Lamentation

I felt uneasy. I thought of the books I possessed, forbidden by the recent proclamation. They were concealed in my chest, and under the amnesty I had another fortnight to turn them in; I thought, if I do that officially, my name will doubtless go on a list. Better to burn them discreetly in the garden. And I would keep a careful eye now on Master Martin Brocket, too.

That evening I was due to visit Philip Coleswyn.

He lived on Little Britain Street, near Smithfield. I walked there by back lanes to avoid seeing Smithfield itself again. His house was in a pleasant row of old dwellings, with overhanging jettied roofs. Some peddlers and drovers in their smocks were pushing their carts back towards the city from the Smithfield market. They seemed to have many unsold goods; I wondered if the troubles caused by the King’s debasement of the coinage would ever end. A small dog, a shaggy little mongrel, wandered up and down the street whining and looking at people. It had a collar — it must have come to Smithfield with one of the traders or customers, and got itself lost. Hopefully its owner would find it.

I knocked at the door of Coleswyn’s residence, where, as he had told me, a griffin’s head was engraved over the porch. He let me in himself. ‘We have no servants at the moment,’ he apologized. ‘My wife will be doing the cooking tonight. We have a fine capon.’

‘That sounds excellent,’ I said, concealing my surprise that a man of his status should have no servants. He led me into a pleasant parlour, the early evening sunlight glinting on the fine gold and silver plate displayed on the buffet. An attractive woman in her early thirties was sitting with two children, a girl and boy of about seven and five, teaching them their letters. She looked tired.

‘My wife, Ethelreda,’ Coleswyn said. ‘My children, Samuel and Laura.’

Ethelreda Coleswyn stood and curtsied, and the little boy gave a tiny bow. The girl turned to her mother and said seriously, ‘I prefer the name Fear-God, Mamma.’

Her mother gave me a nervous look, then told the child, ‘We want you to use your second name now, we have told you. Now go, both of you, up to bed. Adele is waiting.’ She clapped her hands and the children went to their father, who bent to kiss them goodnight, then they left obediently.

‘My sister has come from Hertfordshire to help with the children,’ Coleswyn explained.

‘I must see to the food.’ Ethelreda got up. She left the room. Coleswyn poured me some wine and we sat at the table.

‘That was quite a scene at the Cotterstoke house this morning,’ he said.

‘My client’s behaviour towards you was insufferable. I apologize for her.’

‘Her manners are not your responsibility, Brother Shardlake.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘Have you seen her again today?’

‘No, I have not been back to chambers. If she called this afternoon, she was unlucky. No doubt there will be a message tomorrow.’

Coleswyn smiled wryly. ‘I keep thinking of those two beetles we saw fighting in the stableyard. Why do Edward and Isabel need their carapaces, and what lies underneath?’

‘God alone knows.’

He fingered the stem of his glass. ‘Recently I met an old member of the Chandlers’ Guild, Master Holtby. Retired now, over seventy. He remembered Isabel and Edward’s father, Michael Johnson.’

I smiled. ‘Met by chance, or design?’

‘Not purely by chance.’ He smiled wryly. ‘In any event, he said that Michael Johnson was a coming man in his day. Shrewd, prosperous, a hard man in business but devoted to his family.’

‘You can see all that in the painting.’

‘Yes, indeed. He inherited the business from his own father and built it up. But he died way back in 1507; that was one of the years when the sweating sickness struck London.’

I remembered the sweating sickness. More contagious and deadly even than the plague, it could kill its victims in a day. Mercifully there had not been an outbreak for some years.

Coleswyn went on, ‘The family were devastated, according to old Master Holtby. But a year later Mistress Johnson remarried, another chandler, a younger man called Peter Cotterstoke.’

‘Common enough for a widow left alone to marry a new husband in the same trade. It is only sensible.’

‘The children were about twelve, I think. Master Holtby did not remember any trouble between them and their stepfather. They took his name in place of their father’s, and kept it. In any case, poor Cotterstoke also died, a year later.’

‘How?’

‘Drowned. He had been down at the docks on some business to do with a cargo, and fell in, God save his soul. But then to everyone’s surprise, Mrs Cotterstoke sold the business soon afterwards, using the proceeds to live on for the rest of her life. Disinheriting her son, Edward, in effect. He would have started as an apprentice in the business in a year or so. Master Holtby told me there was no love lost between the mother and either of her children.’

‘But why?’