Dark Fire

  He shrugged. ‘Insolent old Moor. God’s teeth, he’s an ugly creature.’

  ‘And you,’ I snapped, ‘you are what you call everyone else - an arsehole.’

  Barak only grinned.

  ‘Since you probably lost us Guy’s help in finding the founder, you can go up to the Guildhall and ask for details of all the founders they employ on the conduits. I am going to Wolf’s Lane to ask Goodwife Gristwood a few more questions. If Michael and Sepultus were visiting the founders, she must have known about it.’

  ‘I thought we were going across to Southwark to find the whore.’

  ‘I’ll meet you at the Steelyard steps in an hour and a half. Who knows, I may even have time to grab a pie from a stall.’ I wiped sweat from my brow, the heat of the afternoon was punishing. Barak hesitated and I wondered if he were going to argue: I felt so angry I would almost have welcomed it. But he only smiled, mounted his black-mare and cantered away.

  AS I RODE THROUGH the narrow streets to Queenhithe my anger ebbed. I found myself once more watching fearfully for dangerous movements in the shadows. The streets were empty, people indoors avoiding the heat if they could. I felt my cheek prickle with sunburn and pulled my cap lower. I jumped as a rat scurried from a doorway and ran down the street, hugging the wall.

  The Gristwoods’ house was unchanged, the split and broken front door still in place. I knocked, the sound echoing within. Jane Gristwood herself opened the door. She wore the same white coif and grey dress and there was a new unkemptness about her appearance; I saw food stains on the dress. She stared at me wearily.

  ‘You again?’

  ‘Yes, madam. May I come in?’

  She shrugged and held the door open. ‘That stupid girl Susan’s gone,’ she said.

  ‘Where’s the watchman?’

  ‘Drinking and farting in the kitchen.’ She led me past the ancient tapestry into the dowdy parlour and stood there waiting for me to speak.

  ‘Any more news on the house?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, it’s mine. I’ve seen Serjeant Marchamount’s lawyer.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘For what it’s worth. I’ll need to take in lodgers - a fine class of tenant I’ll get in this mouldy hole. He had my money, you know.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Michael. When we married he got a big dowry from my father, to get me off his hands. That’s all gone and this is how I’m left. He couldn’t even bring any decent furniture from the monasteries, just that ugly old wall hanging. Did you see that whore?’ she concluded bluntly.

  ‘Not yet. But I have a query, madam. I believe Sepultus may have worked with a founder in his recent experiments.’

  The frightened look that came into her face told me I had hit the mark. Her voice rose.

  ‘I’ve told you: I’d no interest in his mad doings beyond worrying he’d blow up the house. Why are you asking me these questions? I’m a poor widow alone!’

  ‘You are keeping something back, madam,’ I said. ‘I must know what it is.’

  But she had stopped listening. She was staring out at the garden, her eyes wide. ‘It’s him again,’ she whispered.

  I whirled round. A gate in the wall was open and a man was standing there. I dreaded seeing the pockmarked man but it was a stocky, dark-haired young fellow who stood there. Seeing us looking, he turned and fled. I stepped to the door, then paused. Even if I caught him, what then? He could overpower me easily. I turned back to Goodwife Gristwood. She had sat down at the table and was crying, her thin body wrenched with sobs. I waited until she calmed down.

  ‘You know who that man was, madam?’ I asked sternly.

  She raised a piteous face to me. ‘No! No! Why do you try to catch me in these coils? I saw him watching the house yesterday. He was there all afternoon, just watching, he near scared the wits from me. He’s one of the men who killed Michael, isn’t he?’

  ‘I don’t know, madam. But you should tell your watchman.’

  ‘This is punishment for my sin,’ she whispered. ‘God is punishing me.’

  ‘What sin?’ I asked sharply.

  She took a deep breath, then looked me hard in the eye. ‘When I was young, Master Shardlake, I was a plain girl. Plain, but full of base lusts and when I was fifteen I romped with an apprentice.’

  I had forgotten how coarse her tongue was.

  ‘I had a child.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I had to give him away and do hard penance, confessing my sin in church before the congregation, saying how unclean I was Sunday after Sunday. The old religion was no gentler than the new when it came to sins of the flesh.’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘I was thirty before I found anyone to marry me. Or rather, my father did. Father was a master carpenter and Michael advised him once over an unpaid debt. Michael had a few unpaid bills himself, he’d been involved in one of his crazy money-making schemes and my dowry saved him from the debtors’ prison.’ She sighed. ‘But God does not forget a sin, does he? He goes on punishing, punishing.’ She balled her work-roughened hands into fists.

  ‘The founder,’ I said.

  She sat there a few seconds more, her fists clenched. When she spoke again there was tense resolution in her voice.

  ‘They made me give my son away to the nuns at St Helen’s. The nuns wouldn’t let me near, but I bribed a washerwoman to give me news. When he was fourteen the nuns got him an apprenticeship as a founder.

  ‘And then, when he was free of the nuns, I made myself known to David. I’ve visited with him every week since then.’ She smiled then, a triumphant little smile.

  ‘And then Sepultus took house with you and was looking for a founder to help in his work?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I guessed.’

  ‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want David involved in this terrible thing.’

  ‘Madam, your son could be in danger if others know of his involvement. And he has nothing to fear if all he has been doing is honest work.’

  She half rose. ‘Danger? David in danger?’

  I nodded. ‘But if you tell me where he is, Lord Cromwell will protect him as he has you.’

  She spoke quickly. ‘His name is David Harper. It was my maiden name. He is junior to another man, Peter Leighton of Lothbury. It was Leighton that Sepultus worked with.’

  ‘Does Master Leighton work on repairing the conduits?’

  She looked at me sharply. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Another guess.’

  She stood up. ‘I’ll go to David now. Warn him. I’ll have to prepare him before he’ll see you—the founders are a close bunch.’

  ‘Very well, but I must see him and this man Leighton.’

  ‘Can I send word to you?’

  I nodded and gave her my address.

  ‘You will help us, sir?’ she asked tremulously, an anxious mother, all her harshness gone.

  ‘I will do all I can, I promise. And I will see that watchman of yours, make sure he stays alert. Take him to Lothbury with you. Keep all your doors locked.’ I remembered the crossbow. ‘And shutter the windows.’

  ‘But it’s so hot—’

  ‘It would be safer.’ Pockface and now this young man; I remembered the two sets of bloody footsteps. I had known there were two of them.

  Chapter Seventeen

  IT WAS A RELIEF TO reach the river stairs. The tide was full, temporarily drowning the stinking mud, and a welcome breeze came off the river. There was no sign of Barak, so I left Chancery at the stables and stood looking at the high warehouses of the merchants of the Hanseatic League, for whom Brother Bealknap acted. The ancient privileges to trade with Baltic ports of these German merchants were increasingly flouted by English merchant adventurers, such as the one who had brought the strange drink from the far reaches of that cold sea. Bealknap could have known about the Polish stuff from his mercantile contacts, it could have been through him that it came to the Gristwoods.

  I hitched my satc
hel over my shoulder. The river was crowded, not only with passengers going up and down and across to Southwark but with people of the wealthier sort who had hired tilt boats to ride upon the water and enjoy the breeze. Everywhere brightly coloured sails passed to and fro. I glanced over them, wondering if Lady Honor and her maids might be among them.

  There was a touch at my shoulder; I turned to see Barak there.

  ‘Did you find anything at the Guildhall?’ I asked curtly, for I was still annoyed by his treatment of Guy.

  ‘Ay, I got a list of names of founders who work on the conduit.’ He looked shamefaced and I wondered whether he was beginning to realize that his rough ways with people were not suited to the delicacy of this investigation.

  ‘And I was able to get the information I needed from Goodwife Gristwood.’ I told him all she had said. He passed me the list and I nodded. Peter Leighton’s name was prominent.

  ‘Good, that’s useful. It confirms we’re on the right track.’

  ‘I called in at the Old Barge, too,’ Barak said. ‘I’ve asked for any messages to be sent both there and to your house. There’s a note from Cromwell’s clerk. Bealknap does do a little work for the Hanse merchants and also some French ones—routine stuff declaring imports at the Custom House.’

  ‘I wonder how much he rakes off.’

  ‘The link with the French is dangerous.’ He looked at me seriously. ‘Imagine French fireships sailing up the Thames.’

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘I’ve remembered where I saw Bealknap before, by the way.’

  I looked at him with interest. ‘Where?’

  ‘Remember I told you the man my mother married after my father died was a law clerk? He was one of friend Bealknap’s compurgators. I remember Bealknap coming to the house and telling him to pretend he knew some rogue who’d pleaded his clerkship at the assizes and been locked up in the bishop’s palace.’

  ‘You remember that clearly?’ I asked eagerly. ‘Clearly enough to swear in court?’

  ‘Ay, now my memory’s been jogged.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Ten perhaps.’

  I stroked my chin. ‘Then a court might not accept your evidence. Are you still in touch with your mother and stepfather?’

  ‘No.’ Barak reddened and his lips set. ‘I haven’t seen them in years.’ The corners of his wide mouth, usually upturned ready for mockery, were pushed down.

  ‘Even so, this gives us a hold over the rogue. Well done.’ I studied him to see how he would react to words of praise such as an employer might use to an employee, but he only nodded. I decided to venture further. ‘You know I visited the Wentworths earlier?’

  ‘Ay.’

  ‘Are you any good at picking locks?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Passing fair.’

  ‘I thought you might be.’ I told him what had passed at Sir Edwin’s. He whistled when I told him of the stink coming from the well.

  ‘I want us to break into the garden at night and get those locks off. Then I’d like you to climb down and take a look. We’ll need a rope ladder.’

  He laughed. ‘God’s death, you don’t ask much, do you?’

  ‘Less than the earl has asked of me. Well? It was part of the bargain, Barak, that you’d help me with the Wentworths.’

  ‘All right. I owe you a favour; I suppose I put you out of sorts with your friend.’ I realized this was the nearest he would come to an apology.

  Just then a wherry with a canopy pulled up at the wharf, depositing a pair of well-dressed Flemish merchants on the steps. Barak and I took their places and the boatman pulled away. It was pleasant to be out on the smooth brown water. I watched the stately swans bobbing by the banks. Shouts of laughter came from the tilt boats around us and the gulls cried overhead.

  ‘You’ve got your case against Bealknap tomorrow, haven’t you?’ Barak asked.

  ‘Don’t remind me. I’ll have to spend tonight preparing. But it will be a chance to quiz him again.’

  ‘These serjeants, like Marchamount, what does their rank signify?’

  ‘Only serjeants have the right to be heard in the Court of Common Pleas. There aren’t many, they’re appointed by the Crown and the other judges. The judges themselves are always appointed from the Serjeancy.’

  ‘You ever been considered for it?’

  I shrugged. ‘These things are all decided by murmurings behind the scenes.’

  I jumped at the sudden, piercing sound of a trumpet. The boats in the middle of the river rowed frantically out of the way as an enormous canopied barge painted in bright gold appeared, a dozen oarsmen in the king’s livery making rapid sweeps through the water in time to the beating of a drum. Our little wherry bobbed wildly in the royal barge’s wake as, like everyone else in the boats, we doffed our caps and bowed our heads. The king’s canopy was drawn shut, protecting him from the sun. I wondered if Cromwell was in there with him, or perhaps Catherine Howard. The barge swept upriver to Whitehall.

  The boatman spoke. ‘They say if Queen Anne goes down there’ll be more religious changes.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I replied noncommittally.

  ‘It’s hard for common folk to keep track of it all.’ He lowered his head to the oars.

  THE WHERRY DROPPED US at St Mary Overy steps on the Southwark side. I followed Barak up to the wharf. Winchester Palace came into view as we mounted the slippery stairs. I paused a moment to catch my breath and looked at the facade of the forbidding Norman building, the glass in its enormous rose window glinting in the midday sun. The Bishop of Winchester owned most of Southwark, including the brothels; the palace was his London residence and the king was said to have dined there with Catherine Howard many times that spring. I wondered what plots against Cromwell had been hatched within its walls.

  Barak made off along the side of the high palace wall towards the warren of poor houses that lay to the east. I followed.

  ‘Have you visited Southwark before?’ he asked me.

  ‘No.’ I had travelled the main road to Surrey many times but never ventured into the streets beyond, haunts of whores and criminals. Barak walked along confidently. He favoured me with one of his mocking grins.

  ‘Ever been to a whorehouse?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said shortly. ‘But a better class of one.’

  ‘Ah, with gardens and shady nooks?’

  ‘When I was a student and knew no better.’

  ‘The Winchester geese can be shy birds if they think you’re anything official. If we let out even a hint we’re on any business other than trugging before we’re well inside they’ll fly off down the alleys faster than you could believe. You need to follow my lead here.’ He looked at me seriously.

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Take off your robe - it’ll scare them. We’ll pretend we’re customers, all right? I’m your servant that’s brought you over the river for a bit of fun. The madam will invite us to have a drink with the whores; if she offers you food, take it, no matter how much it costs. It’s one way they make money if the whores are cheap, which these will be.’

  I took off my robe and stuffed it in my satchel. It was a relief to be rid of it.

  ‘When we’re inside I’ll ask for Bathsheba Green, say she’s been recommended, then you get her alone and question her. I wouldn’t get too familiar, though. These houses are famous for the French pox.’

  ‘How do you know she’s there?’

  ‘I’ve contacts among the street urchins, I’ve paid them to watch a house for me before.’ He smiled and lowered his voice. ‘A member of the conservative faction, a most holy cleric, used to frequent one of the boy-houses down here. That information was very useful to my master.’

  I shook my head. ‘Is there nothing he won’t do?’

  ‘Not much. The lads know Bathsheba’s working times—she’ll be there this afternoon.’

  We passed into a warren of small timber-framed houses, the unpaved lanes stinking with refuse, among which pi
gs and skinny dogs grubbed for food. The cloying stink of the Southwark tanneries rose in the hot air. In accordance with the Southwark regulations all the brothels were painted white, standing out against the dingy plaster of the other houses. Each had a sign with a lewd reference outside the door, a naked Adam and Eve or a bed or a nightshirt. We stopped before a poor-looking house where the paint was flaking, a bishop’s hat crudely painted on the sign outside. Shutters were drawn over the windows. I heard a raucous burst of male laughter from within. Kicking away a couple of hens rooting outside, Barak knocked confidently on the door.

  It was opened by a middle-aged woman. She was short and stocky, with a square ugly face surrounded by curly red hair. She had been branded as a whore in London at some point for a dark ‘W’ stood out on her white cheek. She looked at us suspiciously.

  ‘Good day, Mistress.’ Barak smiled. ‘I’ve brought my master over from the City, he’s a taste for a quiet house.’

  She looked me over, then nodded. ‘Come in.’

  We followed her into a dark room that was even hotter than the street, with a fug of unwashed bodies and cheap tallow candles barely disguised by the cheap incense burning in a corner. The smoky candles lit a table where two middle-aged men sat, shopkeepers by the look of them. One was fat and merry-looking, the other thin and ill at ease. They nodded to us. A pippin pie was set on the table and the men had plates of food before them. A whore sat beside each, a buxom creature for the fat man and a nervous-looking girl of about sixteen for the other. Both women had opened their bodices so their breasts spilled out. Sitting thus at table, they looked bizarre rather than erotic.

  The madam indicated a cupboard, where a thin boy in a greasy jerkin stood by a jar of beer. ‘Will you eat with us, sir?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  She nodded to the boy, who poured two mugs of beer and set them on the table. The plump whore leaned across and whispered something in her client’s ear, making him laugh throatily.

  ‘Half a groat each that’ll be, sirs,’ the madam said. I passed across the money. She peered closely at the coins before slipping them into a purse at her belt and smiling at us, a red slash in her face, showing decayed teeth.