Dark Fire

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 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 stained-glass 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.

'No matter,' I said. I glanced at the tomb, where a remarkably lifelike effigy of a friar in Dominican black lay in the dimness, arms folded in prayer.

'Prior Rahere,' Kytchyn mumbled. 'Our founder.'

'Yes. Well, never mind that. I wanted to see the place where a certain Master Gristwood discovered something last year.'

'Yes, sir.' He swallowed, still looking frightened. 'Master Gristwood said to say no word of what we found, on pain of death, and I haven't, I swear. Sir, is it true what this man told me? Master Gristwood has been murdered?'

'It is, Brother.'

'I am not brother,' Kytchyn mumbled. 'I am not a friar any more. No one is.'

'Of course. I am sorry – a slip of the tongue.' I looked around the church. 'Are they to bring the rest of this place down?'

'No.' His face cheered a little. 'The local people have asked to keep what is left as their own church. They are fond of the place. Sir Richard has agreed.'

And their support will be useful to Rich when the prior dies, I thought. I looked around. 'I gather all this began when the Augmentations men found something in the church crypt, last autumn.'

Kytchyn nodded. 'Yes. When the priory surrendered, the Augmentations men came to take an inventory. I was in the library when Master Gristwood came in. He asked if there was any record that might help with something strange they had found down in the crypt.'

'The crypt was used for storage?'

'Yes, sir. It's a big place, there's stuff that's been there hundreds of years. I knew of nothing kept there apart from old lumber, though I'd been librarian twenty years. I swear it, sir.'

'I believe you. Go on, Master Kytchyn.'

'I asked Master Gristwood if he might show me what they had found. They brought me here to the church. It was still whole then, the nave hadn't been taken down.' He looked sadly at the barrier.

'Which part of the church was the crypt in?'

'Over by yonder wall.'

I smiled reassuringly. 'Come, I would have a look. Light your candle again.'

Kytchyn did so with much nervous fumbling, then led us to an iron-studded door. He walked slowly and sedately, the way he would have learned to walk as a young friar. The door creaked mightily as he opened it, the sound echoing through the cavernous church.

He led us down a flight of stone stairs into a long crypt running the length of the church. It was quite dark, with a dank smell. As he led the way, the candle illuminated pieces of lumber and broken statuary. A huge abbot's throne, richly decorated but pitted with woodworm, rose up before us and then I almost cried out as a face loomed out of the gloom. I jumped back, stumbling into Barak, then reddened as I realized it was a statue of the Virgin with an arm broken off. I caught a flash of white teeth as Barak smiled in amusement.

Kytchyn came to a halt by a wall. 'They brought me here, sir,' Kytchyn said. 'There was a barrel standing by the wall, a heavy old wooden barrel.'

'How big?'

'You can see the mark in the dust.'

He lowered the candle and I saw a wide circle in the dust on the stone flags. The barrel had been as large as a wine cask, big enough but not enormous. I nodded and stood up again. Kytchyn held the candle near his chest, making his lined face appear disembodied.

'Had it been opened?' I asked.

'Yes. One of the Augmentations men was there, holding a chisel he'd used to prise the lid off. He looked relieved to see us. Master Gristwood said, "Look in here, Brother Librarian" – I was still brother then – "and tell me if you recognize what's inside. I warn you, though, it stinks." Master Gristwood laughed, but I saw the other Augmentations man cross himself before he lifted the lid for me.'

'And what was inside?' I asked.

'Blackness,' he replied. 'Nothing but blackness, deeper than the blackness of the crypt. And a dreadful smell, like nothing I'd ever known before. Sharp, with a strange sweetness, like something rotting yet lifeless too. It caught my throat and made me cough.'

'That's what I smelt,' Barak said. 'You've caught it well, fellow.'

Kytchyn swallowed. 'I lifted the candle I carried and held it over the barrel. The darkness inside reflected the light. It was so strange I nearly dropped the candle into it.'

Barak laughed. 'God's death, it's as well you didn't.'

'I saw it was a liquid. I touched my finger to it.' Kytchyn shuddered. 'It had a horrible feel, thick and slimy. I told them I'd no idea what it was. Then they pointed to the plaque with St John's name on, that showed it had been there a hundred years. I said there might be some record of it in the library. I tell you, sir, I wanted to get away.' He looked round him fearfully.

'I can understand,' I said. 'So it was dark, black. That explains why one of the names the ancients had was Dark Fire.'

'Dark as the pit of hell. Master Gristwood agreed, ordered his man to seal the barrel up again, then came back to the library with me.'

'Let's go there too,' I said. 'Come, I can see you would like to be out of here.'

'Thank you, yes.'

We made our way back to the church, then out into the sunlight. Kytchyn stood looking at the rubble, tears at the corners of his eyes. In the old days, when a monk or friar entered the cloister he ceased to have a separate legal personality, he died to the world. An act had just gone through parliament restoring their legal status as individuals. In Lincoln's Inn people joked about them being 'restored to life' by Cromwell. But to what life? 'Come, Master Kytchyn,' I said gently, 'the library.'

He led us through the roofless chapter house and I realized we would have to pass across the garden. The children were still playing there; a maid taking in the washing gave us a curious look.

We were halfway across when a door opened and a small man in a fine silk shirt came out. I drew a sharp breath, for I recognized Sir Richard Rich at once. I had been introduced to him at a function at the Inn. 'Shit,' Barak murmured under his breath, then bowed low as Rich came over. I bowed too, as did Kytchyn, whose eyes had widened with fear.

Rich halted before us. There was a puzzled frown on his handsome, delicately pointed features. Piercing grey eyes surveyed us.

'Brother Shardlake,' he said in a tone of amused surprise.

'You remember me, sir?'

'I never forget a hunchback.' His smile reminded me of his reputation for cruelty; it was said he had sometimes operated the rack himself in his days investigating heresy. To my surprise the little girls ran towards him, arms outstretched. 'Daddy, Daddy!' they cried.

'Now, girls, I am busy. Mary, take them indoors.'

The servant gathered the children together. Rich looked after them as they were led away. 'My brood,' he said indulgently. 'My wife says I don't whip them enough. Now then, what are you three doing in my garden? Ah, the former Brother Bernard, is it not? White suits you better than Dominican black.'

'Sir – I – sir –' Poor Kytchyn was tongue-tied.

I spoke up, trying to make my tone as light as Sir Richard's. 'Master Kytchyn is showing us the library. Lord Cromwell said I might see it as a favour.'

Rich inclined his head. 'There are no books left, Brother, my Augmentations men have burned them all.' He smiled mockingly at poor Kytchyn.

'It was the design of the building, my lord,' I said. 'I am thinking of building a library.'

He chuckled. 'You'd be better looking at one with the roof still on. By God's wounds, you must be doing well at Lincoln's Inn. Or does your wealth come from Lord Cromwell? Back in favour, eh?' Rich's penetrating eyes narrowed. 'Well, if the earl says you may look at the library I suppose you may. Watch the crows nesting on the roofbeams don't shit on you. From papist shit to birdshit, eh, Brother?' He smiled again at Kytchyn, who hung his head. Rich's mouth set hard as he turned his eyes to me.

'But ask permission if you wish to walk though my garden again, Shardlake.' Without another word he followed his children indoors. Kytchyn turned and led us rapidly away to a gate in the wall.

'I knew it was a bad idea to come here,' Barak said. 'My master said Rich was to know nothing.'

'We didn't tell him anything,' I said uncomfortably.

'He's curious. Don't look round, but the arsehole's watching us through the window.'

Kytchyn led us through the gate onto a trampled lawn surrounded on three sides by roofless buildings. He pointed. 'The library's there, next to the infirmary.'

We followed him into what must once have been a large, imposing library. Empty shelving covered the walls to a height of two storeys, and the floor was strewn with broken cupboards and torn manuscripts. It saddened me even more than the church had. I looked up to where a few skeletal roofbeams still stood, casting lines of shadow on the floor. A flock of crows took off, cawing. They circled and settled again. Through a glassless window I caught a glimpse of a lawned close with houses beyond. A fountain in the middle was dry. Kytchyn stood looking around miserably.

'So,' I asked quietly, 'when you came here with Master Gristwood, what did you find?'

'He wanted me to look for references to that soldier St John. Any papers of note left by those who died in the hospital were filed away. There were some under St John's name and Master Gristwood took them all. Then the next day he came back and spent a whole afternoon here, looking up any references to Byzantium or Greek Fire.'

'How did you know that was what he was after?'

'He got me to help him, sir. He took some more papers and some books. He never brought them back and soon after all the shelves were cleared, everything burned.' He shook his head. 'Some of the books were very beautiful, sir.'

'Well, it's all done now.'

There was a sudden clatter of wings as the crows took off again. They circled above, cawing noisily. 'What made them do that?' Barak muttered.

'You helped Master Gristwood search for papers. Did you look at any of them?'

'No, sir. I didn't want to know.' He looked at me seriously. His face was covered in sweat; it was hot in there, the sun shining down on us. 'I am not a bold man, sir. All I want is to be left to my prayers.'

'I understand. Do you know what happened to the barrel?'

'Master Gristwood had it taken away on a cart. I don't know where, I didn't ask.' Kytchyn took a deep breath, and lifted his hand to open the collar of his surplice. 'Excuse me, sir, it's so hot –' As he spoke he took a sideways step. From somewhere I heard a faint click.

Kytchyn's gesture saved my life. Suddenly he jerked forward with a high-pitched scream, and to my horror I saw a crossbow bolt embedded in his upper arm, blood welling red over his white surplice. He staggered against the wall, looking at his arm in horror.

Barak drew his sword and ran leaping to the window. The pock-faced man who had followed us from Cromwell's house was standing there, glittering blue eyes fixed on Barak as he fitted a new bolt to his crossbow. Barak, though, was almost on him and the man paused, then dropped the weapon with a clatter and fled across the yard. Barak threw himself over the window sill, regardless of broken glass, but the man was already at the abbey wall, clambering up. Barak grabbed at a flailing foot, but he was just too late; the assailant disappeared over the wall. Barak clambered up and, his elbows on the wall, looked down at the street for a moment before letting himself down. He picked up his sword, walked back to the window and climbed through again. His face was like thunder.

I bent to comfort Kytchyn. He had crumpled to the floor, clutching his arm and sobbing as the blood welled between his fingers. 'I wish I'd never seen those papers,' he moaned. 'I know nothing, sir, nothing. I swear.'

Barak knelt down, lifting Kytchyn's hand from his wound with surprising gentleness. 'Come, fellow, let's see.' He studied the arm. 'It's all right, the head of the bolt's come out the other side. You need a surgeon to snap it off, that's all. Here, lift your arm.' Trembling, Kytchyn obeyed. Barak took a handkerchief from his pocket and made a tourniquet, binding the arm above the wound.

'Come on, friend, there's a surgeon across the way that tends to injuries among the drovers. I'll take you there. Keep your arm raised.' He lifted the trembling Kytchyn to his feet.

'Who's trying to kill me?' the clerk squealed. 'I know nothing, sir, nothing.'

'I think that bolt was aimed at me,' I said slowly. 'It would have hit me if Kytchyn had not moved when he did.'

Barak's face was serious, his joking manner gone. 'Ay, you're right. God's pestilence, how did he know we were here?'

'Perhaps we were followed from the house.'

'There's someone who will be able to tell us,' he said grimly. 'I'll take Kytchyn to the surgeon, then I'll have a little word. Pock-face won't come back, but stand away from the window just in case. I'll not be long.'

I was too shocked to do anything but nod obediently. I leaned back against the wall as Barak helped the moaning Kytchyn outside. My heart was thudding as though it would leap from my throat, my whole body cold with sweat. The place suddenly seemed deathly quiet; it was too far from Sir Richard's house for him to have heard anything. I groaned involuntarily. Cromwell had put my life in danger a second time. I looked at the crossbow lying where Barak had left it on the floor, squat and deadly. I jumped at a sudden clatter, but it was only the crows returning to their perches.

A few minutes later I heard voices, Barak's and another's. The big doorkeeper was propelled through the doorway, protesting loudly. Large as the man was, Barak had his arm pinned behind him in a vice-like grip. He released him and sent him spinning across the room. He fell with a crash among the debris.

'You've no right!' the gatekeeper shouted. 'When Augmentations hear about this –'

'Pox on shitting Augmentations!' Barak shouted. Grabbing the man's dirty robe, he hauled him to his feet again. He had sheathed his sword but now pulled a wicked-looking dagger from his belt and held it to the doorkeeper's flabby throat. 'Listen to me, arsehole. I serve the Earl of Essex and I've authority to take what measures I like. Like slitting your weasen-pipe, see?' The man gulped, his eyes wide. Barak took the doorkeeper's head and jerked it round to face me. 'That priest I brought out just now was struck by a crossbow bolt intended for my master there, Lord Cromwell's lawyer. And the only person who could have let him in was you, you fat whore's cunny. So talk.'

'I didn't,' he babbled, 'There are other ways in –'

Barak reached down and gave the man's balls a hard squeeze, making him roar.

'I'll tell,' he shouted, 'I'll tell!'

'Get on with it then!'

The doorkeeper gulped. 'Shortly after you arrived, sir, another man came up to me. A strange-looking fellow, looking like a clerk; he's had the smallpox. He held up a gold angel and asked what the two of you were doing here. I – I told him you were meeting someone. He offered me the angel to let him in too. It was a gold angel, sir, and I'm poor.'

'Let's see it.'

The watchman fumbled in his belt and produced the big gold coin. Barak grabbed it. 'Right, I'll have that. It'll pay for our friend's surgeon. Now, this man. Was he carrying anything? A crossbow, for example?'

'I didn't see a crossbow!' the man howled. 'He had a big satchel, I didn't know what was in it!'

Barak stepped away from him. 'Get out, then, you great bag of guts. Go on. And don't say a word. Gabble about this and Lord Cromwell will be after you.'

He cringed at that. 'I'd not do anything against Crum, sir, I mean the earl –'

'Get out! Arsehole!' Barak twirled him round and helped him through the doorway with a kick. He turned to me, breathing heavily.

'I'm sorry I let pock-face get so close,' he said. 'I dropped my guard.'

'You can't be watching all the time.'

'He must have been somewhere among that rabble in the church. By Jesu, he's good. Are you all right?'

I took a deep breath and dusted down my robe. 'Yes.'

'I'll have to get word of this to the earl. Now. He's at Whitehall. Come with me.'

I shook my head. 'I can't, Barak. I have my appointment with Joseph. I can't miss that, I'm still responsible for Elizabeth. Then I want to see Guy.'

'All right. I'll meet you outside the apothecary's in four hours and we can go on to Southwark. It was nine by the church clock as I came in – say, at one.'

'Very well.'

He looked at me dubiously. 'You sure you'll be all right on your own?'

'God's death,' I snapped irritably, 'if we have to stay together every minute we'll double the time this takes. Come,' I said more gently, 'we can ride together as far as Cheapside.'

He looked worried. I wondered what Cromwell's reaction would be when he learned a third killing had been attempted.