I nodded sympathetically. Association with scandal, particularly something as horrible as this, often drove servants to leave a house. We dismounted, a twinge below my shoulder blade reminding me my back had not quite settled down. Chawry led us round the side of the house to a stable block. There was a smaller, separate stable beside it, and as we passed it we heard a loud neighing and the crash of hooves. Barak asked, ‘Is that the fabled Midnight?’
‘It is. The only horse left apart from the mistress’s. Thank God his stable is built of strong oak and he’s well penned in; I throw his food over the top of his stall. I haven’t dared go in there to muck it out.’
I passed the reins of my horse to Barak and walked across to the little stable. So this was where the boots and hammer were found. I glanced at the door; it was firmly chained and padlocked and I saw that it was flush with the wall at the top, and with the step at the bottom. Nobody could have flung the hammer and boots in there from outside. I walked round the building. There was a shuttered window at the rear; I pulled at it; it was locked from inside. My action set off another round of frantic neighing and kicking from within. I returned to the front of the building. There was a small gap of a quarter inch or so between two boards and I peered inside. It was almost totally dark, but as my eyes adjusted I caught a glimpse of the whites of the rolling eyes of a horse. I stepped away. ‘Is it not cruel to keep the horse in darkness?’ I asked Chawry.
‘That window’s bolted from the inside. To get to it you’d have to go past Midnight’s stall, and that’s within kicking range. But I have the key since Master Boleyn was taken away; I can let you in if you like,’ he added, a little insolently.
‘I think not,’ I said dryly.
‘Master Boleyn is very keen to sell Midnight as soon as possible for some reason; he has asked me, through Isabella, to arrange it. It is not proving easy.’
We tied up our horses in the other stable, then Chawry led us into the house, asking us to wait in the hallway while he went to find his mistress. It was a pleasant place, finely furnished, an expensive tapestry of an idealized rural scene, all nymphs and shepherds, dominating the hallway. I noticed, though, balls of dust in the corners.
Chawry returned and told us Mistress Boleyn would receive us. I noticed he used the name she was not strictly entitled to now. I signed to Barak and Toby to wait – I did not want to overwhelm the woman – and Nicholas and I followed the steward into a parlour, well furnished but with the same slightly neglected air as the rest of the house. An unusually pretty, buxom woman in her early thirties, with blonde hair under a sober black hood, stood with her hands clasped in front of her. We bowed, and I introduced myself and Nicholas.
‘Master Copuldyke has asked you to help my husband?’ Her voice had a strong Norfolk accent.
‘He wishes me to investigate the whole case thoroughly, to see whether new light can be cast on the murder.’
‘God bless her grace the Lady Elizabeth,’ Isabella said feelingly. ‘But there is so little time now. Only six days –’
‘I know. I visited your husband in Norwich Castle yesterday; he asked me to send you his love, and thank you for the food you have provided him with.’
‘I have some more. Could you take it back with you today? Otherwise he’ll have no vittles to chaw, the prison provides nothing.’
‘Most certainly.’
She raised a hand to brush away a strand of blonde hair. ‘Since our cook left I have done nothing but prepare dishes for John. ’Tis as well I have experience from when I worked at the inn.’ She fixed me with her large, dark blue eyes. ‘You will know my former work. John’s neighbours have despised him since he brought me to the house. Do you despise me, sir, for what I was, and for living in sin for years?’
This was remarkably direct, but also very brave. ‘Certainly not. I will do anything within my power to help you.’
‘And I,’ Nicholas added. He looked at Isabella, obviously appreciative of her unusual beauty. I said, ‘May we sit down, and ask some questions? Master Nicholas will make notes.’ I added, ‘They will inevitably be personal ones.’
‘Of course. Daniel, would you leave us?’ Chawry bowed and turned to go. He paused at the door and gave Isabella a look which seemed to me to have longing in it, though Isabella appeared not to notice. When he had gone she said quietly, ‘Of course you know that at law I am no longer John’s wife. Yet I know that if he is found not guilty, he will return and take care of us just as he did in the years before Edith was found dead.’
‘That is good to know.’ I coughed. ‘I believe you first met your husband about ten years ago.’
‘Yes, when I was working at the inn. John used to come there to escape his life at home. He told me of his troubles with Edith – though I would not have had this terrible thing happen to her – and with his sons, who, though no more than eight, were already’ – her mouth twisted in distaste – ‘cruel and vicious.’
Nicholas said. ‘We have already had the pleasure of meeting Gerald and Barnabas.’
‘I started by feeling sorry for John. I could see he was a decent man struggling with a sad fate. And over the months – we came to love each other.’ She looked at me with a defiant air. ‘People do, despite differences in age and status, you know.’
‘Yes, I do know,’ I answered feelingly. I smiled, then asked, ‘Did you ever meet Edith?’
‘Never. But I heard enough stories from John, and later from the servants and neighbours. About her sour disposition, her lack of care for her children, her sometimes starving herself for no reason. John said he had begun to think she was mad. And then some gossiping muck-spout told her about us, and not long after she vanished. Later, when it was clear she was not coming back, John asked me to come and stay. Oh, he warned me the local gentry would be scandalized and the twins would be a trial. But I loved him, and agreed.’
I hesitated, then said, ‘Did he ever tell you that he had asked Edith to give him more children?’
She looked at me boldly for a moment. ‘Yes, but she refused. He had argued with her at first, but he told me that soon he came not to care, that long before he met me he had come to feel the same revulsion for his wife that Edith seemed to feel towards him.’
I exchanged a glance with Nicholas. This was not the story that Gawen Reynolds’s steward Michael Vowell had told us yesterday. I said, ‘Forgive me for asking this. Once you and John were living together, you had no children. Was that a deliberate decision?’
Isabella sighed. ‘I did not want a child out of wedlock. John wanted more children. He hated the idea of the twins as his only heirs, and he tried to persuade me for a while’ – she reddened, and looked down – ‘but in the end accepted my refusal. We – we took precautions, in the ways countryfolk know. I told John that if ever we could marry, I should be happy to give him a child. And so, when we married after Edith was declared dead, we tried.’ She sighed. ‘But we have not yet been blessed with a child.’ She shook her head wearily. ‘If I had known what was going to happen this year, I would have tried to give him one years ago.’ She took a deep breath, her face reddening again, and I realized how hard it must be to speak so frankly to a stranger. Again she struck me as brave, not bold.
I said quietly, ‘And when you came to live at Brikewell, how were matters with the twins?’
She looked me in the eye. ‘They hated me from the beginning, as I came to hate and then fear them. No matter what my husband did, they were uncontrollable.’
‘I heard no tutor would stay.’
‘They tied one poor young man up with ropes, and rolled him down the stairs. A wonder he didn’t break his neck. Another tutor they stripped naked in the schoolroom, then took him out and dumped him on the lawn. He was the last. They were fourteen then, already strong as horses and pestering the women servants. Always the two of them acting together. Since John was taken, I have been afraid of them, but thank the Lord they have decided to throw themselves on the protection of their grandfather, fearing they will be made wards of the King if my husband is –’ She broke off, finally losing control, and tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away fiercely with a handkerchief and said, ‘Go on, Master Shardlake. Forgive my womanish ways.’