Sovereign
Authors: C. J. Sansom
Praise for
S
OVEREIGN
‘Don’t open this book if you have anything urgent pending. Its grip is so compulsive that, until you reach its final page, you’ll have to
be almost physically prised away from it.
[Sovereign]
pulls you, like its predecessors, into a tortuous world of Tudor terror . . . Exceptionally gifted at recreating the look, sound and
smell of the period, Sansom also excels at capturing its moral and intellectual climate . . . his remarkable talents really blaze out’
Sunday Times
‘Sansom is excellent on contemporary horrors. This is no herbs-and-frocks version of Tudor England, but a remorseless portrait of a violent, partly
lawless country . . . You can lose yourself in this world’
Independent
‘I have enjoyed C.J. Sansom’s series of historical novels set in Tudor England progressively more and more . . . Sansom has the perfect mixture
of novelistic passion and historical detail’
A
NTONIA
F
RASER
,
Sunday Telegraph
Books of the Year
‘A devilishly ingenious whodunnit . . . Sansom’s description of the brutality of Tudor life is strong stuff, but he is a master
storyteller’
Guardian
‘Sansom’s plot . . . build[s] up to a genuine horror and a devastating revelation based on impressive historical research . . . The series is
becoming an annual treat . . . The vigorous, well-drawn characters and their flawed moral intelligence are especially enjoyable, and a reminder of much that is lacking in current literary fiction.
As political greed continues to torment the innocent under the guise of religion, this gripping and engaging series seems ominously prescient about the present, as well as genuinely enlightening
about the past’
Independent on Sunday
‘A sure-paced, compelling story, blending harsh truths about the Henrician regime with some tenderly imagined details about the world that it
destroyed’
Times Literary Supplement
‘A compelling read, vividly capturing the atmosphere of constant fear, as religious fervour and political ambition are expressed in cruelty and
corruption’
Sunday Telegraph
‘A brilliant evocation of tyranny in Tudor England’
Literary Review
‘Both marvellously exciting to read and a totally convincing evocation of England in the reign of Henry VIII’
P
HILIP
Z
IEGLER
,
Spectator
Books of the Year
C. J. S
ANSOM
was educated at Birmingham University, where he took a BA and then a PhD in history. After working in a variety of
jobs, he retrained as a solicitor and practised in Sussex, until becoming a full-time writer.
Sovereign
is the third novel in his acclaimed Shardlake series and his stand-alone thriller,
Winter in Madrid,
was a top 5 bestseller. He lives in Sussex.
Also by C.J. Sansom
WINTER IN MADRID
The Shardlake series
DISSOLUTION
DARK FIRE
First published 2006 by Macmillan
This edition published 2007 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2008 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Rd, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-330-48053-6 in Adobe Reader format
ISBN 978-0-330-48051-2 in Adobe Digital Editions format
ISBN 978-0-330-48058-1 in Mobipocket format
Copyright © C. J. Sansom 2006
The right of C. J. Sansom to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic,
digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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To P. D. James
Chapter One
I
T WAS DARK UNDER
the trees, only a little moonlight penetrating the half-bare branches. The ground was thick with fallen
leaves; the horses’ hooves made little sound and it was hard to tell whether we were still on the road. A wretched track, Barak had called it earlier, grumbling yet again about the wildness
of this barbarian land I had brought him to. I had not replied for I was bone-tired, my poor back sore and my legs in their heavy riding boots as stiff as boards. I was worried, too, for the
strange mission that now lay close ahead was weighing on my mind. I lifted a hand from the reins and felt in my coat pocket for the Archbishop’s seal, fingering it like a talisman and
remembering Cranmer’s promise: ‘This will be safe enough, there will be no danger.’
I had left much care behind me as well, for six days before I had buried my father in Lichfield. Barak and I had had five days’ hard riding northwards since then, the roads in a bad state
after that wet summer of 1541. We rode into wild country where many villages still consisted of the old longhouses, people and cattle crammed together in hovels of thatch and sod. We left the Great
North Road that afternoon at Flaxby. Barak wanted to rest the night at an inn, but I insisted we ride on, even if it took all night. I reminded him we were late, tomorrow would be the twelfth of
September and we must reach our destination well before the King arrived.
The road, though, had soon turned to mud, and as night fell we had left it for a drier track that veered to the northeast, through thick woodland and bare fields where pigs rooted among the
patches of yellow stubble.
The woodland turned to forest and for hours now we had been picking our way through it. We lost the main track once and it was the Devil’s own job to find it again in the dark. All was
silent save for the whisper of fallen leaves and an occasional clatter of brushwood as a boar or wildcat fled from us. The horses, laden with panniers containing our clothes and other necessities,
were as exhausted as Barak and I. I could feel Genesis’ tiredness and Sukey, Barak’s normally energetic mare, was content to follow his slow pace.
‘We’re lost,’ he grumbled.
‘They said at the inn to follow the main path south through the forest. Anyway, it must be daylight soon,’ I said. ‘Then we’ll see where we are.’
Barak grunted wearily. ‘Feels like we’ve ridden to Scotland. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get taken for ransom.’ I did not reply, tired at his complaining, and we
plodded on silently.
My mind went back to my father’s funeral the week before. The little group of people round the grave, the coffin lowered into the earth. My cousin Bess, who had found him dead in his bed
when she brought him a parcel of food.
‘I wish I had known how ill he was,’ I told her when we returned to the farm afterwards. ‘It should have been me that looked after him.’
She shook her head wearily. ‘You were far away in London and we’d not seen you for over a year.’ Her eyes had an accusing look.
‘I have had difficult times of my own, Bess. But I would have come.’
She sighed. ‘It was old William Poer dying last autumn undid him. They’d wrestled to get a profit from the farm these last few years and he seemed to give up.’ She paused.
‘I said he should contact you, but he wouldn’t. God sends us hard trials. The droughts last summer, now the floods this year. I think he was ashamed of the money troubles he’d got
into. Then the fever took him.’