Tombland

‘A beating; but they’d let me go. They don’t want unwilling troops. And the patrols on the eastern and northern edges of the camp can’t cover the whole area – it’s too big. But –’ he looked at us – ‘there’s the question of what might happen to you two. Nicholas has never been exactly popular, for all he won his case at the Oak.’ He looked at me. ‘And there are rumours about your loyalty going around as well.’

I pursed my lips. ‘Toby Lockswood.’

‘Yes. But I’m seen as loyal. If I vanished, it could come back on you.’ Barak took a deep breath, then looked at Nicholas. He said quietly, ‘They’d be less surprised if you left. In fact, Captain Kett gave you the choice.’

Nicholas returned Barak’s gaze, his green eyes glinting. ‘And I said I would stay.’

‘But you’ve no true loyalty to the cause.’

‘You want me to leave, just so I can return to London and tell Tamasin you are safe?’

‘I can’t think of any other way, unless I go.’ Barak slammed his fist on the earthen floor. ‘How is it none of my letters got through?’ He looked at me. ‘You and Parry have been able to exchange letters, why not us?’

I sighed. ‘Kett doesn’t want to make trouble with the Lady Elizabeth. He made those letters a priority.’

Barak looked at Nicholas again. ‘Would you do it?’ he asked, pleading now. ‘You’d have to be careful going through Norfolk, but it sounds like the other camps are down. You don’t belong here. And in London you could see Beatrice again.’

Nicholas ran a hand through his untidy red hair, then turned to Barak angrily. ‘I belong nowhere. Did you not hear what I said at the Oak? That I may have been brought up a gentleman, but have nothing? That I have seen such things done by the rulers of Norfolk that I have come to question what a gentleman truly is? You’re right, I don’t belong here, I can’t fit in with people I was trained from childhood to think of as stupid, dangerous creatures. I feel like a straw in the wind. And Beatrice Kenzy and her world interest me no more. I told Kett I would stay, and I will not break my word. It’s the last thing I have left!’

I said to Barak, ‘What if I were to ask Captain Kett if one of his couriers to London could take a letter to Tamasin?’

Barak waved his good hand in the air. ‘There must be hundreds here would like to get a message to their families.’

‘Few with a desperate wife in London.’

He looked at me hard. ‘You think you could do it?’

‘I don’t know. I can only try. Tomorrow. Though it may be difficult to reach him now, with Warwick’s army on its way.’

‘Then thank you.’

Nicholas left the hut and walked off into the night. Barak made to follow, but I restrained him. I said, ‘I felt something like Nicholas does when I was young, and lost my faith in the old Church. Uprooted, like a straw in the wind, as he said, the beliefs that sustained me gone.’ I sighed. ‘It is hard, but he must find his own way.’

* * *

NEXT MORNING , WEDNESDAY the twenty-first of August, news reached the camp that Warwick’s army had reached Cambridge and joined the remnants of Northampton’s forces. They were now marching fast on Norwich, and expected in two or three days. A large number of men had been sent to the northern edge of the camp to prepare a site for a possible battle. I walked in that direction in search of Kett, but was stopped by a soldier standing guard. ‘Only those selected for work here are allowed through.’

‘I wished merely to ask whether Captain Kett is here.’

‘He’s at Surrey Place.’

I thanked him and walked back towards the palace. I stopped to listen to two men discussing the advancing army. ‘Our spies say there’s over a thousand Switzer mercenaries coming.’

‘We set those Italians a-runnen last time, bor.’

‘These are Switzer landsknechts, apparently they’re fierce dymoxes.’ The man broke off and gave me a suspicious look. ‘Lawyer Shardlake, isn’it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Why you listenin’ to our talk?’

‘Is not everyone interested in the coming army?’

‘Ay, though not all on the same side.’

I said angrily. ‘I know rumours about me are being put round by Toby Lockswood. They are false!’

‘So you say.’ The two men stood, arms folded, the picture of Norfolk obduracy. I turned away.

* * *

I WALKED THROUGH the ornate gate of Surrey Place, remembering the Italian mercenary hanged there three weeks before, past the tents in the grounds and up to the men standing guard on the wide doors. I gave my name, asked whether Captain Kett was within and whether I might see him. One guard went in and shortly after returned and escorted me inside. He led me up the main staircase to a large room guarded by two more men. All the other rooms were closed. I could hear sounds from within, though, and remembered that some of the captured gentlemen were imprisoned here. The soldier knocked, and Kett’s voice called us to enter.