‘Very well.’ Radwinter rose and took the keys from his belt. He looked at me speculatively again.
‘Did the King speak to you?’
‘A word only.’
‘’Tis a great honour.’
‘Ay.’
He smiled. ‘Did he comment on your bruise?’
‘No. He did not.’ I felt anger starting to boil within me.
‘What then?’ Radwinter smiled. ‘I see I have hit a mark. Ah, did he remark your bent back? I know he dislikes those with deformities, for all his fool Will Somers is a crookback. He is said to be superstitious. Perhaps the sight of you –’
I threw myself at Radwinter, as I had done at no man since my student days. I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the stone wall. But he was stronger than I, he reached up, twisted my arm away and sent me flying back against the wall. The soldiers rushed forward, but Radwinter raised a hand.
‘It is all right,’ he said smoothly. ‘Master Shardlake is in quarrelsome mood, but I have him. No need to report this for now.’ The soldiers looked at me doubtfully. I leaned against the stone wall, breathing heavily. Radwinter was smiling, gloating.
‘Do you not know the penalty for fighting in the precincts of the King’s court? The loss of your right hand. By the King’s special order. And for a man responsible for an important prisoner to assault his guard?’ He shook his head, then gave me a triumphant look. ‘I have you now if I want you, sir,’ he said quietly. ‘Mark that. The soldiers saw.’ He laughed. ‘I knew the way to break you was your hatred of what you are, a scrabbling bitter hunchback.’
‘And you are Death,’ I answered savagely. ‘You are the Bane, the antithesis of everything good and alive under the sun.’
Radwinter laughed again, merrily. Suddenly my anger left me. It was no use against this man; one might as well rage against a rabid dog. ‘Let me in the cell,’ I said.
He opened the door, bowing me in with a mocking flourish. I actually entered the dank hole with relief. Broderick lay on a pallet, looking up at me. He was filthy, smelling still of vomit. I decided I would order him washed. His eyes were full of speculative interest. He would have heard every word of what had passed outside.
‘I have come to see how you fare,’ I said tonelessly.
He looked at me, then beckoned with a thin arm. ‘Come, kneel by me,’ he said, ‘and I will talk. He will not be able to hear, that man outside who as you say is Death. It will anger him.’
I hesitated, then knelt down carefully, my knees cracking protestingly. He looked at my crushed cap that I still held.
‘So the King was cruel to you?’ he said quietly.
I did not reply.
‘Yes, he is a cruel man, he strikes as harshly as he can for pleasure, like Radwinter. Poor Robert Aske’s fate testifies to that.’
‘I say nothing against the King.’
‘He is the Mouldwarp.’
‘Not that old legend,’ I answered wearily.
‘No legend,’ Broderick said firmly. ‘A prophecy. They all knew it at the Pilgrimage of Grace. Merlin prophesied the Mouldwarp, the tyrant who would be driven from his realm with all his line. No child of his should succeed.’ I looked at him keenly. Oldroyd had said something very similar as he was dying.
Broderick reached out and gripped my arm with sudden strength, then whispered softly but fiercely: ‘Forth shall come a worm, an Aske with one eye; He shall gather of chivalry a full fair flock, The chicken shall the capon slay.’ His eyes burned into me. ‘You have seen him. The creature that claims to represent Christ’s will on earth, to be our just ruler. Can you deny he is the Mouldwarp?’
‘Let go my arm, Sir Edward.’
‘Aske’s coming was prophesied. Robert had only one eye, he lost the other in an accident.’
‘But it was Aske who was overthrown, not the King.’
‘He sowed the seed that will flourish. The Mouldwarp will be thrown down yet.’
I shook my arm free. ‘This is nonsense.’
‘The prophecy is true,’ Broderick said. He spoke calmly now, with certainty. ‘The King will fall. Soon, though probably not before I am dead.’
I met his gaze. ‘What you say is treason, for all that it is silly nonsense.’
He sighed. ‘Go then. Only – I thought you had seen the truth about the King.’
I got up painfully. It gave me some satisfaction to see Radwinter looking frowningly through the bars. He opened the door for me.
‘What did he say?’ he asked sharply. ‘What were you whispering about?’
‘Nothing important,’ I answered. I looked at my cap. It was crumpled, the feather broken, the little garnets hanging loose. I turned my back on him and walked away. I felt the soldiers’ eyes following me. They would tell Leacon about my assault on the gaoler.
I reached the lodging house, and in my cubicle I threw my cap on the floor and kicked at the damned thing until it was a shapeless wreck. Then I sat down heavily upon the bed.
I sat in silence. I thought how, for years, as Thomas Cromwell rose steadily in the service of the state, I had had a tiny share of reflected glory as my one-time friend rose nearer and nearer to the ultimate source of that light, the throne. The King, Head of the Church, fount of law and justice; to meet with him was the greatest glory an Englishman could dream of. Now I had met him. I felt for a second that he had shown me what I was, an unworthy creature, a beetle crawling on the earth. Then anger came again. I had not deserved that dreadful humiliation. I thought, perhaps Broderick is right, perhaps Henry VIII is indeed the Mould-warp, whose rule of terror – for such I had seen it grow into these last few years – would be overthrown. And perhaps should be, I thought.
Chapter Eighteen
I LAY THERE FOR HOURS in a half-stupor of misery, until I heard footsteps and voices as the clerks and lawyers bustled in, their business with the Progress over. They were in a state of high excitement, jabbering excitedly round the fire.
‘D’ye see that fat old merchant dressed in sackcloth, crawling across the cobbles? I thought his eyes would pop from his head!’ Evidently they had witnessed the former rebels abasing themselves before the King at the Minster.
‘Ay. He had to lift his stomach up lest it scrape the cobbles.’
‘D’you know what it all reminded me of? The old creeping to the Cross ceremony, at Easter!’
‘Hey, Rafe, be careful where you say that, creeping to the Cross ain’t allowed now –’
‘I was only saying –’
I lay, half listening as they prattled on. I did not want to go out and face them. Then I heard a familiar voice: it was Cowfold.
‘Hear about what the King said to the hunchback lawyer at Fulford?’
‘Ay, one of the city clerks told me.’ I recognized the voice of Kimber, the young lawyer who had greeted me that first evening. ‘Said he was a bent bottled spider beside the old Yorker lawyer he was with. The clerk said Shardlake’s face went like chalk. He looked at the Queen with a sort of desperate appeal, then staggered away.’
‘T’was cruel,’ someone observed.
‘Cruel nothing!’ Cowfold said. ‘Fealty and the court should have known better, putting someone who shames the south up before the King, a hunchback. My mother was touched by a hunchback beggar once, nothing went right with her after that –’
I could take no more. I got up, opened the cubicle door and went out. Silence instantly fell among the group standing round the fire. I stared at Cowfold. ‘When was your mother touched by the hunchback?’ I asked in a loud clear voice. ‘Before she conceived you, I’ll warrant, if nothing went right with her after. By the look of you it set her to copulating with pigs.’
Some of the men laughed nervously; Cowfold glowered and I knew that but for my rank he would have launched himself at me. I turned to go, leaving a dead silence behind me. Outside I felt pain in my hands and realized I had clenched my fists together so hard my fingernails had almost broken the skin of my palms.
I cursed myself for my crude outburst; it would only make things worse. Cowfold would be furious and would mock me behind my back at every opportunity now. First I had lost control with Radwinter, now this. I must pull myself together. I stood under a tree, taking deep breaths, watching as a fresh batch of the local black-faced sheep were led into an empty pen. No doubt the previous occupants had all been taken for slaughter, to feed the thousands that had now arrived.