Tombland

‘Yes, and this new young man who is courting her.’

‘As I said before, she is probably teasing you, to whet your interest.’

‘She would not be so cruel.’ Yet he sounded less definite than before.

I said, ‘You did well last night, saying Chawry belongs on our list of suspects. And agreeing Isabella does too.’

‘Why was that doing well?’

I smiled. ‘Because you so clearly like her. But your analytical skills as a lawyer prevailed over your emotional attachments. We’ll make a serjeant of you yet.’

He smiled, pleased at the compliment.

‘I have booked the horses for nine tomorrow. I thought this afternoon we might visit Josephine and Edward again.’

‘Yes. Though I hope Edward does not go on this time about the condition of the people; he is almost as fierce as Toby.’

I remembered Edward sitting with Michael Vowell and the man Miles that evening at the Blue Boar, and forbore to say, perhaps he is fiercer.

We made our way through Upper Goat Lane to the marketplace. Passing along the side of the Guildhall, we heard a hum of voices, and saw that those found guilty of felonies during the Assizes were about to be hanged – slowly and agonizingly, on Judge Gatchet’s orders.

A crowd of about a hundred had assembled in front of the Guildhall. The wooden structure we had seen being erected a few days before was complete, a wide raised platform with steps leading up, and four gallows from which thick ropes dangled, nooses at the end. The executioner, a powerfully built man in a white shirt with grey hair and a hard, square face, was pulling at the nooses, testing their strength with professional expertise. Half a dozen soldiers with halberds stood in front of the scaffold, facing the crowd, which pressed close. The executioner’s assistant, a young man in his twenties, pulled a lever, causing the front section of the boarding, under the nooses, to fall with a crash. He pushed the lever back and the boarding rose into place again. He nodded with satisfaction.

At the bottom of the market square three high-sided carts appeared, drawn by horses. More soldiers from the castle walked alongside. Another walked ahead, beating a drum.

I had seen such carts in London many times, making their way to Tyburn. Nicholas nudged me. ‘Look there,’ he said. The crowd were mostly poor folk of both sexes, come to see the spectacle, though a number of weeping relatives were being comforted by friends. Two relatives, however, were not weeping. Gerald and Barnabas Boleyn stood with half a dozen other expensively dressed young men, among whom I recognized John Atkinson. They were talking lightly. The rest of the crowd left a space around them. ‘Brutes,’ Nicholas said in disgust. ‘Come to see their father hang. They mustn’t know about the pardon.’

‘Reynberd can’t have made it public.’ I looked at them; in court they had threatened to come and see their father hanged, but I confess I was shocked to see them actually do it.

‘Short drop,’ a man said to his wife. ‘Some of them should make a fine dance.’

‘I don’t want to see this.’ Nicholas turned away.

I, though, stood rooted to the spot. For the carts had reached the top of the marketplace, outside the Guildhall, and halted. Four people from the first were being brought down by the soldiers. Their arms were bound tightly to their sides. I recognized them from the day before; the wild-haired girl, a rag doll clutched in one hand, the red-faced man who had stolen wine, and who, from the difficulty the soldiers had in getting him down, had been allowed to get drunk this morning, and the starveling old man who had stolen loaves of bread, shaking with fear. And last, his eyes wide with terror, came one who wore a brightly dyed doublet and shirt instead of the well-worn clothes of the poor: John Boleyn. I clutched Nicholas’s arm so tightly he cried out. He followed my gaze. ‘Jesus Christ!’

Boleyn shrieked, ‘I have a stay of execution!’ He struggled against the two soldiers holding him. ‘Approved by the judge!’

‘And I’m the queen of France!’ one answered. ‘Come on, the others an’t makin’ any trouble!’

The other three prisoners were walking quietly to the scaffold, the drunk man swaying slightly, the woman clutching her rag doll tightly in one bound hand, bending her head to look at it. They were almost at the steps now. People laughed at the exchange between the soldier and Boleyn, though the twins’ faces wore expressions of contempt. Boleyn, looking frantically over the crowd, saw Nicholas and me and shouted, ‘Help me! Help me!’

‘Death to all murderers!’ someone shouted out. Two voices called as one, ‘Die like a man!’ I realized it was the twins.

‘We have to stop this!’ I shouted, and barged through the crowd, Nicholas at my heels. The condemned were mounting the steps. The old man, his shaking now uncontrollable, began to weep. I made to follow them up the steps, but a soldier blocked my path, his halberd pointed at my face. ‘What the fuck d’you think you’re doing? D’you want hanging, too?’