Tombland

WE HAD A DAMP night in the hut, but woke to another hot day. As we breakfasted, the Hundred representative arrived and told us there was still work to be done in areas where dry gullies on the heath had flooded as the water ran off. Barak was asked to go and help. Nicholas rose to join him. ‘Might improve my reputation if I’m seen doing a bit of work,’ he said. Scambler returned to the horses and I went to St Michael’s Chapel. The guard on the door, however, told me Captain Kett was busy trying to return the camp to normal, and there would be no hearings today. He added with a grin that Reverend Watson from Norwich had come up to give a sermon on the flood being a warning against excess pride, and had had an angry reception.

Free for the day, I wandered across to the nearby vantage point looking down on Norwich. The city spires glistened with damp. The main road down to Bishopsgate Bridge was churned up with mud, and a couple of carts had been abandoned. Some way off I saw a gully where water was still draining from the heath down to the Wensum. Along its path lay a great mess of clothing, the planks and turf from ruined huts and people’s humble possessions. I shook my head at the destruction.

A voice at my shoulder said, ‘People who know the heath gave warning not to camp in the gullies. But nobody expected a storm like yesterday’s. I’ve never seen a worse.’

I turned to find myself facing Captain Miles, in a green doublet and, as usual, a metal breastplate. He was older than I had thought, perhaps in his late forties, his face seamed with lines. He stroked his fair beard, looking at me with keen eyes. He extended a hand, which I shook. ‘You’ve done a good job at the hearings,’ he said.

‘Thank you. I understand you are in charge of training the men.’

‘That’s right.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘And appointing under-officers, training people to use all the different cannon without blowing themselves up, not easy since it’s such a specialized trade, and how to use spears and the longbow. Thank God most of the Norwich lads have had longbow practice in the villages; some are very good. And men from the old stonemasons’ guild, which they dissolved when its religious functions were taken away, are making gunballs the right size for the different cannon.’

‘Do you think it will come to fighting?’

He shrugged. ‘Best to be ready. And training keeps the men occupied. None of them have been in a situation like this before.’

‘But you will have experience of campaigning, of large camps, if you are a master gunner.’

‘I started as a boy back in ’twenty-three, with old Henry’s invasion of France that year. It was a mess and gained nothing, like all his campaigns.’ Bitterness entered his voice. ‘But I stayed in the King’s army, I was a poor Norwich boy and it paid well enough, especially when I rose to master gunner. I was in the last French war, and in Scotland until last year. By God, some evil things were done there against the people. Every campaign a failure, leaving nothing but thousands dead. England has little to be proud of.’

I looked at him keenly. ‘A strange view for a soldier.’

‘There are more who think like me than you might imagine.’

I nodded, remembering rumours of deserting soldiers moving from area to area, encouraging the setting up of camps. ‘Why did you stay so long?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘Money. Why else? I have a wife and two children to support, it is safest if I do not say where they are, given there is at least one spy in the camp, who helped those boys escape.’ He looked out over the city. ‘Scotland was the end, the filth and lack of pay, the endless fighting and losing. And now I am captain of all the forces in this camp.’ He gave me a sudden hard look. ‘Captain Kett trusts you. Is he right to?’

‘I made an oath to aid him on legal matters. I shall keep it.’

Miles nodded slowly. ‘Well, there are some cannon taken from the manor houses to be moved to the crest of the hill. To remind the Norwich city fathers what might happen if they change their minds. Excuse me, Master Shardlake. Perhaps we shall talk again.’ He nodded, then turned and marched away, back into the camp.

* * *

AT LUNCHTIME , I returned to the Swardeston huts. Barak and Nicholas were there with the rest of the men, muddy from their work, having been given an hour’s break to eat. Afterwards, I suggested we take a walk along the crest of the escarpment. I had been thinking about Jane Reynolds. As we traversed the path along the crest, a welcome breeze coming up from Norwich, I said, ‘I have seldom seen a more unhappy woman.’

‘Hardly surprising,’ Barak said, ‘given that husband, her daughter’s horrible death, and those twins as grandsons.’

‘But combining this pity for Edith with the wish she had had a son,’ Nicholas said. ‘It seems to dominate her mind – to tell it to a beggar boy –’

Barak said, ‘Perhaps she thinks that if Edith had been a boy, the twins would never have been born.’

I said, ‘Maybe. Yet – I feel there is more to it. I wish I could talk to her.’