Tombland

The innkeeper bowed again, gratefully. ‘We are always honoured to trade with the palace –’ He paused. ‘We have not seen you for some time, sir. The Lady Elizabeth is well, I hope.’

Fowberry smiled tightly. ‘Indeed yes, my good man.’

‘And over her recent troubles, I hope.’ He looked at each of us in turn, like an eager raven keen to see what trinket of gossip it might pick up. The room behind him had fallen quiet.

Fowberry spoke coldly and steadily. ‘I do not chatter abroad the business of the household I serve, Goodman.’

The innkeeper stepped back a pace. ‘Of course, sir. It’s just – business with Hatfield Palace has been slack.’

‘It’ll get slacker if you go nosing for information about the Lady’s affairs,’ Fowberry replied brutally. ‘But here’s something that is your business. A mile south we saw the lights of a camp in the fields. To the left of the road. You might do well to let the constable know.’

‘Probably only a few men grouped around a fire,’ I explained.

The innkeeper, though, looked serious. ‘I’ll send word.’

‘Do that,’ Fowberry said. ‘And now, we’re all soaked. We want rooms with fires, and towels. Then bring some food for the gentlemen.’

‘Will you eat down here?’ The innkeeper indicated the taproom. ‘Good company, and a fire lit, given the weather –’

‘We’ll eat in private, thank you,’ I answered.

* * *

MASTER PARRY HAD arranged a room each for Nicholas and me; he had spared no expense. He could afford to, the Lady Elizabeth being one of the richest people in the country. A fire was already lit in my room and it was bright with candles. I changed out of my wet clothes, setting them before the fire to dry. My bag had been brought up and I laid out my lawyer’s robe carefully on the bed.

The food came, thick mutton pottage, bacon with bread and cheese, and a jug of beer. Rough fare, but good. Shortly afterwards there was a knock at the door and Nicholas entered, bending his head to pass through the doorway. He, too, had changed, and had dried his red-blond hair. He wore a green doublet tied with silver aiglets, with a fashionable high collar showing a little ruffle of shirt above.

‘Sit down, lad,’ I said.

‘Thank you, sir.’

We set to our food with a will. When he had taken the edge from his hunger, Nicholas put a hand to his purse and took out a little silver coin, laying it on the table. ‘I was given one of these in London yesterday,’ he said. ‘The latest shilling.’

I picked up the bright new coin, stamped with the head of our eleven-year-old king, a serious expression on his face. Around the edge was stamped Edward VI by the Grace of God in Latin. I weighed the coin in my palm. ‘It’s bigger than the one they put out at the beginning of the year. But more copper in it?’

‘I think so.’ Nicholas frowned. ‘God’s death, does Protector Somerset take us all for fools as he robs the country of its silver? All this chopping and changing just raises prices even further. Beer is up another farthing.’

I smiled wryly. ‘He needs silver from somewhere to pay for his Scottish war. Along with this latest round of new taxes Parliament has granted him.’ I shook my head. ‘When the old king died, I thought all this pouring money into unwinnable wars would stop, not that things would get even worse.’

Nicholas grunted. ‘Do you think we’re beaten up there?’

‘It looks like it.’

‘That will be a great dishonour for England.’

I looked at the coin thoughtfully. ‘I have never seen prices rise so fast as this year. If you are a poor workman –’ I shook my head. ‘With that, and grasping landowners raising rents and enclosing lands –’

Nicholas interrupted me. ‘What else are they to do? Prices go up for them too. I know my father found it hard to turn a profit, which was why –’ Nicholas broke off, shrugging, a frown crossing his freckled brow.

I looked at him. Three years before, when he was twenty-one, his Lincolnshire gentry parents had disinherited him for refusing to marry a woman they had chosen for him, but whom he did not love. The bitterness caused by their rejection still haunted him, I knew, though he seemed happy enough as my assistant, and looked forward to the prospect of soon being called to the bar. He worked hard and skilfully, though his heart was not as wholly in the law as mine had been at his age, and spent much time carousing with other young gentlemen – he remained acutely conscious of his gentleman status – in the London taverns and, I suspected, the brothels, too. I thought sometimes that what he needed was a wife. Although not conventionally handsome, Nicholas was a striking young man, and not lacking in confidence; but he did lack money, being reliant on his limited earnings, and that would count. Currently, he was paying court to another barrister’s daughter, Beatrice Kenzy. I had met her a couple of times, and did not like her.

Changing the subject, Nicholas asked, ‘Is it possible I shall see the Lady Elizabeth tomorrow?’

‘Unlikely. I see her rarely enough.’