Tombland

Chapter Thirty-four

We set out for Kenninghall shortly before six. It was a long, hot ride through the countryside under the wide blue sky, more than twelve miles. We passed through Attleborough, which I remembered from our journey to Norwich. The town seemed quiet, but in the countryside beyond I saw lines of broken earth where fences had been pulled up, and the sheep were gone from the fields.

We turned off the main road past Eccles, following a well-maintained track. The land was fenced, mostly wooded parkland though with fields and sheep pastures too. At length we came in view of an imposing, redbrick palace, fairly new like Hatfield, though considerably larger. The wide entrance had two soldiers on guard. Kenninghall. The palace that had been the old Duke of Norfolk’s until Mary bought it. As we approached, stable boys appeared from an outhouse and ran up while a steward, the letter M embossed on his robe, marched towards us with one of the soldiers.

‘We have come to see the Lady Mary,’ I said. ‘Serjeant Matthew Shardlake. My assistant Master Overton. We have an audience at two.’

The man nodded. The stable boys had brought mounting blocks and we dismounted, Nicholas giving me a hand down. The steward led us inside. The interior was very different from Hatfield, richly decorated, with bright tapestries and ornate tables with vases of Venetian glass full of flowers. I caught the scent of incense from a chapel somewhere.

‘Did you have a good ride in this fine weather?’ the steward asked.

‘A little tiring. We stayed at Wymondham overnight.’

‘Did you pass Attleborough, where those peasant dogs threw down Green’s fences? Are they still down?’

‘From what we could see.’

The steward paused before a double door with a guard outside. He knocked. A male voice answered, ‘Come in.’ The steward inclined his head at Nicholas. ‘You stay outside,’ he said, then opened the door. I entered. At the far end of a long room Sir Richard Southwell, dressed soberly in a long brown robe with furred collar, looked down at me through those half-closed eyes with his habitual haughtiness, arms clasped behind his back. Next to him was an ornate chair, three steps leading up to it, where, under a crimson canopy of state, sat the King’s heir, the Lady Mary. Two ladies-in-waiting were embroidering at the foot of the steps, heads lowered over their work. I took off my cap and bowed, not as low as I should because of my stiff back.

‘Rise, sir,’ the Lady Mary said in civil tones. She saw the steward still standing by the door and dismissed him with a wave of the hand. She smiled, though her dark eyes were watchful. She was thirty-three now, more than twice Elizabeth’s age. She was as I remembered, small and thin yet with an air of iron will, though there were new lines of strain around her small mouth. Her dark auburn hair was covered by a jewelled French hood, and I noticed that her magnificent dress, like the one I had seen her wearing three years before, was embroidered with pomegranates, the emblem of her mother, Catherine of Aragon.

‘Thank you for coming, Serjeant Shardlake. I wished to talk to you.’

‘How may I help you, my Lady?’

She smiled thinly. ‘Do you remember our meeting three years ago? When you were helping Queen Catherine, God pardon her soul, search for a lost jewel?’

‘Indeed.’

‘You are much changed. Your hair is white, and I think you have lost weight.’

‘I grow older, my Lady.’

‘The troubles of England today would age anyone, I think. Sir Richard here has just returned from a meeting of senior men of the counties with the Protector. An army is being sent against the rebels in the south-west.’

I looked at her closely, but her expression was flat, unreadable. She looked at Southwell. ‘And now there are reports of outbreaks across the country, men setting up camps and wrecking landowners’ fences.’

‘A new one every day,’ Southwell agreed. So the merchants in Norwich had spoken true.

She turned back to me. ‘You have been at the Norwich Assizes, I am told. What would you say of the mood in Norfolk?’

‘There seems to be discontent in the city,’ I answered cautiously. ‘I have not been out in the countryside apart from my journey here.’ I hesitated, then added, ‘I heard some merchants talking yesterday, about risings in Kent and Essex, and Oxfordshire, too.’

‘See, the local merchants know more than the Protector about what is happening,’ Mary said contemptuously to Southwell.

He nodded agreement. ‘These risings are coordinated at some level, they must be. Even if it is only malcontents and runagates going from one place to the next, calling on people to join in. But my spies’ information is that Norfolk is quiet, apart from those Attleborough dogs.’

Mary looked at me. ‘The discontent in Norwich. What is it about?’

‘There is anger about the rising prices, debasement of the coinage, lack of employment.’

‘And the religious changes, are they mentioned?’ Suddenly her gaze was steely.

‘Not that I have heard,’ I answered truthfully.