Lamentation

I did not reply. At law, both Edward and Isabel were guilty of murder. An open confession from either would see both hang, even now. I thought of their mother, suspecting all these years what her children had done, unable to prove anything but hating them. I took a deep breath. ‘What will you do now, Master Cotterstoke?’

He shook his head. ‘I will confess. That is what the Lord commands.’

I spoke carefully. ‘You understand that your being brought before the Privy Council has nothing to do with your stepfather. It is about heresy. If you have not spoken heresy, it may be that you and Brother Coleswyn are being used to get at me.’

He stared at me with genuine puzzlement. ‘I thought this arrest was concerned somehow with — with what we did. Though, yes, they did say heresy. But I could not understand why we were brought here, why the Privy Council should be involved.’ He frowned. ‘Why would the Privy Council have an interest in you, sir?’ I noted with relief that he looked attentive as well as puzzled. I had brought him back to the real world, at least for now.

‘Because I have been involved in — political matters,’ I said carefully. ‘I may have made enemies on the traditionalist side.’

‘Those rogues! Lost and condemned by God I may be now, but I am not so far fallen that I do not still revile those enemies of faith.’ A look of angry pride appeared on his face.

‘Then for all our sakes, Master Cotterstoke, when they ask you at the council tomorrow whether you have ever publicly condemned the Mass, tell them the truth, that you have not.’

‘In my heart, I have.’

‘It is what you say that could burn you. Keep your beliefs locked in your heart, I beg you.’

Philip nodded. ‘Yes, Edward, he is right.’

‘But what we did, Isabel and I — ’

‘Leave that until after, Edward. After.’

Edward’s face worked as he thought. But then he said, ‘If I am asked about my stepfather’s murder, I must tell the truth. But if I am not, I will say nothing.’ He looked hard at Philip. ‘Afterwards, though, I must pay for my sins.’ I thought, he is a strong man, hard and tough like his sister. And indeed it must have taken a strange, perverted strength of mind for him and Isabel to each blame everything on the other, for forty years.

After that the hours hung heavy. Philip persuaded Edward to pray with him, and they spent a long time murmuring in the corner, asking God for strength, and afterwards talking of the possibility of salvation in the next world for Edward if he publicly confessed his crime. At one point they discussed Isabel’s cleaving to the old ways in religion, and I heard Edward’s voice rise again, calling her an obstinate woman with a cankered heart, in those cadences of self-righteousness and self-pity so familiar to me from the time I had spent with his sister. I thought, if Edward confesses, Isabel, too, is undone.

The barred window above us allowed a square of sunlight into the room, and I watched it travel slowly across the walls, marking the passage of the afternoon. Edward and Philip ended their talk, and Philip insisted we eat some of the food that our visitors had brought.

Evening was come and the square of light fading fast when the guard returned with a note for me. I opened it eagerly, watched by Philip and Edward. It was from Barak.

I returned to Whitehall, and managed to persuade the guard to admit me to the Queen’s Presence Chamber. The Queen has left for Hampton Court, with most of her servants, Mistress Odell, too, it seems. Workmen were removing the tapestries, watched by some sort of female fool or jester with a duck on a leash; when the guard asked if she knew where Mistress Odell was she said Hampton Court, and when he said I brought a message from you she turned and made childish faces at me. I got the guard to ensure the note is forwarded. I am sorry, I could do no more.

Jane Fool, I thought, who had taken against me so fiercely. I put down the note. ‘No news. But my message has been forwarded to — an important person.’

Edward looked at me with incomprehension, as though this were all happening to someone else; he had retreated inside himself again. Philip said nothing and lowered his head.