Revelation

'The King has always loved him,' Harsnet said quietly.

'The King was close to Anne Boleyn, and Cromwell, and Wolsey,' Thomas Seymour said bitterly. 'Yet he destroyed them all. He has never truly trusted anybody, nor ever will.'

'Quiet, Thomas,' his brother said severely. 'Things are not so bad as that.' He looked at Harsnet, then me. 'Yet if this were to come out now — that the Archbishop has launched a secret hunt for a madman who is killing lapsed radicals because the Book of Revelation told him to — it would be very dangerous. And the longer it goes on, the harder it becomes to conceal. Have you learned nothing more, Gregory?' he asked Harsnet with sudden passion.

'I wish I had. I have been working day and night. None of the radical groups know about Goddard. There is no trace of him in London or the neighbouring counties. It is as though when he left his lodgings he vanished into the air.'

Lord Hertford turned to me. 'And you found the killer had been using a lawyer as his agent, but now he has killed the lawyer too.'

'He has.' I told him the story of Bealknap and Felday. When I had finished he stood pulling at his long beard anxiously, almost tugging it. Outside, rain slashed against the window.

'So there have been five murders linked to the vials of wrath. Two more to go. And this man Felday killed along the way. We must catch him.' Hertford turned to his brother. 'Judging by your news, the King is determined to marry Catherine Parr, however long she keeps him waiting.'

'What news, my lord?' Harsnet's head jerked up.

'My brother has been appointed Ambassador to the Regent of the Netherlands.'

'Because the King fears Lady Catherine may still have a mind to marry me,' Sir Thomas said. Angry as he had looked, he shifted his stance, swaggered lightly.

'We cannot be sure that is why you were chosen,' his brother said. 'And if it is, think yourself lucky the King is sending you on an ambassadorship, not to the Tower.'

'Perhaps.' Sir Thomas looked at me curiously. 'You, sir. Someone said the King made mock of your bent back, when he was at York two years ago.'

I took a deep breath. 'He did, sir.' Who had told him that story, I wondered.

'He would not get to York now,' Seymour said. 'He is so fat he can hardly walk. He has ulcers on both legs now. When they are bad he has to be taken around the palace in a wheeled chair. They say when the ulcers leak the smell as you enter the Privy Quarters would stun a bull. When you leave here, Master Shardlake, if you hear the squeaking of wheels in the corridors, I should run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.' He laughed bitterly.

Harsnet shifted uneasily in his chair. Lord Hertford shook his head. 'Your indiscretions will be the death of you one day, Thomas. But it is true the King's health worsens every month. He cannot live many years longer. And then, if a queen sympathetic to reform were in place, ready to assume the regency for young Prince Edward . . .' He spread his hands.

I thought, they have planned for this marriage, looking years ahead. How deeply my hunt for Roger's killer had become entangled in court politics.

'When do you go abroad, Sir Thomas?' Harsnet asked.

'I do not know. A few weeks, perhaps.'

Harsnet nodded, his face expressionless, though I guessed that, like me, he would rather Sir Thomas and his careless tongue were gone tomorrow. But we badly needed the support his household could give.

I jumped at the sound of a loud knock. After Sir Thomas' words, a shiver of fear seemed to pass through the room, but Lord Hertford called out in a firm voice, 'Come in.'

Barak entered. He knew when to be humble, and bowed his head under Hertford's glare. 'I am sorry to interrupt you, my lord, but the guard from Lockley's tavern is here. Janley. They have found him.'

'Alive?' Hope came into Harsnet's face.

'No, sir. Dead.' Barak looked around the company, took a deep breath. 'In the old Charterhouse. The manner of his death shows he is the sixth victim.'

Lord Hertford seemed to slump. He put a hand to his brow.

'Who knows?'

'Nobody who matters, my lord. Yet.'

'Shardlake, Harsnet, go there now.'

'I wish to go too,' Sir Thomas said.

'Very well,' Lord Hertford agreed. He looked between us. 'He has made us all dance, has he not? And now again. Will we ever have him dancing as he should, at the end of a rope?'

Chapter Thirty-six

THE RAIN CONTINUED during our long ride to the Charterhouse. I was constantly blinking water out of my eyes as Sir Thomas, Barak, the guard Janley and I rode together; the others listening as I shouted questions to Janley about what had happened there. We rode as fast as we could along roads that were turning to quagmires, mud spattering our horses and our boots.

'The Charterhouse watchman came running over to the Green Man this morning,' Janley told us. 'The place is empty but for him and the Bassano family, the King's Italian musicians; they've turned some of the old monks' cells into accommodation for them.'