‘Poor creature.’ Barak stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘I wonder how that information got out. A radical sympathizer working in the Tower, it has to be. But all I hear from my old friends is that Bishop Gardiner has the King’s ear now, and that’s common knowledge. I don’t suppose Archbishop Cranmer was at the burning?’
‘No. He’s keeping safely out of the way at Canterbury, I’d guess.’ I shook my head. ‘I wonder he has survived so long. By the by, there was a young lawyer at the burning, with some gentlemen, who kept staring at me. Small and thin, brown hair and a little beard. I wondered who he might be.’
‘Probably someone who will be your opponent in a case next term, sizing up the opposition.’
‘Maybe.’ I fingered the coins on the desk.
‘Don’t keep thinking everyone’s after you,’ Barak said quietly.
‘Ay, ’tis a fault. But is it any wonder, after these last few years?’ I sighed. ‘By the way, I met Brother Coleswyn at the burning, he was made to go and represent Gray’s Inn. He’s a decent fellow.’
‘Unlike his client then, or yours. Serve that long lad Nicholas right to have to sit in with that old Slanning beldame this afternoon.’
I smiled. ‘Yes, that was my thought, too. Well, go and see if he’s found the conveyance yet.’
Barak rose. ‘I’ll kick his arse if he hasn’t, gentleman or no . . .’
He left me fingering the coins. I looked at the note. I could not help but think, What is Bealknap up to now?
MISTRESS ISABEL SLANNING arrived punctually at three. Nicholas, now in a more sober doublet of light black wool, sat beside me with a quill and paper. He had, fortunately for him, found the missing conveyance whilst I had been talking to Barak.
Skelly showed Mistress Slanning in, a little apprehensively. She was a tall, thin widow in her fifties, though with her lined face, thin pursed mouth and habitual frown she looked older. I had seen her brother, Edward Cotterstoke, at hearings in court last term, and it had amazed me how much he resembled her in form and face, apart from a little grey beard. Mistress Slanning wore a violet dress of fine wool with a fashionable turned-up collar enclosing her thin neck, and a box hood lined with little pearls. She was a wealthy woman; her late husband had been a successful haberdasher, and like many rich merchants’ widows she adopted an air of authority that would have been thought unbefitting in a woman of lower rank. She greeted me coldly, ignoring Nicholas.
She was, as ever, straight to the point. ‘Well, Master Shardlake, what news? I expect that wretch Edward is trying to delay the case again?’ Her large brown eyes were accusing.