Revelation

He fixed those keen blue eyes on me. 'Do you truly seek to find Master Elliard's killer, above all else?'

A chill had run down my back at Cranmer's name. Somehow Roger's death was involved with high politics, which I had sworn never to involve myself in again. But then I remembered Roger's brutalized corpse, Dorothy's ravaged face.

'Yes,' I said.

The richly dressed man laughed. 'There, Gregory, he has courage after all.'

'Who are you, sir?' I asked boldly. He frowned at my insolence. 'This is Sir Thomas Seymour,' Harsnet said. 'Brother of the late Queen Jane.'

'So watch your manners, churl,' Seymour growled.

I was lost for words for a moment. 'If you questioned my actions,' Harsnet continued, almost apologetic, 'my instructions were to bring you to Archbishop Cranmer.'

'What is this about?'

'Much more than the death of Master Elliard.' He looked me in the eye. 'Something truly dark and terrible. But come, we have a wherry waiting to go to Lambeth Palace.'

Chapter Nine

ONE OF ARCHBISHOP Cranmer's own boats was waiting for us at Three Cranes Stairs, four oarsmen in the Archbishop's white livery in their places. Harsnet told the men to row fast for Lambeth Palace.

After the thaw the river was thronged with white sails as wherries carried customers to and fro; heavy barges pulled upriver, blowing horns to warn smaller craft out of the way, all under a pale blue sky, the river breeze light and cool. But I thought of the depths beneath us that had spewed up those giant fish.

Behind us I saw London Bridge with its crowds of houses and shops, the great bulk of the Tower looming beyond. Atop the arch at the south end of the bridge long stakes thrust into the sky, the heads of those who had defied or angered the King set atop them mercifully indistinct. Among them, still, those of my old master Thomas Cromwell and those of Dereham and Culpeper, alleged lovers of the executed Queen Catherine Howard. I remembered Thomas Culpeper at York, in all his peacock pride and beauty, and shuddered at the thought that now I was sailing back into the world of the King's court.

'Ay, 'tis still cold,' Seymour said, mistaking my tremor. He had wrapped his heavy coat around him. I studied him covertly. I knew he was the younger brother of Henry's third queen, Jane Seymour, who died giving birth to his heir Prince Edward. It was said she was the only one of his five wives that Henry mourned. Seymour's older brother, Edward, Earl of Hertford, held high office at court, and had been appointed Lord Admiral of the Navy. Barak had told me that

Sir Thomas was something of an adventurer; he would never be trusted with a place on the Privy Council, but he had been awarded a number of lucrative monopolies and had recently been ambassador in Austria where the emperor was fighting the Turks. Lord Hertford, with Cranmer, was one of the few serious reformers to have survived on the Privy Council after Cromwell's fall three years before. He was known as a serious and capable politician, and a successful military commander who had led the campaign against Scotland the previous autumn; his brother Thomas, though, had the reputation of an irresponsible ladies' man. Looking at his handsome face I could believe it: the way he wrapped his coat round himself, gently stroking the long fur collar while his eyes roved over the water, the full lips held in a half smile under the heavy, fashionably long brown beard, all spoke of a sensualist. Harsnet, with his rugged features, serious eyes and worried expression, was an entire contrast. As the boat bobbed through the choppy water of mid-river I wondered fearfully what Thomas Seymour could have to do with poor Roger.

We reached the far bank in silence and sculled quickly down to Lambeth Palace. We pulled past the empty niche where the statue of St Thomas Becket had stood, that all the London boatmen bowed to; that image of an archbishop who had defied a king now removed and destroyed. We passed the Lollards' Tower where heretics were held. I recalled Cranmer's brutal gaoler whom I had met in York, and shuddered anew. Cranmer, knowing Cromwell had trusted me, had forced me into undertaking a dangerous mission there; yet his conscience had pricked him afterwards and led him to find me my position at Requests. Now, it seemed, I would meet that passionate, troubled, God-haunted man again.

I REMEMBERED the plain oaken door of Cranmer's study from my last visit. Harsnet knocked and entered, and I followed him and Seymour inside.