He would have talked on, but I wanted to be alone and took my beer over to the dark corner where I had sat with Barak that night.
His words, though, kept coming back to me. That one bone’s enough to bring people here to look and that’s good for trade. I thought of the Gristwoods, working with Toky and Wright and whoever their master was for six months before going to Cromwell, trying to make Greek Fire, hunting out the Polish drink. What a profit they must have anticipated. Profit from what had been, from the start, a plot against Cromwell.
And then, all at once, I saw what had happened. What and how, though not whom. My heart began to beat excitedly. I turned the theory over in my mind half a dozen times. It fitted the facts better than anything else. Abruptly I got up and left the inn, so preoccupied I stumbled into the giant’s bone on the way out, setting it swinging once more in its chains.
I WALKED RAPIDLY to Joseph’s lodgings, to fetch Genesis from the stables. The horse was waiting in his stall, placid as ever. As I rode out I glanced back at the building; it was a poor enough place, but it would be costing Joseph far more than he could afford. Faithful, tenacious Joseph, how his enthusiastic godliness and fussiness irritated me sometimes. Yet he had been utterly steadfast in his loyalty to Elizabeth. I should have gone to the Wentworths’ house today, but I realized I wanted Barak with me when I did. Guy was right: there was real evil in that house. And I saw that, if my theory was correct, we could still rescue Cromwell from his plight. There was no need for more secrets.
Barak was not at home when I returned. I waited impatiently for two hours as the sun slowly set. I remembered my warning to him earlier, and hoped he had not met with danger. It was a great relief when at last I heard him come in and throw off his boots. I called him into the parlour.
‘Not more bad news?’ he asked, looking at my flushed face.
‘No.’ I closed the door. ‘Barak,’ I said excitedly, ‘I think I have worked out what happened. This afternoon I went back to that tavern, the one where we met the sailors. There was a giant’s bone hanging from the ceiling; do you remember that?’
He raised a hand. ‘Wait. You’re going too fast for me. What’s the giant’s bone to do with anything?’
‘It was something the landlord said. “Better to have had the whole skeleton, but that one bone’s enough to bring people here to look and that’s good for trade.” That set me thinking - my mind has been too full for proper thought, that’s why I didn’t make the connection between the Bealknap case and Richard Rich. Listen, we’ve wondered all this while why the Gristwoods waited six months between finding Greek Fire and going to Cromwell. Especially when according to Bathsheba they were plotting against him from the start.’
‘Ay.’
‘The Gristwoods knew, when they first stumbled on Greek Fire at Barty’s, that this was something very big. And very profitable. Michael Gristwood worked at Augmentations and he would have known the anti-Cromwell faction was growing.’
‘Everyone knew that.’
‘So I think they decided to offer it to someone within the anti-reformist faction as something they could take to the king and use to advance themselves. Again, everyone knows the king’s interest in ships and weaponry. The Gristwoods probably thought it was safer to be in with the coming faction.’
‘Then who?’ Barak asked, excited himself now. ‘Marchamount? He’s a protégé of Norfolk’s, the earl’s biggest enemy.’
‘Possibly. Though, being at Augmentations, Michael had a channel to Rich and Cromwell says Rich is plotting. This puts him and Bealknap back on the list.’
‘Then we have to include Lady Honor too. She’s no reformist.’
‘All right, for the sake of argument. At all events, the Gristwoods went to someone. Call them Cromwell’s enemy for now. They took the barrel and the formula, and promised to make more Greek Fire for them. Toky and Wright were set to work to help them and probably to keep an eye on them too.’
‘Yes, that fits.’
‘So for six months they try to make more Greek Fire. But the stuff is like nothing they’ve ever seen and the formula, perhaps, referred to the use of an element they didn’t have. I wondered earlier why the Romans, who knew of something like Greek Fire, didn’t develop it as a weapon. There were sources, pools of strange flammable liquid in the ground, which the Byzantines had access to but the Romans didn’t. Far beyond Jerusalem. And we don’t have access, either, to whatever it was.’
His eyes were wide with interest now. ‘Something essential to make Greek Fire?’
I nodded. ‘I see Michael and Sepultus following all sorts of trails, like the Polish drink, trying different experiments, increasingly desperate.’
‘Because they couldn’t make Greek Fire despite having the formula.’
‘Exactly. And how frustrating that must have been for them, and their masters, to have this opportunity for such power and wealth just beyond their grasp. Remember that they had reconstructed the apparatus that was used to project Greek Fire with the aid of Leighton the founder, and practised in his yard using the stuff in the barrel. They knew it worked. How frustrated, and how angry, they must have become as the winter passed and Cromwell found himself in ever greater trouble over the Cleves marriage.’
‘So the demonstrations, the one I saw and the other one, used up all the stuff from the barrel?’
‘They must have. All, or nearly all.’
‘Ay. There must have been nearly half a barrelful in that tank, even if it was only partly filled.’
‘By March I think Cromwell’s enemy was losing patience with the Gristwoods. Perhaps with a better alchemist they could have divined some alternative, perhaps not. But they dared not spread the word beyond a very small circle. So they devised another plan - they decided to try and turn the fact they only had a limited amount of Greek Fire to their advantage. Oh, they have been very clever.’
‘So—’ Barak raised a hand, frowning - ‘they went to the earl and said they had got Greek Fire, said they had made some, and he told the king.’
‘Exactly. And they used a chain of contacts to reach him - Bealknap, Marchamount, Lady Honor - that would make the story sound more plausible.’
‘Then none of those three need have been involved.’
‘None, or some, or all.’
Barak whistled. ‘And then they staged the demonstrations, using what was in the barrel. To trick the earl into making a promise to the king that he could never keep.’
‘Yes. Perhaps the Gristwoods were told they’d be paid off and could flee England before Cromwell found out that there was no more Greek Fire. They weren’t told about the final part of the plan - to kill them and make it appear as though the formula had been stolen and might be given to a foreign power. After Cromwell had got the king excited, and promised him a demonstration.’
‘On Thursday.’
‘Yes. The unfortunate founder was killed because he knew too much, I’d guess. Also the throwing device was probably in his yard and Cromwell’s enemy needed to take it away.’
Barak nodded. ‘You were right to go back to the beginning after all.’ He frowned. ‘If you’re right.’
‘It’s the only reconstruction of events that makes everything fit.’
He stood a few moments, nibbling thoughtfully at his knuckles. I watched him anxiously, frightened he might see some hole in my theory that I had missed. But he only nodded. ‘And poor Bathsheba was killed lest Michael Gristwood might have told her something between the sheets. As he had.’
‘I suspect they fired Goodwife Gristwood’s house with what little of the stuff they had left to show Cromwell it still existed. And as a warning of what it could do; everyone who saw that fire remarked how the house was aflame from end to end in a moment. If there was an enquiry, that would come out. Imagine how the king would react.’
Barak gave me a look of horror. ‘But if you’re right, there can never be another demonstration. The earl will have to tell the king anyway.’
‘Yes, yes. But he can tell him the whole thing was a plot by his enemies, that the king was deceived as well. Cromwell could still turn it to his advantage. If we can find who’s behind it, if he can give the king a name.’
Barak ran a hand over his shaven skull. ‘Marchamount? But Marchamount may be only a victim.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘He may.’ My enthusiasm started to wane.
Barak looked at me eagerly. ‘If we can uncover who the earl’s enemy is, they may still have some Greek Fire. Surely they’d keep at least a little back. If that were given to the king, he could set a troop of alchemists to make it and he might have it after all.’
I had forgotten that possibility. Of course they would keep some back. I cursed inwardly, then took a deep breath.
‘Why does nobody think of the death and destruction this thing could wreak? You most of all, Barak - you’ve seen it, you were nearly killed by it! How can you be so disturbed by what was down that well, yet face the death of thousands by fire without a second thought?’
My appeal fell on deaf ears. ‘They would be soldiers. Soldiers expect to fight and die for their country.’ He looked at me fixedly. ‘If it will save my master, he shall have it.’
I said nothing. Fortunately he was too excited to notice the depth of my concern. ‘You should write a letter to the earl at once,’ he urged. ‘I’ll take it to Grey. He should know about this.’
I hesitated. ‘Very well. It’s too late to go to Lincoln’s Inn now, but we’ll go tomorrow and see what we can find in Marchamount’s rooms.’
‘If it turns out he’s behind it, and we can bring proof, the earl is safe.’ He smiled eagerly.
I nodded. But if we find more Greek Fire, I said to myself, Cromwell shall not have it. If I have to, I will prevent Barak from giving it to him.
Chapter Forty-one
DESPITE EVERYTHING, I slept peacefully that night. I woke towards six refreshed, although my back ached when I got up. I changed the bandage on my arm, pleased to see it had almost healed, then for the first time in days I did Guy’s exercises, carefully lest I do more harm than good. It was the eighth of June; we had two days left now.
After breakfast Barak and I walked up to Lincoln’s Inn, where the lawyers’ day was just beginning. A carousing student lay collapsed on the bench where I had met Lady Honor. He sat up and winced at the light; barristers walking past with papers under their arms gave him disapproving scowls. We passed my rooms and headed for Marchamount’s chambers.
The two clerks in his outer office were agitated. One was anxiously explaining a case where Marchamount was due to appear that morning to another serjeant. The other clerk was leafing frantically through a pile of papers; he gave a groan and sped across to Marchamount’s room, the door of which was open. We followed him in. He glanced up from searching through another pile of papers and gave us a harassed look.
‘This room is private. If you’re here about one of Serjeant Marchamount’s cases, please wait. We have to find the papers for this morning.’
‘We’re here on Lord Cromwell’s orders.’ I said. ‘To investigate his disappearance. And make a search.’ Barak produced his seal. The man looked at it, hesitated, then shook his head in despair. ‘The serjeant will be angry, he has private things in here.’ The clerk found the paper he was looking for, grasped it and hurried out. Barak shut the door behind him.
‘What are we looking for?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. Anything. We’ll search his living quarters after.’
‘If he’s gone of his own will, he won’t have left anything incriminating behind.’
‘If he has. Look in those drawers, I’ll search the desk.’
It felt strange to be rifling through Marchamount’s possessions. A locked drawer roused our hopes but when Barak prised it open we found nothing inside but a genealogical chart. It traced Marchamount’s family back two hundred years. Occupations were scribbled under the names; fishmonger, bell-founder, and worst of all ‘villein’. Under one name from a hundred years back Marchamount had scrawled ‘This man was of Norman descent!’
Barak laughed. ‘How he lusted after that title.’
‘Ay. He was always a vain man. Come, let’s try his living quarters.’
But there was nothing there either, only clothes, more legal papers and some money, which we left. We quizzed the clerks but all they could tell us was that they had come in to work the day before to find Marchamount gone, with no message and a hundred jobs waiting. Defeated, we left and crossed the courtyard to my chambers.
‘I’d hoped there would be something,’ Barak said.
I shook my head. ‘The people involved in this wouldn’t leave evidence of Greek Fire in their homes. Even the Gristwoods kept that apparatus out at Lothbury.’
‘They kept the formula at home.’
‘And look what happened to them. No, everything’s hidden away somewhere.’
‘But where, if not in a house?’
I stopped dead. ‘What about a warehouse?’
‘That’s possible. But there are dozens along the river bank.’
‘There was a warehouse conveyancing among the cases I lost. Near Salt Wharf. It struck me at the time that the transaction was conducted in the name of people who looked like nominees and I wondered who would want to keep ownership of a warehouse secret.’
‘But it was Rich who took those cases away from you.’
I paused a moment, then hastened into chambers. Skelly was sharpening a quill into a nib; he squinted up at me.
‘John,’ I asked. ‘Is Master Godfrey in?’
‘No, sir.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘He has another hearing before the committee.’
‘Will you do something for me? You know a number of cases have been taken away from me recently - half a dozen or so. Would you make a list for me now? The names, what they were about and the parties.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Wait.’ I looked into his red eyes. ‘I have wondered, John, if you see as well as you might.’ And then I was filled with guilt, for he looked mortally afraid.
‘Perhaps not, sir,’ he murmured, shifting from foot to foot.
I made my voice cheerful. ‘I have an apothecary friend who is experimenting with spectacles. He is looking for subjects. If you would go to him he may be able to help your sight, and as you would be aiding his work there would be no fee.’
I saw hope in his face. ‘I’ll be glad to see him, sir.’
‘Good. I’ll arrange it. Now, go and make the list.’
He scurried away.
‘Do you think that warehouse could really be where they are storing the Dark Fire and the apparatus?’ Barak asked.
‘It seems a long shot, I know. But it’s a possibility; we have to follow it up.’ I looked into his sceptical face. ‘Unless you have a better suggestion.’
Barak nodded. ‘All right, then.’
‘I’ve never heard of a warehouse bought through a nominee before. It stayed in my mind, it was so unusual. Could that be the explanation? It was the last of my cases to go - just after I took Cromwell’s assignment.’
‘Anything’s worth a try.’ Barak had crossed to the open window. ‘What’s going on out there?’ he asked suddenly.
I joined him. A small crowd of people, servants and barristers and clerks, had gathered round one of the students, a stocky young fellow with fair hair. He stood gesticulating wildly in the middle of the crowd, his eyes wide with shock. ‘It’s murder,’ I heard him say.
Exchanging a look, Barak and I hurried outside. We shouldered our way through the crowd and I grasped the young fellow by the arm. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked. ‘Who’s murdered?’
‘I don’t know, sir. I was going rabbit hunting, up by Coney Garth, and in the orchard I found - a foot. A foot in a shoe, cut off. And blood everywhere.’
‘Take us there,’ I said. He hesitated a moment, then turned and led us towards the gate to the orchard on the north side of Gatehouse Co
urt. Part of the crowd followed us, nosy as sparrows.
‘Stay back,’ I said. ‘This is official.’ People grumbled, but they remained outside as we passed through to the orchard. The apple and pear trees were in full leaf and a carpet of long-fallen blossom lay all around. The student led the way through the trees.
‘What’s your name, fellow?’ I asked.
‘Francis Gregory, sir. I wanted some rabbits for the pot. I came out early, but I ran back when I saw that - thing.’ I studied his face. He seemed none too bright and very frightened.
‘All right, Francis. There’s nothing to fear, but a man is missing and we have been ordered to find him.’
Reluctantly young Gregory led us on into the trees. In the middle of the orchard, on the blossom-covered ground, we found a gruesome chaos. A wide patch of ground was covered with blood, black and sticky-looking. One tree had had a branch hacked off and a great gouge cut in its side. The mark of an axe, Wright’s weapon of choice. And, lying at the bottom of the tree, was a shoe with an inch of white leg visible above.
I stepped on to the bloody ground to look at the severed foot, my stomach churning a little at the sight. It had been shorn off like a pig’s trotter. Flies were buzzing around it.
‘That’s a gentleman’s shoe,’ Barak observed.
‘Ay.’ I saw something else among the blossom and, taking my dagger, brushed the delicate petals aside. Then I jerked upright in disgust. Three fingers from a man’s hand lay there, sliced off like the foot, little black hairs standing out against the waxy skin. And on one of them a large emerald ring.
‘What is it?’ Barak called. He stepped across to my side. I had been steeling myself to pick up the finger, but Barak did it without Hinching. ‘That is Marchamount’s ring,’ I said, in a low voice so the student could not hear. He had not ventured onto the patch of bloody ground.