‘What’s your business?’ His accent showed him to be another man of the southern shires.

‘We are from London. We have business with Master Radwinter, the Archbishop’s gaoler.’

The guard gave me a keen look. ‘Go to the south tower, the other side of the bailey.’ As we went under the gate I turned and saw him staring after us.

‘This city’s nothing but walls and gates,’ Barak said as we came out into the bailey. Like the rest of the place it had seen far better days; a number of imposing buildings had been built against the interior of the high castle walls but like the keep many were streaked with lichen, gaps in the plaster. Even the courthouse, where more lawyers stood arguing on the steps, looked tumbledown. No wonder the King had chosen to stay at St Mary’s Abbey.

I saw something dangling from the high keep. A white skeleton, wrapped in heavy chains.

‘Another rebel,’ Barak said. ‘They like to drive the point home.’

‘No, that’s been there a long time, the bones are picked quite clean. I’d guess that’s Robert Aske, who led the Pilgrimage of Grace five years ago.’ I had heard he was hanged in chains. I shuddered, for that was a dreadful death, and pulled at Genesis’ reins. ‘Come, let’s find the gaoler.’

Another pair of towers flanked the opposite gateway. We rode across and dismounted. I was still stiff and tired despite the brief rest, though Barak seemed to have recovered his energy. I must do my back exercises tonight, I thought.

A guard approached, a fellow of my own age with a hard square face. I told him we had come from Archbishop Cranmer, to see Master Radwinter.

‘He was expecting you yesterday.’

‘So was everyone. We were delayed. Could you stable our horses? And give them some feed, they are sore tired and hungry.’

He called a second guard. I nodded to Barak. ‘Go with them. I think I’d best see him alone, this first time.’

Barak looked disappointed, but went off with the horses. The first guard led me to a door in the tower, unlocked it, and led me up a narrow spiral staircase lit by tiny arrow-slit windows. We climbed perhaps halfway up the tower, and I was panting by the time he halted before a stout wooden door. He knocked, and a voice called, ‘Come in.’ The guard opened the door, standing aside to let me enter, then closed it behind me. I heard his footsteps descending again.

The chamber was gloomy, more arrow-slit windows looking out across the city. The stone walls were bare, though scented rushes were scattered on the flagstones. A neatly made truckle bed stood against one wall, a table covered with papers against another. Beside it a man sat in a cushioned chair reading a book, a candle set on a little table beside him to augment the dim light. I had expected a gaoler’s slovenly dress but he wore a clean brown doublet and good woollen hose. He shut his book and rose with a smile, smoothly as a cat.

He was about forty. There was a pair of deep furrows in his cheeks; otherwise his features were regular, framed by a short beard, black like his hair but greying around the corners of his mouth. He was short, slim but strong-looking.

‘Master Shardlake,’ he said in a melodious voice with a slight Londoner’s burr, extending a hand. ‘Fulke Radwinter. I had expected you yesterday.’ He smiled, showing small white teeth, but his light-blue eyes were hard and sharp as ice. The hand that took mine was clean and dry, the nails filed. This was indeed no common gaoler.

‘Did the stairs tire you?’ he asked solicitously. ‘You seem to breathe a little heavily.’

‘We had to ride through the night, Master Radwinter.’ I spoke firmly, I needed to establish my authority. I felt inside my coat pocket. ‘I should show you the Archbishop’s seal.’ I passed it to him. He studied it a moment, then handed it back.

‘All in order,’ he said with another smile.

‘So, then. My lord Archbishop has written to you, told you I am to have oversight of the welfare of Sir Edward Broderick?’

‘Indeed.’ He shook his head. ‘Though really, there was no need. The Archbishop is a great and godly man, yet he can become – overanxious.’

‘Sir Edward is in good health, then?’

Radwinter inclined his head. ‘He had some rough treatment from the King’s interrogators when he was first taken. Before certain matters came to light, and it was decided to hale him to London. Most secret matters.’ He raised his eyebrows. He must know that the nature of those matters had been kept from me as it had from him; Cranmer would have told him in his letter.

‘So, then, he was tortured before you came.’

The gaoler nodded. ‘He is in some discomfort, but nothing can be done about that. Otherwise he keeps well enough. He will be in London soon. Then he will be in far greater discomfort. The King wants him questioned as soon as possible, but it is more important that it is done by the most skilled people, and they are in London.’

I had tried not to think of what must await the prisoner at the end of his journey. I suppressed a shudder.

‘Well, sir,’ Radwinter said cheerily. ‘Will you have some beer?’

‘Not now, thank you. I ought to see Sir Edward.’

He inclined his head again. ‘Of course. Let me get the keys.’ He went over to a chest and opened it. I glanced at the papers on his desk. Warrants and what looked like a sheet of notes in a small, round hand. His book, I saw, was a copy of Tyndale’s The Obedience of a Christian Man, a reformist text. The desk was set beside one of the narrow windows, giving a good view across the city. Glancing out, I saw many steeples and one larger church that had no roof, another dissolved monastery no doubt. Beyond lay marshland and then a lake. Looking directly down, I saw the moat ran broader on this side of the castle, a wide channel fringed thickly with reeds. People were moving about there, women with large baskets on their backs.

‘They are picking reeds to make rushlights.’ I started at Radwinter’s soft voice beside me. ‘And see there?’ He pointed down to where one woman was pulling at something on her leg. I heard, very faintly, a little cry of pain. Radwinter smiled. ‘They’re gathering the leeches that bite them, for the apothecaries.’

‘It must be a miserable occupation, standing deep in mud waiting for those things to bite.’

‘Their legs must be covered in little scars.’ He turned to me, his eyes looking into mine. ‘As the body of England is covered in the scars left by the great leech of Rome. Well, let us see our friend Broderick.’ He turned and crossed to the door. I took the candle from beside his chair before following him out.

RADWINTER CLATTERED RAPIDLY up the stairs to the next floor, halting before a stout door with a little barred window. He looked in, then unlocked the door and went inside. I followed.

The cell was small and dim, for there was but one tiny window, barred and unglassed, the open shutters letting in a cold breeze. The chill air smelled of damp and ordure, and the rushes beneath my shoes felt slimy. The clank of a chain made me turn to a corner of the room. A thin figure in a dirty white shirt lay on a wooden pallet.

‘A visitor for you, Broderick,’ Radwinter said. ‘From London.’ His voice kept its smooth, even tone.

The man sat up, his chains rattling, in a slow and painful way that made me think he must be old, but as I approached I saw the face beneath its coating of grime was young, a man in his twenties. He had thick, matted fair hair and an untidy growth of beard framing a long, narrow face that would have been handsome in normal circumstances. I thought he did not look dangerous, but as he studied me I started at the anger in his bloodshot eyes. I saw that a long length of chain, looped through manacles on both his wrists, was bolted into the wall beside the bed.

‘From London?’ The hoarse voice was that of a gentleman. ‘Are there to be more gropings with the poker, then?’