Tombland

I reached for it, thinking it some fresh missive from Parry or the Lady Elizabeth, but the seal was strange. I tore it open, then took a deep breath.

‘What is it?’ Nicholas asked.

I handed it to him and said, speaking low, ‘We should go upstairs.’

Chapter Thirty-three

In my room I gave the letter to Nicholas. It was from Kenninghall Palace, short and curt:

Serjeant Shardlake,

The Lady Mary requires your presence here at two o’clock in the afternoon of Friday, the fifth day of July.

Richard Southwell,

Steward to the Lady Mary

‘What does she want?’ he asked.

‘Perhaps to discover more about her sister’s role in the Boleyn affair.’

Nicholas looked anxious. ‘Could she have learned that Edith Boleyn was at Hatfield? Remember, Parry spoke of each sister having spies.’

‘I don’t know. But our duty as Lady Elizabeth’s lawyers is to give nothing away. Even if Mary is heir to the throne.’ I looked at him hard.

‘I know.’

‘Southwell may be there too.’ I frowned.

I fetched the map Toby had made for our journey to Norfolk. ‘Kenninghall. It’s over twenty miles to the south. I couldn’t ride that far in one day. We’ll have to break the journey at Wymondham or Attleborough. Go and talk to the innkeeper, see which he thinks best.’

Nicholas left, and I crossed to the window. It was market day again, the streets busy. People looked hot and tired. Why had we been summoned by Mary?

Nicholas returned. ‘Wymondham is the best place to stop. Going on to Attleborough would be a long ride; it may be better to have the shorter ride the first day.’ I nodded agreement. ‘The innkeeper said things are a bit uncertain at Attleborough, too, the peasants still in a tickle. Wymondham is a place of goodly size with fine inns, the third largest city in Norfolk, but they have an annual play and a big fair down there this weekend. They call it the Wymondham Game. If we go soon, though, we should be able to find a place to stay. He recommends an inn called the Green Dragon.’

‘Very well. We’ll leave first thing tomorrow.’ I had intended going to Toby Lockswood’s farm, to see why he had not been in touch, but that would have to wait. ‘Come, let’s go to the Blue Boar and tell Barak. Then we should get a haircut and shave.’

* * *

NEXT MORNING , THURSDAY , we rose early, and went down for breakfast wearing our lawyers’ robes over our best clothes. Some merchants who had come to Norwich market from other parts had stayed overnight, and at breakfast there was much talk of peasant rebellions spreading in other parts of the country. Apparently, groups of rebels had set up camps in Essex as well as Kent; the Essex camp allegedly containing a thousand men, and all the camps were sending petitions demanding redress of unlawful enclosures and other grievances to the Protector. There were rumours of serious trouble in Oxfordshire, too. One merchant spoke of a new proclamation from the Protector warning that all rioters would suffer extreme punishment as traitors, but he angrily predicted that there would soon be another one saying all were pardoned. ‘My customer in Kent says the rebels talk of building a godly Commonwealth,’ the man concluded.

‘All this talk of Commonwealth will start to be read as meaning all wealth should be held in common. It’s no better than Anabaptism,’ his friend replied.

I raised my eyebrows at Nicholas, who frowned.

* * *

THERE WAS INDEED a new proclamation promising death to rioters posted on the city gate, but beyond, the flat countryside was quiet and still. Nicholas said, ‘I wonder how many of those rumours are true. With the West Country rebels, further trouble is the last thing that’s needed. All our efforts should be focused on defeating the Scots.’

‘Nicholas, you and the Protector must be the last people in England not to realize that war is lost.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘Perhaps you’re right. But rebellion in time of war is indeed treason.’

‘A lot of it could be hot air.’

‘Those merchants sounded serious.’ He paused. ‘You met the Lady Mary once, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, three years ago. She’s clever, calculating. There’s a real hardness there, too.’

‘She refused to accept the old king’s supremacy over the Church for years, didn’t she?’

‘Yes, both that and his divorce from her mother.’

‘Catherine of Aragon, wasn’t it? There were so many queens when I was growing up, I lost count.’

‘Yes. Mary came to accept the Royal Supremacy only after her mother and Anne Boleyn, whom she hated, were both dead. Then she conformed for ten years. But now she won’t accept the English Prayer Book.’

‘Does she want to go back to Rome?’

‘If she does, she hasn’t said. But she won’t abandon the Latin Mass. And she’s shown before how obdurate she can be. And one thing we mustn’t forget even for a moment: she hates Elizabeth.’

* * *