WE SPENT THE REST OF the day going through the petitions, breaking only for a dish of old Madge’s bland pottage. Some petitions were in elegant calligraphy, impressed with heavy wax seals, others mere scrawls on poor scraps of paper. Barak prepared brief summaries of the points at issue in each case at dictation from myself and Wrenne. The old man proved quick and decisive, ruthlessly separating the wheat from the chaff. Most were relatively trifling complaints against minor officials. We worked companionably, candles lit against the dull afternoon; the only sounds the falcon’s bell as it stirred on its perch and the occasional boom of the Minster bells.

Late in the afternoon Wrenne handed me a paper filled with a laboured scrawl. ‘This is interesting,’ he said.

The petition was from a farmer in the parish of Towton, outside the city. He had changed the use of his land from pasture to growing vegetables for the city, and his ploughmen kept digging up human bones which the church authorities commanded he deliver to the local churchyard for burial. He asked for the cost of his travelling to and fro, and time lost, to be defrayed.

‘Towton,’ I said. ‘There was a battle there, was there not?’

‘The greatest battle of the Wars between the Roses. 1461. There were thirty thousand dead in that bloody meadow. And now this farmer goes to law to be paid for delivering their bones for burial. What do you think we should do with the farmer’s claim?’

‘It is surely outside our jurisdiction. It is a church matter, it should go to the Minster dean.’

‘But the church is hardly likely to rule against its own interest and pay the man, is it?’ Barak interjected. ‘He should at least have representation.’

Wrenne took the petition back, smiling ruefully. ‘Yet Brother Shardlake is right, as a matter of canon law it falls outside the remit of petitions to the King. Church jurisdiction is a sensitive issue these days. The King would not wish to raise a storm on such a trifling issue. No, we must refer the farmer to the dean.’

‘I agree,’ I said.

Wrenne gave his wry smile again. ‘We must all be politicians now. And recognize the law has its limits. You must not expect too much of it, Master Barak.’

BY FIVE O’CLOCK we had all the petitions briefly summarized. It was getting dark, and I heard rain pattering on the windows. Wrenne looked over the summaries. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think that is all clear.’

‘Good. And now, we must get back. We have some business at King’s Manor.’

Wrenne looked out of the window. ‘Let me lend you a coat, it is raining hard, pewling down as we say. Wait there a moment.’ He left us in the hall. We went and stood again by the fire.

‘He is a good old fellow,’ Barak said.

‘Ay.’ I stretched out my hands to warm them. ‘Lonely, I would guess. No one in the world but his old housekeeper and that bird.’ I nodded at the falcon, which had gone to sleep on its perch. Wrenne returned, bearing a coat, good and heavy but far too large for me, the hem nearly scraping the floor. I promised to return it on the morrow. We set off into the rain, to find out if poor young Green had said anything about a hiding place in Oldroyd’s wall.

Chapter Nine

WE WALKED THROUGH dark empty streets, tired again. The air was full of autumnal smells of wood-smoke and the dank odour of fallen leaves.

‘So you’ll see the King?’ Barak shook his head in wonder.

‘You never saw him when you worked for Cromwell?’

He laughed. ‘No, it was the back ways for the likes of me.’

‘Would you like to see him?’

‘Ay.’ He smiled thoughtfully. ‘Something to tell my children one day.’

I looked at him. He had never spoken of having children before; always he had seemed one who lived from day to day.

‘Perhaps we could help Master Wrenne find this nephew of his,’ I said. ‘You could ask around the Inns for me.’

‘Might be best to leave well alone. Might find this nephew doesn’t want to see him.’ A hard note crept into Barak’s voice, and I remembered he had cut himself off from his mother when she remarried, with much bitterness.

‘Perhaps. But we could try. It was sad his only child died.’

‘Ay.’ He paused. ‘Master Wrenne runs on a bit. All that talk of kings and the old wars.’

‘I remember a talk I had with Guy, just before we left.’

‘How is the old Moor?’

‘Well enough. I was talking of the King’s Progress, and he told me the story of the last king of his country, Granada. When he was a boy it was still a Moorish kingdom, independent from Spain. The last ruler, King Boabdil the Small-’

‘There’s a name! ’

‘Listen, will you. Guy saw him as a child carried through Granada in a litter, everyone bowing and showering him with flowers, as Brother Wrenne said the Yorkers did for King Richard. But Boabdil lost his kingdom to Spain, and had to flee in exile to the land of the Moors.’

‘What became of him?’

‘Guy said it was rumoured he died in a battle in Africa. The point is, no one knows. His power and glory were gone.’

As we walked up the street called Petergate, we heard a commotion of cries and shouts. Turning to look, we saw four ragged-looking beggars running towards us, holding up their arms to ward off blows aimed at their shoulders by three men in official-looking robes carrying stout birching-rods. They passed us and were driven on towards the river that divided the city. ‘Clearing the beggars from the city,’ I observed.

Barak watched as the ragged men were driven on to a large stone bridge. ‘And how are they supposed to live outside?’ he asked. ‘Beg alms from the trees and bushes?’

We were silent as we walked under the barbican at Bootham Bar. I saw that the heads on their poles, and the disgusting hank of flesh, had been removed. ‘No beggars, no rebels’ carrion,’ Barak observed. ‘The city’s to look its best for the King.’

I wondered if they would take Aske’s remains down from the castle. But probably the King would not visit that decayed and doleful spot.

DESPITE THE RAIN and darkness at St Mary’s, the workmen were still labouring away. Sounds of sawing and hammering came from the pavilions, while beside them men were working at putting up the gigantic tents, smoothing canvas and tautening ropes. I remembered seeing enormous tents in pictures of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The courtyard was a sea of mud. I had never seen men work in such conditions before. Evidently there was a problem with drainage, for a group of labourers, caked in mud, had excavated a trench around the second pavilion and were extending it into a long channel, with much shouting and cursing. Officials stood arguing over plans in the doorway of the manor house; we squeezed through them and told the guard we needed to see Sir William Maleverer.

‘He’s not here, sir,’ the man said. ‘He’s ridden off to meet the Progress. At Leconfield, I believe.’

‘How far is that?’

‘Thirty miles off. He had an urgent summons. But he’ll be back tomorrow morning.’

I thought a moment. ‘Is the King’s coroner here? Master Archbold?’

‘He’s gone with him.’

I bit my lip. ‘There was an apprentice boy taken in the town by Sir William this morning, held for questioning. Perhaps a female servant too. Do you know what happened to them?’

He looked at me suspiciously. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘We were there when the apprentice was taken. I need to speak to Sir William about it.’

‘The boy’s been locked up, with strict orders he is to be held close till Sir William returns. The woman-servant was sent home; Sir William had just finished questioning her and was about to start on the boy when the summons came.’