Dark Fire

  ‘Not always as much as I should.’ She was silent a moment. ‘I hear a friend of yours gave the Duke of Norfolk some hard words yesterday. He must be very brave or very foolish.’

  ‘How did you hear that?’

  She smiled. ‘I have my sources.’ Probably Marchamount, I thought. She liked to be mysterious, it seemed.

  ‘Perhaps both brave and foolish.’

  She laughed. ‘Can one be both?’

  ‘I think so. Godfrey is a strong evangelical.’

  ‘And you! If you are Lord Cromwell’s man you must be a reformer.’

  I looked out over the darkening courtyard. ‘When I was young I was in thrall to the writings of Erasmus. I loved his picture of a peaceful commonwealth where men worshipped in good fellowship, the abuses of the old Church gone.’

  ‘I too was much taken with Erasmus once,’ she said. ‘Yet it did not turn out as he hoped, did it? Martin Luther began his violent attacks on the Church and Germany was flooded with anarchy.’

  I nodded. ‘Erasmus would never comment on Luther, for or against him. That always puzzled me.’

  ‘I think he was too shocked at what was happening. Poor Erasmus.’ She laughed sadly. ‘He was much given to quoting St John chapter six, was he not? “The Spirit gives life, but the flesh is of no use.” But men are ruled by their passions and always will be. And will take any chance to overthrow authority. Thus those who think humankind can be perfected by mere reason are always disappointed.’

  ‘That is a bleak message,’ I replied sombrely.

  She turned to me. ‘I am sorry, I am in a melancholy humour tonight. You must excuse me. You have probably come in to work, like those fellows I see hunched over their candles through the windows. I distract you.’

  ‘A welcome distraction.’ She inclined her head and smiled at the compliment. I hesitated, then went on. ‘Lady Honor, there is something I must ask you—’

  She raised a hand. ‘I know. I have been waiting for you to raise the matter. But please, not tonight. I am tired and out of sorts, and due back home.’ She looked at me seriously. ‘I hear he is dead. Michael Gristwood. And his brother. Gabriel told me, he said you would be coming.’

  ‘Both murdered.’

  She raised a hand. ‘I know. But I cannot deal with that tonight.’

  ‘That is your coach by the gate?’

  ‘It is.’ She looked at me seriously. ‘Tomorrow, Master Shardlake, we shall talk. I promise.’

  I should have pressed her, but only got up and bowed as she rose and walked gracefully to the gate, her wide dress brushing the cobbles. I turned and made for my chambers, where I saw a light burned in Godfrey’s window.

  My friend sat at his desk, frowning over the papers in one of my cases. Moths fluttered around the candle on his desk, burning their wings as the poor silly creatures always do. Godfrey’s fair hair was sticking up where he had run his hands through it and he wore little round reading glasses that gave him an aged, scholarly look.

  I smiled. ‘Godfrey, are you labouring this late on my account?’

  ‘Ay, but of my own will. I welcome the distraction.’ He sighed. ‘I learned today I am to go before the treasurer himself to account for my conduct. I expect a heavy fine.’ He smiled sadly. ‘So this extra work of yours will be useful. I do wish Skelly could put papers in proper order, though. He tries, poor fellow, but somehow he can get nothing right.’

  ‘It was dangerous to bait the Duke of Norfolk,’ I told him seriously.

  His glasses flashed in the candlelight as he shook his head. ‘I did not bait him. I spoke up for God’s Word. Is that a crime?’

  ‘It depends on how you do it. Some who do it wrongly have ended in the fire.’

  His face set. ‘What is half an hour of agony against eternal bliss?’

  ‘Easy to say.’

  He sighed, his shoulders slumping. ‘I know. Another evangelical preacher was arrested yesterday. I wonder if I would have the stomach for the fire. I went to John Lambert’s burning, do you remember?’

  ‘Ay.’ I remembered Barak talking of Lambert’s proud martyr’s demeanour.

  ‘I went to fortify myself by watching his courage. And he was as brave as a man could be. Yet it was an awful thing.’

  ‘It is always awful.’

  ‘I remember a breeze got up, blew terrible greasy smuts at the crowd. Lambert was dead by then. Yet some deserve it,’ he said with a sudden flash of anger. ‘I watched Friar Forest burn too, the papist renegade.’ He clenched his fists. ‘The blood sweated from his body till his soul fell down to hell. Sometimes it is necessary. The papists will not triumph.’ His face took on that steely fanatical look again and I shivered that a man could turn thus from gentleness to brutality in a moment.

  ‘I must go, Godfrey,’ I said quietly. ‘I have to prepare the Common Council’s case against Bealknap.’ I looked at his set face. ‘But if the fine is heavy and places you in difficulty, you can always come to me.’

  His face softened again. ‘Thank you, Matthew.’ He shook his head. ‘It is a sad thing the profits of the dissolution go to base men of spoil like Bealknap. They should be used to fund hospitals and true Christian schools for the commonwealth.’

  ‘Yes, they should.’ But I recalled Lady Honor’s words about the making of fortunes being all men cared for now.

  I WORKED ON THE case for two hours, revising case notes and sketching out my arguments. Then I gathered my papers into my satchel, slung it over my shoulder and went across to the library. I wanted to follow up what one of the papers Gristwood had gathered from St Bartholomew’s had said about something like Greek Fire being known to the Romans hundreds of years before the Byzantines. What was the substance the Romans had used, yet been unable to develop in the way the Byzantines had? That was strange, given the legendary efficiency of Rome’s armed forces.

  Most windows were dark now but there was a yellow glow from the library window. I went in. The huge bookshelves loomed over me in the semi-darkness. The only light came from the librarian’s desk, where Master Rowley was working surrounded by a little ring of candles. The librarian was a scholarly old fellow who loved nothing better than to pore over legal works, and he was deep in a volume of Bracton. He had never been near a court, yet had an encyclopaedic knowledge of case law and was often discreetly consulted by the serjeants. He got up and bowed as I approached.

  ‘May I take a candle, Rowley? I have some books to find.’

  He smiled eagerly. ‘Anything I can help you find? Property law, aren’t you, Master Shardlake?’

  ‘Not tonight, thank you.’ I lifted a candle from the rack and lit it from one of those on Rowley’s desk. Then I crossed to the shelf where works on Roman law and history were kept. I had a list of works the papers had referred to: Livy, Plutarch, Lucullus, the great chroniclers.

  Every single book I needed was gone. The row was gap-toothed, half empty. I frowned. Had Michael Gristwood been here before me? Yet books were lent rarely and only to senior barristers; Gristwood had been a mere attorney. Rowley’s desk was strategically placed, no one could have walked out with half a dozen books without him seeing them. I walked back to his desk. He looked up with an enquiring smile.

  ‘All the books I need have been taken out, Rowley. Every one on this list.’ I handed it to him. ‘I’m surprised at so many being allowed out. Can you tell me who has them?’

  He frowned at the list. ‘These books haven’t been borrowed, sir. Are you sure they haven’t been misfiled?’ He looked up at me and in the uneasiness of his smile I knew the old fellow was lying.

  ‘There are big gaps in the shelf. Come, you must have a list of books that are lent out?’

  He licked his lips uneasily at my severe tone. ‘I’ll see, sir,’ he said. He made a pretence of consulting a paper, then took a deep breath and looked up at me again.

  ‘No, sir. These have not been taken out. The clerk must have misfiled them, I’ll have a search done tomorrow.’

  I felt
a pang of sorrow that he could lie to me thus. Yet I saw too that he was frightened.

  ‘This is a serious business, Master Rowley. I need those books and they are valuable. I must raise this with the keeper of the library.’

  ‘If you must, sir,’ he said, swallowing.

  ‘I shall see Keeper Heath.’ But whoever Rowley was scared of, he was more frightened of them than of the keeper. He only repeated, ‘If you must.’

  I turned and left him. Outside I clenched my fists and swore. Every turn I took someone else had been there first. But I had learned something; what was in those books had a bearing on the Greek Fire story. I had other sources; I would go to the Guildhall library.

  I walked to the gate, noticing that the weather had changed; there was a close, sticky feel to the air. The watchman called, ‘Good night.’ As I turned down Chancery Lane I saw a flicker of movement by the gatehouse. I turned quickly and saw a burly young man with a round, dull-looking face and a warty nose standing just by the gatehouse, his face momentarily illumined by the light from the window. My hand went to the dagger at my belt. The man’s eyes followed my movement, then turned away and I heard footsteps disappearing up the lane.

  I stepped back under the gatehouse arch, breathing heavily. A man with wens on his nose, George Green had said. I looked around to see if the pock-faced man was here too, peering into the shadows of the walls of the Domus opposite, but could see nobody. The big man no doubt had followed me to the Inn unnoticed and waited to see if he could jump me when I emerged. I shivered.

  I waited a little longer, then walked carefully up the dark lane, my ears on the alert. It was a relief at last to turn into my gate, but I cursed as I realized it would be foolish to go out alone at night again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  NEXT MORNING I ROSE to find a bank of heavy clouds louring over the City. The air coming through my open bedroom window was heavy, oppressive. It was the first of June; nine days till Elizabeth returned to the Old Bailey courthouse and to the demonstration of Greek Fire before the king.

  Over breakfast I told Barak about the missing books and the man in the shadows by Lincoln’s Inn. In return he related what he had discovered during his evening touring the taverns. He had heard that the strange Baltic drink had been offered for sale at a riverside tavern in Billingsgate, the Blue Boar. He had also visited the taverns round Walbrook but found none of the Wentworths’ servants; they were known as a sober, churchy lot.

  ‘I got to speak to the servant from the house next door, but he said only that the Wentworths kept themselves to themselves. He bent my ear for an hour about how his old dog had gone missing.’

  ‘You had a busy night.’ Despite the beer he must have quaffed last night, Barak looked quite fresh.

  ‘I did some more asking after pock-face and the man with the wens on his face too. Nothing. They must be out-of-town men. I was starting to wonder if they’d been called off, but it seems not from what you say.’

  Joan entered with a note. I tore open the seal.

  ‘From Goodwife Gristwood. She’ll meet us at Lothbury at twelve. If the case is heard on time we can make it by then.’

  ‘I’ll come to Westminster with you first, if you like.’

  There was nothing else he could usefully do that morning. ‘Thank you. I will feel safer. Have you something in sober black?’

  ‘Ay, I can look respectable when I need. Lady Honor’s tonight.’ He winked. ‘Bet you’re looking forward to that.’

  I grunted. I had not mentioned meeting her at Lincoln’s Inn; Barak would have upbraided me for not questioning her there and then. And he would have been right, I thought.

  As we walked down to catch a boat at Temple Stairs I noticed people casting looks at the louring sky. I was already sweating in the heavy, putrid air. With luck there would be a thunderstorm soon. Early as it was, a little crowd had gathered along Fleet Street. I wondered what they were waiting for, then heard the grate of iron wheels on cobbles and a cry of ‘Courage, brothers!’ It was hanging day. I watched as a big cart, drawn by four horses, passed by, a group of guards in red and white City livery walking alongside. It was on its way to Tyburn, going via Fleet Street so more of the populace might see - and be warned where crime led.

  We halted to let the cart pass. There were a dozen prisoners within, hands bound behind them and ropes around their necks. I reflected Elizabeth might have been in there, might still be the following week. The end of the felons’ last journey would be the big multiple gallows at Tyburn, where the cart would halt while the ropes were secured to hooks on the gallows. Then the cart’s tail would be let down, the horses led on, and the prisoners be left hanging by their necks, to strangle slowly unless friends pulled on their heels to break their necks. I shuddered.

  Most of the condemned were making their last journey with heads bowed, but one or two smiled and nodded at the crowd with terrible forced jollity. I saw the old woman and her son, who had been convicted of horse stealing - the young man was staring ahead, his face twitching, while his mother leaned against him, her grey head resting on his chest. The cart passed creaking by.

  ‘We’d better get on,’ Barak said, shouldering his way through the crowd. ‘I’ve never liked that sight,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve pulled the legs of an old friend at Tyburn before now, ended his last dance.’ He gave me a serious look. ‘When d’you want me to go down that well?’

  ‘I’d say tonight, but there’s the banquet. Tomorrow, without fail.’

  As we rode a wherry downriver I felt guilty. Each day’s delay was another day in the Hole for Elizabeth, another day of desperate anxiety for Joseph. The bulk of Westminster Hall loomed into view and I forced my mind to the Bealknap case. One thing at a time, I thought, or I must go mad. Barak looked at me curiously and I realized I had whispered the words aloud.

  As ALWAYS DURING the law term, Westminster Palace Yard was thronged with people. We shoved through them into the hall, where under the cavernous roof lawyers and clients, booksellers and sightseers, trod the ancient flagstones. I stretched to see over the heads of the spectators crowded at the King’s Bench partition. Inside, a row of barristers stood waiting at the wooden bar, beyond which lay the great table where the court officials sat with their mounds of papers. Under the tapestry of the royal arms the judge sat on his high chair, listening to a barrister with a bored expression. I was disconcerted to see the judge was Heslop, a lazy-minded fellow who I knew had bought a number of monastic properties. He was unlikely to favour a case against a fellow man of spoil. I clenched my fists, reflecting that today I had drawn a low card in the gamble of the law. Nonetheless, after the previous evening’s labour I was ready to present what should have been conclusive arguments, all else being equal.

  ‘Master Shardlake.’ I gave a start and turned to find Vervey, one of the Common Council attorneys, at my elbow. He was a clerkly, serious man of my own age, a stalwart reformer. I bowed. Evidently he had been sent to keep an eye on the case; it was important to the council.

  ‘Heslop is fair racing through the cases,’ he said. ‘We shall soon be on, Master Shardlake. Bealknap is here.’ He nodded to where my adversary stood leaning on the bar with the other advocates, sleek in his robes.

  I forced a smile and lifted my satchel from my shoulders. ‘I am ready. Wait here, Barak.’

  Barak stared at the attorney. ‘Nice day for a bit of devilment,’ he said cheerily.

  I went through the partition, bowed to the bench and took a place at the bar. Bealknap turned round and I bowed briefly. A few minutes later the current case ended and the parties, one smiling and the other scowling, passed through the bar. ‘Common Council of London and Bealknap,’ an usher called.

  I opened by saying the cesspit in dispute had been badly built and the sewage leaking into the tenement next door was making life miserable for the inhabitants. I spoke of the ill construction of Bealknap’s conversion. ‘The turning of the old monasteries into such mean and dangerous habitation
s is against the common weal as well as the City ordinances,’ I concluded.

  Heslop, who was sitting back comfortably in his chair, gave me a bored look. ‘This is not the Court of Chancery, Brother. What are the legal issues at stake?’

  I saw Bealknap nod complacently, but I was ready. ‘That was by way of introduction, your honour. I have here half a dozen cases confirming the sovereignty of the Common Council over monastic properties in cases of nuisance.’ I handed up copies and summarized their arguments. As I spoke I saw a glazed look had come over Heslop’s face and my heart sank. When a judge looks thus it means he has already made up his mind. I pressed on manfully, however. When I finished, Heslop grunted and nodded to my opponent.

  ‘Brother Bealknap, what do you say?’

  He bowed and rose. With his lean features newly shaved and a confident smile on his face, he looked every inch the respectable lawyer. He nodded and smiled as though to say, I am an honest fellow who will give you the truth of this.

  ‘Your honour,’ he began, ‘we live in a time of great changes for our city. The going down of the monasteries has brought a glut of land to the market, rents are low and men of enterprise must make the best shift we can to turn our investments to a profit. Otherwise more monastic sites will go to ruin and become the haunt of vagabonds.’

  Heslop nodded. ‘Ay, and then the City will have the trouble of dealing with them.’

  ‘I have a case that I think will settle the matter to your honour’s satisfaction.’ Bealknap passed a paper up to the judge. ‘Friars Preachers v. the Prior of Okeham,’ your honour. A case of nuisance brought against the prior, remitted to the king’s council as the monastery was under his jurisdiction. As all monastic houses are now. I submit therefore that when a question relating to the original charter arises, it must be submitted to the king.’

  Heslop read slowly, nodding as he did so. I looked out over the crowd. Then I froze as I saw a richly dressed man, a retainer on either side, standing near the bar. The rest of the crowd had moved a few paces away from him, as if afraid of approaching too close. Sir Richard Rich, in a fur-lined gown, staring at me with those grey eyes, cold as an icy sea.