Free Lamentation (The Shardlake Series Book 6) by C. J. Sansom Page A

follow. Quietly, in a strangely toneless voice, he said, ‘There he is. The great Henry. I never thought the day would come when I would pity him.’
    ‘Cannot he walk unaided at all?’ I whispered.
    ‘A mere few paces. A little more on a good day. His legs are a mass of ulcers and swollen veins. He rots as he goes. He has to be carried round the palace in a wheeled chair sometimes.’
    ‘What do his doctors say?’ I spoke nervously, remembering it was treason to foretell the death of the King.
    ‘He was very ill in March, the doctors thought he would die, and yet, somehow, he survived. But they say another fever, or the closing of his large ulcer – ’ Lord Parr looked round. ‘The King is dying. His doctors know it. So does everyone at court. And so does he. Though of course he will not admit it.’
    ‘Dear God.’
    ‘He is in near-constant pain, his eyes are bad, and he will not moderate his appetite; he says he is always hungry. Eating is the only pleasure he has left.’ He gave me a direct look. ‘The only pleasure,’ he repeated. ‘It has been for some time. Apart from a little riding, and that grows more difficult.’ Still speaking softly, and watching lest someone come, he said, ‘And Prince Edward is not yet nine. The council think of only one thing – who will have the rule when the time comes? The kites are circling, Serjeant Shardlake. That you should know. Now come, before someone sees us by this window.’
    He led me on, round a little bend to another guarded door. A low hubbub of voices could be heard from within. From behind, through that open window, I heard a little cry of pain.

Chapter Five
     
    T HE GUARD ON DUTY recognized Lord Parr and opened the door for him. I knew that the Royal Apartments were organized on the same principle in each palace: a series of chambers, with access to each more and more restricted as one approached the King’s and Queen’s personal rooms at the heart. The King’s Presence Chamber was the most colourfully extravagant room yet in its decoration; one wall was covered with a tapestry of the Annunciation of the Virgin, in which all the figures were dressed in Roman costume, the colours so bright they almost hurt my eyes.
    The room was full of young courtiers, as Parr had predicted. They stood talking in groups, leaning against the walls; some even sat at a trestle table playing cards. Having got this far through bribery or connections, they would probably stay all day. They looked up at us, their satin sleeves shimmering in the bright light from the windows. A little man dressed in a green hooded gown entered behind me and crossed the room. Small, sad-faced, and hunchbacked like me, I recognized the King’s fool, Will Somers, from the painting in the Guard Chamber. His little monkey sat on his shoulder, picking nits from its master’s brown hair. The courtiers watched as he walked confidently across to one of two inner doors and was allowed through.
    ‘Sent for to cheer the King with his jests when he returns from that painful walk, no doubt,’ Lord Parr said sadly. ‘We go through the other door, to the Queen’s Presence Chamber.’
    One of the young men detached himself from the wall and approached us, removing his cap and bowing deeply. ‘My Lord Parr, I am related to the Queen’s cousins, the Throckmortons. I wondered if there may be a place for my sister as a maid of honour—’
    ‘Not now.’ Lord Parr waved him away brusquely, as we approached the door to the Queen’s Presence Chamber. Again the guard allowed us through with a bow.
    We were in another, slightly smaller version of the Presence Chamber, a group of tapestries representing the birth of Christ decorating the walls. There were only a few young would-be courtiers here, and several Yeomen of the Guard, all wearing the Queen’s badge. The supplicants turned eagerly when Lord Parr came in, but he frowned and shook his head.
    He led me to a group of half a dozen richly dressed ladies