‘Giles?’ I asked gently. ‘Are you all right?’ He winced with pain.

‘I must have fallen asleep.’

‘Barak has been sick, he fell over. Did you not hear?’

He looked tired, tired to death. He essayed a smile. ‘Not a good sailor, eh? It is a long time since I was at sea, but fortunately I have never got sick.’ He looked over to the mudbanks in the distance. ‘We are still in sight of Yorkshire, then.’

‘I gather it will be many hours before we are out of the estuary.’

‘I wonder how Madge is coping, without me to fuss over.’

‘When we get to London, Giles, my first task will be to help you find your nephew. Barak will help too.’

Giles lowered his voice. ‘How are things between you and him?’

‘Ah. You have noticed something was amiss.’

‘It has been hard not to, these last days. Something to do with the girl?’

‘In a roundabout way.’ I looked at the coastline, a little further off now. ‘But do not worry about that. We will be all right once all this is over, once we are back in our routine at Lincoln’s Inn.’ I smiled at him. ‘And then we will find your nephew.’

He looked at me thoughtfully. ‘How will you go about it? Finding Martin?’

‘We can go to Garden Court, and if he is not there, the Inn Treasurer can tell us where he practises.’

He nodded. ‘So it should be quite simple.’

‘Yes.’ I said, hoping to God it would be.

FOR THE NEXT three days the weather stayed calm and bright, and though it was uncomfortable sitting around on deck or cramped in those tiny cabins, it could have been a great deal worse. We saw nothing of Rich or Maleverer; doubtless they were in comfortable quarters below decks. Giles too spent most of his time in his cabin, in his tiny bunk. He lay quietly, seeming withdrawn. I suspected he was in much pain, and worried about him.

Although the weather made life easier for the passengers, we heard the captain was unhappy, for in place of the gale there was now only the lightest of winds and the ship had to tack endlessly. On the fourth day the news went round that we would have to pull in at Great Yarmouth on the Norfolk coast, for we had not enough supplies left to complete the voyage. I saw Maleverer arguing fiercely with the captain, saying enough time had been lost, but the captain stood his ground.

We were at Great Yarmouth two days, taking on supplies. We learned the Progress had now dissolved at Lincoln. The King was hurrying south as fast as possible, for he had had word that Prince Edward was ill.

‘The life on which the Tudor dynasty depends,’ Giles said as we sat together on the deck, watching as the ship pulled away from Great Yarmouth. He had come up for some air, saying he felt better, though to me he still looked ill and frequently made those little winces of pain that cut me to the heart. Barak, who had found his sea-legs, was standing at the rail with Tamasin. We had spoken little in the last few days.

‘Unless Queen Catherine becomes pregnant,’ Giles ruminated. ‘But they’ve been married over a year now, and nothing. Perhaps the King can father no more children.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said hesitantly. Knowing what I knew about the Queen, I did not want to get involved in a discussion along those lines.

‘If the Prince dies,’ Giles continued, ‘who then will be heir to the throne? The Countess of Salisbury’s family wiped out, both the King’s daughters disinherited. What confusion King Henry would leave us then.’ He gave a bitter little laugh.

I got up. ‘I must stretch my legs, Giles, they are stiff.’ He wrapped the rug he had brought up more tightly around his big frame. ‘It will get cold now we are out at sea,’ I told him. ‘Perhaps you should go down again,’ I added, hesitantly for I knew how he disliked being treated like an invalid. But he said, ‘Yes, I will go below. Help me, would you?’

I saw him down to his cabin and returned to the deck. Tamasin and Barak were still talking at the rail, laughing. I felt excluded. I saw Barak incline his head to where a sailor was walking along the deck. To my astonishment, half a dozen rats swung by their tails from one hand, their long black bodies dripping blood on to the deck.

‘The ship’s ratcatcher,’ Barak said to Tamasin with a grin. She screwed up her pretty face and turned her head away. He nudged her. ‘D’you know what the main perk of his job is?’

‘No. I don’t want to.’

‘He gets to eat the rats.’

‘Sometimes you are disgusting,’ she said.

‘Better than the weevilly old biscuits they get.’ He laughed.

Just then the two soldiers climbed out of the hatchway leading below deck. They waited as Broderick followed them up, his hands and feet chained, a scrawny pitiful figure beside the two big men. He was followed up by Sergeant Leacon, and then Radwinter.

The soldiers led Broderick across to the rail. He stood there, looking out to sea, a man on either side in case he thought to jump over the rail. Sergeant Leacon looked out over the deck, taking deep breaths of fresh air. Radwinter, seeing me, came over.

‘Master Shardlake.’

His face had a tired, pinched look, and his hair and beard were longer, unkempt. He must have been below decks with Broderick nearly all the time since we left Hull. It struck me it was a long time since he had been as neat and dapper as when I first saw him at York Castle.

‘Well, Radwinter,’ I said. ‘Not long now to London, let us hope.’

‘No.’ He looked up at the sails. ‘I fancy there is more of a wind. I heard the captain say this was an unlucky voyage.’

‘Superstition.’

‘Yes. We will be in London in a few days.’ He smiled, his old wicked smile. ‘Then Sir Edward will have a merry time in the Tower.’

‘Is he well?’

‘Well enough. Do you know, he cried like a woman when I told him we had left Spurn Head behind. Said it was because he would never see Yorkshire again. I told him they may nail his quarters over the York gates once they are done with him.’

I shook my head. ‘You have no pity for him, have you?’

Radwinter shrugged. ‘In my work it does not do to have pity. You said I was mad once -’ his eyes glinted and I saw that indeed he had not forgotten that – ‘but to be a gaoler of traitors and heretics and be soft-hearted with them, that would be madness. Nor would it be God’s will.’

‘God’s will is torture and bloodshed?’

‘Where necessary to preserve true religion.’ He looked at me with contemptuous pity. ‘Have you not read your Testament, all the blood and battles? The world God made is full of violence and we must work in that world. The King knows that, he is not afraid of harshness.’

‘Does it not say somewhere the meek shall inherit the earth?’

‘Not until the strong have made it safe.’

‘When will that be? When the quarters of the last papist are nailed above York’s gates?’

‘Perhaps. You have to be strong to do right in this world, Master Shardlake. You have to be ruthless, as ruthless as our enemies.’

I turned away. Sergeant Leacon was walking towards me. He gave Radwinter a look of distaste, then turned to me. ‘Master Shardlake, good day.’

‘Good day, sergeant. I called Radwinter mad once,’ I said in a low voice. ‘He seems more so every time I see him.’

Leacon nodded. ‘I have been put over him now, by Sir William.’ He looked at Radwinter, who had gone over to the rail and stood looking out to sea. ‘I think Sir William has lost trust in him; he did not deal well with what happened in York.’

‘No. It was outside his experience, I think.’

‘He hates losing his authority. I see him looking at me sometimes and think he would like to kill me.’

‘Not long now till we reach home, with luck. How is Broderick? Radwinter said he cried when he heard we were out of sight of Yorkshire.’

‘Ay. He has been quiet since then.’ He hesitated. ‘When he saw you he asked to talk to you for a minute.’