‘No, I haven’t.’ Her voice rose. ‘Greek Fire, formulae, books, I don’t know what any of it means! God’s wounds, I don’t care either!’ Her voice rose to a shout and she covered her face with her hands. I picked up the bottle and wrapped it carefully in my handkerchief, then slipped it into my pocket, suppressing a momentary stab of fear that it might be Greek Fire itself, that it might explode into flames.
Goodwife Gristwood wiped her face and sat looking at the floor. When she spoke again it was in a cold whisper. ‘If you want to find who might have told the killers about my husband, you should go to her.’
‘Who?’
‘His whore.’ Barak and I looked at each other in surprise as she continued, her voice like a thin stream of icy water. ‘The woman that keeps the brewery told me in March she’d seen Michael in Southwark, going into one of the whorehouses. She enjoyed telling me too.’ She looked at me bitterly. ‘I asked him and he admitted it. He said he wouldn’t go again but I didn’t believe him. Some days he’d come home drunk, smelling like a stewhouse, goggle-eyed with sated lust.’
Barak laughed aloud at the words. Goodwife Gristwood rounded on him. ‘Shut up! You churl, laughing at a woman’s shame!’
‘Leave us,’ I told him curtly. For a moment I thought he would argue, but he shrugged and left. The goodwife looked up at me, her eyes fierce. ‘Michael was besotted with that vile tart. I raged and shouted at him but still he went to her.’ She bit her lip hard. ‘I’d always been able to manage him before, stop him getting too involved with mad schemes, but then Samuel came and between him and that whore I lost him.’ She looked again at the awful spray of blood then stared at me, her eyes fierce. ‘I asked him once if his lusts were all he cared about and he said the tart was kind to him and he could talk to her. Well, you talk to her, sir. Bathsheba Green at the Bishop’s Hat brothel at Bank End.’
‘I see.’
‘They do what they like over in Southwark, outside the City’s jurisdiction. This side of the river she’d have her cheeks branded, and I’d do it for them.’
Despite her vicious words I felt sorry for Jane Gristwood, alone now with nothing but this big decaying house. I wondered what she had felt for her husband. Something more than the contempt and bitterness she expressed, I was sure. Certainly she would make what trouble she could for the whore.
I looked into her eyes and again had the sense of something held back. I would return when I had found this Bathsheba Green.
‘Thank you, Goodwife Gristwood,’ I said. I bowed to her.
‘Is that all?’ She looked relieved.
‘For now.’
‘Talk to her,’ she repeated fiercely. Talk to her.’
As I WALKED DOWNSTAIRS I heard voices from the back regions; a man’s murmur then a woman’s sudden giggle. ‘Barak!’ I called sharply. He appeared, sucking an orange. ‘Susan gave me this,’ he said, tucking the half,eaten fruit away in his codpiece. ‘Fresh off the boat.’
‘We should go,’ I said curtly, leading the way outside. I blinked in the afternoon sun, bright after the gloomy house.
‘What did Madam Sourface have to say?’ Barak asked as we untied the horses.
‘More without you there baiting her. She told me Michael was seeing a whore. Bathsheba Green, of the Bishop’s Hat in Southwark.’
‘I know the Bishop’s Hat. It’s a rough place. I would have thought an Augmentations man could have afforded a better class of nip.’ We mounted the horses; I adjusted my cap so some shade might fall on my neck.
‘I was asking Susan about the family,’ Barak said as we rode away. ‘Goodwife Gristwood tried to rule the roost, but her husband and his brother paid little heed, apparently. They were thick as thieves. Both after a quick fortune, she said.’
‘Did she know of Michael’s dalliance at Southwark?’
‘Yes. Said it turned the goodwife bitter. But you could see that, pinched old raven.’
‘She’s lost her husband, has nothing in the world now except that ruin of a house.’
Barak grunted. ‘Apparently Gristwood married her for her money when she was nearly thirty. There was some scandal in her family, Susan didn’t know what.’
I turned to look at him. ‘Why do you dislike her so?’
He laughed, in a tone as bitter as Jane Gristwood’s own. ‘She reminds me of my mother, if you must know. The way she was after you for information about the house the moment we were in the door, and her husband lying in his gore upstairs. My ma was like that, married our lodger not a month after my father died. I quit the house then.’
‘A poor widow must look to her future.’
‘They do that all right.’ He pulled his horse a little ahead of me, ending the conversation, and we rode on in silence. I kept raising my hand to remove the sweat that was falling into my eyes. I was not used to criss-crossing London like this. The heat was baking the rubbish in the streets, releasing all its vile humours. Beneath my doublet my armpits were damp with sweat and my breeches felt as though they were stuck to Chancery’s saddle. This was a trial for him too: he was finding it hard to keep up with Barak’s mare. I resolved that in future we would travel by water when we could. It was all very well for Barak and his horse - each was a decade younger than Chancery and me.
By THE TIME we arrived back at Chancery Lane the sun was low. I told Joan to fetch us some food In my parlour I dropped grate, fully into my armchair; Barak collected some cushions together and sprawled inelegantly on the floor.
‘Well, where are we now?’ he asked. ‘This day’s nearly done. Then only ten more.’
‘We’ve had more new leads than answers so far. But that’s what I’d expect at the start of an investigation as complicated as this. We must visit that whore. And I think the goodwife is still holding something back. Is your man Smith staying with her?’
‘Till otherwise instructed.’ He retrieved his orange and sucked it noisily. ‘I told you she was a nasty old crow.’
‘It’s something to do with the apparatus. I don’t think they kept it in the house.’
‘Then where?’
‘I don’t know. Some warehouse? But there was nothing about any other property among their papers.’
‘You looked?’
‘Yes.’
I took the bottle from my pocket and handed it carefully to Barak. ‘There was a pool of this stuff on the floor. It’s almost colourless, has no smell, but if you taste it you get a kick like a mule.’
He unstoppered the bottle and sniffed the contents carefully, then put a little on his fingers. He touched it to his tongue and made a grimace, as I had. ‘Jesu, you’re right!’ he said. ‘It’s not Greek Fire, though. I told you, that had a fearsome stink.’
I took the bottle back, stoppered it and shook it gently, watching the colourless liquid swirl within. ‘I want to take this to Guy.’
‘So long as you’re careful what you tell him.’
‘God’s wounds, how many times do I have to tell you I will be?’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘As you will.’
‘What exactly did you get out of the two lawyers?’
‘Marchamount and Bealknap both insist they were just middlemen. I’m not sure about Bealknap. He’s involved with Richard Rich in some way, though I don’t know whether it relates to Greek Fire. Incidentally, he has dealings with foreign merchants, says he represents them in negotiations with the Custom House. I saw some papers on his desk. Lord Cromwell will have access to the records of trade. Could someone in his office check them? I’ve too little time.’
Barak nodded. ‘I’ll send a note. I’ve been trying to remember where I’ve seen that arsehole Bealknap’s face before, but it hasn’t come to me. It was a long time ago, I’m sure.’
There was a knock and Joan entered with a tray. She clucked at the dusty state of our clothes and I asked her to lay out new ones upstairs. I winced at a spasm from my back as I bent to pour some beer.
‘You shouldn’t overtire y
ourself, sir,’ she said.
‘I’ll be all right when I’ve had some rest.’
As she left us, we both took welcome draughts of beer.
‘The Duke of Norfolk was in a confident mood today,’ I said. ‘Baiting reformers at the lunch. A friend of mine baited him back, he’ll be in trouble now.’
‘I thought lawyers were all reformers.’
‘Not all. And they’ll turn to follow the wind, just like everyone else in London, if Cromwell falls. From fear and hope of advancement.’
‘We’ve so little time,’ Barak said. ‘Are you sure we need to go to Barty’s with that librarian tomorrow? I agree you need to talk to him, but you could see him at his chantry.’
‘No. I need to see the roots of this, to go back to where it all started. Tomorrow we’ll go to Barty’s, then to see Guy and to the whorehouse in Southwark to see if that girl has anything to say. I’ve my interview with the Wentworths as well.’ I sighed.
‘Ten days.’ He shook his head.
‘Barak,’ I said, ‘I may be a melancholy man, but you have all the marks of a sanguine humour. You would rush at things too much if it was left to you.’
‘We need this finished. And don’t forget how we were followed yesterday,’ he added gloomily. ‘We might be in danger too.’
‘I know that only too well.’ I stood up. ‘And now I am going to look at more of those old papers.’
I left him and went up to my bedroom, reflecting how I had felt afraid when I walked alone to the Inn earlier. I had to admit that when I was out I felt safer with Barak, the man of the streets, around. But I wished I did not have the necessity.
Chapter Fourteen
NEXT MORNING, the thirty,first of May, was hotter than ever. Again we left early on horseback; the way to St Bartholomew’s lay due northward so we could not use the river. The sun was. still low in the sky, turning a bank of thin cloud on the horizon to bright pink. Barak had gone out again the evening before and I had been asleep when he returned. At breakfast he seemed in a surly mood; perhaps he had a hangover, or a girl had sent him packing and dented his vanity. I packed a couple of the alchemical books into the battered old leather satchel my father had given me when first I came to London. I wanted Guy to look at them later.
The City was coming to life after the Sunday rest; shutters and shelves clattered as the shopkeepers made ready for the new week, shifting beggars from their doorways with curses. The homeless ones stumbled into the street, faces red and chapped with constant exposure to the sun. One, a little girl, almost stumbled into Chancery.
‘Careful there,’ I called.
‘Careful yourself, shitting hunchback bastard!’ Furious eyes stared at me from a filthy face, and I recognized the girl who had caused the commotion at the baker’s shop. I watched her limp away, dragging one leg. ‘Poor creature,’ I said. ‘When people say that beggars lick the sweat from the true labourers’ brows, I wonder if they think of waifs like that?’
‘Ay.’ Barak paused. ‘Did you manage to ferret any more out of those old papers last night?’
‘There is a lot about the Greek wars in those manuscripts. There was much trickery in them. Once, to deceive their opponents into thinking they had more troops than they did, Alexander tied torches to the tails of a flock of sheep. The Persians, looking at his camp at night, thought he had far more men than was true.’
Barak grunted. ‘Sounds like balls. The sheep would have bolted. Anyway, what’s that to do with our business?’
‘The story stuck in my head for some reason. There is reference as well to some sort of liquid being used in Rome’s wars in Babylonia. There are a few books on the Roman wars at Lincoln’s Inn; I’ll try to find them.’
‘So long as it doesn’t take too much time.’
‘Did you write to Lord Cromwell about Bealknap and the customs?’
‘Ay. And last night I tried to find some more about that man who followed us. No luck.’
‘We haven’t seen him again. Perhaps he’s given up.’
‘Maybe, but I’ll keep my eyes open.’
We passed a dead mastiff in an alleyway, its bloated carcass stinking to heaven. Why did people flock to the City, I wondered, to the ratlike scrabble for subsistence that so often ended in begging on the streets? The lure of money, I supposed; hopes of scraping a living and dreams of becoming rich.
St Sepulchre’s was one of a number of streets giving onto the wide open space of Smithfield. It was quiet this morning, for it was not one of the fair days when drovers brought hundreds of cattle in to market. To one side the hospital of St Bartholomew’s stood silent and empty behind its high wall, an Augmentations guard at the gate. When the monastery went down the year before, the patients had been turned out to fend for themselves as best they could; talk of a new hospital paid for by subscriptions from the rich had come to nothing yet.
The monastery itself stood at right angles to the hospital, its high buildings dominating the square, although some of those had gone now. Here too a guard stood outside the gatehouse. I saw workmen were bringing out boxes and stacking them against the wall, where a group of blue robed apprentices buzzed around them.
‘Can’t see Kytchyn anywhere,’ Barak said. ‘We’ll have to ask the guard.’
We rode across the open space, where paths led between clumps of scrubby grass. There was one large patch of earth where no grass grew and the earth was mixed with blackened cinders; the site where heretics were burned. I remembered Lord Cromwell once telling me he longed to burn a papist using his own images for fuel and two years ago he had: a wooden saint had fed the pyre when Father Forest was burned there, suspended above the fire in chains to prolong his agony before ten thousand spectators. Forest had denied the king’s supremacy over the Church, so legally he should have been executed as a traitor, not burned, but Cromwell could afford to ignore such niceties. I had not been there, but as I averted my eyes from the spot I could not help reflecting on that terrible death; the flames making the skin shrivel away, the blood beneath hissing as it dropped into the fire. I shook my head to clear it as I pulled Chancery to a halt before the gatehouse and dismounted.
I saw the boxes were full of bones, brown and ancient. A group of apprentices was delving inside them, casting pieces of tattered winding sheets onto the pavement, hauling out skulls and carefully scraping away the greenish moss that clung to some of them. The watchman, a huge fat fellow, watched indifferently. We tied the horses to a post. Barak went over to the watchman and nodded at the apprentices. ‘God’s teeth, what are they at?’
‘Scraping off the grave moss. Sir Richard is clearing out the monks’ graveyard.’ The big man shrugged. ‘The apothecaries say the moss on the skulls of the dead is good for the liver and they’ve sent their apprentices up here.’ He delved in his pocket and pulled out a little golden trinket in the shape of a crescent. ‘There’s some strange things buried with them - this monk had been on the Crusades.’ He winked. ‘My little bonus for letting the boys scavenge.’
‘We have business here,’ I said. ‘We are due to meet a Master Kytchyn.’
‘Lord Cromwell’s business,’ Barak added.
The doorman nodded. ‘The fellow you want is here already, I allowed him into the church.’ He studied us closely, eyes alert with curiosity.
I walked up to to the gateway. The guard hesitated a moment, then stepped aside and let us through.
The scene that met my eyes on the other side of the gatehouse made me stop dead. The nave of the great church had been pulled down, leaving only a gigantic pile of rubble from which spars of wood protruded. The north end of the church still stood and a huge wooden wall had been erected to seal it from the elements. Most of the neighbouring cloisters had been pulled down too, and the chapter house stripped of its lead. I could see beyond to the prior’s house, the fine dwelling Sir Richard Rich had bought. Washing hung from lines in the back garden and three little girls ran and played among the flapping sheets, oddly incongruous amid
the destruction. I had seen monastic houses brought down before - who had not in those days? - but not on this scale. A sinister quietness hung over the wreckage.
Barak laughed and scratched his head. ‘Not much left, is there?’
‘Where are the workmen?’ I asked.
‘They start late if it’s Augmentations work. They know it’s a good screw.
I followed Barak as he picked his way through the rubble towards a door in the wooden barrier. I had a lifetime’s contempt for these huge, rich monastic churches kept for the enjoyment of perhaps a dozen monks; when the purpose of the foundation was to serve a hospital the waste of resources seemed even more obscene. Yet as I followed Barak through the door, I had to admit that what was left of the interior of St Bartholomew’s Church was magnificent. The walls soared a hundred and fifty feet in a series of pillared arches, richly painted in greens and ochres, up to a row of stainedglass windows. Because of the wooden barrier at the south end, what remained of the interior was gloomy, but I could see that the niches where saints’ shrines had stood were empty now and that the side chapels had been stripped of all their images. Near the top of the church, however, one large canopied tomb remained. A candle burned before it, the only one in that building, which once would have been lit by thousands. A figure stood before the tomb, head bent. We walked towards him, our footsteps ringing on the tiled floor. I caught a faint tang in the air; the incense of centuries.
The figure turned as we drew near. A tall, thin man of about fifty in a white clerical cassock, a tangle of grey hair framing a long, anxious face. The look he gave us was wary and fearful. He leaned back as though wishing he might melt into the shadowed wall..
‘Master Kytchyn?’ I called.
‘Ay. Master Shardlake?’ His voice was unexpectedly high. He cast a nervous look at Barak, making me wonder if he had been rough with Kytchyn the day before.
‘I’m sorry about the candle, sir,’ he said quickly. ‘I - it was a moment of weakness, sir, when I saw our old founder’s tomb.’ He leaned forward quickly and pinched out the flame, wincing as the hot wax burned his fingers.