Tombland

Nicholas stepped forward, but I clutched his arm to hold him back. I said to the boys, ‘I am Master Shardlake, appointed by Master Copuldyke to represent your father. I am coming to Norfolk next week to help with his defence in the case of your mother’s murder.’ I hoped that by speaking directly of the terrible things that had happened to their parents the boys might be cowed, but they shrugged in unison, as though they could not have cared less. I looked at the little boy on the ground. ‘What were you doing to him?’

Gerald – the boy without the scar, according to Lockswood – answered with chilling casualness. ‘Just hunting him around the house. We felt like a bit of sport, and there’s no deer or game here in London.’

‘Take him to the constable, if you like.’ Barnabas added. ‘There’s some silverware missing from the house, enough to hang this little rabbit.’

‘Or have him branded and put to service at least, under the new law,’ Gerald said.

The boy looked at me. ‘I’ve stolen nothing,’ he said frantically, ‘by Christ’s wounds!’

I noticed that Barnabas and Gerald had full pouches at their waists, remembered what Lockswood had said about them coming here to steal, and stared hard at them. ‘Maybe you’d like to show us what you have in those pouches,’ I said, glancing at Nicholas, whose hand was still on his sword hilt.

The twins looked at each other. Perhaps realizing the odds were against them, Gerald said, ‘Naah. I think we’ll fetch our horses and go back to Brikewell.’

I thought of forcing them to open the pouches, but sensed they would fight and I did not want to start this investigation by dragging Nicholas and Lockswood into a scuffle with Boleyn’s sons. I asked, though, ‘Did you open the chest in your father’s office?’

‘Yes,’ Gerald answered truculently. ‘Why shouldn’t we? If they hang him we’re his heirs. We wanted to see what we might get, but we couldn’t make much of the Latin and French rubbish written in those papers.’

‘If they hang your father, his lands go to the King, and you become the King’s wards,’ I said.

Gerald’s eyes narrowed, ‘I’ve heard that sometimes, if the heir’s a minor, the King will grant the land back to him.’

‘And Protector Somerset’s known to listen to a sob story,’ his brother added.

‘You’d have to get past the escheator first,’ Lockswood said. ‘John Flowerdew is his local agent, he’d be responsible for the lands. You’ll have heard what he’s like.’

Gerald shrugged. ‘Well, whatever happens, that bitch Isabella won’t get anything. Come on, Barney, let’s get away from these leeching lawyers.’

The two boys turned and went back into the house. I heard the outer door slam. The little boy they had been hunting had got to his feet and stood shivering, his back to the courtyard wall.

‘Have they hurt you?’ I asked gently.

‘They got my side with a stone, then my ribs.’

I looked at the ground and saw a couple of small, pointed flints. ‘They came in and when I tried to escape they chased me all over. I heard one shout that the first to break my head open would get a half-sovereign.’ He tailed off, crying again. ‘I was only looking for shelter. It’s been so cold and wet till this week.’

I sighed, and gave the boy two shillings from my purse. ‘Be off now. We’re going to lock up the house, and it’s probably safer not to come back.’

‘I stole nothing, sir. I promise. I was asleep in the room next to the kitchen and heard sounds like metal clanking. Anything that’s gone, they took it.’

‘All right. Just go now. Straight through the house and out the front door.’ It was hard to look at the child, rake-thin, his dirty shirt bloodied, spots and scabs on his face. As he limped away I realized I had not even asked his name.

We stood in silence in the sunny courtyard for a moment. ‘So those are John Boleyn’s sons,’ I finally said.

Lockswood nodded. ‘A nasty pair. They’ve had a bad reputation since childhood.’

Nicholas said, ‘They seemed to care nothing for their father’s imprisonment, or their mother’s death.’

I looked at Lockswood. ‘Was that bravado, do you think? Pretending not to care?’

He sighed. ‘I don’t know. But hunting a helpless child as though he were a rabbit – that does not surprise me.’ His round face was set now, and angry. And indeed there had been a coldness about those boys that chilled me. He continued, ‘A few months ago they took part in the scuffle with Leonard Witherington’s men over the estate boundary. They mix with a crowd of gentlemanly ruffians, some of them Sir Richard Southwell’s servants. They’ve hired themselves out more than once to landlords who want to get tenants off their land. There’s stories of cattle maimed, ricks set on fire, people hurt.’

Nicholas asked, ‘How did that one – Barnabas, is it? – get his scar?’