I SAT IN MY ROOM in chambers, nursing a mug of small beer. I had been there for over an hour, trying to make sense of what Bealknap had said. Him, involved in all this? But how? He knew I once worked for the Queen, and must have heard the gossip that she was in trouble. But it was well known by everyone that I had stopped working for her a year ago. No, I thought, it is just that Bealknap knew that I had worked for Catherine Parr, knew she was in trouble as so many did, and hoped I might fall with her. I looked across the sunlit courtyard at the chamber where Bealknap lay. I would have to go over there again later, try to get more information from him. I shook my head. Vicious to the end. I thought of that great memorial Bealknap had planned; it would become a joke, a jest round Lincoln’s Inn. But he would not foresee that. He had always been blind in so many ways.

I heard the outer door of my chambers open, then close again. I had locked it when I came back; it must be Barak come in for something. I got up and opened the door. To my surprise I saw Nicholas taking papers from a table to his desk. His freckled face still looked tired, and there was a beer-stain on his robe. He stared at me.

‘Nicholas? Here on a Sunday?’

He looked a little shamefaced. ‘Some notes of cases came in yesterday from the Court of Requests, matters for the Michaelmas term. With your being busy, Barak asked me to summarize them. I was at the Inn for the service, and thought I might as well come in here and do some work.’ To my amusement he looked embarrassed at being caught out coming in to work extra hours. It did not fit with the image he liked to convey.

‘Nicholas,’ I said. ‘I was too sharp with you yesterday. You asked the apprentice Elias that question at the wrong time, and you must learn to judge more carefully. But – I should have made allowance for your youth, your inexperience. I apologize.’

He looked at me in surprise. ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Are you getting a taste for the law?’

‘I confess at first I found it – well – boring, but now – it seems less so. There are some matters I find interesting.’

‘Most of all if a hunt for a murderer is involved, eh?’

He smiled. ‘Does that not add some spice?’

‘That is one way of putting it. The law is seldom so exciting, as you know. But it is necessary to see all aspects of it if you are to return to Lincolnshire and help manage your father’s lands.’

The boy’s face fell, the first time I had seen him look sad. ‘I doubt I will go back, sir.’