Revelation

I knocked at the door and a manservant ushered me into a large parlour. Gold plate shone on the tall wooden buffet, and a wall painting showing the journey of the Magi to Bethlehem covered one wall, with camels and caravan-trains picked out in soft, pleasing colours.

Harsnet was there with his wife. The coroner looked neat and spruce in a black velvet doublet, his beard newly trimmed and showing flecks of grey in contrast to his dark hair. But he had a worried, preoccupied look. His wife was a small round-faced woman, in a brown dress of good quality, with fair hair and bright eyes full of curiosity. She had been sitting on a pile of cushions, embroidering. She got up and curtsied to me.

'Elizabeth,' Harsnet said, 'allow me to present Serjeant Matthew Shardlake, who is working with me on an assignment of — some difficulty. There are some things we should talk about after our meal,' he added. He gave me warning look, and I realized his wife knew nothing about the murders. So I would have to wait for news of Lockley.

Elizabeth spoke in a high, pleasant voice. 'I hardly see Gregory these days, and when I do he looks tired out. I hope you are not responsible for all the work he is doing, sir.'

'Indeed not, madam. I am only his fellow-toiler.'

'Gregory speaks well of you.' I looked at Harsnet, a little surprised for I had thought he would have scant respect for someone not of his rigid faith. He smiled uncomfortably, and I realized again that he was a shy man.

'I have not thanked you properly for sending your man to my house,' I said. 'He is a good fellow, and gives the women a sense of security.'

Harsnet looked pleased. 'I knew he would give good service, he is a member of my church.'

Elizabeth invited me to sit at a table covered with a bright embroidered cloth. 'I hope you like roast mutton, sir,' she said.

'It is one of my favourite dishes,' I answered truthfully.

She rang a little bell, and servants brought in a large dish of mutton and bowls of vegetables. I realized this was the first time I had been out to dinner since that last night at Roger and Dorothy's. Samuel would be gone by now, she would be alone again. I would visit her tomorrow.

The door opened again and a maid ushered in four children, two boys and two girls, ranging in age from perhaps four to ten, hair combed tidily, the younger two in nightshirts. 'Come, children,' Harsnet said. 'Meet Master Shardlake.' The children went and stood obediently beside their father; the two boys bowed to me, the girls curtsied. Harsnet smiled. 'The boys are Absalom and Zealous, the girls Rachel and Beulah.' All Old Testament names, except for Zealous; one of the strange names the radical reformers gave their children now, such as Fear-God, Perseverance, Salvation. The two little girls stared with scarce-concealed interest at my back; the younger boy had his head cast down, but the elder, Zealous, had a surly, angry look. His father laid a hand on his head.

'I hope you have learned well from your beating,' he said seriously. 'To take Our Saviour's name in vain is a great sin.'

'Yes, Father,' the boy said, quietly enough, but his eyes looked angry still. Harsnet dismissed the children, watching as they left the room, then shook his head sadly. 'I had to strike Zealous with the cane for swearing when I came in,' he said. 'An unpleasant part of a father's duty. But it had to be done. I was unaware he knew such words.' He was silent again for a moment, that preoccupied look on his face again.

'Children can be a trial,' Elizabeth said, 'but they are a great comfort, and they are the future.' She smiled at me. 'My husband tells me you are not married.'

'No,' I answered briefly, reaching for another slice of mutton with my knife.

'Marriage is a state to which man is called by God,' she said, keeping her eyes fixed on me.

'So your husband has said,' I answered mildly. 'Well, God has not called me.' I turned to Harsnet. 'You said you had been assistant coroner six years. Where did you read law, sir?'

'At the Middle Temple. Then I worked in Lincolnshire, where my parents came from, for some years. Then the Northern rebellion came six years ago. I raised a troop of men against those papists. Though we had no fighting. They surrendered to us immediately.'

'In Yorkshire it was a different story,' I said.

'By God's grace the rebellion was put down there too. But afterwards I had a message to see Thomas Cromwell. You knew him too, I think.' Harsnet fixed me with that penetrating stare of his.

'Yes, from his early days as a young radical.'

'He was in the days of his great power then. He said he had marked me as a man of ability, asked me to take the post of the King's assistant coroner, the old one having just died.' Harsnet sighed. 'We were happy in Lincolnshire, we did not wish to move, and although the post carries a good salary, like all royal appointments, money has never been our main concern in life.'

'Lord Cromwell was not a man who could be easily refused.'