Tombland

With his awkward limping gait, he led us along a freshly cleared trackway for about a mile, until we reached a point a little north of the city, where the escarpment was less steep and gave onto Magdalen Road, leading north out of Norwich.

‘There it is. The place called Dussindale.’

What I saw impressed me anew. All along the lower slope of the crest, men were digging in large, heavy wooden stakes with sharply pointed tips, close together and pointed outwards, so they posed a formidable obstacle to any attacker. In front, trenches were being dug. Other men were piling up earthworks at an angle, presumably to prevent a flanking action. Some way behind, earth had been dug up to make a wide, level platform; cannon, including, no doubt, those taken from Warwick in the previous day’s battle, had been set in position. And already some were firing, aiming at the gates in the north wall of the city, only a few hundred yards southward, making the ground tremble under us. I could see now that the tactic was to bring the whole of Norwich, north of the Wensum, under our control. Among those digging I saw the tall muscular form of Michael Vowell. This surprised me, for I thought, as a Norwich man, he would be working with our people in the city today. He saw us and came over.

‘Well, Master Shardlake,’ he said cheerfully, ‘you see we are making ready for what may come.’ He had recently had his hair and beard cut short, to discourage nits and lice.

‘Impressive preparations,’ I said.

‘And we face away from the rising sun,’ Peter Bone said approvingly. ‘But it will shine right in the eyes of the enemy.’

‘So it will,’ Vowell agreed. He looked at us. ‘Any news?’

‘Only what little we can see from the crest,’ I answered. ‘The south is on fire, I think, and there seems a great melee around the centre.’

Vowell bit his lip. ‘It may be touch and go.’

Peter Bone said, ‘If it comes to it tomorrow, I’m ready to give any help I can up here, despite my problems walking.’ Vowell looked at him enquiringly, and Bone explained. ‘I was born with my feet splayed inward, and years working the treadle on the spinning machine made it worse, just as spinning contributed to my – my sister’s swollen hands.’

‘Your sister?’

‘Yes. She died last winter.’

Vowell looked at him strangely. And then it hit me, like a lightning bolt, there among all the battle preparations at Dussindale. Something Michael Vowell had said once, which had struck me as inconsistent at the time but which I had forgotten, lost in the mass of detail surrounding Edith Boleyn, and subsequent events at the camp. Yet Peter Bone’s mention of his disability, and of being a weaver, suddenly brought it back. Three weeks ago, the day I visited Norwich under Vowell’s guard, following the defeat of Northampton, we had spoken of Gawen Reynolds and his family, and the bandages which Jane Reynolds wore. I remembered his words quite clearly: ... a swelling and twisting of the knuckles. It runs in her family. Apparently, her mother had it from late middle age, and so did Edith. The twins will probably get it, too. And it struck me forcibly now: how could he have known that Edith had developed this disability in later life if he had last seen her, at the latest, nine years before? I looked at Michael Vowell, and in my brain cogs turned, connections fell into place, and I realized that I could be looking at one of Edith Boleyn’s killers. And then I realized who the second man must be, who had been with him that night. I had thought there was more than one. And who had killed the locksmith and his apprentice. Something may have showed in my face, for Vowell gave me a long, hard look, before saying, ‘Perhaps you should return to your hut, Master Shardlake. After all, you would not want to find yourself hit by a stray gunball.’

* * *

I SAID LITTLE AS we walked back to the escarpment. The fires in Conisford seemed to have lessened, but there was still smoke over the south of the city. Then I saw a long line of gentlemen, chained by the wrists to each other, being brought up the hill by soldiers. They reached the top and turned towards Surrey Place. There were about twenty of them, and to my horror I recognized John Boleyn, better fed and clothed than the others, but chained, nonetheless. Nicholas and I walked rapidly over to one of the soldiers, whom I remembered as a man who had kept guard at the trials at the Oak, and who might, therefore, remember me.

‘Excuse me, what is happening here?’

‘Serjeant Shardlake, isn’t it? We’re bringing up the last gemmun from Norwich Castle. It’ll be in the Earl of Warwick’s hands soon; he’s pushing us out of the city centre. We’re taking them to Surrey Place.’

‘But why? Why do they matter now?’