Heartstone by C. J. Sansom

angels and sovereigns from one pile to another and marking up a fat ledger.
    We descended a flight of stone stairs. There was a landing and then another flight, leading down into darkness. We were below street level. Alabaster was waiting on the landing, holding two horn lanterns with beeswax candles inside, which gave off a rich yellow light. I wondered how he had got there before us.
    â€˜Thank you, Alabaster,’ Mylling said. ‘We won’t be long.’ He turned to me. ‘This is not a place you’d want to spend too much time in.’
    The young clerk bowed, then walked away with quick, loping strides. Mylling took the lantern and handed one to me. ‘If you please, sir.’
    I followed him down ancient steps, carefully, for they were so old they were worn in the centre. At the bottom was an ancient Norman door set with studs of iron. ‘This was once where part of the royal treasure was kept,’ Mylling told me. ‘These parts date back to Norman times.’ He put his lantern on the floor, turned his key in the lock and heaved at the door. It creaked open loudly. It was enormously thick and heavy, and he needed both hands. Next to the door was half a flagstone. He nudged it into the doorway with his foot. ‘Just to be safe, sir. Careful of the steps inside.’
    As I descended after him into the pitch-black room, the smell of rot and damp made me gasp and almost retch. Mylling’s lantern showed a small, dimly lit chamber with a stone-flagged floor. Water dripped somewhere. The walls were furred with mould. Piles of ancient papers, some with red seals dangling from strips of coloured linen, were stacked on damp-looking shelves and on the old wooden chests that stood piled on top of each other.
    â€˜The old records room,’ Mylling said. ‘The work at Wards grows so fast, the storage space is all taken up so we have put papers about wards who have died, or grown up and sued out their livery, down here. And all the lunatic cases.’ He turned and looked at me, his face more lined and seamed than ever in the lamplight. ‘There’s no money in lunatics, you see.’
    I coughed at the foul air. ‘I see why you call it the Stinkroom.’
    â€˜No one can stay here for long - they start coughing and can’t breathe. I don’t like coming down here; I start to wheeze even in my own house in a damp winter. In a few years all these papers will be stuck together with mould. I tell them, but they don’t listen. Let’s get on, if we may. What date would this lunacy enquiry be, sir?’
    â€˜Fifteen twenty-six, I believe. The name is Ellen Fettiplace. From Sussex.’
    He looked at me keenly. ‘Is this another matter the Queen has an interest in?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Fifteen twenty-six. The King was still married to Catherine the Spaniard then. That caused some stir, his divorcing her to marry Anne Boleyn.’ He chuckled wheezily. ‘A few more divorces and executions since then, eh?’ He weaved his way through the chests to a far corner. ‘This is where the lunatics are kept,’ he said, stopping at a row of shelves piled with more damp-looking paper. He raised his lantern, and pulled out a stack. ‘Fifteen twenty-six.’ He laid them on the stone floor, bent down and riffled through them. After a while he looked up. ‘Nothing here for Fettiplace, sir.’
    â€˜Are you sure? No similar names?’
    â€˜No, sir. Are you sure you have the year right?’
    â€˜Try the years before and after.’
    Mylling rose slowly, wet marks from the floor on his hose, and returned to the stacks. As he ferreted through more papers, my nose and throat began to tingle. It was as though the furry, damp coating on the walls was starting to grow inside me. At least the clerk was thorough. He pulled out two more stacks and laid them on the floor, flicking through them with experienced fingers. I noticed a huge