WE WERE THERE all morning, listening to disputes and adjudicating. After the horrors of the night before it felt strange to be sitting there, surrounded by the trappings of power. I managed to forget what had happened, for a few hours at least, for adjudicating was a role I enjoyed.

Most of the cases were petty enough matters, some of the parties’ anger with each other far out of proportion to the matter in dispute. Those we dealt with sharply. Where the council was the party petitioned against, Master Waters was a model of reasonableness, but it struck me from the cases that the council had often been high-handed in its dealings with the Yorkers.

We adjourned for a break at twelve, a servant bringing in some cold meat and bread. I ate quickly, then nodded at Barak.

‘I wonder if we might leave you for a short while, gentlemen,’ I said. ‘We will be back within the half hour.’ Master Waters nodded; Giles looked at us curiously.

We went out into the courtyard; the rain had stopped but the wind was higher than ever, making my robe billow around me. ‘My wrist hurts,’ Barak said. ‘All those notes. Well, what is this mystery in the tower?’

I led the way across the courtyard to the guardroom, where the hard-featured guard I had met before agreed to take us up to Broderick’s cell.

The cell had not been cleaned since the cook left it; messy rushes still lay on the floor, the truckle bed under the window still had a dirty sheet on it. Broderick’s chains were still fixed to their bolt on the wall, the chains themselves lying in a pile of links on the bed.

‘Well?’ Barak asked.

I walked to the bed and picked up the manacles at the end of the chain, which had been fixed to Broderick’s wrists. I walked away from the bed, drawing out the chain to its fullest length. Standing up, Broderick could have walked perhaps eight feet. I walked round the cell in a half-circle, looking inwards. Barak and the guard looked on in surprise.

‘What are you doing?’ Barak asked.

‘I’m tracing the limits Broderick could have walked. Seeing if there is anything odd on the floor, the walls.’

‘I can’t see anything.’

‘No – ah.’ I stopped at the window. ‘Yes, he can walk this far. I thought so; he told me he used to stare at Aske’s bones.’ I looked out. I could see the opposite tower, the shape of the skeleton swinging in its chains in the cold wind that whipped rain into my face, along with something else: a smell I recalled from the handkerchief in Broderick’s cell at St Mary’s, and from Fulford when I bowed and looked at the King’s leg – rot and decay. I studied a long leaden pipe that ran down the wall and broke off to one side of the window, where a crack in the wall ran jaggedly along beside it. From the end of the pipe a white, slimy-looking deposit hung, water sweating from it into the crack. And something else: a couple of brown stems, broken off from the fungus that had grown in this filth.

‘That looks like a lightning strike,’ I said to the guard.

‘Ay, maybe.’ He sounded puzzled by my interest.

‘Where does the pipe come from?’

‘It’s an overflow pipe, from the guards’ little kitchen at the top of the tower. Some of the guards sleep there usually, though they were turned out when Broderick came.’

‘So the pipe will be full of the nastiest stuff you could imagine. Bits of bad meat, rotten vegetables.’ I took off my robe, took out a clean handkerchief and then, with some difficulty, reached my hand through the bars and broke off a chunk of the white slimy deposit. As I touched it I felt my stomach turn. I sniffed at it, then showed it to Barak. He bent his head, then recoiled.

‘Ugh. It’s like shit, only worse.’

I reached out again, and plucked a couple of the little mushrooms. I held them in my palm.

‘This is Broderick’s poison,’ I said quietly. ‘And the smell in his handkerchief was the stuff from the pipe. This is where he got it. He then ate the fungus, hoping it would poison him.’

‘Jesu!’ The guard’s face wrinkled in disgust. ‘What manner of man could do such a thing?’

‘A man of great desperation. And courage. He was in a state when he would try anything.’

‘He wouldn’t know what the mushrooms would do,’ Barak observed

‘No, but he knew it would be nothing good. That perhaps it could kill him.’

‘And he kept it in a handkerchief stuffed up his arse,’ Barak added, making the guard cringe even more.

‘As I said, desperate. What courage it must have taken to make that plan, collect that stuff and actually force oneself to swallow it, stomach heaving, hoping but not knowing if it would poison you to death. Well, that is one mystery solved. No one else was involved in his poisoning.’

‘How did you know?’ Barak asked.

‘I didn’t. But I knew he had to get it from somewhere and I thought, what if he got it from outside the window. It was the only possible place left.’ I smiled. ‘There is as always an answer if you look hard enough.’

We left the cell and returned to the courtyard. I watched the leaves skittering over the courtyard in the wind. ‘I’ll tell Maleverer,’ I said. ‘This will let Radwinter off the hook.’ I laughed softly. ‘I wonder if he’ll be grateful?’

‘I should think he’ll hate you worse than ever.’

‘Poor Broderick. I suppose he thought anything was better than what he faces in the Tower.’ I shook my head. ‘Well, I have ensured he is safe for that now.’

‘He would never have died. That filth was so strong his body just rejected it at once.’ Barak looked at me. ‘You sound as though you admire him.’

‘In a way I do. Jesu, that stink reminds me of the smell that came from the King’s leg.’ I laughed. ‘Mould from the Mouldwarp.’

THE AFTERNOON WITH ITS succession of petitioners passed much like the morning. There was one case, though, which troubled me, and brought me as close as I had come to a disagreement with Giles. It was a petition from a supplier of wood to St Mary’s, which had gone into the building of the pavilions. He had provided the materials months ago and according to the terms of his contract with the Council of the North he should have been paid long before. He invoked the King’s justice in seeking payment now.

‘This is a difficult one,’ Master Waters said uncomfortably as we studied the papers before the petitioner was admitted.

‘Why?’ Giles asked. ‘It seems clear enough Master Segwike’s payment is overdue. I know him, his business is small, he cannot afford to continue unpaid.’

The young official shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘The problem is, if his petition is granted, the council will be deluged with demands for payment. Our clerks have had some difficulties in managing the – er – flow of cash.’

‘You mean they’ve made a mullock of things, ordering more than they can pay for?’

‘Sir Robert Holgate is in discussions with the King’s treasury.’ Waters looked between us. ‘I have been generous on other matters concerning the council. I am instructed to continue to be: provided this petition is dismissed. Master Segwike will be paid, and the others, but we need time.’

Giles nodded and smiled softly. He looked at me.

‘We are here to do justice,’ I said. ‘We should not be subject to pressure from a member of our panel on individual cases.’

‘When was justice ever divorced from politics?’ Giles asked quietly.

‘Under the constitution of England, the answer to that is “always”.’ I knew it sounded priggish, but I would not let this go by unchallenged.

‘Then I will be less accommodating with other petitioners,’ Master Waters said. ‘I’m sorry, but those are my instructions.’

‘We are stuck with this, Matthew,’ Giles said. I shrugged angrily, but said no more. Justice for this one man would mean less justice for others. The woodsman was called in. An elderly fellow, nervous to be before us, stated his case haltingly.