Marchamount’s companion was strikingly attractive, in her thirties, with a direct, open gaze. She wore a round French hood about her hair, which was blonde and very fine; little wisps slipped out, stirring in the breeze. I saw the hood was faced with pearls.
‘Master Shardlake,’ Marchamount said in his deep, booming voice, a smile on his rubicund face, ‘may I introduce my client and good friend, Lady Honor Bryanston? Brother Matthew Shardlake.’
She extended a hand. I took the long white fingers gently and bowed. ‘Delighted, madam.’
‘Forgive my intrusion on your business,’ she said. Her voice was a clear contralto with a husky undertone, the accent aristocratic. Her full-lipped mouth made girlish dimples in her cheeks as she smiled.
‘Not at all, madam.’ I was going to introduce Godfrey but she continued, ignoring his presence. ‘I have been in conference with Master Marchamount. I recognized you from a description the Earl of Essex gave when we dined last. He was singing your praises as one of the best lawyers in London.’
The Earl of Essex. Cromwell. I had thought, and hoped, that he had forgotten me. And I realized she would have been told to look out for a hunchback.
‘I am most grateful,’ I said cautiously.
‘Yes, he was quite effusive,’ Marchamount said. His tone was light, but his prominent brown eyes studied me keenly. I recalled he was known as an opponent of reform and wondered what he had been doing dining with Cromwell.
‘I am ever on the lookout for fine minds to strike their wits against each other around my dining table,’ Lady Honor continued. ‘Lord Cromwell suggested you as a candidate.’
I raised a hand. ‘You compliment me too highly. I am a mere jobbing lawyer.’
She smiled again and raised a hand. ‘No, sir, I hear you are more than that. A bencher, who may be a serjeant one day. I shall send you an invitation to one of my sugar banquets. You live further down Chancery Lane, I believe.’
‘You are well informed, madam.’
She laughed. ‘I try to be. New information and new friends stave off a widow’s boredom.’ She looked round the quadrangle, studying, the scene with interest. ‘How marvellous it must be to live beyond the foul airs of the City.’
‘Brother Shardlake has a fine house, I hear.’ There was a slight edge to Marchamount’s voice, a glint in his dark brown, protuberant eyes. He laughed, showing a full set of white teeth. ‘Such are the profits of land law, eh, Brother?’
‘Justly earned, I am sure,’ Lady Honor said. ‘But now you must excuse me, I have an appointment at the Mercers’ Hall.’ She turned away, raising a hand. ‘Expect to hear from me shortly, Master Shardlake.’
Marchamount bowed to us, then led Lady Honor back to her litter, making a great fuss of helping her inside before walking back to his chambers, stately as a full-rigged ship. We watched as the litter made its swaying way to the gate, her ladies walking sedately behind.
‘Forgive me Godfrey,’ I said. ‘I was going to introduce you, but she gave me no chance. That was a little rude of her.’
‘I would not have welcomed the introduction,’ he said primly. ‘Do you know who she is?’
I shook my head. London society did not interest me.
‘Widow to Sir Harcourt Bryanston. He was the biggest mercer in London when he died three years ago. He was far older than her,’ he added disapprovingly. ‘They had sixty-four poor men in attendance at his funeral, one for every year of his age.’
‘Well, what’s so wrong with that?’
‘She’s a Vaughan, an aristocrat fallen on hard times. She married Bryanston for his money, and since his death she’s set herself up as the greatest hostess in London. Trying to build up her family name again, which was trampled down in the wars between Lancaster and York.’
‘One of the old families, eh?’
‘Ay. She specializes in setting reformers against papists over her dinner table, takes a perverse pleasure in it.’ He looked at me earnestly. ‘She’s invited Bishops Gardiner and Ridley and started a conversation about transubstantiation before now. Matters of religious truth are not to be toyed with like that.’ A sudden hardness entered his voice. ‘They are for hard reflection, on which the fate of our eternal souls depend. As you used to say yourself,’ he added.
‘Ay, I did.’ I sighed, for I knew my loss of religious enthusiasm these last few years troubled my friend. ‘So she’s in with both factions then?’
‘She has both Cromwell and Norfolk at her table, but she’s no loyalty to either side. Don’t go, Matthew.’
I hesitated. There was strength, a sophistication about Lady Honor that stirred something in me that had been quiet a long time. And yet being in the middle of such arguments as Godfrey described would not be comfortable, and for all he might have kind words for me I had no wish to see Cromwell again. ‘I’ll see,’ I said.
Godfrey looked over to Marchamount’s chambers. ‘I’ll wager the good serjeant would give much to have a lineage like hers. I hear he is still pestering the College of Arms for a shield, though his father was but a fishmonger.’
I laughed. ‘Ay, he likes mixing with those of breeding.’
The unexpected meeting had lifted me from the concerns of work, but they returned as we entered the dining hall. Under the great vaulted beams I saw Bealknap sitting alone at one end of a long table. He was shovelling food into his mouth with his spoon while reading a large casebook. Friars Preachers v. the Prior of Okeham, no doubt, to quote against me at Westminster Hall in a week’s time.
Chapter Five
THE OLD BAILEY COURT is a small, cramped building set against the outer side of the City wall opposite Newgate. There is nothing of the panoply of the civil courts in Westminster Hall, although judgements here deal not with money and property, but maiming and death.
On Saturday morning I arrived in good time. The court did not usually sit on Saturdays, but with the civil-aw term starting the following week the judges would be heavily occupied and the London assize had been brought forward to get the criminal business out of the way. I passed inside the courtroom, clutching my file of precedents, and bowed to the bench.
Judge Forbizer sat on his dais working on papers, his scarlet robes a slash of colour among the dull clothes of the rabble crowding the benches, for the assize was ever a popular spectacle and the Wentworth case had aroused much interest. I looked for Joseph and saw him sitting at the end of a bench, squashed against a window by the press of people, biting his lip anxiously. He raised a hand in greeting and I smiled, trying to show a confidence I did not feel. He had visited Elizabeth every day since Tuesday, but she had still not uttered a word. I had met him the evening before and told him I would try for a plea of madness, which was all that was left to us.
Some distance away I saw a man who looked so like Joseph it could only be his brother Edwin. He wore a fine green robe with a fur trim; his face was drawn with care. He met my look and glared, pulling his robe closer around him. So he knew who I was.
And then, in the row in front of Edwin Wentworth, I saw the young man who had been watching me near Guy’s shop. Today he wore a sober doublet of dark green. He sat resting his chin on an elbow placed insolently on the rail separating the spectators’ benches from the court. He stared at me speculatively, large dark eyes keen with interest. I frowned and he smiled briefly, settling himself more comfortably. So I was right, I thought, they’ve set this ruffian to watch me, try to put me off my stride. Well, that will not work. I hitched my gown and stepped away to the lawyers’ bench. As this was a criminal trial it was empty, but as I sat down I noticed Bealknap in a doorway. He was talking with an official in clerical dress, the bishop’s ordinary.
At that time there was still much corrupt use of benefit of clergy. If a man was found guilty of a crime, then by claiming he was a clerk in holy orders he had the right to be handed over to the bishop for punishment. All one had to do to claim benefit was to prove one was literate by reading aloud the opening verse of psalm
51. King Henry had restricted the use of benefit to non-capital crimes but the rule still stood. Those who satisfied the test were taken to Bishop Bonner’s gaol until he decided they had repented; a repentance verified by twelve compurgators, men of good standing who attested to the convict’s truthfulness. Bealknap had a ring of compurgators who for a fee would happily vouch for anyone. His sideline was well known throughout Lincoln’s Inn, but no barrister would ever inform against another member of the profession.
As I took my place, Forbizer stared at me. It was impossible to gauge his mood; his thin, choleric face always wore the same expression of cold disgust at human sinfulness. He had a long, tidily clipped grey beard and hard coal-black eyes that stared at me coldly. A barrister appearing at a criminal trial meant troublesome legal interruptions.
‘What do you want?’ he asked.
I bowed. ‘I am here to represent Mistress Wentworth, your honour.’
‘Are you now? We’ll see.’ He lowered his head to his papers again.
There was a stir and everyone turned as the jury, twelve well-fed London merchants, were escorted into the jury box. Then the door from the cells opened and the tipstaff led in a dozen ragged prisoners. The more serious cases were heard first, the ones that carried the death penalty; murder, burglary and thefts valued at more than a shilling. The accused were manacled together at the ankles and their chains made a clanking noise as they were led to the dock. They brought a mighty stink with them and some spectators produced nosegays, though the smell did not seem to trouble Forbizer. Elizabeth was at the end of the line next to the fat woman, the alleged horse thief. The woman was tightly grasping the hand of a ragged young man who was trembling and fighting back tears, her son no doubt. I had only seen Elizabeth’s face before; now I saw she had a comely figure. She wore a grey indoor dress, crumpled and filthy through being worn over a week at Newgate. I tried to catch her eye but she kept her head bowed. There was a murmur among the spectators, and I saw the sharp-faced young man studying her with interest.
The prisoners shuffled into the dock. Most had frightened, drawn expressions and the young horse thief was shaking like a leaf now. Forbizer gave him a hard look. The clerk stood and asked the prisoners, one by one, how they pleaded. Each replied, ‘Not guilty.’ Elizabeth was last.
‘Elizabeth Wentworth,’ the clerk asked solemnly, ‘you are charged with the foul murder of Ralph Wentworth on May sixteenth last. How say you - guilty or not guilty?’
I felt the courtroom tense. I did not rise yet, I must wait and see whether she took this final chance to speak, but I looked at her beseechingly. She bowed her head, the long tangled hair falling forward and hiding her face. Forbizer leaned across his desk.
‘You are being asked to plead, Mistress,’ he said coldly and evenly. ‘You had better.’
She lifted her head and looked at him, but it was the same look she had given me in her cell: unfocused, blank, as though looking through him. Forbizer reddened slightly.
‘Mistress, you stand accused of one of the foulest crimes imaginable against God and man. Do you or do you not accept trial by a jury of your peers?’
Still she did not speak or move.
‘Very well, we will address this at the end of the session.’ He looked at her narrowly a moment more, then said, ‘Bring on the first case.’
I took a deep breath. Elizabeth stood motionless as the clerk read the first indictment. She stood thus all through the next two hours, only occasionally moving her weight from one hip to the other.
I had not attended a criminal trial for years and was surprised anew at the careless speed of the proceedings. After each accusation was read witnesses were brought on and put under oath. The prisoners were allowed to question their accusers or bring on their own witnesses and several matters descended to exchanges of abuse, which Forbizer silenced in a clear, rasping voice. The horse thieves were accused by a stout innkeeper; the fat woman insisted over and again she had never been there, although the innkeeper had two witnesses; her son only sobbed and shook. At length the jury were sent out; they would be kept in the jury room without meat or drink until they reached their verdicts and would not be long. The prisoners shuffled their feet anxiously, chains clanking, and a buzz of conversation rose from the spectators.
Everyone had been penned in the hot room all morning and the stench by now was dreadful. A shaft of sunlight from the window had settled on my back and I felt myself begin to perspire. I cursed; judges never like a sweating advocate. I looked around. Joseph sat with his head in his hands, while his brother studied Elizabeth’s still, frozen form through half-closed eyes, his mouth set hard. My watcher leaned back on his bench, arms folded.
The jury returned. The clerk handed Forbizer the sheaf of informations annotated with their verdicts. I felt the tension in the box as the prisoners stared at the strips of paper holding their fates; even Elizabeth glanced up briefly.
Five men were found innocent of theft and seven guilty, including the old woman and her son, whose name was Pullen. As the verdict on them was read out the old woman called out for the judge to be merciful and to spare her son, who was but nineteen.
‘Goodwife Pullen-’ Forbizer’s lower lip curled slightly, red amid his neat beard, his habitual gesture of contempt - ‘You took the horse together, you have both been found guilty of larceny and so there will be a pullen at both your necks.’ Someone among the spectators laughed and Forbizer glared at them; he did not like levity in court, even at his own jokes. The old woman gripped her son’s arm as he began to weep again.
The constable released those found innocent from their shackles and they scurried off. The condemned were led back to Newgate and the clattering of their chains faded away. Now Elizabeth alone remained in the dock.
‘Well, Miss Wentworth,’ Forbizer rasped, ‘will you plead now?’
No reply. There was a murmuring in court: Forbizer silenced it with a look. I rose, but he waved me to sit down again.
‘Wait, Brother. Now, Mistress. Guilty or not guilty, it takes little effort to say.’ Still she stood like a stone. Forbizer set his lips. ‘Very well, the law is clear in these cases. You will suffer peine forte et dure, crushing beneath weights until you plead or die.’
I rose again. ‘Your honour—’
He turned to me coldly. ‘This is a criminal trial, Brother Shardlake. Counsel may not be heard. Do you know so little law?’ There was a titter along the benches; these people wanted Elizabeth dead.
I took a deep breath. ‘Your honour, I wish to address you not on the murder but regarding my client’s capacity. I believe she does not plead because her wits are gone, she is insane. She should not therefore suffer the press. I ask for her to be examined—’
‘The jury can consider her mental state when she is tried,’ Forbizer said shortly, ‘if she condescends to plead.’ I glanced at Elizabeth. She was looking at me now, but still with that dead, dull stare.
‘Your honour,’ I said determinedly, ‘I would like to cite the precedent of Anon in the Court of King’s Bench in 1505, when it was held that an accused who refuses to plead and whose sanity is put in question should be examined by a jury.’ I produced a copy. ‘I have the case—’
Forbizer shook his head. ‘I know that case. And the contrary case of Beddloe, King’s Bench, 1498, which says only the trial jury may decide on sanity.’
‘But in deciding between the cases, your honour, I submit consideration must be given to my client’s weaker sex, and the fact she is below the age of majority—’
Forbizer’s lip curled again, a moist fleshy thing against his grey beard. ‘And so a jury has to be empanelled now to determine her sanity, and you buy more time for your client. No, Brother Shardlake, no.’
‘Your honour, the truth of this matter can never be determined if my client dies under the press. The evidence is circumstantial, justice calls for a fuller investigation.’
‘You are addressing me now on the matter itself, sir. I will not al
low—’
‘She may be pregnant,’ I said desperately. ‘We do not know, as she will say nothing. We should wait to see if that may be so. The press would kill an unborn child!’
There was more muttering among the spectators. Elizabeth’s expression had changed; she was looking at me with angry outrage now.
‘Do you wish to plead your belly, madam?’ Forbizer asked. She shook her head slowly, then lowered it, hiding her face in her hair once more.
‘You understand English then,’ Forbizer said to her. He turned back to me. ‘You are clutching at any excuse for delay, Brother Shardlake. I will not allow that.’ He hunched his shoulders and addressed Elizabeth again. ‘You may be below the age of majority, Mistress, but you are above that of responsibility. You know what is right and wrong before God, yet you stand accused of this hideous crime and refuse to plead. I order you to peine forte et dure, the weights to be pressed on you this very afternoon.’
I jumped up again. ‘Your honour—’
‘God’s death, man, be quiet!’ Forbizer snapped, banging a fist on his desk. He waved at the constable. ‘Take her down! Bring up the petty misdemeanours.’ The man stepped into the dock and led Elizabeth away, her head still bowed. ‘The press is slower than the noose,’ I heard one woman say to another. ‘Serve her right.’ The door closed behind them.
I sat with my head bowed. There was a babble of conversation and a rustling of clothes as the spectators rose. Many had come only to see Elizabeth; the petty thefts worth under a shilling were of little interest, those guilty would just be branded or lose their ears. Only Bealknap, still lurking in the doorway, looked interested, for those convicted of lesser crimes could claim benefit of clergy. Edwin Wentworth went with the rest; I saw the back of his robe as he walked out. Joseph remained alone on his bench, looking disconsolately after his brother. The sharp-faced young man had already gone, with Sir Edwin perhaps. I went over to Joseph.