Lamentation (The Shardlake Series Book 6) (41 page)

‘She will not be back,’ I added reassuringly. Nonetheless, my eye was drawn to the poor dead dog. That must have been a vicious kick to break its neck like that, and Isabel had been standing in front of her servants in the doorway. It was she who had done it.

Chapter Twenty-three

T
HAT NIGHT
I
SLEPT DEEPLY
, but woke early with a mind full of fears and discontents. I recalled Isabel Slanning’s savage fury; I was sure she would like to serve me as she had that unfortunate dog.

There was a knock at the door and Martin entered, bearing towels and hot water, his face flatly expressionless as usual. ‘God give you good morrow, Master,’ he said. ‘It is another fine, warm day.’

‘Good morrow, Martin. Long may it continue.’ I looked at his solid back as he laid the bowl on the table, wondering what went on inside that head of close-cropped fair hair. What had he been looking for in my desk that time? And Josephine said he had been constantly enquiring about my friends and contacts when he first came. Trying to nose into my life. Yet Martin, as I had reminded Josephine, needed to know all about me if he were to perform his duties as steward. His old master, another barrister, had given me a glowing reference; Martin and Agnes had been with the man for ten years, and were only leaving because he was retiring and moving to the country. I did not have a forwarding address, so could not get in touch with him.

Martin turned and gave me his tight little smile. ‘Is there anything else, sir?’

‘No, Martin. Not this morning.’

A
FTER BREAKFAST
I
WALKED
up to Lincoln’s Inn, wondering how Nicholas and Barak were, and whether they had come in. I thought, I should have visited them instead of going to Coleswyn’s yesterday.

Barak was at his desk, working through some papers clumsily because of the heavy bandage on his left hand. Skelly looked at him curiously through his glasses. I could see no sign of Nicholas.

‘Young Overton not in?’ I asked with false jollity.

‘Not yet,’ Barak answered. ‘He’s late.’

Skelly looked up. ‘Mistress Slanning called first thing this morning She was in a – troubled state. She says she is going to a new lawyer.’

‘Yes. I thought that might happen.’

‘Should I send her a final bill?’

‘Yes, we had better. If we don’t she will take it as an admission of guilt or wrongdoing. With luck we shall not have to see her again.’

‘She said she was going to take the case to Master Dyrick, whom you had dealings with last year.’ Skelly looked at me curiously.

‘Really? Well, if she wants someone to run a hopeless case with the maximum vigour, and charge her for the pleasure of it, she could not do better than Vincent Dyrick.’ I turned to Barak. ‘Come through, would you, Jack?’

He followed me into my office and I motioned him to sit. ‘Dyrick again, eh? Well, they’ll suit each other,’ Barak said, managing a wry smile.

‘I am only glad to be out of it. And I doubt Dyrick will encourage her to make trouble for me; remember, I know things about him.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Jack, I am more sorry than I can say for what happened yesterday.’

‘I knew what I could be getting into.’

‘I would have come round last night, but I thought you were best left to tell Tamasin – to tell her – ’

‘A pack of lies,’ he finished heavily. ‘Yes, you are right. So far as she is concerned I had an accident at the office. I was making a hole in a pile of papers with a knife, to thread a tag through, when my hand slipped. Tammy was full of sympathy, which makes it worse. Listen, when Nick gets in we need to meet to make sure we have the story straight between the three of us. You’ll be seeing Tamasin next week at George’s party. Please.’

‘Yes, we will do that.’ I closed my eyes a moment. ‘Once again, I am sorry.’

He gave me his most piercing look. ‘I just wish I knew what was going on.’

I shook my head. ‘No. Safer not. How is your hand?’

‘Sore as hell. But I have to play it down for Tamasin’s sake, that’s why I came in today. I’ll survive,’ he added.

‘Any word from Nicholas?’

‘He got but a flesh wound,’ Barak said unsympathetically. ‘By the way, there’s a message for you, from Treasurer Rowland. He wants you to see him this morning. Before ten; he has a meeting then.’

‘I’ll go now. He did mention he had another task for me.’ I got up. ‘Dear God, I hope it’s nothing like what he had me do last week.’

R
OWLAND WAS SEATED
behind his desk again, writing. He raised his head, a cold look on his thin face. He had worn a similar expression when I had reported back to him after Anne Askew’s burning, complimenting me on finding a place at Smithfield where my presence would be noted. I had, of course, not told him of Rich’s glare at me. Looking at his white hair and long beard, I wished that, like Martin Brocket’s old employer, he would retire. But he was the sort who savoured power, and would probably die at his desk.

‘Serjeant Shardlake,’ he said. ‘Sit down.’ He tapped the paper on his desk with a bony, inky finger. ‘You knew the late Brother Bealknap, I believe. Had more than one passage of arms with him, I think.’

‘Indeed I did.’

‘I have just been composing a note to send round the Inn about his funeral. I am having to make the arrangements; his executor is not interested and there is no family. It will be in two days’ time, the twenty-fourth, in the chapel. I doubt many will come.’

‘No.’ Certainly I would not, after Bealknap’s piece of deathbed spite.

‘You will appreciate this,’ Rowland said. ‘Bealknap left a vast sum of money to build what amounts to a mausoleum in the Inn chapel. With a marble image of himself, decorated and gilded and heaven knows what. He paid the Inn a good deal of money to agree to have it done.’

‘So he told me. I saw him the day he died.’

Rowland raised his white eyebrows. ‘Did you, by Mary?’

‘He asked me to visit him.’

‘A deathbed repentance?’ Rowland’s eyes narrowed with malicious curiosity.

‘No.’ I sighed. ‘Not really.’

‘You remember all the rumours that he had a great chest of gold in his chambers? Well, it was my duty to go and look for it. That chest did indeed exist, and contained several hundred sovereigns. But it wasn’t at his chambers. Bealknap had had the sense to deposit it with one of the goldsmiths, for security. According to this goldsmith, Bealknap used to go there and sit with it of an evening.’

‘He was a strange man.’

‘There was certainly enough in the chest to pay for this mausoleum. However, many of the benchers have objected. Bealknap was not, after all, a great credit to the Inn, and this thing is hardly in the chapel style. They are refusing point-blank to sanction it. As I suspected they would, at the time I made the bargain with Bealknap. He can lie under a marble slab in the chapel like a reasonable man.’ Rowland gave that cynical smile of his, world-weary but also cruel; proud of his outwitting of a dying man.

I said, ‘But if it is in his Will – ’

Rowland spread his arms, black silk robe rustling. ‘If the benchers will not agree, the legacy becomes impossible of execution.’

‘Who is his executor?’

‘Sir Richard Rich.’ I looked at him sharply. ‘It is an old Will. I know for a fact he hasn’t worked cases for Rich for over a year. Rich stopped using him when he began to get ill.’ I wondered, was that why Bealknap had come cosying up to me at the end of last year, in the hope that I could get him some work? I remember him saying he was not getting as much work from one of his clients. It must have been Rich. Rowland inclined his head. ‘I keep an eye on which of the great ones of the realm give work to Lincoln’s Inn barristers. As the Queen used to do with you. I have been in touch with Rich’s secretary, and he said Sir Richard couldn’t care less about the mausoleum.’ He shrugged. ‘And the Will specifically excludes members of his family from having a say. So, this thing will not be built, and all Bealknap’s gold will be
bona vacantia
. So in the absence of anyone else, his fortune will go to – ?’ He paused on a questioning note, as though I were a law student.

‘The Crown,’ I said.

‘Exactly!’ He gave his creaky laugh. ‘Rich will be able to boast that he has garnered another few hundred pounds for the King to spend.’ Now I really could not help feeling sorry for Bealknap. ‘Talking of the King and spending,’ Rowland continued cheerfully, ‘you remember you promised to undertake more duties for the Inn? Well, there is another big occasion coming up next month.’ My face must have fallen, for he continued hurriedly, ‘It is nothing like the burning. On the contrary, it will be the grandest celebration in London for years, some say since Anne Boleyn’s coronation.’

‘A celebration of what?’ I asked, puzzled.

‘The peace with France. A great chivalric display. I have had another letter from Secretary Paget. Apparently the very admiral who led the invasion fleet last year will bring a retinue of French ships up the Thames, including some that sailed against us. There will be a whole round of celebrations at the Tower and also at Hampton Court. Thousands will be present, royalty and nobility and representatives of the City Guilds and Inns of Court. They want a serjeant from Lincoln’s Inn made available for the celebrations and I thought of you. As a sort of reward for that – less enjoyable occasion last week.’

I looked at him levelly. Rowland knew, of course, that I disliked ceremonial; again he was asserting his power. ‘The King and Queen will be at many of the ceremonies,’ he added, ‘and I believe little Prince Edward is to be involved for the first time.’

I spoke quietly. ‘There was a time, Master Treasurer, when the King was displeased with me. Perhaps it would be impolitic for me to attend.’

‘Oh, the York business.’ Rowland waved a dismissive hand. ‘That was years ago. And all you’ll be required to do is stand among many others in your best clothes and cheer when you’re told to.’

I thought, cheer Admiral d’Annebault, who led the invasion fleet in the very battle during which the
Mary Rose
foundered. Chivalry, I thought, is a strange thing.

‘I do not know the exact dates you will be required,’ Rowland continued. ‘But it will be during the last ten days in August, a month from now. I will keep you informed.’

There was no point in arguing. And I had other things to worry about. ‘Very well, Treasurer,’ I said quietly.

‘The Lord alone knows how much it will all cost.’ He laughed. ‘Well, the King will have Bealknap’s money to put towards it now.’

I
STEPPED OUT INTO
the quadrangle. It had turned cloudy, that low, light summer cloud that seems to trap and thicken the heat. As I walked back to chambers I noticed a man loitering hesitantly nearby; young, well dressed in a dark doublet and wide green cap. I looked at him, then stared. It was a face I had seen only the day before, by the torchlight of the Tower dungeons. The gaoler Myldmore, who had appeared to be in trouble with his superior. He saw me and walked hesitantly across. His eyes were wide and frightened, as they had been at the Tower. ‘Master Shardlake,’ he said, a tremble in his voice, ‘I must speak with you, in confidence. About – about a certain manuscript.’