‘I need to check something on a map of southern England. In connection with a matter I have on in London. Are there any maps in your collection?’
His eyes lit up with interest. ‘Why yes, I have some. They are mostly old monkish things but you are welcome to look. Most are of the north but I have one or two of the southern counties, I think. I wanted to show you my collection, it is in two rooms at the back of the house. Tell Madge to give you the keys. The maps and plans are on the third shelf on the south wall in the first room. I must stay in bed, I fear.’
‘Of course.’ I rose, for I could see he was tired. ‘I shall send word tomorrow, see how you are. If you are still poorly I will speak to Maleverer about getting someone else to deal with the petitions. Maleverer will not allow me to chair the arbitrations.’
He smiled and shook his head vigorously. ‘I will be better by tomorrow.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘Do not take what the King said too hard, Matthew. It was part of a political game. It was not personal.’
‘A chance to praise a Yorker at my expense. That point has been made. No, the worst thing was that I could see the King enjoyed what he did.’
Giles looked at me seriously. ‘Politics is a hard and cruel game.’
‘I know.’
I left him and descended the stairs. In the hall Dr Jibson was talking to Madge. ‘Master Wrenne says I may check something in his archive,’ I told her.
She hesitated a moment, then said, ‘I will get the keys.’
She left me with the doctor. ‘How is he?’ I asked.
Jibson shook his head. ‘He has a wasting sickness.’
‘He told me his father died of the same thing. Is there nothing to be done?’
‘No. These cruel growths eat away at a man. One can only pray for a miracle.’
‘And without a miracle? How long does he have?’
‘It is hard to say. I have felt that lump in his stomach, it is not too large yet, but it will grow. A few months at most, I would guess. He says he plans to go to London. I must say I think that foolish.’
‘Perhaps. But it is important to him. I have said I will take care of him.’
‘That may not be easy.’
‘Then I will deal with that.’ I paused. ‘Have you seen Broderick again?’
‘Ay. He has thrown off the effects of whatever poisoned him. He is young and strong, for all his ill-treatment.’
I nodded, frustrated the physician never had anything definite to say. Madge reappeared with the keys, and I bade him farewell. I followed the housekeeper back upstairs, to a passage beyond Wrenne’s bedroom.
‘Maister doesn’t let many in here,’ she said, looking at me dubiously. ‘Tha won’t disturb his books and papers, will tha? He likes them kept in order.’
‘I promise.’
She unlocked a stout door and ushered me into a room that smelt of dust and mice. It was big, the master bedroom in fact, and half a wall had been knocked through to another room beyond. The walls of both were covered from floor to ceiling with shelves filled to bursting with books and papers, rolled parchments and piles of manuscript. I looked round in astonishment.
‘I had no idea the collection was so big,’ I said. ‘There must be hundreds of books alone.’
‘Ay. Maister has been collecting near fifty years.’ The old woman looked round the library and shook her head, as though Wrenne’s occupation was beyond reason.
‘Is there an index?’
‘Nay, it is all in his head, he says.’
I saw that a little picture of the points of the compass had been set on the wall. The third shelf by the south wall was full of rolled-up papers, as he had said.
‘I will leave you, sir,’ Madge said. ‘I must prepare the powder the physician prescribed, to ease maister’s pain.’
‘He suffers, then?’
‘Much of the time.’
‘He conceals it well.’
‘Ay, that he does.’ She curtsied and went out.
Left alone, I stood looking round the shelves. I went to investigate the maps, and my wonder grew. The collection Wrenne had rescued was astonishing, and fascinating. I unrolled ancient painted maps of the Yorkshire coast and countryside, illuminated by monkish scribes with pictures of pilgrim shrines and places where miracles had been wrought. There were maps of other counties, too, and among them I found a large one of Kent, perhaps two hundred years old. It was none too accurately drawn, but full of place names.
There was a desk by the window, giving a view of the Minster. I sat and studied the map. I located Ashford, and then, to the southwest, saw the name Braybourne. To the west I saw the Leacon, where the young sergeant hailed from. I stroked my chin. So, a man called Blaybourne or Braybourne might have come from Kent some time last century, and left a confession in York that was of concern to kings. But where did that get me? I realized I had been hoping for some further clue, some lead, from the map, but there was just the name – a village off the main routes.
I returned the map to its place and walked along the shelves, wondering at the variety and the age of the books and papers. There were biographies, histories, books on medicine and horticulture and the decorative arts, books in English and Latin and Norman French. It struck me I had seen no books on law, but when I walked into the other room there were whole shelves of them, classic works like Bracton, old casebooks and yearbooks and volumes of Acts of Parliament. Some of them, I saw with excitement, had dates that were missing from Lincoln’s Inn library, for there were many gaps in the records of law cases there.
I took some of the yearbooks and went back to the desk. These were indeed lost casebooks. I sat reading the old cases, becoming lost to time. Since I was a child, whenever I was troubled I had always been able to escape into the world of books, and as I delved through Wrenne’s collection I felt my mind and body settling, relaxing. By the time I came to myself again with the thought that Lincoln’s Inn would pay well to have copies of some of these casebooks, I realized that hours had passed. I went downstairs to the kitchen, feeling a little embarrassed. Madge sat there sewing. I coughed.
‘I am sorry, Madge, I lost myself in the books up there.’
She smiled, the first smile I had had from her, a surprisingly sweet one. ‘ ’Tis good to see someone take an interest in maister’s collection. Few do. People now say we must forget the past and the old ways, bury them.’
‘It is a remarkable library.’
‘Maister is sleeping.’ She looked out of the window, where the rain still fell through the mist. ‘It’s still mizzling. Would tha like something to eat?’
‘Ay, thank you.’ I realized I was hungry.
‘I can bring it to the library if you wish. And a candle.’
I thought, why not. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think I will stay. Thank you.’
I went back upstairs, where Madge soon brought me some bread and beer, more of her tasteless but filling pottage, and a big beeswax candle which she set upon the desk. As I ate I looked round the library. It was an oddly Spartan place: no furniture apart from the desk, the floorboards bare, not even any rushes laid. How many years had Giles laboured here alone, I wondered? And what would happen to his collection when he died?
A thought struck me, and I went to the shelves where the books of Acts of Parliament stood. It was a long shot, but just as some of the yearbooks were unique, so some of the collections of Acts might be. I looked along the shelves until I found a volume that covered the latter third of the preceding century. A big book with a brown leather cover and the Minster’s coat of arms on the front. I took it to the desk. I was glad of the candle, for the sky was starting to darken.
I turned the heavy parchment pages. And there it was, among the Acts for the year 1484. The Act I had glimpsed in Oldroyd’s box, the same heading: Titulus Regulus. The title of the King. ‘An Act for the Settlement of the Crown upon the King and his Issue…’ My heart began to pound. I examined the binding, studied the seal of Parliament at the foot, compared it with the Acts before and after. This was an authentic copy, bound here half a century ago. I thought, this Act is no forgery. Maleverer lied. But I had never heard of it; at some point this Act had been expunged from the Parliamentary record, quietly suppressed.