Dissolution (Matthew Shardlake Mysteries) by C. J. Sansom Read Free Book Online Page A

thinned and we came to a country of tilled fields with, a little way ahead, the slope of the South Downs. We followed a pathway up the hillside, where stringy looking sheep grazed. At the top we saw, below us, the sea, rolling in slow grey waves. To our right a tidal river cut through the low hills, reaching the sea through a great swathe of marshland. Bordering the marsh was a small town, and a mile off stood a great complex of buildings in ancient yellow stone, dominated by a great Norman church almost as large as a cathedral and surrounded by a high enclosing wall.
     
    ‘The monastery of Scarnsea,’ I said.
     
    ‘ “The Lord has brought us safe through our tribulations,” ’ Mark quoted.
     
    ‘I think we have more of those ahead,’ I replied. We led the tired horses down the hill, just as a light snow began to blow in from the sea.
     

Chapter Four
     
    WE GUIDED THE HORSES carefully down the hill to where a road led into the town. They were nervous, shying away from the snowflakes brushing their faces. Happily, the snow stopped as we arrived.
     
    ‘Shall we call on the Justice?’ Mark asked.
     
    ‘No, we must reach the monastery today; if the snow starts again we could have to stay the night here.’
     
    We made our way down Scarnsea’s cobbled main street, where the top storeys of ancient houses overhung the road, keeping to one side to avoid the emptying of pisspots. We noticed that the plaster and timbers of many houses were decayed, and the shops seemed poor places. The few people about gave us incurious glances.
     
    We reached the town square. On three sides more dilapidated-looking houses stood, but the fourth consisted of a wide stone wharf. Once no doubt it had fronted the sea, but now it faced the mud and reeds of the marsh, sullen and desolate under the grey sky and giving off a mingled smell of salt and rot. A canal, large enough only for a small boat, had been cut through the mud and stretched in a long ribbon to the sea, a steely band a mile off. Out on the marsh we saw a train of donkeys roped together while a group of men shored up the canal bank with stones from panniers on the animals’ backs.
     
    There had evidently been recent entertainment, for on the far side of the square a little knot of women stood conversing by the town stocks, round which lay a mess of rotten fruit and vegetables. Sitting on a stool with her feet clamped in the stocks was a plump middle-aged woman of the poorer sort, her clothing a mess of burst eggs and pears. She wore a triangular cap with ‘S’ for ‘scold’ daubed on it. She looked cheerful enough now, as she took a cup of ale from one of the women, but her face was bruised and swollen and her blackened eyes half-shut. Seeing us, she raised her tankard and essayed a grin. A little group of giggling children ran into the square, carrying old rotten cabbages, but one of the women waved them off.
     
    ‘Go away,’ she called in an accent as thick and guttural as the villagers’ had been. ‘Goodwife Thomas has learnt her lesson and will give her husband peace. She’ll be let out in an hour. Enough!’
     
    The children retreated, calling insults from a safe distance.
     
    ‘They have mild enough ways down here, it seems,’ Mark observed. I nodded. In the London stocks it is common enough for sharp stones to be thrown, taking out teeth and eyes.
     
    We rode out of town towards the monastery. The road ran alongside the reeds and stagnant pools of the marsh. I marvelled that there were pathways through such a foul mire, but there must be or the men and animals we had seen could not have found their way.
     
    ‘Scarnsea was once a prosperous seaport,’ I observed. ‘That marshland has built up from silt and sand in a hundred years or so. No wonder the town is poor now; that canal would barely take a fishing boat.’
     
    ‘How do they live?’
     
    ‘Fishing and farming. Smuggling too, I daresay, from France. They’ll still have to pay their