Tombland

Inside, dim light from the single window showed a room with an earthen floor, with a puddle in the corner from last night’s rain, which had entered through a hole in the roof. In one corner was a sagging truckle bed and a home-made crib; some cracked crockery stood on a rickety shelf, and there was a table scored with much use on which a wooden drop-spindle lay beside a little pile of wool. A pair of old chairs and a battered clothes chest made up the rest of the furnishings. Josephine sat on a chair, hugging the sleeping baby – a fair-haired little girl perhaps three months old.

‘Ay,’ Edward Brown said. ‘It’s a poorhouse, all right.’

I asked quietly, ‘How did this come to be?’

Josephine answered. ‘As Edward said, when Master Henning died eighteen months ago, his children put us out on the street. Gave us not so much as a spoon as a keepsake. There’s little work in Norwich, and we’d no training except in service. I get a little work spinning, I turn wool on that spindle day in, day out, till I could scream with boredom. Edward has some work as a stonemason’s labourer, helping sort stone at the old cathedral monastery.’

‘At fourpence a day, and only when unskilled labour is needed,’ Edward added bitterly. ‘While prices rise by the week. When I began I was good at the job, they hinted they might move me up the ranks to labourer’s mate, but then a piece of stone fell on my finger and broke it, so that was that. Since April the city has started collecting money through the parishes for the poor, but as we have work we do not qualify. We only manage by dipping into the rent. Then our landlord sends his men to threaten us. But we are all standing together in this yard, we’ve seen them off twice.’

‘Your neighbour said your landlord was a Master Reynolds. Gawen Reynolds?’

‘Ay, whose daughter was murdered a few weeks back. And good riddance, if she was anything like him.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Do you know him?’

‘I’ve met him,’ I said. ‘A nasty old man.’

‘That he is.’

I said, ‘You should have asked me for some more money. Jack is right, I have been worried.’

Josephine turned to her husband. ‘Please, Edward, let go your pride. At least for Mousy’s sake.’

I looked at the baby. ‘That is her name?’

‘It’s Mary.’ Josephine looked fondly at the sleeping baby. ‘But we call her Mousy.’

‘Ay,’ Edward’s tone was more civil now. ‘After Mousehold Heath. Jo and I had gone for a little walk there, back in March, to get some air, then suddenly her waters broke. A hard job to get back, wasn’t it, my love?’

‘It was.’ Josephine sighed. ‘I always wanted a child, to give it the love my father never gave me. But I cannot grow too fond. Half the children in this yard die before they are two.’

I said emphatically, ‘Then let me help Mousy to live.’

Josephine looked at her husband. He bit his lip. Pride was all Edward had left. There was an awkward silence. Josephine looked at Barak. ‘Your poor hand,’ she said gently. ‘Does it still hurt?’

‘I get by.’

‘And your hair, Master Shardlake. It is quite white.’

‘Ay, I grow older.’

Josephine turned to Nicholas. ‘And you?’ He was looking around the hovel with horror. He coughed and ran a hand through his untidy red hair. ‘I fare well. I hope to be called to the bar, perhaps next year.’

‘Then you will need a wife,’ Josephine said teasingly.

‘Ay, and I may have found one.’

Edward said, ‘I fear we have no beer to offer you.’

‘No matter. Perhaps we could take you to a tavern?’ I offered.

He smiled grimly. ‘You would raise eyebrows in the taverns we know. But –’ he took a deep breath – ‘I thank you for your offer to help us. Josephine is right, we must think of the child. We have three months’ rent due. If we could borrow that, it would ease our burdens.’

‘I will give it to you.’

Josephine’s eye strayed to the pile of wool and the spindle on the table. ‘We would ask you to stay. But I must get on with my spinning, Sunday though it is. The woman will be calling for the spun wool tomorrow. But please,’ she said eagerly, ‘come again.’

Edward said, ‘But not wearing those rich clothes. Our neighbours have only just accepted us, Londoners are foreigners to them.’

Nicholas and Barak waited outside, watched by the people of the yard, while I settled the matter of the rent. I said goodbye to the baby, touching her tiny hand. She looked round at me, and smiled. Josephine said, ‘She likes you. She’s just beginning to take an interest in the world. Some people she likes, some she doesn’t.’ It moved me strangely.

* * *

WE WALKED BACK to the Maid’s Head in sober mood, saying little. Nicholas said, ‘That honest people should live so. I thought it was only lazy bibbers that came to this.’

‘Grow up, Nick lad,’ Barak said impatiently. ‘How many such yards have you seen in London?’

‘Many. But I have never been inside one.’

I said, ‘I have arranged for us to meet them on Tuesday evening, at the Blue Boar Inn. They should be acceptable there,’ I added bitterly.

‘Ay,’ Barak agreed. ‘But you two should dress down.’