Barak’s outburst had surprised me. When I first met him a year ago he had been defiance itself, ready to treat the highest with disrespect. But then he had been under Lord Cromwell’s patronage and, as Rich had taken pleasure in reminding us, Cromwell was dead. And now, as Barak had said, part of him at least wanted a quiet life. But it had been strange to hear him accuse me of obstinacy and recklessness. I felt a warm flush of self-righteousness. I was protecting my clients, as every honest lawyer must. My integrity in the often corrupt world of the law was my badge, my identity. Was even that to be taken from me by these mocking courtiers?

But as I sat under the tree a while a calmer humour settled on me. I knew I was clinging on to my reputation for integrity because, after the battering I had taken during that long day, it was all I felt I had left. And I had no right to involve Barak in any unwise defiance of Rich. Yet I could not abandon my clients if, as I thought, we had a chance of winning. Barak should surely know that.

I jerked upright at the sound of approaching footsteps. I remembered that I could still be in danger. A dim figure was approaching across the grass; I was relieved to see it was a woman, her dress rustling as she stepped into the carpet of fallen leaves under the tree. As she came close I saw to my surprise that it was Tamasin, in her yellow dress and wearing a fine silver necklace.

‘Mistress Reedbourne?’

She curtsied, then stood uncertainly before me. She seemed nervous, not at all her usual pert self.

‘I wondered, sir, if I might speak with you,’ she asked hesitantly. ‘I saw you sitting there.’

‘What about?’

‘It is important, sir. Important to me.’

‘Very well.’ I gestured to the bench and she sat beside me. She did not speak for a moment, she seemed to be considering what to say. I studied her. With her high cheekbones, full mouth and determined chin she was indeed a very pretty girl. Yet so young; little more than a child it seemed to me.

‘Mistress Marlin has been taken to Sir William for questioning,’ she said at length.

‘Yes. Barak and I have just been with him. And Sir Richard Rich.’

‘Mistress Marlin looked angry. She dislikes Sir William greatly.’

‘Yes. I saw that when you were brought in for questioning on Wednesday.’

She reddened at the reminder of her deception.

‘You would have been better to have left Barak and me alone,’ I said. ‘I am involved in some very confidential matters.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We have had words. He will have told you. He is an impertinent fellow, Master Jack.’

‘He is anxious, sir.’

‘Usually it is me who is the anxious one.’ I hesitated. ‘But perhaps this time he is right.’ I looked at her, wondering how much of our business he had told her. The less the better, for her sake. ‘Do you know where he is now?’

‘He has just left to look at the camp. I have been wanting to say, sir…’ she added, then hesitated again.

‘Yes?’ I said encouragingly. It cannot have been easy for her to come and seek me out; Barak’s cross-grained old employer as she probably thought of me.

‘I am sorry for the trick I played that day you first came to York.’

I nodded. ‘It was foolish. And unbecoming for a woman. Maleverer was right there. Yet he should not have struck you.’

She shook her head. ‘I care little for that.’ She looked at me steadily now. ‘I have had a strange life, Master Shardlake. I have had to make my own way. My mother was a servant at court.’

‘Yes, Barak told me.’

‘She sewed the Queens’ bodyservants’ clothes in the sewery. In Catherine of Aragon’s time, then Anne Boleyn’s.’

‘Did she?’

‘Yes. Then she died, in the plague in London seven years ago.’

‘I am sorry,’ I said gently. ‘So many were lost then. I lost someone too.’

‘I was but twelve, with no one but my grandmother to care for me, or rather me for her as she was old and ailing.’

‘I see.’

‘I never knew who my father was. But I believe he was of good blood.’ She seemed to straighten a little with pride. ‘My mother told me he was a professional man.’

‘Did she?’

‘Yes. He might have been a senior courtier.’

Or a tailor. I felt sorry for her. Her mother had probably told her the tale to comfort her, to ease the girl’s shame at her origins.

‘I see you doubt me, sir. But I believe it. I take pride in myself, whatever cruel people may say about my birth.’

‘That is good. You should not listen to what cruel people say.’ I thought, but if it is the King?

‘My granddam told me to take advantage of the dearth of servants caused by the plague to seek the place my mother held,’ the girl went on. ‘And I did, sir. I told them in the chamberlain’s office I was a skilled seamstress, though I knew nothing of the work.’

‘It seems you have a talent for deception.’

She frowned then. ‘I worked, sir, I worked day and night to learn until I made myself a competent seamstress, learning from the other girls, who helped me for my mother’s sake. And poor folk must make shift for themselves. I had my granddam and myself to feed, and the Queen’s sewery offers good wages. And protection from the world outside,’ she added.

‘Yes. I can see that.’

‘I learned to live by my wits, sir.’

‘As Barak did.’

‘When I saw him that day in the town, something stirred in me, as it has seldom done before, and I thought – why not manufacture a meeting?’

I smiled reluctantly. ‘In truth you are clever, mistress, as well as bold.’ I looked at her directly. ‘And now you hope to hook your fish, eh?’

Her face was serious. ‘We are becoming fast friends, sir. I wanted only to ask you not to stand in our way. And please, where is the boldness in asking that?’

I studied her a long moment. ‘I think you are an unusual woman, Mistress Reedbourne,’ I said. ‘I had thought you of a frolic disposition but I see I was wrong.’

‘Jack is sorry for his words earlier,’ she said.

‘He used to be very bold. But I think part of him wants to settle down. Though part does not,’ I added.

‘I hope he would settle down,’ she said. ‘Stay working for you, give proper value to the opportunities you have given him.’

I smiled wryly. ‘So that is it, Mistress Tamasin,’ I said. ‘You have come to offer me an alliance.’

‘We have an aim in common. Jack admires you greatly, sir, he says you have known troubles and have sympathy for poor folk and the necessities of their lives.’

‘Does he truly say that?’ I asked. I was touched, as no doubt she meant me to be.

‘He does, sir. And he feels it was his fault the papers were lost. I think he is angry with himself more than anyone. Do not be too hard on him.’

I took a deep breath. ‘I will think on what you have said, mistress.’

‘That is all I ask for, sir.’

‘Well, I see you care for him. And he perhaps for you?’

‘I hope when this wretched Progress is done, Jack and I may meet again in London. But it will be as he wishes.’

I nodded. ‘Tell me, how did you get from the sewery to working for Mistress Marlin and Lady Rochford?’

‘After Jane Seymour died her household was broken up. I obtained a post with Mrs Cornwallis, the Queen’s confectioner. She trained me in the art of making comfits and sweets.’

‘You made her your friend too, eh?’

‘She is a good old body.’

‘You have a talent for making the right friends. But as you say, poor folk must shift as they can.’

‘When the King married Queen Catherine last year I was taken into her household, since she too is fond of comfits, and placed under Mistress Marlin. She has been kind to me.’

‘Mistress Marlin is a strange woman.’

‘She is good to me. The other women mock her.’

And you are naturally kind, I thought. Yes, I think you are. ‘And Lady Rochford?’ I asked. ‘What is she like?’

‘I have little to do with her. All fear her, they say she is dangerous.’