Lamentation (The Shardlake Series Book 6) (65 page)

I recognized the man within at once: McKendrick, whom I had last seen running from the wharfside. He had been a physically powerful man, and had proved himself to be a fierce fighter. He looked utterly different now. His square face was covered with sweat, white as paper, and his cheeks were sunken. He tossed uneasily on the bed, making it creak, his lips moving in delirious muttering. Guy closed the door and spoke quietly. ‘He was fetched in the day before yesterday. It is a strange story: a group of apprentices were hanging about outside one of the taverns near Cripplegate, around curfew, when all of a sudden a man rushed out of an alley into their midst. He was covered in blood and they caught a glimpse of two men pursuing him. Whoever they were, they turned tail when they saw the crowd of apprentices. They brought him here. It is a miracle he lived at all: he had been stabbed, thrice. He must have fought his pursuers and managed to run away. But the wounds have gone bad. He cannot live long; I think he will die tonight.’ Guy gently lifted the blanket and under the man’s shift I saw three wide wounds on his chest and abdomen. They had been stitched, but around two of the wounds the skin was swollen and red, and the third had a yellowish hue.

‘Dear God,’ I said.

Guy replaced the blanket gently, but the movement disturbed McKendrick, who began muttering aloud. ‘Bertano . . . Antichrist . . . Pope’s incubus . . .’

Guy looked at me sternly. ‘When I heard some of the things he was saying, I put him in here. Safest for him, and perhaps for others.’

‘And he has mentioned my name?’

‘Yes. And others. Including, as you just heard, that name Bertano which you asked me about. Generally what he says in his delirium is nonsense, but I have heard him mention Queen Catherine herself. Disconnected talk, about spies and traitors at the English court. Mostly it makes no sense, and his Scotch accent is unfamiliar to me. But I have understood enough to realize he knows dangerous things, and is a religious radical. Once he cursed the Mass, saying it was no more than the bleating of a cow. Another time he spoke of overthrowing all princes.’ Guy hesitated, then added, ‘I see you know him.’

‘I saw him only once, though I have been seeking him for weeks.’

‘Who is he?’

I looked him in the eye. ‘I cannot say, Guy, for your safety. I beg you, continue to keep him apart from the other patients; he knows dangerous things. Did he have anything on him when he was brought in?’ I asked urgently. ‘Perhaps – a book?’

‘He had a copy of Tyndale’s forbidden New Testament with his name inside, and a purse with a few coins.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘Nothing.’

I looked at McKendrick, quiet now, his breathing shallow. ‘I would have prevented this, Guy, I hope you believe me.’

‘Yes,’ Guy answered, ‘I believe that. But you are still involved in something deeply dangerous, are you not?’

‘Yes.’ I looked again at McKendrick. ‘May I question him?’

‘His mind is in a fever most of the time.’

‘Would you leave me to try? The only reason I ask you not to stay is in case you hear something that might imperil your safety. I would not drag you into this bog as well.’

Guy hesitated, then nodded. ‘I will leave you for a little. But do not tax him.’ He went out, closing the door gently. There was a stool in the room, and I dragged it across to McKendrick’s bed. It was getting dark, the sound of voices quieter as Smithfield emptied. I shook him gently. His eyes opened; they were unfocused, feverish.

‘Master McKendrick?’ I asked.

‘Dominie McKendrick,’ he whispered. ‘I am Dominie. Teacher, preacher.’

‘Dominie, who did this to you?’

I was not sure he had heard my question, but then he said wearily, closing his eyes tight, ‘There were two o’ them, two. They took me by surprise, though I’m careful. Jumped out of the doorway an’ stabbed me. Two o’ them. I got one o’ them in the shoulder, managed to run.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Escaped in the alleys. Got to know the London alleys these last years. Same as the ones in Stirling, always running, running from the lackeys of popes and princes. But I weakened, loss o’ blood.’ He sighed. ‘Running, always running.’

I bent my head close. ‘Did you know your attackers, Dominie?’

He shook his head wearily.

‘Were they two tall young men, one fair, with a wart on his face, the other almost bald?’

‘Ay, that was them.’ He looked at me, his eyes focusing properly for the first time. ‘Who are you?’

‘One who would punish those who attacked you.’ Daniels and Cardmaker had underestimated the ex-soldier’s strength and speed, and he had managed to run into the crowd of apprentices. But too late, it seemed, to save his life.

He reached a hand out from under the blankets, grasping mine. His was hard and callused, the hand of a man who had worked and soldiered, but hot and clammy. ‘Did they kill Master Greening?’ he asked.

‘Yes, and his apprentice, Elias.’

His grip tightened and his eyes opened wider, blue and clear. He stared at me. ‘Elias? We thought he was the traitor.’

‘No, it was not him.’ Nor you either, I thought.

McKendrick released my hand and leaned back on the bed with a groan. ‘Then it can only have been Curdy, William Curdy we all thought such a true soul.’ Yes, I thought, and Curdy is dead, unable to say who his master was. Killed by one of Richard Rich’s men.

He looked at me. ‘Are you one of us?’ he asked.

‘One of who?’

‘The brethren. The believers in a new heaven and a new earth. Those our enemies call Anabaptists?’

‘No. I am not.’

The dying man’s shoulders slumped. Then he looked at me fiercely. ‘I see it, among these dreams I have here. The greater vision, a future Commonwealth where all share equally in the bounty of nature, and worship the one Christ in peace. No princes, no warring countries, all men living in harmony. Is it a dream, do you think, or do I see Heaven?’

‘I think it a dream, Dominie,’ I answered sadly. ‘But I do not know.’

A few moments later McKendrick slid back into unconsciousness, his breathing shallow. I stood, my knees creaking. I had learned what I needed to know and returned slowly to the main room, where Guy was writing notes at a desk at the back of the ward.

‘He is unconscious again,’ I sighed. ‘Or perhaps in a sleep of wondrous dreams. There is nothing to be done for him?’

He shook his head. ‘We doctors know the signs of coming death.’

‘Yes.’ I remembered Cecil telling me about the King’s doctors saying he could not last long now. ‘Thank you for summoning me, Guy. One thing more. When – when he dies, it would be safer for the hospital if he were buried under a different name. He is wanted in connection with possible treason.’

Guy looked at me, then spoke with quiet passion. ‘I pray every night that whatever terrible thing you are involved in, it may end soon.’

‘Thank you.’

I left the hospital. At home I sent a note to Lord Parr, telling him the Scotchman was found, and that he was not the spy. Very early next morning, Brocket woke me with two notes that had arrived with the dawn: one on expensive paper with the seal of the Queen in red wax, the other a second folded scrap from Guy. The first told me that I was required at Whitehall Palace again that morning, the second that McKendrick had died in the night. Again, Guy had signed his note only with his name.

Chapter Thirty-nine

A
ND SO
I
TOOK A BOAT
to Whitehall Palace. I had no more information to bring Lord Parr about what might have happened to the Queen’s book; and I realized that, with all Greening’s group gone, its fate might remain unknown.

On the way to Temple Stairs I called in at chambers to tell Barak I would be away that day, I did not know for how long. He was alone – Nicholas and Skelly had not yet come in – and I summoned him to my room.

‘Whitehall?’ he asked.

‘Yes. I found McKendrick last night.’ I told him what had happened at the hospital.

‘So the late Master Curdy was the spy.’

‘So it seems.’ I sighed. ‘I have reached a dead end.’

‘Then leave it to the politicians now,’ he said roughly. ‘You’ve done all you can.’

‘I cannot but feel I have failed the Queen.’

‘You’ve done all you can,’ he repeated impatiently. ‘Risked your life.’

‘I know. And yours, and Nicholas’s.’

‘Then have done with it. If Queen Catherine falls, it will be through her own foolishness.’

I
ENTERED THE PALACE
by the Common Stairs again, the wherry jostling for space at the pier along with boats carrying newly slaughtered swans for the royal table and bolts of fine silk. The pier ran a long way out into the water, so that unloading could take place even at low tide. The tide was almost full now, though, just starting to ebb. Dirty grey water washed round the lowest of the stone steps. I thought for a moment of poor Peter Cotterstoke, tumbling into the river on a cold autumn day. As I left the boat, gathering my robe around me and straightening my cap, I looked upriver to the Royal Stairs. There, a narrow, brightly painted building two storeys high jutted out of the long redbrick facade of the palace. It ended at a magnificent stone boathouse, built over the water. A barge was heading towards it, oarsmen pulling hard against the tide. A man in a dark robe and cap sat in the stern. I recognized the slab face and forked beard: Secretary Paget, master of spies, and one of those who knew whether an emissary of the Pope called Bertano was truly in London.

I went into the maze of buildings, tight-packed around their little inner courts. Some of the guards recognized me by sight now, though as always at strategic points my name had to be checked against a list. All the magnificence within had become familiar, almost routine. I was accustomed now to avoid looking at all the great works of art and statuary as I passed along, lest they delay me. I saw two stonemasons creating a new and elaborate cornice in a corridor, and remembered Leeman saying how every stone in the palace was built on common people’s sweat. I recalled that craftsmen were paid a lower rate for royal work, justified by the status that accrued from working for the King.

I was admitted again at the Queen’s Presence Chamber. A young man, one of the endless petitioners, stood arguing with a bored-looking guard in his black-and-gold livery. ‘But my father has sent to Lord Parr saying I was arriving from Cambridge today. I have a degree in canon law. I know there is a position on the Queen’s Learned Council come vacant.’

‘You are not on the list,’ the guard answered stolidly. I thought, who was leaving? Was it me, now my work was done?

In the bay window overlooking the river some of the Queen’s ladies sat as usual, needlework on their laps, watching a dance performed with surprising skill by Jane Fool. I saw Mary Odell sitting with the highborn ladies despite her lack of rank. The pretty young Duchess of Suffolk, her lapdog Gardiner on her knee, sat between her and the Queen’s sister Lady Anne Herbert, whom I had seen at Baynard’s Castle. A tall thin young man with a narrow, beaky face and wispy beard stood behind them, watching with a supercilious expression.

Jane came to a halt in front of the gentleman and bowed. ‘There, my Lord of Surrey,’ she said to the man. ‘Am I not fit to be your partner at the dancing at Hampton Court for the admiral?’ So this was Surrey, the Duke of Norfolk’s oldest son, but reportedly a reformer, said to be a skilled poet, who last winter had been in trouble for leading a drunken spree in the city.

He answered curtly, ‘I dance only with ladies of rank, Mistress Fool. And now you must excuse me. I have to meet my father.’

‘Do not be harsh with Jane,’ the Duchess of Suffolk said reprovingly; for the fool’s moon face had reddened. But then Jane saw me standing a little way off, and pointed at me. ‘There is the reason the Queen has gone to Lord Parr’s chamber! The lawyer has come again to bother her with business! See, he has a back as hunched as Will Somers’!’

The company turned to look at me as she continued. ‘He would have had Ducky taken from me. But the Lady Mary would not let him! She knows who her true friends are!’ There was a glimmer in her eyes that told me Jane was indeed no halfwit; all this nonsense was deliberate, to humiliate me.

Mary Odell stood up hastily and came to my side. ‘Her majesty and Lord Parr are waiting for you, Master Shardlake.’

I was glad to walk away with her to the Queen’s inner sanctum.