Tombland

‘There’s a story that has gone about for years, though nobody knows if it is true.’ Lockswood took a deep breath. ‘Apparently, Edith Boleyn, God save her soul, was no good mother to the boys. As soon as they were born she handed them over to a wet-nurse and wanted nothing more to do with them. As they grew up she ignored them as much as possible, although both of them took after her, fair-haired, strong in build.’ I remembered Parry telling me the woman who had visited Hatfield had been thin and scrawny, but also the story that sometimes Edith starved herself. Lockswood continued, ‘She never behaved like a mother, for all they sought her attention. All she did was criticize and chastise them, and one thing that made her angry was that she was unable to tell them apart. One day they were pestering her in the kitchen and she said she’d give anything to tell one from the other, to know who to punish when one was rude to a servant or reported for stealing apples. Apparently, the boys went outside into the yard. A servant saw them talking, heads together, then one took a couple of pieces of straw from the yard and held them out to the other. He picked a straw, and it turned out to be the short one. Then there was a flash of metal and a scream. A moment later the boys reappeared in the kitchen doorway, standing side by side, only Gerald had ripped Barnabas’s face open with a knife taken from the drawer; he was covered in blood. Edith screamed, asking what they had done now, and Gerald just said, “We did it for you, so you can tell us apart now.” ’

Nicholas gave an uneasy laugh. I looked at Lockswood, aghast. ‘Do you think the story true?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s what people say, the common fame of the district. But the twins never talk about how Barnabas got that scar, they don’t like people asking. They’re such devils, perhaps they started the tale themselves. All I know is they were the despair of their father. People have often said those two were born to hang. Yet it is their father in gaol on a charge of murder.’

Nicholas and I looked at each other. If that was what their childhood had been like, it gave the twins a twisted motive to kill Edith Boleyn, and I could easily imagine them capable of leaving her body in a position of grotesque humiliation. Yet I was aware of how much I had heard was gossip and ‘common fame’, and knew how a story can become embedded like a rock in its neighbourhood of origin, when it contains but a wisp of the truth.

* * *

WE LOCKED UP the house, and Lockswood left to find the constable and ensure a close eye was kept on the property. We arranged to meet him on Monday morning at the Moorgate, to commence our journey to Norwich.

Nicholas and I walked slowly back to Temple Bar; he was to return to his lodgings, while I decided to take the opportunity to go and see Guy. The visit to Boleyn’s house had given us both food for thought.

‘There seem to be more and more people with a possible motive to kill her,’ Nicholas said. ‘John Boleyn, his second wife Isabella Heath, his neighbour, and now those boys. But everyone would have been safer if they’d just buried her.’

I said, ‘Those boys are hardly’ – I struggled for a word – ‘normal.’

‘No, they’re not.’

‘If that story of them drawing lots to see who would get his face carved, just so their mother could tell them apart, is true, that needed an extraordinary degree of control. Was it a gesture of love, I wonder. Or hate?’

Nicholas shook his head. ‘It seems they consider themselves gentlemen, but they behave like ruffians.’

‘What do you think of Lockswood?’

‘A loyal servant, and not afraid to stand up to those boys.’

‘And his master, friend Copuldyke?’

He laughed. ‘A lazy fat slug.’

I said, ‘I wonder how Lockswood stands him.’

Nicholas shrugged. ‘Copuldyke pays his wages. And Lockswood gets paid for putting up with it. ’Tis the way of things.’

I smiled. ‘Then perhaps I’ll start talking to you like that.’

He matched my mocking tone. ‘Ah, but I am more than just a clerk.’

‘You weren’t when you started with me.’

‘Perhaps Lockswood will rise in the world. Copuldyke’s indolence means Lockswood has the contacts, the knowledge of Norfolk affairs, and that’s a saleable quality.’

‘He’s going to be useful to us, I know that. The more I learn of the Boleyn family and their neighbours, the more grateful I am to have a guide through this cesspit.’ I shook my head. ‘I will ask him what he thinks might have happened to Edith during the nine years after she vanished. We are hobbled by being unable to mention that she ended up at Hatfield just before her death.’

‘Those were Parry’s conditions.’

‘I wonder if we will be able to be loyal both to the Lady Elizabeth and to discovering the truth. By Jesu, I pray that we will.’

Chapter Seven