Dark Fire

Chapter Thirteen

I WALKED TIREDLY DOWN Chancery Lane to my house. Barak would be back by now. I had enjoyed the respite from his company. I would have liked nothing better than to rest, but I had said I would go to Goodwife Gristwood's that day. Another trip across London. But we had only eleven days left now. The words seemed to echo in time with my footsteps; el-e-ven days, el-e-ven days.

Barak had returned and was sitting in the garden, his feet up on a shady bench and a pot of beer beside him. 'Joan is looking after you, then,' I said.

'Like a prince.'

I sat down and poured myself a mug of beer. I saw he had found time to visit the barber's, for his cheeks were smooth; I was conscious of my own dark stubble and realized I should have had a shave before such an important dinner. Marchamount would have mentioned it had I come on less serious business.

'What luck with the lawyers?' Barak asked.

'They both say they just acted as middlemen. What about you? Did you find the librarian?'

'Ay.' Barak squinted against the afternoon sun. 'Funny little fellow. I found him saying Mass in a side chapel in his church.' He smiled wryly. 'He wasn't pleased to hear what I wanted, started trembling like a rabbit, but he'll meet us outside Barry's gatehouse at eight tomorrow morning. I said if he didn't turn up the earl would be after him.'

I took off my cap and fanned myself. 'Well, I suppose we had better be off to Wolf's Lane.'

Barak laughed. 'You look hot.'

'I am hot. I've been working while you've been resting your arse on my bench.' I stood up wearily. 'Let's get it done.'

We went round to the stables. Chancery had travelled further than he was used to the day before and was unhappy at being led into the sun again. He was old; it was time to think of putting him out to pasture. I mounted, nearly catching my robe in the saddle. I had kept it on as it lent me a certain gravitas that would be useful in dealing with Goodwife Gristwood, but it was a burden in this weather.

As we rode out, I went over what I should say. I must find out if she knew anything of the apparatus for projecting Greek Fire; there had been something, I was sure, she had been keeping back yesterday.

Barak interrupted my reflections. 'You lawyers,' he said, 'what's the mystery of your craft?'

'What do you mean?' I replied wearily, scenting mockery.

'All trades have their mysteries, the secrets their apprentices learn. The carpenter knows how to make a table that won't collapse, the astrologer how to divine a man's fate, but what mysteries do lawyers know? It's always seemed to me they know only how to mangle words for a penny.' He smiled at me insolently.

'You should try working at some of the legal problems the students have at the Inns. That would stop your mouth. England's law consists of detailed rules, developed over generations, that allow men to settle their disputes in an ordered way.'

'Seems more like a great thicket of words to keep men from justice. My master says the law of property's an ungodly jumble.' He gave me a keen look and I wondered if he was watching to see whether I would contradict Cromwell.

'Have you any experience with the law then, Barak?'

He looked ahead again. 'Oh, ay, my mother married an attorney after my father died. He was a fine sophister, flowing with words. No qualifications at all, though, like friend Gristwood. Made his money by tangling people up in legal actions he'd no knowledge how to solve.'

I grunted. 'The law's practitioners aren't perfect. The Inns are trying to control unqualified solicitors. And some of us try honourably to gain each man his right.' I knew my words sounded prosy even as I spoke them, but the sardonic smile that was Barak's only reply still irked me.

As we passed down Cheapside we had to halt at the Great Cross to let a flock of sheep pass on their way to the Shambles. A long queue of water carriers was waiting with their baskets at the Great Conduit. I saw there was only a dribble of water from the fountain.

'If the springs north of London are drying up,' I observed, 'the City will be in trouble.'

'Ay,' Barak agreed. 'Normally we keep buckets of water to hand in summer in the Old Barge in case there's a fire. But there's not enough water.'

I looked at the buildings around me. Despite the rule they should be made of stone to avoid fires, many were wooden. The City was a damp place in winter – sometimes the smell of damp and mould in a poor dwelling was enough to make one retch – but summer was the dangerous time, when people feared hearing the warning shout of 'Fire' almost as much as the other summer terror, plague.

I jerked round at the sound of a high-pitched yell. A beggar girl, no more than ten and dressed only in the filthiest rags, had just been thrown out of a baker's shop. People stopped to look as she turned and banged on the door of the shop with tiny fists.

'You took my little brother! You made him into pies!'

Passers-by laughed. Sobbing, the girl slid down the door and crouched weeping at its foot. Someone laid a penny at her feet before hurrying on.

'What in God's name is that about?' I asked.

Barak grimaced. 'She's mazed. She used to beg round Walbrook and the Stocks Market with her young brother. Probably kicked out of a monastery almshouse. Her brother disappeared a few weeks ago and now she runs up to people screaming they've killed him. That's not the only shopkeeper she's accused. She's become a laughing stock.' He frowned. 'Poor creature.'

I shook my head. 'More beggars every year.'

'There go many of us if we're not careful,' he said. 'Come on, Sukey.

I looked at the girl, still crouched against the door, arms like sticks wrapped round her thin frame.

'Are you coming?' Barak asked.

I followed him down Friday Street, then down to Wolf's Lane. Even on this hot sunny day the narrow street had a sinister look, the overhanging top storeys cutting out much of the sun. Many houses leaned over at such an angle they looked as though they could collapse at any moment. Under the alchemist's sign I saw a crude repair had been made to the door with planks and nails. We dismounted and Barak knocked on the door. I brushed a layer of brown dust from my robe.

'Let's see what the pinched old crow has to say for herself this time,' Barak grunted.

'For Jesu's sake, she's just lost her husband.'

'Fat lot she cares. All she wants is to get her name on the deeds of this place.'

The door was opened by one of Cromwell's men. He bowed. 'Good day, Master Barak.'

'Good day, Smith. All quiet?'

'Yes, sir. We've had the bodies taken away.'

I wondered where. Did the earl have a place kept aside for inconvenient corpses?

The girl Susan appeared, looking composed now.

'Hello, Susan,' Barak said. He gave the girl a wink, making her blush. 'How's your mistress?'

'Better, sir.'

'We would talk with her again,' I said.

She curtseyed and led us in. I touched the old tapestry in the hall. It was heavy and smelled of dust. 'Where did your master get this?' I asked curiously. 'It's a fine piece of work. Very old.'

Susan gave it a look of distaste. 'It came from the mother superior's house at St Helen's nunnery, sir. Augmentations didn't want it – it was so faded it had no value. Great ugly thing, it flaps in the breeze and makes you jump.'

Susan took us into a parlour with another view of the strangely blackened yard, and went to fetch her mistress. It was a large room with fine oak beams, but the furniture was cheap and there was only a little poor silver on display in the cupboard. I wondered if the Gristwoods had gone beyond their means in buying this house. Michael would not have earned much as an Augmentations clerk and an alchemist's income, I guessed, could be uncertain.

Goodwife Gristwood came in. She wore the same cheap dress as yesterday, and her face was stiff with strain. She curtseyed to us perfunctorily.

'I'm afraid I have some more questions for you, Goodwife,' I said gently. 'I hear you have been to see Serjeant Marchamount.'

She gave me a fierce look. 'I have to look to my own future now. There's nobody else. I only told him Michael was dead. Which he is,' she added bitterly.

'Very well, but you must tell as few people as possible about what happened here. For now.'

She sighed. 'Very well.'

'And now I would ask you more about yesterday's events. Please, sit down.'

Reluctantly she took a chair. 'Did your husband and brother seem as normal when you and Susan left the house to shop?'

She looked at me wearily. 'Yes. We left before the markets opened and returned at noon. Michael hadn't gone to Augmentations yesterday – he went up to help his brother with one of his vile-smelling experiments. When we got back we saw the front door had been staved in and then those – those red footprints. Susan didn't want to come in, but I made her.' She hesitated. 'Somehow I knew there wasn't anybody here, not living.' Her tightly held features seemed to sag a little. 'We went upstairs and found them.'

I nodded. 'Is Susan your only servant?'

'She's all we could afford, silly lump though she is.'

'And none of the neighbours saw or heard anything?'

'The goodwife next door told your man she heard a great banging and clattering, but that was nothing unusual when his brother was at his work.'

'I would like to look at the workshop again. Do you feel able to come with me?' I recalled her terror at the notion the day before, but now she only shrugged apathetically.

'If you wish. They've taken them away. After you've seen it, can I get it cleared? If I'm to keep myself fed, I'll have to let it out.'

'Very well.'

She led me up the twisting staircase, still complaining about the need to let the room and how she had no money coming in now. Barak followed; behind her back he worked his mouth in a silent gobble in imitation of her. I gave him a stern look.

At the top of the stairs she fell silent. The door still hung off its hinges. I looked at the other doors leading off the corridor. 'What are these?' I asked.

'Our bedroom, my brother-in-law's, and that third one is where Samuel kept his rubbish.'

'Samuel?'

She grimaced. 'Sepultus. Samuel was his real name, his Christian name. Sepultus,' she said again, with mocking emphasis.

I went to the door she had indicated and threw it open. I had wondered if I might find the Greek Fire apparatus in there, but there was nothing but a jumble of broken chairs, bottles, cracked flasks and, staring up from a corner, a large toad preserved in a vinegar bottle. Barak peered in over my shoulder. I picked up an enormous, curved horn that lay on a cloth. Little pieces had been cut out of it.

'What in heaven's name is this?'

Goodwife Gristwood snorted again. 'A unicorn's horn, so Samuel said. He'd bring it out to impress people, powder up bits of it in his messes. I'll be reduced to boiling it for soup if I can't let some rooms.'

I closed the door and looked around the hall with its bare boards, its dried-up old rushes in the corner and the big crack in the wall. Goodwife Gristwood followed my gaze. 'Yes, the house is falling down. This whole street's built on Thames mud. It's drying out in this hot weather. Creaks all the time, makes me jump. Maybe the whole place will fall on my head and that'll be an end to all my problems.'

Barak raised his eyebrows to the ceiling. I coughed. 'Shall we go into the workshop?'

The bodies had gone but the floor was still covered with blood, its faint tang mixed with the sulphurous stink. Goodwife Gristwood looked at the spray of blood on the wall and went pale.

'I want to sit down,' she said.

I felt guilty at having brought her; lifting a chair from the wreckage, I helped her sit. After a minute some colour returned to her face and she looked at the smashed chest. 'Michael and Samuel bought that last autumn. Heaved it up here. They'd never let me know what was in it.'

I nodded at the empty shelves. 'Do you know what was kept on those?'

'Samuel's powders and chemicals. Sulphur and lime and God knows what. The smells I had to put up with, the noises.' She nodded at the fireplace. 'When he was heating potions there I was sometimes afraid he'd blow the house up as high as a monastery church. Whoever killed them took Samuel's bottles as well, God knows why. This is where all the great knowledge Samuel claimed to have brought him in the end,' she said wearily. 'And Michael with him.' There was a sudden catch in her voice; she swallowed and made her face severe again. I studied her. She was holding in some powerful emotions. Grief? Anger? Fear?

'Has anything else been taken that you can see?'

'No. But I came up here as little as I could help.'

'You did not think much of your brother-in-law's trade?'

'Michael and I were happy enough on our own till Samuel suggested we all buy a large house together when the lease ran out on his old workshop. Samuel was all right purifying lime for the gunpowder makers, but when he tried anything more ambitious he'd come unstuck. He was greedy beyond his knowledge, like all alchemists.' She sighed. 'A couple of years ago he fancied he'd found a way to strengthen pewter, some formula he'd teased out of one of his old books, but he never managed it and the Pewter-masters' Guild sued him. And Michael was always so easily led, was sure one day his brother would make their fortune. These last few weeks Michael and Samuel spent half their time up here. They told me they'd found out a marvellous secret.' She looked at the bloody doorway again. 'Men's greed.'

'Did they ever mention the term Greek Fire?' I watched her face. She hesitated before replying.

'Not to me. I tell you, I wasn't interested in what they did up here.' She shifted uneasily in her chair.

'You spoke of experiments, sometimes out in the yard. Did they have an apparatus, a large thing of tanks and pipes? Did you ever see anything like that?'

'No, sir. I'd have noticed. All they took out to the yard were flasks of liquid and powder. That's not what the earl's men have turned my house upside down looking for, is it? I thought it was some papers.'

'Yes, it was,' I said mildly. Her eyes had narrowed warily when I mentioned the apparatus. 'But there was a big metal construction as well. You are sure you know nothing of that?'

'Nothing, sir, I swear.' She was lying, I was sure. I nodded and stepped to the fireplace. The stoppered bottle lay where I had left it, but to my surprise the thick liquid on the floorboards seemed to have evaporated; there was nothing left but the barest stain on the floor. I touched it; the floor was quite dry. I hesitated, then picked up the little bottle, still half-full of the stuff.

'Might you have any idea what this liquid is, madam?'

'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 Sour-face 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 gratefully 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 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 yourself, 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 Barry'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 Barry'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.