of ire!

Thy dreadful doom draws fast upon

Thy martyr's blood, by sword and fire.

I thought of Roger, quoting Roderick Mors. For a second his face appeared to me again. I sighed and looked at Harsnet. 'Surrey sees London as the Babylon referred to in the Book of Revelation, then?'

'Which will be destroyed when God comes to judge the world.' He studied me, watching for my response.

'I thought people said Babylon was Rome. But I was never able to make much sense of Revelation.'

Harsnet inclined his head. 'If you study it properly, you see that God does not just foretell how the world will end, but when.' When I did not respond he smiled again, sadly.

'It's quiet here,' Barak said, breaking the silence that followed.

I nodded. The path was empty apart from us; to our left the river was at low tide, occasional gurgles and pops coming from the mud. To our right the wind hissed and clacked in the reeds. Across the river, the wharves and houses of London, Surrey's 'den of ire'.

'It will be busy enough when the working day gets going,' Harsnet observed. 'People will be walking and riding on this path all day.' He turned to me again. 'The Archbishop said you were acting for Adam Kite. How is he?'

'Very disturbed in his mind. You know of the case?'

‘I have met the family once or twice at meetings. His vicar and mine are friends. They seemed sober, honest folk.'

'They are.' I wondered if he meant illegal Bible-study meetings.

'I know Reverend Meaphon fears Master Kite may be possessed,' Harsnet said seriously. 'In any event, I think he is better where he is. If he were to make a spectacle of himself again, Bonner might make a spectacle of him. On top of a fire.'

'There, sir,' I answered feelingly, 'I agree.'

We were now coming to where the river turned south to Westminster. On the river the wherries had begun work, white sails bobbing on the grey Thames. A bank of cloud had risen, covering the sun. On our side, the low mudbanks were dotted increasingly with pools of water left by the tide. Ahead, standing in the mud by a small pool, we saw a lonely figure outlined against the sky: an elderly labouring man in a grey smock, a wide leathern hat on his head. As we approached he studied us with narrow, frightened eyes set in a weatherbeaten face. Harsnet stepped down from the path into the mud. It quivered as his boots sank in six inches.

'Careful, sir!' Barak called. 'That mud can suck you in!' We followed him carefully to where the old man stood. The pool beside him was circular, shallow, perhaps twenty feet in diameter.

'How now, Wheelows,' the coroner said. 'Have you been here long?'

The labourer bowed low, wincing as he rose. Trouble with his back, I thought sympathetically. 'Half an hour, sir. I don't like it here. It reminds me. And I keep feeling I'm being watched.' He cast scared eyes over the reedbanks on the other side of the path. It was indeed a dismal spot.

'Well, we won't need to trouble you again after this,' Harsnet said. He indicated in my direction. 'This gentleman is helping my investigation. I want you to tell him exactly what happened when you found Dr Gurney's body.'

A look of irritation crossed Wheelows' face. 'I've told the story so many times—'

'Then tell it once more,' Harsnet said, smiling but firmly.

'It was three weeks back, when the snow was still thick on the ground. I was going to Southwark to work, there's new houses going up along the Croydon Road—'

'Where do you live?' I asked.

'Westminster village. I was coming along the path at first light. The river was frozen but the tide still ran and would seep out under the ice and make tidal pools as usual. I was walking along and something caught my eye. One of the pools was a strange colour. I looked and saw it was red, bright red. I couldn't believe it at first. Then I saw a dark shape floating in it, and I went down to look.'

'Were there footprints?' Barak asked.

‘Ay.'

'What were they like? Large, or small?'

'Quite large, I'd say.' He shook his head. 'That red pool, standing out against the white snow, it was like something from a nightmare. It turned my stomach.'

'The pool is much larger than the fountain,' I observed. 'Yet it was stained red.'

'You'd be surprised how little blood it takes to turn water red,' Barak said.

Harsnet looked at him in surprise. 'That is strange knowledge for a law clerk. But of course, you worked for Lord Cromwell.'

'So I did,' Barak answered. I saw old Wheelows narrow his eyes. Cromwell's name could still bring fear, even now.

'So he walked here with the body, dumped it and walked back,' I said.

Wheelows looked frightened. 'I heard there was another one, similar, over at Lincoln's Inn.'

'You must keep your mouth shut about that,' Harsnet said sternly.

'I know I must, master,' Wheelows answered resentfully. 'Or end in Marshalsea Prison. You told me.'

'Then carry on with your story.'

'There was a place beside the pool where all the snow was churned up. There was blood there too,' Wheelows said. Where he cut the doctor's throat, I thought. I looked at the pool. The wind made little ripples on the surface.

'What did you do next?' I asked the old labourer gently.

'I went into the pool, turned the body over. I saw it was a gentleman by his clothes. His face was white as bone, was no blood left in him. I saw what had been done to his throat.'

'What was the expression on his face?'

Wheelows gave me a sharp look. 'No one's asked me that before. But it was strange. He looked peaceful, as if he was asleep.' Dwale, I thought. 'So, what did you do then?'

'I ran to Southwark, to find the coroner. I know that's what you must do if you find a body.' He glanced at Harsnet. 'Then ever since I've had gentlemen questioning me, pressing me to keep it all a secret.'