We reached the place where Giles and Barak were sitting on the grass. Barak heard us, looked up and waved at Tamasin. ‘Jack,’ she called eagerly, and ran towards him.

Chapter Thirty-six

WE STAYED AT LECONFIELD three days, in tents in the meadow beyond the moat. The King had business to conduct, we heard; the Scots were raiding the border villages, a sure sign James was not interested in a rapprochement with England. Perhaps the strengthening of the defences at Hull was no bad idea after all.

Those on the Progress were forbidden to wander beyond the fields that surrounded the camp but I did not go even that far; I stayed in my tent, resting. It did me good, and I felt myself relaxing, able to distance myself a little from my brush with death at Howlme. My only exercise was my daily visit to Broderick’s carriage, which stood closely guarded in a neighbouring field. Broderick seemed to have retreated into himself, lying silently on his pallet and barely acknowledging my presence. Radwinter said little either; he was surly and there was none of his usual verbal sparring. Perhaps my accusation of madness had finally struck a nerve.

ON MY FIRST MORNING at Leconfield I nerved myself to go and see Maleverer again. The guards directed me to an inner courtyard of the castle. As I entered my heart sank, for he was walking and talking with Richard Rich. They looked at me in surprise. I took off my cap and bowed.

‘Master Shardlake again,’ Rich said, a smile on his narrow face. I remembered he had seen me coming out of the Queen’s tent at Howlme when Lady Rochford had summoned me, and wondered if he would refer to that, but he only said, ‘I hear you have escaped assassination. By a woman. God’s death, it would have made my life easier had she got you. I would not be put to the trouble of sorting out the Bealknap case.’ He laughed, Maleverer joining in sycophantically.

I was so used to Rich’s mockery that it made no impact on me now. I looked at Maleverer. ‘It was about Mistress Marlin that I wished to speak to you, Sir William.’

Maleverer turned to Rich. ‘He’s a clever fellow, this. Sometimes he has good ideas. He delved out the truth about Broderick’s poisoning.’

‘He delves too much,’ Rich growled. ‘I will leave you, Sir William, we can talk about that piece of business later.’ He walked away.

Maleverer gave me an irritated look. ‘Well, Brother Shardlake?’

I told him I had been puzzling over Jennet Marlin’s behaviour to me at the beacon. ‘I have wondered whether it was she who attacked me at King’s Manor. She never actually said so, and it is strange that I was left alive only to be hunted by her later.’ I looked at him. ‘Perhaps to keep them from you, and show to Cranmer.’

He frowned and bit at one of his long yellow fingernails. ‘That would mean those papers are in the hands of the conspirators after all.’

‘Yes, Sir William, it would.’

‘You have been thinking too much. If the conspirators had the papers they’d have used them by now.’

‘They might be waiting for – for the right opportunity.’

He looked at me narrowly. ‘Have you told anyone else about this notion of yours?’

‘Only Barak.’

Maleverer grunted. ‘And what does he say?’

I hesitated. ‘He, too, thinks it is speculation.’

‘There you are then. Forget about it. Do you hear, forget it.’ He frowned mightily.

I thought, if he passed this on to the Privy Council and they thought the papers might be in the conspirators’ hands after all, it would harm his reputation just when he thought all was mended.

‘Very well, Sir William.’ I bowed and turned to go. As I reached the gateway he called me back.

‘Master Shardlake!’

‘Yes, Sir William.’

His face was angry, troubled. ‘Sir Richard Rich is right. You are a bothersome man.’

OVER THE NEXT couple of days the weather remained fine, if a little colder each day. Leconfield was a pretty place, the castle and the surrounding meadows enclosed by woodland bright with autumn colour. Nonetheless the time passed slowly. Barak and Giles and I spent hours in my tent playing cards, swathed in coats. When we had lost all our money to Barak we switched to chess, and Giles and I taught him the game using chesspieces I drew on scraps of paper. We did not see Tamasin, for it would not have been proper for her to come to our tents. Barak met her most evenings, stumping round the camp with her; he had progressed to a stick now. Tamasin had been avoiding me since our quarrel in the field. She must have told Barak, for he had been a little uncomfortable with me since then.

On the morning of the third day I stood with Giles in front of my tent, looking at the woods in their autumn colours. I thought he seemed noticeably thinner now, less a solid oak of a man.

‘How are you?’ I asked.

‘I have some pain,’ he said quietly. ‘But the cold in these tents is the worst thing. It saps my energy.’ He looked at his big hands, adjusting his emerald ring. ‘I am losing weight. This ring will fall off if I am not careful. I would be sorry to lose it; it was my father’s.’

‘Perhaps in Hull we will have brick walls around us again and a fire. ’Tis a large town, I believe.’

‘I have already taken care of that.’ He winked at me. ‘Some gold has passed from me to one of Master Craike’s underlings, it has secured me a room at an inn. You and Barak too.’

‘That is generous, Giles.’

‘No.’ He smiled wryly. ‘I might as well put my money to good use. Soon enough I will have no need of it. Jesu, but I miss my fire, and Madge to wait on me.’ He looked at me. ‘I have left her well provided for in my will, she will end her old age in comfort. And you will have my library.’

‘Me?’ I was taken aback.

‘You are the only man I know who will appreciate it. But give those old lawbooks to Gray’s Inn library. I should like my old Inn to have them.’

‘But – your nephew…’

‘Martin will have my house, and everything else. I made a new will before I left York. But I want to see him, to tell him.’

I put a hand on his arm. ‘You will.’

For a moment he looked sad. Then we both jumped at the blast of a hunting horn. We saw, some way off, a procession of brightly robed riders heading for the woods, a huge pack of greyhounds loping along beside the horses.

‘The King is going hunting,’ Giles said. ‘I hear he walks and rides so badly now he has to stand in a hide with his bow and arrow, and shoot at the stags as the hounds and keepers drive them by. He that was called the greatest athlete in Europe in his youth.’

The King. The true King, I wondered again.

NEXT AFTERNOON we were told to make ready, we would be moving on to Hull the following day, the first of October. The new month came in with winds and heavy rain from the east, making it a miserable business getting the Progress together in the early morning, finding our horses and our place in the cavalcade. The fields had turned to mud, all the cart wheels and even the hems of the senior officials’ robes were spattered with it. Barak was better able to ride now, the enforced rest had helped his leg. He probably wished he was back in his covered cart, though, as we rode slowly along with our heads bent against the driving rain.

Mercifully it stopped later that morning as we approached the town of Beverley. We passed through quickly, then went on through more flat countryside, white church steeples marking the occasional villages. The road began descending slowly, past fields of rich black soil, and late in the afternoon we saw a wide grey estuary in the distance, broader than the Thames at London and dotted with sails.