Toby opened confidently, ‘My evidence, Captain Kett, is simple. On the eighteenth of July, I was at the crest of the escarpment the day that crooked lawyer, Robert Wharton, was taken down to Norwich. Overton, whom I knew as a great enemy of the Commonwealth, said, at the top of the road going down to Norwich, that Robert Wharton should be freed, Captain Kett imprisoned, and the camp is a commonwealth of rogues.’
There were angry murmurs from the crowd. Kett called for silence, and turned to Nicholas. ‘What say you?’
Nicholas faced the hostile crowd directly. I admired his courage. ‘I never said any of those words. When we worked together, Toby Lockswood formed a fierce dislike of me, and this is his revenge.’
Kett intervened sharply, ‘The issue here is not whether you and Lockswood disliked each other, but whether you used the words you are accused of.’
‘Again, I swear I did not.’
Toby bowed briefly, then said, ‘May I bring forward my witnesses?’ Kett nodded, and I exchanged a glance with Barak. He winked; while Nicholas was imprisoned he had been making his own enquiries around the camp.
The first witness, who had been standing nearby, was an elderly peddler, Goodman Hodge. He often visited the camp with his donkey, and, like many peddlers, was a source of information and gossip about events beyond Norwich. He stepped forward and looked at Kett, then Nicholas, a little uneasily. Then he said, ‘I was standing near the accused when he used those words. I heard him clear.’
Nicholas asked, civilly, ‘Goodman Hodge, you say you heard me say what Goodman Lockswood reported.’
Hodge glanced at Kett. His demeanour was shifty now, which Kett could not fail to notice. ‘Yes,’ Hodge answered. ‘As wicked words as ever I heard.’
‘You remember what was happening in the camp that day?’
‘Yes. That man, Wharton, was being led down the hill. There was great anger towards him. You and Toby Lockswood were standing at the top of the road. I remember it well.’
‘Where were you, when you heard the words?’
‘Under a tree, for the shade – it was a powerful hot day.’
Nicholas said, still in a pleasant tone, ‘As is common knowledge, nearly all the trees on the escarpment have been cut down, to provide wood and give a clear view of Norwich. There is only one large one left. I have sheltered under it myself.’
‘Yes,’ Hodge agreed.
‘The distance between the tree and the path to Norwich is at least a hundred feet. I will be happy to measure it out before Captain Kett. At that distance you could not possibly hear anything I said to Toby Lockswood.’
‘You were shouting!’
Nicholas laughed. ‘To hear me from that distance, amid the commotion that was going on, I should have had to have used a trumpet!’
Some in the crowd laughed; they liked humour.
Hodge made no reply. Nicholas waited a minute, then asked for the witness to be dismissed. Hodge gratefully disappeared into the crowd. Toby glared at us.
Wallace, the second witness, was very different, a large, solid middle-aged man. He took a confident stance, arms folded, and in answer to a question from Toby said he had been standing near them and heard the words Nicholas was reported as saying. Nicholas then asked, ‘What exactly did you hear?’
‘What you said, gemmun, at the crest of the hill as Wharton was being led down. I was not ten feet away. You said, clear as day, that Robert Wharton should be freed, Captain Kett imprisoned, and that we are a commonwealth of rogues!’
There were boos from the crowd. Nicholas turned to Kett, and asked quietly, ‘May I ask, Captain Kett, that Goodman Wallace remain where he is while I call my witnesses, Edward Bishop and Thomas Smith, of Tunstead?’
Kett nodded, and Nicholas waved to two men. As they stepped forward, Wallace looked uneasy. Nicholas said, ‘I am told you come from the same parish as Goodman Wallace.’
‘I do.’
‘You remember the eighteenth of July?’
‘Yes,’ Goodman Bishop replied. ‘We was working over towards Thorpe Wood, building a new pen for some of the pigs. I remember the day because that evening there was much talk about what had happened to Wharton in the afternoon.’
Smith nodded agreement, then turned and pointed a finger at Wallace. ‘He was with us all day, the job took that long. Not least since Biller Wallace is the laziest man in our parish, and did not half the work we did. We was jowered out by the end of the day, but not him.’
There was laughter from the crowd. The fact that two others had been present with Wallace at the pig-pen a mile away clearly showed him to be a liar. Wallace clenched his fists and shifted angrily. ‘Those fools have the day wrong, it was the day before that we worked with the pigs.’
Nicholas said, an edge to his voice now, ‘If it was the day before, why would Goodmen Bishop and Smith remember the talk about Robert Wharton that day?’
‘I don’t know,’ Wallace answered belligerently. ‘Ted Bishop’s always had no more sense than a May gosling, and Tom Smith’s not much better!’
Bishop snapped at him, ‘At least I tell God’s truth under oath, as a good Christian should, and do a fair job of work without making a tutter of it!’
At this there was more laughter; the mood of the crowd had clearly swung in Nicholas’s favour. The fact that he had spoken to the commoner witnesses civilly probably also helped. Toby Lockswood looked round, furious. I guessed he was a man who would hate being laughed at above all else.
Nicholas turned and bowed to Kett. ‘That is all my evidence, Captain. I submit myself to the judgement of the camp.’
Then Toby Lockswood lost his temper. He pointed a finger at Nicholas and shouted, ‘Overton spoke against the Commonwealth and the rebellion many times in the early days. He is only allowed in the camp because of his connection to Serjeant Shardlake. I say that being a gentleman is itself enough to send him back to prison!’ There were a few cheers and claps, but most remained silent.
Nicholas’s face first paled, then turned as red as his hair. He stepped forward and spoke to the crowd, raising an arm. ‘Yes! I was born a gentleman, but I was disinherited. I have no lands, no tenants, I am but a junior lawyer. It is true I came to Norfolk believing gentlemen were born to rule and be obeyed, but now – having seen how this camp has been organized, and witnessed a royal army, which I was brought up to believe would be skilled and honourable, run like so many sheep, I no longer know what I think. But I swore to Master Shardlake I would cause no trouble in the camp, and nor have I. Imprison me for having the birth and education of a gentleman, if you like. I cannot help that.’ He paused for breath, then, in his turn, pointed a long finger at Toby Lockswood. ‘One thing I am not is a liar, nor a man who garners his hatreds as a squirrel hoards nuts! Is that to be Toby Lockswood’s Commonwealth, where men abuse their power to hurt others? Is that not what you are all trying to change?’
For a moment the crowd was silent. Then Toby shouted back, ‘We will have an end of all such men as you!’
Robert Kett banged on his desk, making everyone jump. He stood up and shouted at Toby, in a voice far louder than either Lockswood or Nicholas could have managed, ‘I trusted you, Lockswood, as a man who would help our fight for justice. But the boy is right, we will not win a better world with lies, and lies you have told! You are no fit man to help build a just Commonwealth! I revoke your authority as a liaison officer.’ Toby took a step back, shocked. Kett turned to the crowd. ‘Well, is Nicholas Overton guilty or innocent of the charges brought against him?’
A few called ‘Guilty’ but far more shouted ‘Innocent!’ And then, ‘Set him free!’ My biggest worry had been that Nicholas might have been unable to win over the crowd, but he had done it, and beautifully. Kett turned to him. ‘Master Overton, you are found innocent. I give you the choice of staying in the camp, or leaving it in peace if you prefer.’
Nicholas looked at Barak and me. Then he said, ‘If you permit, Captain Kett, I will stay with my friends.’
Toby pointed at Nicholas again, and yelled, ‘This is not over. None of it is over.’ I was reminded of Michael Vowell saying he wondered whether Toby was entirely in his right mind. Then Toby turned and pushed his way through the crowd. Most edged away from him. Nicholas walked, a little shakily, to where Barak and I stood. Kett took a deep breath, then waved to me. ‘Come up here, Master Shardlake, and be my guide on the law as we try the next cases. The looters and the thief,’ he added distastefully.
*
AFTER THE DRAMA of Nicholas’s trial, those that followed were an anti-climax, at least for me. Half a dozen alleged looters, denounced by their fellow-men, were brought forward. There was anger against them, not for stealing from the Norwich gentlemen, but for defrauding the common treasury in Surrey Place. Goods found in their huts were brought forward in evidence, gold and silver plates and vases, expensive jewellery, gold coins. All but two were found guilty by their fellows.
There remained only the thief who had stolen from his fellow camp-men. He was a pathetic figure, a thin, ragged middle-aged fellow with the red, broken-veined face of a drinker. His accuser, one of the Hundred representatives, said he was one of those who had come up from Norwich and attached himself to the camp, and that since his arrival ten days ago, several items had gone missing from neighbouring huts. A search of his hut had revealed stolen goods buried under the earthen floor. The evidence was brought up to the table, in a large leather bag which the accuser emptied. I looked at a little pile of goods of small value – a battered New Testament, a few silver coins, a necklace of cheap stones, rings and little brooches of poor gold. Those objects, though, would have great sentimental value for those who had brought them to Mousehold.
The man, whose name was Dorton, spoke in a voice which cracked slightly. ‘I’m guilty, Captain Kett, there’s no use pretending. I’m a bezzler and a sinner. But I’m a poor man with nobody in the world, and Christ our Lord forgave even the worst of men, did he not?’
Kett said to me quietly, ‘I think this confession settles matters, Master Shardlake?’ I nodded. He turned to Dorton. ‘I hope Christ may forgive you, but a poor man should not rob other poor men. The law of the country would have you hanged, but we are more merciful. You will leave the camp at once, and never return.’
I hardly heard Kett administer the sentence for, poking through the little collection of stolen goods, my eye was suddenly caught by the bright glint of pure gold. It was a woman’s wedding band, and an expensive one. I picked it up and looked at the inner side, screwing up my eyes to make out the inscription running round the ring. Then I froze. The tiny letters read: John Boleyn, 1530, Edith Reynolds. I was holding Edith’s wedding ring, that had been missing from her arthritic finger when she had visited the Lady Elizabeth. And now here it was, amidst a collection of cheap goods stolen in the Mousehold camp.