Tombland

Ethelreda said, ‘I saw a troop of Switzer mercenaries passing through London last week, mounted and in armour and carrying arquebuses.’

‘I saw them too, madam.’ Nicholas’s face was alight with the youthful enthusiasm for war. ‘A remarkable sight.’

‘A fearsome sight,’ Ethelreda answered quietly. ‘What if they turn on us?’

‘They are pledged to the King.’

I said, ‘They will pledge themselves to anyone for money. On this matter at least I am with Master Kenzy.’

‘An honourable nation should never be afraid of war,’ Nicholas said firmly.

I looked at Beatrice, sitting opposite him. Until the talk had turned to the war, she had been talking with Ethelreda Coleswyn, turning her head away to rebuff Nicholas’s attempts to join in the conversation. It looked to me like a womanly tactic, so he would be grateful when she did deign to converse with him. I said, ‘Good Mistress Beatrice, what think you of the war? Do you agree with Master Nicholas, or your father?’

Beatrice looked disconcerted. She blushed and turned to her mother. Laura Kenzy smiled. ‘My daughter has no views on such things. She has been taught to concern herself only with matters appropriate to a young lady.’

Beatrice looked relieved. ‘You see, Nicholas,’ she said, ‘what a poor girlish wit I have.’ She gave me a sudden look of pure anger before turning back to Nicholas. ‘Let us talk no more of war,’ she said lightly. ‘Though you will be gone north yourself next week. I shall fear for you.’

‘Only to Norfolk, Mistress Beatrice, it is very far from Scotland.’ Nicholas spoke reassuringly, though I was sure Beatrice was perfectly aware Norfolk was a long way from Scotland. Nicholas touched her fingers with his. She smiled round the table, as though to say, how stupid I am.

But, I thought, you are not.

‘I wish you were not going,’ she told Nicholas. ‘Perhaps when you come back you will be speaking the local tongue, and I shall not understand you.’

‘Well, at least we have taught our daughter to speak properly,’ Laura Kenzy said. I looked at her, realizing she was humourless as well as a snob. I caught her husband’s eye, and he winked.

I said, ‘Norfolk people cannot be so different. Norwich is the second city in England, after all.’

‘And has some of its finest buildings,’ Edward Kenzy said. ‘The great cathedral, the fine guildhall.’

‘You know it?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I once had a case which took me there, although that was many years ago. I hear its economy is greatly decayed since then.’

Just then Philip reminded us that curfew time was near, and no one was supposed to be out after ten. We parted, none of us altogether sorry to end the rather fractious supper. It was almost dark now, and candles had been lit during the meal. Philip sent his steward out to fetch some link-boys to guide us home with their torches. We waited for them outside in the balmy evening. I stood next to Edward Kenzy. ‘An interesting evening, Brother Shardlake,’ he said. ‘I am glad we agree on the debasement, but tell me, would you really have the social order overturned? Do you not, like all gentlemen, fear the rabble, feel easier when accompanied in the streets by your assistant with his sword? Do you not turn your eyes away in disgust from the hordes of beggars as they thrust their hands at you, showing welts and sores that half the time are painted on?’

‘I turn away with shame, Brother Kenzy, not disgust. But I do turn away, so perhaps indeed I have no right to preach. Still, I would see the wrongs of the common people righted.’

Kenzy did not reply, merely rocked a little on the balls of his feet as he smiled and inclined his head to where Nicholas was bowing over Beatrice’s hand, making an elaborate farewell.

‘Young Nicholas is a good lad, if a little brash.’ He looked at me, keen eyes glinting in the candlelight from Philip’s window. ‘My wife is dazzled by the range of your contacts at court. You once worked for Lord Cromwell himself, did you not?’

‘Those contacts were never easy, Master Kenzy. Only the Lady Elizabeth is left, and I am only assistant to her Comptroller, Master Parry.’

‘That’s enough for Laura.’ He chuckled, and I realized Kenzy did not really care whether the relationship between Nicholas and Beatrice prospered or not, so long as it kept his wife from bothering him. I looked again at the young couple. Laura Kenzy was saying that she hoped Nicholas would come to dine with the family when he returned from Norfolk. ‘Oh, yes,’ Beatrice agreed, looking up at Nicholas with her large eyes. I saw something false in her fond look that he did not see. But who can see clearly when they are in love?

Chapter Nine