Lamentation

‘Nothing was proven against him.’ Coleswyn answered with dignity, though his voice shook with anger. ‘I stand by all he has said.’

Edward gave Coleswyn an anxious glance. Isabel saw it and her eyes narrowed. ‘I shall find out what he has said, mark that.’

Both Wulfsee and Adam were looking very uneasy at the turn the discussion had taken. Adam spoke, anxious now. ‘I attend St Mary Aldgate, madam, and worship as the King commands. All know that.’

‘You are an evil woman,’ Edward Cotterstoke spat. ‘You know what things I could say of you — ’

Isabel looked at her brother fully in the face for the first time. ‘And I of you,’ she hissed. Brother and sister were glaring at each other now, eye to eye. Then Isabel turned and marched out of the house, slamming the door. I looked at the servant. Vowell stood clasping his hands, still near to tears.

Wulfsee and Adam bowed hastily to Coleswyn and me, then hastily followed Isabel out. I heard Master Adam say from the hallway, ‘By Mary, sir, I had no idea what I was getting into, coming here.’

Edward said, ‘I shall leave too. Thank you, Master Coleswyn.’ He looked troubled by his exchange with Isabel as he gave his lawyer a nod of thanks. He was shown out by Vowell, to whom neither he nor Isabel had spoken a word throughout. Coleswyn and I were left alone.

‘I do not think you should have said what you did about your preacher,’ I said quietly.

He looked shaken. ‘I have never let someone provoke me like that before. Forgive me. It was unprofessional.’

‘It was dangerous, sir. Your preacher, did he — ’ I broke off as Vowell returned.

‘Please, sirs,’ the old servant said anxiously. ‘I think it better you leave as well, if you would.’

He accompanied us to the door. I said, ‘Thank you, Goodman Vowell.’

‘And to think that this was once a happy house,’ he replied, blinking tears from his eyes, then bowed and closed the door.

Coleswyn and I were left standing in the busy street, under the hot sun. He spoke quietly as we went round to the stables. ‘My preacher has said nothing against the Mass.’ He paused and added, ‘In public.’

I did not ask, And in private? Instead I looked down at my feet, where two large black beetles were fighting in the dust, head to head. Philip said, ‘How like our clients.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘They snap at each other, but each is protected by a carapace.’

‘But underneath there is softness, vulnerability, is there not? They are not hard right through.’

‘Beetles, no. But some humans, I wonder.’

‘After this morning, I would understand if you preferred not to come to dine tonight,’ he said quietly.

‘No, I will come.’ To refuse the invitation now struck me as ungentlemanly, cowardly, especially after the insults he had borne from my client. Obstinacy, too, would not allow me to let that poisonous woman determine whom I saw socially. ‘You said nothing actionable,’ I added reassuringly. ‘Only that you agreed with your preacher. Mistress Slanning was merely looking for a stick to beat you with.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘I must return to chambers now.’

‘And I have to visit a client near the river.’

As I rode away I could not help but wonder whether Coleswyn’s preacher had said something dangerous to the wrong person, or whether Isabel was merely repeating gossip. I reminded myself the man had only been investigated, not prosecuted.

I rode back to Lincoln’s Inn. Genesis trotted along slowly. I thought how with his increasingly bony face and stiff whiskers he was starting to resemble a little old man, though mercifully a good-natured one. I remembered Isabel and Edward shouting about the things they could say about each other. What had they meant? I recalled again what Isabel had said to me in chambers: ‘If you knew the terrible things my brother has done.’ And Vowell, the servant whom they had otherwise ignored, intervening as though to stop them saying too much. Edward had said his sister was not in her right wits, and neither sibling had seemed entirely sane that morning. I hoped my client could now be made to accept that she could not win her case, but I doubted it.

I half expected her to be at chambers when I arrived, ready for a fight, but all was quiet. Barak was making notes on some new cases to be heard at the Court of Requests when the Michaelmas term began in September.

‘What happened at the inspection?’ he asked eagerly.

‘The experts agreed that any attempt to remove the wall painting will make the plaster collapse.’

‘That’s it then? We’ll never have to see that woman’s sour face again?’

‘Oh, I think we will. She stormed out in high dudgeon; but somehow I suspect she’ll present herself here soon, probably today.’

Barak nodded to where Nicholas sat copying out a conveyance. ‘He has some news for you. Won’t tell me what it is. Been looking like the cat that got the cream.’