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take too little exercise
now. So many clerks these days have a pasty look.’ Wrenne looked at the empty plates. ‘I see my good Madge has fed you. Excellent.’ He moved over to the fire. The falcon turned to
him, a little bell tied to its foot jingling, and let him stroke its neck. ‘There, my old Octavia, hast tha kept warm?’ He turned to us with a smile. ‘This bird and I have hunted
around York through many a winter, but we are both too old now. Please, be seated again. I am sorry I cannot accommodate you while you are in the city.’ He eased himself into a chair, and
looked ruefully at the dusty furniture and books. ‘I fear since my poor wife died three years ago I have not kept up her standards of housekeeping. A man alone. I only keep Madge and a boy,
and Madge is getting old, she could not cater for three. But she was my wife’s maid.’
    So much for Barak’s theory about Madge, I thought. ‘We have accommodation at St Mary’s, but thank you.’
    ‘Yes.’ Wrenne smiled and rubbed his hands together. ‘And there will be much of interest to see there, the Progress in all its glory when it arrives. You will want to rest now.
I suggest you both come here at ten tomorrow morning, and we can spend the day working through the petitions.’
    ‘Very well. There seems to be much work going on at St Mary’s,’ I added.
    The old man nodded. ‘They say any number of wondrous buildings are being erected. And that Lucas Hourenbout is there, supervising it all.’
    ‘Hourenbout? The King’s Dutch artist?’
    Wrenne nodded, smiling. ‘They say the greatest designer in the land, after Holbein.’
    ‘So he is. I did not know he was here.’
    ‘It seems the place is being prepared for some great ceremony. I have not seen it, only those with business are allowed into St Mary’s. Some say the Queen is pregnant, and is to be
crowned here. But no one knows.’ He paused. ‘Have you heard anything?’
    ‘Only the same gossip.’ I remembered Cranmer’s annoyance when I had mentioned that rumour.
    ‘Ah well. We Yorkers will be told when it is good for us to know.’
    I looked at Wrenne sharply, detecting a note of bitterness under the bluffness. ‘Perhaps Queen Catherine will be crowned,’ I said. ‘After all, she’s lasted over a year
now.’ I made the remark deliberately; I wanted to establish that I was not one of those stiff-necked people in the royal employ that would talk of the King only with formal reverence.
    Wrenne smiled and nodded, getting the point. ‘Well, we shall have much work to do on the petitions. I am glad of your assistance. We have to weed out the silly fratches, like the man
disputing with the Council of the North over an inch of land, whose papers I read yesterday.’ He laughed. ‘But you will be familiar with such nonsense, brother.’
    ‘Indeed I am. Property law is my specialism.’
    ‘Ah! You will regret telling me that, sir.’ He winked at Barak. ‘For now I shall pass all the property cases to you. I shall keep the debts and the feuds with the lesser
officials.’
    ‘Are they all such matters?’ I asked.
    ‘For the most part.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I have been told the point is that the King must be seen to care for his northern subjects. The small matters will be arbitrated
by us under the King’s authority, the larger remitted to the King’s Council.’
    ‘How shall our arbitration be conducted?’
    ‘At informal hearings under delegated powers. I will be in charge, with you and a representative of the Council of the North sitting with me. Have you done arbitration work
before?’
    ‘Yes, I have. So the King will have no personal involvement with the small matters?’
    ‘None.’ He paused. ‘But we may meet him nonetheless.’
    Barak and I both sat up. ‘How, sir?’
    Wrenne inclined his head. ‘All the way from Lincoln, at the towns and other places along the road, the King has received the local gentry and city councillors in