Tombland

He looked at us. ‘All our family’s had this spring is bread an’ vegetable stuff out the cottage garden. Odd scrap o’ bacon at lunch from Marster, till I was put off my job. I was a pigman, but with his rent goin’ up, Marster had to lay men off.’

‘Have you come far to get here?’

‘My family live in a village on the coast, out by the Sandlings. I left last week ter look for work.’ He smiled sourly. ‘Marsterless man on the road, that’s what I’m become. I was near Wymondham, heard about the rising and came to join.’

‘You come from the Sandlings?’ I asked.

He put down his bowl and looked at me, eyes sharp again. He asked, ‘Do yew know anything of an apprentice from there, who lived in Naarwich? Name off Wal Padbury?’

Barak answered, ‘Walter was a witness in a case Master Shardlake was involved in. He disappeared before the trial. We thought he might have gone home.’

Natty looked at us narrowly. ‘When you fainted, a man from Norwich said you were the lawyer who saved a gentleman from hanging, how everyone was mardling about that case in Norwich, about the gentleman Boleyn, a locksmith who was involved in the case drowning and his apprentice running away. That’s why I asked to be put in charge of you. Wal Padbury’s name was on all the gossips’ lips at home, just before I left home.’

‘Then he’s back?’

The boy shook his head, ‘You’re too late, Marster. He’s dead. I didn’t know him, he came from another village down the coast. ’E’d gone to Norwich long since, but two weeks ago his body was washed up on the beach near his village.’

‘He drowned?’ Barak asked.

Natty shook his head. ‘The coroner said his head was harf stoved in. Reckon whoever did it put him in the sea an’ got the tides wrong, he’d not been long in the water when he were washed up. Murder, the verdict was, an’ they’re looking for who did it. Folks were gossiping about it up an’ down the coast.’

I stared at Barak. So Walter, too, had been killed, his head shattered like poor Edith’s.

Barak said, quietly, ‘So the case follows us here.’

Young Natty’s eyes still glinted at us fixedly. I said, ‘I am sorry for his death. If he had not run away, perhaps I could have saved him.’ The boy looked me in the eyes, then nodded.

‘A third person dead,’ I said to Barak. ‘God help us, what has been going on?’

Chapter Forty-one

Next morning, Wednesday, after breakfast under the trees of more mutton pottage with bread and cheese, we set off to march the two miles south to Norwich again. Feeding the men and setting them once more on the march had been well organized, local groups chivvied into place by village leaders and former soldiers. There was some grumbling about having to retrace our steps, but the leaders explained that if the Norwich councillors were faced with our entire force at the gates, they might be intimidated into letting us cross through the city to Mousehold Heath, saving the long march round. One village had brought a banner showing the Five Wounds of Christ, symbol of the religious traditionalists, and its people were told to keep it furled; their religion was their own affair, but the Protector must not think this a rebellion against the Prayer Book.

The procession stretched along a good mile, and with the rising of the sun more men came over the fields to join us. Barak went back to the rear, while Natty and I took a place near the head of the march, Kett and the other leaders riding ahead. Far behind, with the baggage train, Nicholas and the twins would be with the other gentlemen prisoners.

The night before, I had said to Barak, ‘Who could have killed that poor apprentice? If only he hadn’t run from us.’

‘Same person that killed Edith and the locksmith. Whoever gave the locksmith Snockstobe the key.’

‘The apprentice knew who it was.’

‘’Course he did.’

‘Someone must have followed him all the way to the coast, and caught him just before he got home. It could have been anyone on that list we drew up in Norwich.’

‘Yes. I don’t think the case can ever be solved now. Boleyn’s pardon will go through the bureaucracy eventually and either be granted or not.’

‘I can’t rest quiet with the killer of three people running free.’ I looked in the direction of Norwich. ‘Probably in the city.’

* * *