Chapter Sixteen

WHEN I ARRIVED AT Guy's shop there was no sign of Barak's horse outside. Wondering whether he was still with Cromwell, I tied Chancery to the rail and went in.

Guy was at his table, grinding herbs in a pestle, and looked up in surprise. 'Ho, Matthew. I did not expect to see you today.'

'Guy, I have a favour to ask, some information. By the way, I am due to meet someone here. A young fellow with brown hair and an insolent grin. I don't suppose you've seen him?'

He shook his head. 'I have seen no one. It is my morning for preparing my herbs. Is this to do with the Wentworth case? How goes it?'

'We have a stay of execution. I have just come from the family's house, in fact. But it is something else I wanted to ask you about. I am sorry I have not asked you to dinner as I promised, but another matter has stolen up on me; between that and the Wentworth case I have scarce had time to breathe.'

'It does not matter.' He smiled, though I knew he was lonely and looked forward to coming to my house; with his dark skin he got few invitations to company. I slipped the satchel from my back, wincing a little at a stab of pain.

'Have you been doing your exercises?' he asked.

'These past few days, no. As I said, I've scarce had time to turn around.'

'You seem strung tight as a bowstring, Matthew.'

I sat down, rubbing sweat from my brow. 'Not surprising, as someone has just tried to kill me.'

'What?'

'You'd get it out of me in the end. I can't tell you all, but Lord Cromwell has spared Elizabeth Wentworth from the press for two weeks provided I undertake a mission for him. Nothing to do with the monasteries this time, but murder again and roguery—' I broke off, looking through the window. 'Young Barak, who I see tying his horse up outside, has been deputed by Cromwell to assist me.'

'Then the help you want is for Cromwell?' Guy looked at me seriously.

'To help to catch a brutal killer. I am not allowed to say more — I should not even have mentioned Cromwell's name. It is too dangerous.' I sighed. 'I will not press you if you feel you cannot in conscience help.'

The door opened and Barak came in. He looked uneasily at the bottles and jars lining the walls, then at Guy with his dark face and apothecary's robes. Guy bowed.

'Master Barak, I pray you are well.' He mispronounced the W in his lisping accent as he always did. I realized how strange and foreign he must seem to Barak.

'Thank you, master apothecary.' Barak stared around. I guessed he had never been in an apothecary's shop before; he looked like he had always known rude health.

'Would you like a little beer?' Guy asked him.

'Thank you,' Barak answered. 'It is a hot day.'

Guy went out to fetch it and Barak came over to me. 'The earl's worried. He's had Kytchyn taken to a place of safety till this is over.'

'Thank God for that.'

'He says you're being too slow. He's concerned you won't be seeing Lady Honor till tomorrow. There are only ten days till the demonstration, and the king's told him he's looking forward to it.'

'Perhaps he should seek a miracle worker then.'

Barak stepped away as Guy returned, bearing two cups of small beer. I drank gratefully, for I was very thirsty. Guy stood at the end of his table and studied Barak carefully a moment; I was pleased to see Barak look uncomfortable under that penetrating gaze.

'Well, then,' Guy said quietly. 'What help do you both wish from me?'

'We have to deal with alchemists,' I said. 'I know nothing of their trade, and would welcome your advice.' I opened the satchel and laid the alchemical books on the table. Then I carefully took the bottle from my pocket and held it out. 'Have you any idea what this strange stuff might be?'

He opened it carefully, then poured some on his finger and sniffed. 'Be careful, it burns like fire,' I warned as he bent and touched his tongue to it.

To my surprise, he laughed. 'There's nothing to worry about,' he said. 'There's no mystery here. This is aqua vitae, though distilled to a very high concentration.'

'Aqua vitae?' I laughed with astonishment. 'This new stuff that is distilled from bad wine and prescribed for sore eyes and melancholia?'

'The same. I think its value overrated, it just makes people drunk.' He rubbed the stuff between his fingers. 'A cupful, they say, will blind a horse. Where did you get it?'

'On the floor of an alchemist's workshop that had been — abandoned.' He looked at me sharply.

'Never mind where we got it, apothecary,' Barak cut in. 'Are you sure that's what it is?'

Guy gave him a long look, and I feared he would order him from his shop, but he turned to me with a smile. 'I believe so. Though the thickness of the liquid and the fiery taste suggest the concentration is very strong. I believe I may even be able to tell you where it came from. But first, there is a way of proving what it is. I will show you. It is quite spectacular, Master Barak. Wait a moment.'

He put the bottle down carefully, then left the room.

'Listen to me, Barak,' I said. 'Guy is a friend: have a care how you speak to him. And he is not one to be bullied like that doorkeeper. You will only anger him.'

'I don't trust him, on his looks.'

'I think that's mutual.'

Guy returned, carrying a candle and a small glazed dish. He closed the shutters, then carefully tipped a little of the liquid into the dish. Then he touched the candle to it.

I gasped, and Barak stepped back, as a blue flame flared in the bowl, rising two inches into the air.

'You'll burn the shop down!' Barak exclaimed. Guy only laughed again.

'The flame is too weak to set anything alight and it will die in a moment.' Sure enough, as we watched, the blue flame sank as quickly as it had risen, turned yellow, guttered and went out. Guy smiled at us. 'There. That is a characteristic of aqua vitae, that blue flame. It was certainly a very strong mixture.' He opened the shutters again. 'Note there is no smell or smoke.'

'You said you might know where it came from,' Barak said, his tone more respectful now.

'I did. We apothecaries are ever on the lookout for new herbs, new concoctions, from the strange parts of the world Englishmen voyage to nowadays. It is the constant topic at the Apothecaries' Hall. A few months ago we heard of a cargo that had been landed at Billingsgate from a ship that had ventured into the Baltic trade, to the lands of endless snow. They brought back a cargo of a colourless liquid they say men drink there. When people tried quaffing it here, as they would beer, it made them very sick. This sounds like the stuff.'

'What happened to the cargo?'

'That I do not know. I think one or two of my brethren went after it as a curiosity, but were told it had been sold. You would need to enquire among the sailors' taverns to find more.'

I nodded thoughtfully. A thick, viscous liquid that burned in a strange way. In some ways it sounded like Greek Fire, but in others quite unlike. The liquid in the monastery had been black, with a strong smell, Kytchyn said, and the flame we had just seen could never have set light to a ship. But what if this stuff was part of the formula, what if it changed its behaviour if other things were added?

'What do you know of alchemy, Guy?' I asked. I took the alchemy books from my satchel and laid them on the table. 'These books are so full of mysteries and jargon I can scarce understand a word.'

He picked one up and leafed through it. 'Alchemy has given itself a bad name. Perhaps worse than it deserves. The alchemists like to keep their trade cloaked in secrecy and fill their books with references only they can understand.' He laughed. 'Some of the old books I think nobody understands.'

'And it impresses people, makes them think there must be a great mystery there to be uncovered.'

Guy nodded. 'But in that they are no worse than some physicians with their ancient remedies and secret formulae. Or lawyers, for that matter: in some courts you plead in old French no ordinary mortal could comprehend.'

There was a bark of laughter from Barak. 'He has you there.'

Guy raised a hand. 'And yet alchemy is part of natural science, the study of the world around us. God has left signs and clues in the world, that by struggling we might come to understand things: cure diseases, grow better crops—'

'Turn lead into gold?' I hesitated. 'Set water on fire?'

'Perhaps. And the task of alchemy, like astrology and medicine for that matter, is to read those clues.'

'As rhinoceros horn is supposed to bring virility, the clue being its resemblance to the male organ. But, Guy, so much of this looking for signatures and correspondences is mere fraud.'

'Yes, it is. I agree that the manner in which alchemists profess secret, arcane knowledge is often no more than a trick to keep their trade inaccessible.'

'So you think, like most, that alchemy's a suspect trade?'

'Not altogether. There are plenty of rogues who claim to have found the philosopher's stone that can turn base metal into gold, but for each one of them there is another who has striven to make real achievements by careful observation, by study of how substances are made up and how they change. How the four elements of earth, air, fire and water interact to make all the things we know. How heat can change one thing into another — wine into aqua vitae, for example.

'And everything comes from the four elements. Earth, air, fire and water. Any new material that appears, like that strange stuff, can be broken down into those essential elements and reconfigured.'

He smiled. 'There is nothing truly new in the world. No new elements, at least. But a good alchemist may, for example, discover by careful observation how to melt down ores in the furnace in such a way as to produce better iron, as they are doing in the Weald now.'

'Or how to make a finer form of pewter,' I said, remembering Goodwife Gristwood's story of Sepultus's failed experiments.

'Exactly. It is usually a matter of separating out some impurity of an earthy nature.' He smiled. 'I am with those thinkers who consider God means us to uncover the secrets of the earth by the slow, sure path of observation rather than mystical formulae in ancient books. Even if they do come up with some strange notions, like the man in Poland who says the earth goes round the sun.'

'Yes.' Something had stirred a memory. 'A furnace, you said. You remind me that metals are forged in furnaces. So alchemists must often work with founders, as they all have furnaces.'

'Of course,' Guy agreed. 'I make do with a fire here to distil my herbs, but to melt ores and metals a furnace would be needed.' He frowned. 'This is a strange discussion, Matthew. What has it to do with this — ' he glanced at Barak — 'this case of yours?'

'I'm not sure.' I frowned in thought. 'A founder would also be needed to make, say, a large metal tank with a pump and pipes.'

'Yes. Alchemists often have arrangements with the Lothbury founders to assist them. It has to be someone they trust, of course, if they're to share their secrets.'

'Guy,' I said excitedly, 'do you remember that young founder I met last week? Would he know who might work with alchemists up there? And perhaps one who works with the City on the water conduits, works with pumps and valves?'

He hesitated. 'Perhaps. That would be a specialized trade. But Matthew, if this is a dangerous matter, I would not involve him.'

'Lord Cromwell may command it,' Barak said.

Guy turned to him. 'He may command what he wishes,' he said imperturbably.

Barak glared. 'Yes, my Spanish friend, he may.'

'God's death, Barak, be quiet,' I said angrily. 'I understand, Guy. I can find what I need as easily from the City records, see whom they employ on the conduits.'

Guy nodded. 'I would prefer that.' He turned back to Barak. 'And by the way, sir, I am not Spanish. I come from Granada, which was conquered by Spain fifty years ago. My parents were Moslems who were expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. Along with the Jews — yours is a Jewish name, I think.'

Barak reddened. 'I am English, apothecary.'

'Are you now?' He raised an eyebrow. 'Ah well. Thank you for your understanding, Matthew. I wish you safe in your quest.' He shook my hand, then looked at me wryly. 'Your eyes are alight, Matthew, alight with the prospect of progress in your chase. May I keep those books, by the way? I should be interested to look through them.'

'Please do.'

'If you want to talk more, I am here.' He gave Barak a cold look. 'So long as foreigners are allowed to remain.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

OUTSIDE I TURNED angrily on Barak. 'Well done,' I said. 'Your manners really helped our enquiries.'

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.

===OO=OOO=OO===

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's 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.' Pock-face 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 satchel 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.

===OO=OOO=OO===

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 pigs 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.

'Make yourselves comfortable. I'll get a couple more girls to join us, we'll make a merry lunch.'

'Only a girl for my master,' Barak said. 'He's a shy fellow, wants a girl to gentle him, treat him softly. We've heard of a girl called Sheba, or Bathsheba, who works here.'

Her eyes narrowed at once. 'Who told you that?'

'Someone at the Guildhall,' I replied.

'Which company?'

'I can't remember, it was at one of the dinners.' I forced a smile. 'Only I like a gentle girl and he said Bathsheba was kindly. I'd pay more for a gentle girl.'

'I'll see.' She disappeared through an inner door.

'My one's sweet and plump enough,' the fat shopkeeper said. 'Eh, Mary?' The woman winked at me and laughed, her large, veined breasts wobbling as she put an arm around his neck.

I heard the madam calling from somewhere within the house. 'Daniel, here!' The boy ran out of the room. I heard a muted whisper and a minute later the madam returned. She smiled again.

'Bathsheba will see you in her room, sir. Bring your drink if you like.'

'Thank you, I'll leave it.' I rose from the table, trying to look enthusiastic.

'You don't want to waste time in there drinking, eh?' The fat shopkeeper chuckled.

The madam led me down a dark corridor with several closed doors, her heavy feet stumping on the uneven floorboards. I was suddenly afraid, very conscious that I was alone. I jumped as a door opened, but it was only a faded whore who looked out quickly then slammed the door shut. The madam knocked at another. 'Here's Bathsheba,' she said, smiling her horrible smile as she ushered me inside. She closed the door behind her, but I heard no retreating footsteps and realized she was standing outside, listening.

The room was small and mean, the only furniture a cheap trunk and a large old truckle bed. The shutters were half-open, but the room still had a sweaty stink. A girl lay on the bed. For some reason I had expected Bathsheba to be pretty, but although young she had pasty, heavy features and a swarthy complexion. There was something familiar about her face, though I could not place it. She had made no effort to pretty herself and lay there in a stained old dress, without rouge, her black hair disordered on the greyish pillow. Her best feature was her large, intelligent brown eyes but they stared at me not in welcome but, I saw, with fear. She had a large bruise and a half-healed cut on one cheekbone.

'Well, Bathsheba,' I said quietly, 'I am told you are a gentle girl.'

'Who told you that, sir?' Her voice was scared, faltering.

'Someone I met at the Guildhall.'

'I've only had one customer of your class,' she said. 'And he is dead.' To my surprise I saw tears in the corners of her eyes. It seemed Michael Gristwood's feelings for her had not been one-sided. She continued to look at me fearfully. How had they realized so quickly I was not an ordinary customer? I studied her scared face a moment, then laid my satchel on the edge of the bed and sat down carefully.

'I swear I mean you no harm,' I said soothingly, 'but I am here to enquire into the death of Master Gristwood. I am a lawyer.'

'I know nothing of his death,' she said quickly.

'I didn't think you did. I only want to know what he talked about with you. Did he mention his work?'

I saw her glance at the door and lowered my voice.

'You will be paid, I'll see to that.' I paused, then said, 'You cared for each other?'

'Yes.' Defiance entered her face. 'We both needed kindness and we gave it to each other. Madam Neller didn't like me getting close to a client but it happens.'

'How did you meet?' I felt pleased with my quick progress.

'He came here one day with some Augmentations clerks. They'd come on a roist south of the river and ended up here. Michael pleasured me, he made me laugh and he visited again on his own. He had a hard time with his wife. He said she had no laughter in her.'

'I've met her. Not a merry soul.'

'But he told me nothing of his work.' She looked at the door again, her bruise showing livid. I wondered if the madam had given it to her.

'He didn't say anything about some papers he had, or anything he was working on with his brother?' I asked gently.

'I know nothing,' she said, her voice trembling. 'I told the others—'

'What others?' I asked quickly.

Bathsheba pointed to her cheek. 'The ones who gave me this.'

Heavy footsteps sounded outside. I heard someone whispering to the madam, then started back as the door was flung open. Two men stepped into the room. One was a bald, hulking fellow carrying a club and the other a stocky young man whose features were so like Bathsheba's he could only be her brother. I recognized him at once: he was the man I had seen in the Gristwoods' yard. He held a long dagger, which he pointed at my throat as I jumped up from the bed. I caught a glimpse of the madam's worried face before the big man shut the door and stood against it.

'He hasn't hurt you, Sheba?' the young man asked, never taking his eyes from my face.

'No, George, but I was afraid the boy wouldn't find you in time.'

'Has he hurt you?'

'No. I kept him talking. About Michael again.'

'Pox on Madam Neller, letting these shits in at all.' He turned to me. 'We've got you this time, matey. You won't get away with hitting a defenceless woman.'

I lifted my hands. 'There's a mistake, I swear. I never met this girl before today.'

'No, but your pock-faced mate did that came and beat her last week. He'd have killed her if one of the other girls hadn't run for me.' He turned to his sister, clenching his fists. 'Is it him in the other room? The pock-faced man? Or that lump of a confederate of his, with the wens on his nose?'

'Madam Neller says no. She's keeping him occupied.'

'A pock-faced man?' I asked. 'Tall and very pale? Asking about Michael Gristwood?'

'Ay, your confederate.'

I considered shouting for Barak, but Bathsheba's brother had a desperate look and could slit my throat in a moment. I forced myself to speak calmly. 'Please listen. That man is after me as well — he tried to kill me yesterday. I mean no harm, I wished only to ask Bathsheba about Master Gristwood—'

'He was asking the same questions,' Bathsheba said. 'About Michael's papers, his brother's work. He says he's a lawyer.'

The young man's eyes flashed angrily. 'I didn't know they allowed hunchbacks to be lawyers.' He stepped closer and held the dagger to my neck. 'If you're a lawyer, you're working for somebody. Who is it?'

'Lord Cromwell,' I replied. 'My assistant has his seal.'

Bathsheba's brother and the big man at the door exchanged a look. 'Oh, George,' Bathsheba groaned, 'what have we done?'

The brother grabbed my arm and slammed me against the far wall, the knifepoint pressed against my throat. 'Why? God's death, how is he involved in this?'

'George,' Bathsheba cried out then, wringing her hands, 'we have to tell them everything, we have to throw ourselves on their mercy—'

George turned to her angrily. 'Mercy? Cromwell? No, we'll kill the crookback and his mate and dump their bodies in the Thames, there'll be nothing to show they were ever here—'

There was a yell from the madam standing outside, then a loud crash. The man with the club staggered across the room as the door was flung open. He landed on the bed and Bathsheba screamed. Barak lunged in; he had unsheathed his sword and now he brought it down on George Green's knife arm as he turned. Green yelled, dropping the dagger.

'You all right?' Barak asked me.

I gasped. 'Yes—'

'I heard these fellows in the hallway, though they tried to muffle the noise they made.' He turned to George, who was gripping his arm, blood running through his fingers. 'You'll be all right, matey, I just cut you. I could've had your arm off, but I didn't. In return you can do some talking—'

'Look out!' I shouted. The big man had jumped up from the bed and raised his club, ready to smash it down on Barak's head. I threw myself at him and managed to throw him off balance. He staggered against the wall. Barak turned and in that moment George grabbed his shocked-looking sister by the hand, threw open the shutters and jumped from the window, Bathsheba screaming as she followed. The big man steadied himself, dropped his club and fled through the open doorway.

Barak ran to the window. 'Stay here!' he shouted as he jumped after Bathsheba and her brother, whom I could just see disappearing round a corner. I sat on the bed, trying to gather my wits. After a few moments I realized the house was totally silent. Had everyone fled? I wondered. I lifted myself from the greasy bed and, picking up George's dagger, walked back to the dining chamber. The girls and their customers had gone. The madam sat alone at the table, her head in her hands. Her shock of red hair, evidently a wig, lay among overturned tankards. Her own hair was thin and grey.

'Well, lady?' I said.

She looked up at me, her expression despairing. 'Is this the end of my house?'

I sat down. 'Not necessarily. I want to know about Bathsheba's doings with Michael Gristwood, and the attack on her. Was that attack the reason you were worried when we came asking after her?'

She nodded, then looked at me fearfully. 'I heard you mention Lord Cromwell's name,' she whispered.

'Ay. I work for him. But he doesn't care what trugging houses there are in Southwark so long as the owners don't cross him.'

She shook her head. 'The girls shouldn't get involved with the customers. It happens sometimes when a girl isn't pretty or getting past her prime, and Bathsheba's past twenty-five. Sometimes they fancy themselves in love. Not that I'd anything against Michael Gristwood, he'd a merry way with him for a man of law. Some afternoons we all sat round this table together laughing. But when he was alone with Bathsheba he'd start crying and bewailing his woes.' Her mouth twisted bitterly. 'He should have my troubles, have a mark like this.' She pointed to her cheek. The 'W' stood out clearly in the dim light; ashes would have been rubbed into the burn to ensure the mark never faded.

'So you discouraged Bathsheba.'

'When I saw she was getting in too deep. These things always end in trouble.' She looked at me with hard blue eyes. 'There were things Gristwood told Bathsheba that worried her, I knew that. He was in trouble of some sort.'

'Did you learn what trouble?'

'No, Bathsheba turned close as an oyster. Then Michael stopped coming. Bathsheba thought he'd left her. She went across to Queenhithe to make enquiries and came back here crying and wailing that he was dead. I told her she should get away, go back to Hertford where she came from. But she didn't want to leave her brother. He's a wherryman on the river.'

'They're close?'

'Close as can be. Then three men came to the house. They weren't cunning like you, they just barged in with drawn swords, told the girls to get out and demanded Bathsheba.'

'And one of them was a tall man with the marks of smallpox.'

'Ay. Face as scored as a butcher's block, and another ugly ruffian with him.'

'Do you know who sent them?'

'No.' She crossed herself. 'The devil perhaps, they had killing looks on them. The girls ran. I sent the boy for George, same as I did today. He came back with a dozen of his mates. By the time they arrived they had Bathsheba in her room and the pock-faced one was beating her. But the wherrymen were too many for them and they ran.'

'Did they get any information from Bathsheba?'

She shrugged. 'I don't know. I ordered her out of the house. If this place gets a reputation for fighting it'll be the end of it. Some of the girls have already left. Bathsheba came back this morning, asking me to take her on again.' She shrugged. 'I'm short of girls, so I let her. More fool me.'

The door opened and Barak came in, breathless. 'They've got away,' he said. 'Run to some rat hole!' He glared at Madam Neller. 'What's the old troll got to say?'

'I'll tell you outside.' I got to my feet. I took out my purse and laid a gold half angel on the table. 'There's two more if you let me know if Bathsheba returns, or if you find where she is. I mean her no harm, mind.'

The beldame grabbed up the coins. 'And there'll be no trouble from Lord Cromwell?'

'Not if you do as I ask. You will find me at Chancery Lane.'

She pocketed the coins. 'Very well,' she said and nodded briefly.

Barak and I left the place and walked rapidly back to the river stairs, watchful for danger though all was quiet. The Thames was still thronged and there were no boats waiting. Barak sat down on the top step and I followed, removing my satchel, which was making my shoulder ache. I told him what the madam had said. 'By the way,' I added, 'thank you for saving my life back there.'

Barak smiled ruefully. 'And to you for saving mine. That knave would have had my brains out. What about that well? D'you want to go there tonight?'

'No, I have to go to Lincoln's Inn to prepare for tomorrow's case. And I want to find some books on Greek Fire too.'

He looked over the river. The sun was getting low, turning the water silver. 'Tomorrow's the first of June. Nine days left then.' He smiled wryly. 'You do need me, you see?'

I sighed heavily and met his gaze. 'Ay.'

Barak laughed.

'There's something you could do for me tonight,' I said. 'Ask round the taverns at Lothbury, see if anyone knows anything about the Wentworth family, any tales. Would you do that?'

'All right. Never say no to an evening's drinking. I can go to the sailors' taverns too; make some enquiries about that Polish drink.'

I looked across at the palace. Liveried servants were scurrying to and fro outside, and a great red carpet was being unrolled. 'It looks like Bishop Gardiner is having visitors. Look, here's a wherry, let's get away.'

Chapter Eighteen

BARAK AND I SUPPED EARLY at Chancery Lane. We talked little, exhausted by our adventure, but ate in a feeling of better fellowship. Barak left the table early to walk back to the City and spend his evening making enquiries round the taverns. With London as brimful of taverns as churches, I guessed that he had probably trawled them before for information on Cromwell's behalf. It could be a dangerous occupation, I thought. Meanwhile I had the Bealknap case to prepare and some books to look for in the library at Lincoln's Inn. I rose reluctantly and donned my robe once more.

Outside the sun was setting, one of those brilliant red sunsets that can follow a hot summer's day. I shaded my eyes as I turned into the road, looking round for any sign of strangers. Chancery Lane was empty as I walked quickly to the Inn, glad to pass under the safety of the gate.

I saw a long blue-painted coach was pulled up in the courtyard, the horses eating placidly from their nosebags while the driver dozed on his seat. A visitor of rank — I hoped it was not Norfolk come again.

There was a soft glow of candlelight from many windows, barristers working late now the law term had started. A hot dusty smell, not unpleasant, rose from the cobblestones and the setting sun gave the brick walls of Gatehouse Court a warm red glow. A group of laughing students passed on their way to some revel in the City, young lusty-gallants in bright slashed doublets.

As I turned towards my chambers, I saw two people sitting on a bench outside the hall and to my surprise recognized Marchamount and Lady Honor. Marchamount was half-leaning over her, speaking, in a low, urgent voice. I could not see Lady Honor's face, but her demeanour looked tense. I sidled behind one of the pillars of the undercroft and watched. After a moment Marchamount rose, bowed and walked rapidly off. His face was set coldly. I hesitated, then walked across to Lady Honor, removed my cap and bowed deeply. She wore a silk gown with wide puffed sleeves and flowers embroidered on the bodice; I felt conscious of the sweaty stubble that covered my face, for I had still not had time to visit the barber. But maybe she would think I was being fashionable and growing a beard.

'My lady, you are visiting the Inn again.'

She looked up at me, brushing a wisp of hair under the stylish French hood she wore. 'Yes. Another consultation with good Serjeant Marchamount.' She smiled softly. 'Sit beside me a moment. You are coming to my banquet tomorrow?'

I took Marchamount's place on the bench, catching the faint tang of some exotic scent she wore. 'I am looking forward to it, Lady Honor.'

She looked around the courtyard. 'This is a peaceful place,' she said. 'My grandfather studied here — oh — seventy years ago. Lord Vaughan of Hartham. He fell at Bosworth.' There was a burst of raucous laughter as another pair of students crossed the yard. Lady Honor smiled. 'I fear he must have been like these young fellows, he came to the Inns to gain some law to help in running his estates, but he was probably more interested in the revels of the City.'

I smiled. 'Some things never change, even in the topsy-turvy world we have now.'

'Oh, they do,' she said with sudden emphasis. 'Nowadays these students will be of mere gentry birth; they will have their fun, but then they will settle down to the business of trying to make a fortune, which is all men care for nowadays.' She frowned suddenly, making sad dimples at the corners of her mouth. 'Even those one has time for may turn out not to be the gentlemen one thought.'

'That is sad.' I realized she probably meant Marchamount. She had not noticed I had seen them together. I felt guilty for my spying.

'Yes, it is.' She smiled again. 'But you, I think, are more than a mere money grubber. You have a look of inner care that does not go with such preoccupations.'

I laughed. 'Perhaps. You see much, Lady Honor.'

'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.

===OO=OOO=OO===

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 coining 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.

===OO=OOO=OO===

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 habitations 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.

Heslop looked up. 'Yes, Brother Bealknap, I agree with you. I think this case settles the matter.'

I rose. 'Your honour, if I may answer. The cases I passed to you are both more numerous and later in time—'

Heslop shook his head. 'I have the right to choose which precedent best expresses the common law and Brother Bealknap's case is the only one that deals directly with the issue of royal authority—'

'But Brother Bealknap bought this house, your honour, a contract intervenes—'

'I have a full list today, Brother. Judgement for the plaintiff, with costs.'

We left the court, Bealknap smiling. I glanced over to where Rich had stood, but he had disappeared. It was no surprise to see him at Westminster Hall, his own Office of Augmentations was nearby, but why had he stood staring at me like that! I walked over to where Vervey and Barak stood together. I reddened at the thought that Barak had now seen me lose two cases, Elizabeth's and Bealknap's. 'You bring me bad luck when you come to watch me,' I told him grumpily to cover my embarrassment.

'That was a monstrous decision,' Vervey said indignantly. 'It made a nonsense of the law.'

'Yes, it did. Sir, I am afraid my advice must be to take this matter to Chancery, expensive as that will be. Otherwise that judgement gives carte blanche to all purchasers of monastic properties in London to flout the City regulations—'

I broke off as Barak nudged me. Bealknap was at my elbow. I frowned; it was a breach of etiquette to approach a fellow lawyer in conference with a client. Bealknap too was frowning, his composure ruffled.

'You would take this to Chancery, Brother?' he asked. 'But you would merely lose again. To put the Common Council to such expense—'

'I was having a private conversation, Bealknap, but that will be my advice. That was a biased judgement and the Court of Equity will overturn it.'

He laughed with a show of incredulity. 'When it comes on. Have you any idea how long cases are waiting in Chancery these days?'

'We will wait as long as we must.' I looked at him: as ever his eyes evaded mine. 'A word, Brother.' I led him away from the others and leaned close to him. 'How did the case come to be on Heslop's list, hey? Did a little gold pass between you and him?'

'Such an accusation—' he blustered.

'I would put nothing past you, Bealknap, where your pocket is concerned. But we shall have a fair contest in Chancery. And do not think I have forgotten that other matter. I have been investigating your links with French merchants. They would pay much for that formula.'

His eyes widened at that. 'I wouldn't—'

'I hope not, for your sake. If you have been involved in anything treasonable, Bealknap, you will find you have been playing with fire in more ways than one.'

For the first time he looked afraid. 'I haven't, I swear. It was all as I told you.'

'Was it? It had better be.' I stood away from him. He brushed himself down, recovering himself, and gave me a look of pure venom.

'I will have my costs for this case, Brother,' he said, a momentary tremble in his voice. 'I will send the Common Council a fee note—'

'Ay, do that.' I turned my back on him and rejoined Barak and an uncomfortable-looking Vervey. Bealknap slunk away.

'He promises us a fee note,' I said, forcing a smile. 'Master Vervey, I will let the council have my recommendations. Once again, I am sorry for this outcome. I suspect the judge may have been bribed.'

'It would not surprise me,' Vervey replied. 'I know of Bealknap. Will you write to us with your views as soon as may be? I know the Common Council will be worried by the implications.'

'Ay.'

Vervey bowed and disappeared into the throng. 'What did you say to Bealknap?' Barak asked. 'I thought you were going to rough him up.'

'I warned him I still had my eye on him. Told him I'd been looking into his connections with the French.'

'Bealknap was definitely the arsehole who came to my — my stepfather.' He spoke the word bitterly.

I set my lips. 'Do you think you could find more about his running fake compurgators? Find an adult who could give evidence. It would be something to threaten him with—'

I was interrupted. There was a stir in the crowd around us, and I turned to see Rich bearing down on me, a smile on his face but his eyes holding me with the same cold stare as they had in court.

'Brother Shardlake again and his ruffled-headed assistant.' He smiled at Barak. 'You should have a care to comb your hair, sir, before coming to court.'

Barak returned his stare evenly.

Rich smiled and turned to me. 'That's an impertinent fellow you keep, Brother Shardlake. You need to teach him manners. And perhaps learn some yourself.'

Rich's stare was unnerving, but I held my ground. 'I am sorry, Sir Richard, I do not know what you mean.'

'You involve yourself in matters beyond your station. You should stick to helping country farmers with their land disputes.'

'What matters do you mean, Sir Richard?'

'You know,' he said. 'Don't play innocent with me. Take care or you'll suffer for it.' And with that he turned round and was gone. There was a moment's silence.

'He knows,' Barak said, his voice low and intense. 'He knows about Greek Fire.'

'How? How could he?'

'I don't know, but he does. What else could he have meant? Perhaps Gristwood did go to see him after all during those missing six months.'

I frowned. 'But — if he threatens me, he threatens Cromwell.'

'Perhaps he doesn't know the earl's involved.'

I looked after Rich thoughtfully. 'Bealknap scurries away and a second later Rich appears. And he was doing something that involved Rich that day at Augmentations.'

'Perhaps he has Rich's protection.' Barak set his lips. 'The earl must know of this.'

I nodded reluctantly. 'God's death, Rich involved too.' I exclaimed crossly as someone jostled me. 'Come, let's get out of here. We're due at Lothbury.'

Chapter Twenty

THE RIVER WAS CROWDED again and we had to wait at the steps for a boat. Barak leaned on the parapet.

'Do you think Bealknap bribed that judge?' he asked.

'I wouldn't be surprised. Heslop has a poor reputation for honesty.'

'Will you win if you take the case to Chancery?'

'We should do. They'll look at the merits of the matter. But God knows when we'll get on. Bealknap's right about their delays — I named my horse for their slow ways.' I looked at Barak seriously. 'Find one of these compurgators. We can offer a reward and perhaps immunity from prosecution if Cromwell will agree. We need a lever over Bealknap, especially if he's got Rich behind him.'

'Ay, I'll do it.' He turned to face me. 'I'll not go to my stepfather, though, even if I knew where he and my mother lived. Not even for the earl.'

'No? I thought there were no limits to your loyalty.'

His eyes flashed. 'I loved my father, for all he smelt of shit. My mother would have nothing to do with him; he took up his trade after I was born or I'd not be here at all. I was twelve when he died.' I nodded, interested. For the first time my difficult companion was showing me something of himself.

'We'd had this cheating attorney as a lodger for years, Kenney his name was. He had the best part of the house while we had two rooms. He was good with words and my mother liked him, he was— ' Barak almost bit off the words — 'a step up the social chain. She married him a week after father died: the poor old arsehole wasn't even cold in the ground. D'you know what she said to me? Same as you did coming from that house in Wolf's Lane. "A poor widow must look after herself."'

'So she must, I suppose.'

'After that, I went mad for a while.' He gave a bark of laughter. 'Sometimes I think I'm still a bit mad. I ran away from home, left school, though I'd been doing well. I got in with the gangs. A poor child must look after himself too, you know.' He stared out over the water. 'Ended by getting caught stealing a ham. I was put in prison and would have faced the rope; it was a big ham, worth over a shilling. But the warden was a Putney man and recognized my father's name. Coming from the same part of the world as Lord Cromwell he had contacts with him; I ended up going before him and he put me to work, running errands at first and then other things.' Barak turned to me. 'So I owe the earl everything. My very life.'

'I see.'

He stood up, taking a deep breath. 'There was a pub by the Tower where my stepfather met Bealknap. I think it was a meeting place for Bealknap's stable of rogues. I'll go down there, try to find it.'

I looked at him. 'No wonder you have no good opinion of lawyers.'

'You're more honest than most,' he grunted.

'You never see your mother or stepfather?'

'I've seen them once or twice about the City, but I always turn away. I'm dead for all they know or care.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

WE TOOK A WHERRY as far as Three Cranes Stairs, then walked north to Lothbury. I had to hurry to keep up with Barak's loping pace. By the Grocers' Hall a couple of young gentlemen in fine doublets were mocking a beggar who sat in the doorway, displaying a face caked with weeping sores to stir the public's pity.

'Come, fellow, you should go for a soldier!' one was saying. 'Everyone is needed at muster now, to fight the pope and the king's enemies.' He took a sword from a leather scabbard and waved it. The beggar, who looked hardly fit to rise let alone take up arms, scrabbled back in panic, making the hoarse grunts of a dumb man.

'He can't speak the king's English,' said the other fellow. 'Maybe he's a foreigner.'

Barak walked over, hand on his own sword, and looked the young gallant in the eye. 'Leave him,' he said. 'Unless you'd like to try your luck with me?'

The fellow's eyes narrowed, but he sheathed his sword and turned away. Barak took a coin from his pocket and laid it by the beggar. 'Come on,' he said curtly.

'That was a brave gesture,' I said. The words of the motto on the barrel of Greek Fire came back to me. Lupus est homo homini: man is wolf to man.

Barak snorted. 'Those arseholes are only fit to bait those who can't fight back.' He spat on the ground. 'Gentlemen.'

We reached Lothbury Street. Ahead of us stood St Margaret's church, beside which narrow lanes led off into a warren of little buildings from where a metallic clangour could be heard. Because of the endless noise virtually no one save the founders lived in Lothbury.

'Goodwife Gristwood will meet us at her son's foundry,' I said. 'We go up here, Nag's Lane.'

We turned into a narrow passageway between two-storey houses. Cinders and fragments of charcoal were mixed with the alley dust and there was a harsh smell of hot iron. Nearly all the houses had workshops attached; their doors were open and I could see men moving within. Spades scraped on stone floors as coal was loaded into furnaces from which a bright red, concentrated glow was visible.

At length I halted in front of a small house. The workshop door was closed; Barak knocked twice. It opened and a wiry young man wearing a heavy apron over an old smock pitted with burn holes looked at us suspiciously. He had Goodwife Gristwood's thin, sharp features.

'Master Harper?' I asked.

'Ay.'

'I am Master Shardlake.'

'Come in,' the founder replied in a less than friendly tone. 'Mother's here.'

I followed him into his little foundry. An unlit furnace dominated the room, a pile of charcoal beside it. A collection of pots was stacked by the door. On a stool in one corner Goodwife Gristwood sat. She gave me a surly nod.

'Well, master lawyer,' she said. 'Here he is.'

Harper nodded at Barak. 'Who's that?'

'My assistant.'

'We founders stick together,' he said warningly. 'I've only to call out for half Lothbury to be here.'

'We mean you no harm — it is only information I want. Your mother has told you we seek information about Michael and Sepultus's experiments?'

'Ay.' He sat down beside his mother and looked at me. 'They told me they wanted to build something, an arrangement of pumps and tanks. That's beyond my capacity, but I do a lot of casting for a man who works for the City repairing the conduits.'

'Peter Leighton.'

'Ay. I helped Master Leighton cast the iron for the pipes and the tank.' He looked at me keenly. 'Mother says there could be danger for those who know about this.'

'Perhaps. We may be able to help there.' I paused. 'The liquid that was to be put in the tank? Did you see anything of that?'

Harper shook his head. 'Michael said it was a secret, it was better I didn't know. They did some tests in Master Leighton's yard. They leased the whole yard from him and wouldn't let him near. It has a high wall; he keeps lead pipes there for work on the conduits.'

I wondered what Harper's relationship had been with Gristwood, who was, after all, his stepfather. I guessed it had not been one of affection, but that the nature of his employment made him useful.

'What was this apparatus like?' I asked.

He shrugged. 'Complicated. A big watertight tank with a pump attached and a pipe leading off. It took weeks to make, then Master Leighton said I'd have to have another try — the pipe was too broad.'

'When did the brothers first employ you?'

'November. It took till January to get the apparatus right.'

Two months before they went to Cromwell. 'Are you sure?'

'Yes.'

'And where was it kept? In Master Leighton's yard?'

'I believe so. They paid him well for its use.'

Goodwife Gristwood laughed mirthlessly. 'Did Master Leighton get his money?'

'Ay, Mother, he did. He insisted on payment in advance.'

She frowned. 'Then where did Michael get the money? Neither he nor Sepultus had any.'

'Perhaps someone else paid,' I suggested.

'They'd have had to,' the goodwife answered bitterly. 'I spent fifteen years dealing with Michael's mad schemes. Sometimes I had hardly any bread for the table. And it's all ended with him dead and David in danger.' She looked at her son with a tenderness that softened her face.

'I can make sure you are both kept safe,' I said. 'But I would like to speak to Master Leighton.' I looked at David Harper. 'Have you told him I was coming?'

'No, sir. We thought it better not.'

'Will he be at his foundry?'

'Ay, he has a new contract to repair the Fleet Street conduit. He said last Friday he'd have some casting for me. Pleased with himself, he was.'

'Can you take us there?'

'And will that be the end of this business?' Goodwife Gristwood asked.

'You need be involved no further, madam.'

She nodded at her son. He rose and led the way outside. His mother scuttled after him.

We walked up the lane, further into Lothbury. Through open doors we saw sweat-soaked founders, stripped to the waist, labouring over their fires. People looked out at us curiously as we passed by. At the bottom of a winding lane David stopped before a corner house, larger than most, with a workshop next to it and a high wall beside that.

'If there were sounds and signs of fire,' Barak muttered to me, 'they wouldn't attract attention here.'

'No. This was a clever place to choose.'

David knocked at the door of the house. It was shuttered, as were the windows of the workshop. Harper tried the workshop doors too, but they were locked.

'Master Leighton,' he called. 'Master Leighton, it's David.' He turned to us apologetically. 'Many founders grow deaf in their later years. But it's odd his furnace isn't lit.'

I had a sense of foreboding. 'When did you last see him?'

'Friday, sir, when he told me about his new contract.'

Barak looked at the lock. 'I could have that open.'

'No,' Harper said. 'I know who has a key. Everyone has a neighbour's key in case of fire. Wait here.' He went off down the lane. All around us the banging and clanging resounded in our ears. Goodwife Gristwood began twisting her hands together nervously.

Her son reappeared, a large key in his hands. He unlocked the door and we entered the yard. It was indeed a good place for Michael and Sepultus to have chosen; the high wall enclosed it on three sides and the windowless rear of the adjacent house occupied the fourth. There was a pile of pipes and valves, for Leighton's work on the conduits, no doubt. Blackened patches all over the walls caught my eye, like the ones I had seen in the Gristwoods' yard only larger.

Goodwife Gristwood and her son were standing nervously by the gate. I gave David Harper a reassuring smile — he looked as though he might run off any minute.

'Master Harper,' I said, 'tell me: does anything unusual strike you about this yard?'

He looked around. 'Only that it's been given a good clean recently.'

I nodded. 'That's what I thought. It's spotless.'

'Why would anyone want to keep a founder's yard spotless?' Barak asked.

'To hide all traces of what had been here.' I bent close to him and whispered, 'I think someone has removed the apparatus, and all traces of Greek Fire as well.'

'Leighton?'

'Possibly. Come, I think we should have a look in the house.'

I led the way out of the yard. We knocked again at the house door, but still there was no sign of life. I wiped a hand over my brow; it seemed hotter and stickier than ever up here among the foundries. All around us the clanging and scrating continued.

'We can get in via the workshop,' Harper said. 'It's the same key.' He hesitated, then opened the workshop door and stepped inside calling, 'Master Leighton?' Barak followed him.

'I'll stay outside,' Goodwife Gristwood said nervously. 'Take care, David.'

I followed Barak in. David opened the shutters and I saw a cluttered workshop, more pipes and valves and pans and an empty furnace. Harper picked up a coal from it. 'Stone cold,' he said.

Set in one wall was a door to the house. Harper hesitated, then inserted the key in the lock and opened it. Another darkened room. I caught a slight, familiar tang and grabbed Barak's arm. 'Wait,' I said.

Harper opened the shutters and turned round. Then his mouth fell open. We were in a parlour, surprisingly well appointed, but it was in chaos. The buffet cupboard had been overturned and lay on its side, silver plates scattered around.

David Harper had gone pale. He stood with his hand over his mouth. 'They got him too,' I whispered. 'They took the apparatus and killed him.'

'Then where's the body?' Barak asked.

'Somewhere in the house, maybe. I smell blood.' Instructing Harper to stay where he was, Barak and I searched the rest of the founder's home, Barak drawing his sword as we climbed the narrow stairs. Everything was in order, it was only the parlour that had been wrecked. We returned there to find David Harper had gone outside; through the window I saw him with his mother, looking at the house with a frightened expression. A man with a load of pans on his back passed by, giving them a puzzled look.

'They took the body with them,' I said, 'together with the apparatus. They didn't want a hue and cry about a murder in Lothbury.' I knelt and examined the floor. 'See, this part of the floor's been cleaned, there's no dust.' I saw a pair of flies buzzing around the overturned buffet, and took a deep breath. 'Here, Barak, help me move this.'

I wondered what horror we might find underneath the buffet, but there was only a patch of dried blood. Barak whistled.

'Where did they get the key?'

'From Leighton's body, perhaps.' I looked over to the front door. 'They didn't break the door in. I guess they knocked, and when Leighton answered they shoved him inside and then followed and killed him. Probably a quick blow with an axe again.'

'Risky. What if he called out and neighbours came? Harper's right, the founders are a close lot.'

'Perhaps Leighton knew them.' I bit my lip. 'Or knew someone who was with them. One of our potential conspirators, maybe.'

'We should ask the neighbours.'

'We can, but I'm willing to bet they came at night when no one was about. Come, there's no more we can do here.'

We rejoined Harper and Goodwife Gristwood in the street. Standing together, they were very alike, even to their looks of drawn anxiety.

'What's happened, sir?' Harper asked. 'Is Master Leighton—'

'He is not there. But I am afraid there are signs of violence—'

Goodwife Gristwood gave a little moan.

'I am concerned for the safety of you and your son, madam,' I said. 'Is the watchman still at your house?'

'Ay, he brought me here, then I sent him back.'

I turned to Harper. 'I think your mother should stay with you for now. I will try and find somewhere safer.'

The old woman gave me an appalled look. 'What did they do? For Jesu's sake, what did Michael and Sepultus do here?'

'Meddled with dangerous people.'

She shook her head, then looked at me again, her mouth tightening into its old hardness. 'That whore,' she asked abruptly, 'did you see her?'

'I tried to, but she ran away.' I turned to David. 'Is it possible someone could carry away that apparatus without being noticed? Perhaps on a cart?'

He nodded. 'People are always trundling carts through Lothbury with goods to take to customers and the shops. Day and night too when we're busy.'

I nodded. 'Ask around, would you, among the neighbours? Just say Leighton's missing. Would you do that?'

He nodded, then put his arm round his mother. 'Are we truly in danger, sir?'

'I think your mother may be. Who knows where she is?'

'No one save me and the watchman at Wolf's Lane.'

'Tell no one else. Can you read?'

'Ay.'

I scribbled my address on a piece of paper. 'If you have any news, or require anything, you can reach me here.'

He took it, nodding. His mother clung to his arm. I was glad they had each other; they had no one else now.

===OO=OOO=OO===

I WAS WEARY, but insisted on stopping at a barber's for a shave in preparation for the banquet. Barak waited for me, then we caught a boat back to the Temple and walked home. I insisted on resting before getting myself ready. I dozed an hour and woke feeling unrefreshed. The sky was as leaden, the air as close, as ever. How I wished the weather would break. I got up, feeling stiff, and for the first time in days did some of Guy's back exercises. I was bending over, trying to touch my toes and getting nowhere near, when there was a knock at the door and Barak entered. His eyes widened in surprise.

'That's a strange way to pray,' he said.

'I'm not praying. I'm trying to find some relief for my sore back. And haven't you the manners to be asked to enter a room before barging in?'

'Sorry.' Barak sat down cheerfully on the bed. 'I came to tell you I'm going out. An old contact of mine has some information on the two we're after. Pock-face and his big mate. I'm going to meet him, then I'm going to see the earl.' His expression grew serious. 'Tell him about Rich. He may want to see you.'

I took a deep breath. 'Very well. You know where I'll be. And ask if he can find somewhere safe for the Gristwoods.'

Barak nodded, then gave me a warning look. 'So far we've had more requests for him than information.'

'I know, but we're doing all we can.'

'You'll have to ride to Lady Honor's house alone.'

'It is still light.'

'Afterwards I'll find that tavern where Bealknap met my stepfather. It'll keep me occupied while you're at the banquet.'

'Very well.'

'Are you sure you don't want to have a crack at that well later? After the banquet?'

I shook my head. 'I'll be too tired, I have to get some sleep. I have to pace myself, Barak,' I added irritably. 'I've more than ten years on you. Just how old are you, by the way?'

'Twenty-eight in August. Listen, I've been trying to puzzle something out. I can understand whoever organized the killing of the Gristwood brothers keeping the formula close, perhaps to sell abroad when things have quietened down. But why try to kill the founder Leighton? Why kill everyone associated with this?'

'They could have killed Leighton just as a way of getting to the apparatus. We know they've no care for life.'

'And they're keen to get you. They don't seem to like you being on the case.'

I frowned. 'But is that just because I might uncover who is behind this, the person who is paying these rogues? Or is it that they fear I might find something out about Greek Fire? Is that why those books have gone?'

Barak's eyes widened. 'You can't still think it may all be a fraud, surely? Not after what you've seen and heard?'

'There's something that's not right. I must go to the Guildhall, find copies of those books.' I clutched at my head. 'God's death, there's so much to do.'

'It beats me what you can hope to find from a lot of old books.' He sighed. 'Four possible suspects now. Bealknap and Rich. Marchamount. And Lady Honor. Make sure you question her tonight.'

'Of course I will,' I snapped.

Barak gave his sardonic smile. 'You're sweet on her, you're still a man of juice under all that learning.'

'You've a coarse tongue. Besides, as you pointed out yourself, she's out of my league.' I looked at him. He had mentioned seeing a girl on the first night he came to my house, but beyond that I knew nothing of what women there might have been in his life. Many, I guessed, for all the fears of the French pox these days.

He lay back on the bed.

'Bealknap and Rich,' he said again, 'Marchamount and Lady Honor. One or more of them a murdering rogue. So much for people of rank being honourable, not that I ever believed it.'

I shrugged. 'The idea of raising oneself up to gentle rank has always seemed a worthy thing to me. But perhaps that ideal will turn to dust, like Erasmus's hopes of a Christian commonwealth. In these whirling days, who knows?'

'Some things last,' he said. He smiled. 'I said I'd show you this, remember?'

'What?'

Barak sat up and unbuttoned his shirt. There was something gold on the end of a chain, glittering against his broad chest. It wasn't a cross, it looked more like a little cylinder. He lifted the chain over his head and proffered it. 'Take a look.'

I examined the cylinder. The surface had been engraved once but the gold was worn almost smooth with time. 'It's been passed down my father's family for generations,' he said. 'It's supposed to be to do with the Jewish religion. My father called it a mezzah.' He shrugged. 'I like to have it by me, to bring me luck.'

'The workmanship is fine. It looks very old.'

'The Jews were kicked out more than two hundred years ago, weren't they? One of them must have kept it when he converted and passed it down. A reminder of the past.'

I turned it over in my hands. Tiny as it was, the cylinder was hollow, with a slit down one side.

'Father said they used to put a tiny scroll of parchment in there and put the mezzah by the door.'

I handed it back. 'It's remarkable.'

Barak replaced it, buttoned up his shirt and got up. 'I must be gone,' he said briskly.

'And I should get ready. Good luck with the earl.'

As the door shut behind him, I turned to the window and looked out over my parched garden. The clouds were so heavy now that although only it was only late afternoon it was dim as dusk. I unlocked my chest and began reaching for my best clothes. Somewhere, away over the Thames, a distant rumble of thunder sounded.

Chapter Twenty-one

LADY HONOR'S HOUSE WAS in Blue Lion Street off Bishopsgate. It was a big old four-storey courtyard house, the front giving directly onto the street. It had been sumptuously refurbished in the recent past. I could see why it was known as the House of Glass; new diamond-paned windows had been put in along the whole frontage, with the Vaughan family crest in some of the centre panes. I studied it: a rampant lion with sword and shield, the epitome of martial virtues. There was something feminine about the overall effect, however; I wondered if the work had been done since Lady Honor's husband died.

The front door was open, with liveried servants standing outside. Although I was dressed in my uncomfortable best, I worried that I would appear an unsophisticated fellow for I was unused to mixing in such high company. I pulled a little ruff of silk shirt above the collar of my doublet to display the needlework.

I had ridden Chancery to the banquet; the old horse appeared recovered from his recent exertions and trotted along happily enough. A lad took the reins as I dismounted and another servant bowed me through the front door. He led me through a richly decorated hall into a large inner courtyard. Here too all the rooms had large glass windows, and heraldic beasts had been carved on the walls as well as the Vaughan crest. There was a fountain in the middle of the courtyard, with just enough water emerging to make a merry, tinkling noise. Opposite, a large banqueting hall occupied the first floor. Candles flickered behind the open windows, casting ever-changing shadows on the people moving to and fro within, and there was a merry clatter of cutlery. It struck me that if Lady Honor had been involved in the Greek Fire business, it was certainly not because she needed money.

The steward led me up a broad flight of stairs to a room where bowls of hot water were set out on a table with a pile of towels. The bowls, I saw, were gold.

'You will wash your hands, sir?'

'Thank you.'

Three men were already standing washing; a young fellow with the Mercers' Company badge on his silk doublet and an older man in a white clerical robe. The third man, who looked up with a beaming smile on his broad face, was Gabriel Marchamount. 'Ah, Shardlake,' he said expansively, 'I hope you have a sweet tooth. Lady Honor's banquets positively drip with sugar.' Evidently he had decided to be affable tonight.

'Not too sweet, I must watch my teeth.'

'Like me you still have a full set.' Marchamount shook his head. 'I cannot abide this fashion for women to blacken their teeth deliberately so people will think they live off nothing but fine sugar.'

'I agree. It is not pretty.'

'I have heard them say the pains in their mouth are worth it, if people respect them more.' He laughed. 'Women of Lady Honor's class, though, women of real estate, would disdain such effect.' He dried his hands, replacing the showy emerald ring on his finger and patted his plump stomach. 'Come then, let us go in.' He took a napkin from a pile and flung it over his shoulder; I followed his example and we went out to the banqueting chamber.

The long room had an old hammerbeam ceiling. The walls were covered with bright tapestries showing the story of the Crusades, the papal tiara carefully stitched out where the Bishop of Rome was shown blessing the departing armies. Big tallow candles, set in silver candleholders, had been lit against the dark evening and filled the room with a yellow glow.

I glanced at the enormous table that dominated the room. The candlelight winked on gold and silver tableware and serving men scurried to and fro, placing dishes and glasses on the broad buffet against one wall. As was the custom, I had brought my own dining knife, a silver one my father had given me. It would look a poor thing among these riches.

The salt cellar, a foot high and particularly ornate, was set at the very top of the table, opposite a high chair thick with cushions. That meant nearly all the guests would be below the salt and therefore that a guest of the highest status was expected. I wondered if it might even be Cromwell.

Marchamount smiled and nodded round at the company. A dozen guests were standing talking, mostly older men, though there was a smattering of wives, some wearing heavy lead rouge to brighten their cheeks. Mayor Hollyes himself was there, resplendent in his red robes of office. The other men mostly wore Mercers' Company livery, though there were a couple of clerics. Everyone was perspiring in the oppressive heat despite the open windows; the women in their wide farthingales looked especially uncomfortable.

A boy of about sixteen with long black hair and a thin, pale face, badly disfigured with a rash of spots such as boys sometimes have, was standing by himself in a corner, looking nervous. 'That's Henry Vaughan,' Marchamount whispered. 'Lady Honor's nephew. Heir to the old Vaughan title and to their lands, such as they have left. She's brought him down from Lincolnshire to try and get him received at court.'

'He looks ill at ease.'

'Yes, he's a poor fellow; hardly cut out for the rumbustuous company the king likes.' He paused, then said with sudden feeling, 'I wish I had an heir.' I looked at him in surprise. He smiled sadly. 'My wife died in childbirth these five years past. We would have had a boy. When I began my petition to establish my family's right to a coat of arms, it was in hope my wife and I would have an heir.'

'I am sorry for your loss.' Somehow it never occurred to me to see Marchamount as a man who could be bereaved and vulnerable.

He nodded at the mourning ring in the shape of a skull I wore. 'You too have known loss,' he said.

'Yes. In the plague of 'thirty-four.' Yet I felt a fraud as I spoke, not just because Kate had announced her betrothal to another shortly before she died but because these last two years I had thought of her less and less. I thought with sudden irritation I should stop wearing it.

'Have you resolved that unpleasant matter we discussed earlier?' Marchamount's eyes were sharp, all sentiment gone.

'I make progress. A strange thing happened in the course of my investigations.' I told him of the books that had gone missing from the library.

'You should tell the keeper.'

'I may do.'

'Will your investigation be — ah — hindered, without the books?'

'Delayed a little only. There are other sources.' I watched his face closely, but he only nodded solemnly. A serving man took up a horn and sounded a long note. The company fell silent as Lady Honor entered the room. She wore a wide, high-bosomed farthingale in brightest green velvet and a red French hood with loops of pearls hanging from it. I was pleased to see she wore no leaden rouge; her clear complexion had no need of it. But it was not to her that all eyes in the room turned; they fixed on the man who followed her, wearing a light scarlet robe edged with fur despite the heat, and a thick gold chain. My heart sank — it was the Duke of Norfolk again. I bowed with everyone else as he strode to the head of the table and stood eyeing the company haughtily. I wondered with a sinking heart whether he would remember I had been sitting next to Godfrey on Sunday; the last thing I wanted was to attract the notice of Cromwell's greatest enemy.

Lady Honor smiled and clapped her hands. 'Ladies and gentlemen, please, take your places.' To my surprise I was placed near the head of the table next to a plump middle-aged woman wearing an old-fashioned box hood and a square-cut dress, a large ruby brooch glinting on her bosom. On her other side Marchamount sat just below the duke. Lady Honor guided the nervous-looking boy to a chair next to Norfolk, who stared at him enquiringly.

'Your grace,' Lady Honor said, 'may I present my cousin's son, Henry Vaughan. I told you he was coming from the country.'

The duke clapped him on the shoulder, his manner suddenly friendly. 'Welcome to London, boy,' he said in his harsh voice. 'It's good to see the nobility sending their pups to court, to take their rightful place. Your grandfather fought with my father at Bosworth, did you know that?'

The boy looked more nervous than ever. 'Yes, your grace.'

The duke looked him up and down. 'God's teeth, you're a skinny fellow, we'll have to build you up.'

'Thank you, your grace.'

Lady Honor guided Mayor Hollyes to a place next to the Vaughan boy, then sat herself almost opposite me. The boy's eyes followed her anxiously.

'Now,' Lady Honor said to the company, 'the wine and our first confection.' She clapped her hands and the servants, who had been waiting still as stocks, bustled into action. Wine was set before the guests, in delicate Venetian glasses finely engraved with coloured patterns. I turned mine over in my hands, admiring it, then the horn sounded again and a swan made of white sugar, nestling in a huge platter of sweet custard, was brought in. The assembly clapped and the duke barked with laughter. 'All the Thames swans belong to the king, Lady Honor! Had you permission to take this one?' Everyone laughed sycophantically and reached out with their knives to cut into the magnificent confection. Lady Honor sat composedly, yet her eyes followed everything that went on in the room. I admired her skills as a hostess, wondering when I would get the chance to question her.

'Are you a lawyer, like Serjeant Marchamount?' the woman next to me asked.

'I am. Master Matthew Shardlake, at your command.'

'I am Lady Mirfyn,' she replied grandly. 'My husband is treasurer of the Mercers' Guild this year.'

'I do some business, with the Guildhall, though I have not had the honour of meeting Sir Michael.'

'They say at the guild, you have some other business now.' She eyed me severely with little blue eyes that stood out sharply in her painted face. 'The disgraceful business of the Wentworth girl.'

'I am defending her, yes.'

She went on staring at me. 'Sir Edwin is devastated by what happened to his son. He deplores that his wicked niece should be allowed to delay justice. My husband and I know him well,' she added, as though that were the last possible word on the matter.

'She is entitled to a defence.' I noticed the duke had turned to Marchamount and was talking to him earnestly, ignoring the Vaughan boy, who sat staring down the table, quite at sea. Thank God the duke had showed no sign of recognizing me.

'She's entitled to hang!' Lady Mirfyn would not let go. 'No wonder the City is crawling with impertinent masterless beggars when justice is seen to be evaded so! Edwin doted on that boy,' she added fiercely.

'I know it is hard on Sir Edwin and his daughters,' I said mildly, hoping the woman would not go on like this all evening.

'His daughters are good girls, but they cannot take the place of a son. He had laid all his hopes on the boy.'

'But he has taught his girls to read scripture, has he not?' I decided I might as well make the best of things: this opinionated woman knew the family, she might let something interesting drop.

Lady Mirfyn shrugged. 'Edwin has advanced ideas. I don't think it serves girls to teach them religion — their husbands won't like arguing ideas with them, will they?'

'Some might.'

She raised her eyebrows. 'I never even learned to write, and I'm glad to be able to leave such things to my husband. I'm sure that's what Sabine and Avice would prefer too, good well-mannered girls that they are. Poor Ralph was a mischievous child, but that is to be expected in boys.'

'Was he indeed?' I asked.

'They said his misbehaviour helped drive his mother to her early grave.' She gave me a sharp look, suddenly realizing she had said too much. 'That doesn't excuse his vile murder, though.'

'No, indeed. It does not.' I was going to add that I believed the real murderer could still be at large, but Lady Mirfyn took my words for agreement, nodded with satisfaction and looked at Lady Honor.

'Our hostess is a learned woman,' she said with a note of disapproval. 'But I suppose she has the status of a widow and may live independently if she chooses. It is not a fate I would wish for.'

I heard a loud whisper from Norfolk to Marchamount. 'I'll not take the boy up unless she agrees.' I lowered my head, trying to catch the serjeant's reply, but he spoke softly. 'Damn it,' the duke hissed, 'she'll do as I command.'

'I fear she won't.' I heard Marchamount this time.

'God's death, I'll not be defied by a woman. Tell her I'll do nothing for the boy unless I get what I want. She's skating on thin ice.' I saw the duke take a long swig from his glass, then stare at Lady Honor. He was red-faced now and I remembered it was said he was often drunk and could turn brutal then.

Lady Honor met his eyes. The duke smiled and raised his glass. She raised her glass in return, with a smile that looked nervous to me. A servant appeared by her side and whispered something. She nodded and, looking relieved, stood up. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' she said. 'Many of you have heard of the edible, yellow things from the New World that have been raising eyebrows since they arrived last month.' She paused, and there were guffaws of bawdy laughter from some of the men. 'Well, we have some tonight on beds of marzipan. Ladies and gentlemen, the sweetest fruit of the New World.'

She sat down and there was more laughter, and clapping, as the servants laid half a dozen silver trays on the table. There, on beds of marzipan, lay strange, pale yellow crescents. I understood the bawdy laughter, for the things were the size and almost the shape of a big erect cock.

'So this is what everyone is laughing about,' Lady Mirfyn said. 'Such naughtiness.' She giggled, turning innocently girlish as rich matrons will when confronted with bawdy humour.

I picked up one of the strange fruits and bit into it. It was unyielding, with a bitter taste. Then I saw people were peeling back the skins to reveal a pale yellow fruit within. I followed their example. It was floury, rather tasteless.

'What are these called?' I asked Lady Mirfyn, who had also taken one.

'They have no name I know of,' she said. She looked down the laughing table, shaking her head indulgently. 'Such naughtiness.'

I heard my name on Lady Honor's lips and turned to find her smiling at me. 'The mayor says you have a knotty case for the council, involving the suppressed monasteries,' she said.

'Ay, Lady Honor. I fear we lost the first round, but we shall gain the second. It is a matter of the City's rights to regulate these buildings for the good of all the citizens.'

Mayor Hollyes nodded seriously. 'I hope so, sir. People don't understand that the regulations on cleanliness need to be enforced to keep away the foul humours that bring plague. And so many houses are let out as poor tenements now.' He spoke animatedly, as one who has mounted a hobby horse. 'You heard about the house near the Joiners' Hall that collapsed last month? Killed fourteen tenants and four passers-by—'

'Let them all fall!' There was a shout from the head of the table and all eyes turned to the duke. He slurred his words and I saw that he was, indeed, drunk. His conversation with Marchamount seemed to have put him in a foul temper. 'The more houses fall on the diseased populace of this great cesspit the better. Perhaps that will scare some into going back to their parishes where they belong, to work on the land as they did in our fathers' time.'

A silence fell on the company, as deep as had fallen at the Lincoln's Inn dinner. The Vaughan boy looked as though he wished to crawl under the table.

'Well, we may all agree much needs amending,' Lady Honor said. She tried to make her voice light, but it had a strained quality. 'Did not Bishop Gardiner preach a sermon last week, saying all must labour according to their station to keep the realm in proper order?' As she quoted these anodyne words from the leading conservative bishop she looked round the table, hoping for someone to help defuse the topic. She did not wish for controversy tonight, it seemed.

'So we must, Lady Honor,' I said, stepping into the breach. She gave me a smile of gratitude as I stumbled on. 'We must all aim to work for the common good.'

The duke snorted. 'Your work. Pen-pushing. I remember you, lawyer, you were with that churl who spouted Lutheran sentiments at me last Sunday.' I confess I quailed under his cold, hard stare. 'Are you a Lutheran, too, lawyer?'

Every eye turned to me. To answer yes was to risk a charge of heresy. For a moment my voice caught, I was too frightened to answer. I saw one of the women rub a hand across her face, leaving a smear of rouge. There was another rumble of thunder, closer now.

'No, your grace,' I said. 'A follower of Erasmus only.'

'That Dutch pederast. I heard he lusted after another monk when he was a boy, and d'you know what his name was, eh?' He looked round the table, grinning now. 'Roge-rus. Roger-us, hey?' He gave a sudden bark of laughter that broke the spell. The men up and down the table began laughing with him. I sank back in my chair, my heart thudding, as the duke turned to young Henry Vaughan and began telling tales of his soldiering days.

Lady Honor clapped her hands. 'Some music, now.' Two lute players appeared together with a gaudily dressed young man, who began singing popular songs, loud enough to hear but not too loud to stifle conversation. I looked down the table. The conversation had become desultory; between the heat, the drink and the sweet food most of the diners looked sticky and tired. Further sweetmeats followed, including a model of the House of Glass itself made of marzipan set with strawberries, but the guests only picked at it.

The young man was trilling a lament, 'Ah, Gentle Robyn,' and the diners stopped talking to listen. It caught the gloomy mood that seemed to have fallen on the company. Norfolk, alone, was talking to Marchamount again. Lady Honor caught my eye and leaned forward.

'Thank you for trying to help me earlier,' she said. 'I am sorry it turned out ill.'

'I was warned your table talk could be controversial.' I leaned across to her. 'Lady Honor, I must talk with you—'

Her face was suddenly wary. 'In the courtyard,' she said quietly, 'afterwards.'

Everyone jumped as a crack of thunder sounded from outside. A draught of cool air swept through the room. People murmured with relief and someone said, 'Is this the rain at last?'

Lady Honor took the words as her cue and stood up with an air of relief. 'It is a little early, but perhaps you should leave now, get on the road before the rain starts.'

People got up, brushing the backs of their robes and skirts where they had stuck to the benches. Everyone bowed as the duke rose to his feet, stumbling slightly. He bowed curtly to his hostess and strode unsteadily from the room.

As the guests went to take their farewell of Lady Honor I hung back. I saw Marchamount bend close to her and speak intently. As at Lincoln's Inn, her reply did not seem to satisfy him; he was frowning slightly as he turned away. As he passed me he paused and raised his eyebrows.

'Be careful, Shardlake,' he said. 'I could have had the duke as a friend for you, but you seem to court his disapproval. If the times change, that could have consequences.' He gave me a cold nod, then left the chamber.

Consequences, I thought: if Norfolk supplanted Cromwell there would be grim consequences for all but the papists. And if I could not find Greek Fire the king would be in a rage. Was that what whoever was behind this wanted, a papist victory? Or only profit?

I made my way downstairs and stood outside in the courtyard by the door. There was another rumble of thunder, closer now. The evening air seemed to sing with the tension of it. No one else came out that way; I guessed they were taking a direct route to the stables. I wondered what it was that Norfolk wanted so much to get from Lady Honor. Something Marchamount knew about.

There was a touch at my elbow. I jumped and turned round. Lady Honor stood beside me. Her strong, square face had a hectic look, as well it might after the evening's events.

'I am sorry, Master Shardlake, I startled you.'

I bowed. 'Not at all, Lady Honor.'

She sighed heavily. 'That was a disaster. I have never seen the duke in such bad humour, I am sorry for the trouble he caused you.' She shook her head. 'It was my fault.'

'Was it? Why?'

'I should have got the servants to watch his glass,' she said. She took a deep breath, then looked at me directly. 'Well, you have some questions for me. Serjeant Marchamount has told me what happened to the Gristwoods,' she added quietly.

'He is a friend, the serjeant?'

'A friend, ay,' she said quickly. 'I am afraid there is little I can tell you. Like Serjeant Marchamount I was only a messenger. I took a package to Lord Cromwell for the serjeant, passed a message that the contents would be of great interest to him. It was after one of my banquets, in circumstances rather like this.' She smiled wryly. 'That was all; further messages went via Lincoln's Inn. I never even met Gristwood.'

Something about her speech was too pat. And now I was close to her, I realized with a shock that the scent she wore was the same musky odour the Greek Fire papers had had about them.

'Did you know what the package was?' I asked.

'Papers relating to the old secret of Greek Fire. Serjeant Marchamount told me. I suppose he shouldn't have done but he does like impressing me.' She laughed nervously.

'How long did you have the papers?'

'A few days.'

'And you looked at them?'

She paused and took a deep breath, her bosom rising.

'I know you did,' I said gently. I did not want to hear her lie.

She gave me a startled look. 'How?'

'Because that alluring scent you wear was on them. A faint trace — I could not place it till just now.'

She bit her lip. 'I fear I have a woman's curiosity in full share, Master Shardlake. Yes, I read them. I resealed the package afterwards.'

'Did you understand them?'

'All except the alchemy books. I understood enough to make me wish I'd left them alone.' She looked at me directly then. 'It was wrong, I know. But as I told you I am as curious as a cat.' She shook her head. 'But I know, too, when something is better left alone.'

'This means that you are the only person who handled those papers to open them. Unless Marchamount did.'

'Gabriel is too careful to do that.'

But he knew this was about Greek Fire. Had he told Norfolk? Was Norfolk pressing Lady Honor to tell him more? I felt my guts tighten at the thought Norfolk himself might be involved. Was that why he had remembered me?

'Did you think the papers actually held the secret of Greek Fire?' I asked her.

She hesitated, then looked me in the eye. 'It seemed to me perhaps they did. The account of the old soldier was very clear. And those papers were old, they weren't some forgery.'

'One was torn.'

'I saw. I did not tear it.' For the first time I saw a look of fear in her eyes.

'I know. That was the formula. The Gristwoods kept it back.'

Somewhere over the river lightning flashed. Another crack of thunder sounded, making us both start. Lady Honor's mouth was tight with worry. She looked at me earnestly. 'Master Shardlake, will you have to tell Lord Cromwell I looked at the papers?' She swallowed.

'I must, Lady Honor. I am sorry.'

She swallowed. 'Will you ask him to deal with me kindly?'

'If you truly told no one, no harm has been done.'

'I didn't, I swear.'

'Then I will tell him you admitted frankly that you read the papers.' But I doubted she would have done so had I not told her I recognized her scent.

She let out a sigh of relief. 'Tell him I am sorry for what I did. I confess I have been worried I would be found out.'

'You must have been afraid when Serjeant Marchamount told you the Gristwoods were dead.'

'Yes, I was shocked when I heard they had been killed. I have been so foolish,' she added with sudden passion.

'Well,' I said, 'foolishness may be forgiven.' I hoped Cromwell would agree.

She looked at me curiously. 'You have a bloody trade, sir. Two murders to investigate.'

'Believe it or not, my specialism is property law.'

'Did that old shrew Lady Mirfyn tell you anything useful about the Wentworths? I saw you talking to her.'

Truly she missed little. 'Not much. All still depends on getting Elizabeth to talk. And I have been neglecting that matter.'

'You care about her.' She had recovered her composure quickly; her tone was light again.

'She is my client.'

She nodded, the pearls in her hood catching the light from the window. 'Perhaps you are a man of too gentle feeling to deal with blood and death.' She smiled softly.

'As I told you last week, I am a mere jobbing lawyer.'

She shook her head, smiling. 'No, you are more than that. I thought so when I first saw you.' She inclined her head, then said, 'I felt your whole being resound with sadness.'

I stared at her in astonishment; I felt tears prick suddenly at the corners of my eyes and blinked them away.

She shook her head. 'Forgive me. I say too much. If I were a common woman, I would be called malapert.'

'You are certainly out of the common run, Lady Honor.'

She looked over the courtyard. There was another rumble of thunder after a flash of lightning, which showed sadness in her face. 'I miss my husband still, though it has been three years. People say I married him for his money, but I loved him. And we were friends.'

'That is a fine thing in a marriage.'

She inclined her head and smiled. 'But he left me the memories of our time together and also a widow's status. I am an independent woman, Master Shardlake, I have much to be grateful for.'

'I am sure you are worthy of that status, my lady.'

'Not all men would agree.' She moved away a little and stood by the fountain, facing me in the gloom.

'Serjeant Marchamount admires you,' I ventured.

'Yes, he does.' She smiled. 'I was born a Vaughan, as you know. My early life was spent learning deportment, embroidery, just enough reading to make good conversation. The education of a woman of good birth is very dull. I wanted to scream with the boredom of it, though most girls seem happy enough.' She smiled. 'There, now you will think me a malapert. But I could never help nosing into men's affairs.'

'Not at all. I agree with you.' The Wentworth girls came into my mind. 'I too find conventionally accomplished girls dull.' As soon as I had said the words I wished I had not, for they could be taken as flirtatious. I found Lady Honor fascinating, but did not wish her to know that. She was, after all, still a suspect.

'Lady Honor,' I said, 'I have Lord Cromwell's commission. If — if anyone is putting pressure on you to give information about those papers, he will afford you his protection.'

She gave me a direct look. 'There are those who say he will soon have no protection to afford anyone. If he cannot resolve the king's marriage problems.'

'Those are rumours. The protection he can give now is real.'

I saw her hesitate, then she smiled, but tightly. 'Thank you for your care, but I have no need of protection.' She turned away a moment, then looked back at me, her smile warm again. 'Why are you unmarried, Master Shardlake? Is it because all these ordinary women bore you?'

'Perhaps. Though — I am not an attractive proposition.'

'In some dull eyes, perhaps. But some women prize intelligence and sensitivity. That is why I try to bring good company round my table.' She was looking at me keenly.

'Though sometimes the mixture turns explosive,' I said, turning the conversation into a jest.

'It is the price I pay for trying to bring men of different ideas together, in hope that by reasoned discussion over good food they may resolve their differences.'

I raised an eyebrow. 'And perhaps the arguments are entertaining to watch?'

She laughed and raised a finger. 'You have found me out. But usually it does no harm. The duke can be good company when he is sober.'

'You would like your nephew to regain your family's old fortunes? A place at court beside the king?' Norfolk could offer that, I thought — in return for information about Greek Fire? Was that why he had first welcomed the boy, then ignored him?

She inclined her head. 'I would like my family to regain what it lost. But perhaps Henry is not the one to do it, he is not the brightest boy, nor the most robust. I cannot see him at the king's side.'

'They say the king's manners can be rougher than the duke's.'

Lady Honor raised her eyebrows. 'You should be careful what you say.' She looked around quickly. 'But no, you are right. Have you heard the tale that the duke's wife once complained to him about his flaunting his mistress before her, and the duke ordered his servants to sit on her till she was silent? They kept her lying on the floor till blood flowed from her nose.' Her lip curled with disgust.

'Ay. You know, I have a workfellow just now whose origin could not be lower, and he and the duke have much the same manners.'

She laughed. 'And you stand between the highest and the lowest, a rose between the thorns?'

'A poor gentleman only.'

We both laughed; then our laughter was lost in a tremendous crash of thunder right above us. The heavens opened and a great torrent of rain fell down, soaking us in an instant. Lady Honor looked up.

'O God, at last!' she said.

I blinked the rain out of my eyes. The cold water was indeed marvellous after the broiling heat of the last days. I gasped with the relief of it.

'I must go in,' Lady Honor said. 'But we must talk more, Master Shardlake. We must meet again. Though I have no more to tell about Greek Fire.' And then she came close and quickly kissed my cheek, a sudden warmth amidst the cold rainwater. Without looking back, she ran though the door to the stairs and closed it. As the rain pelted down on me I stood there with my hand on my cheek, overcome with astonishment.

Chapter Twenty-two

I RODE AWAY FROM THE House of Glass through sheets of rain that fell straight and hard, bouncing off my cap like a million tiny pebbles. But the storm was quickly over; by the time I reached Cheapside the last fading rumbles of thunder were sounding. The sewer channels had been turned into streams, fed with refuse from lanes that had been turned from dust to mud in half an hour. The last light of the long summer evening was fading and I jumped as Bow bells sounded loudly behind me, striking the curfew. The Ludgate would be closed and I would have to ask for passage through. Chancery was plodding on, his head down. 'Come on, old horse, we'll soon be home.' I patted his wet white flank and he gave a little grunting whicker.

The extraordinary conversation with Lady Honor went round and round in my head like a mouse in a jar. Her kiss, while chaste, was a daring thing from a woman of rank. But it was only after I had got her to admit she had read the papers that her tone became intimate. I shook my head sadly. I was attracted to her, all the more so after this evening, but I must be wary; this was no time to allow my mind to be cloyed by affection for a woman. Tomorrow would be the second of June, and only eight days left.

There was a stir about the Ludgate; men were going to and fro with torches to one side of the ancient gatehouse that held the debtors' prison. I wondered whether someone had escaped, but as I drew closer I saw a small part of the outer wall, where scaffolding had been erected, had collapsed. I pulled Chancery to a halt in front of a constable, who stood examining a pile of flagstones in the road with a lantern, watched by the gatekeeper and some passers-by.

'What has happened?' I enquired.

He looked up, doffing his cap when he saw I was a gentleman. 'Part of the wall's collapsed, sir. The old mortar was crumbling and the workmen dug it out today, then the storm soaked what was left and some of the wall fell down. It's ten feet thick, or the prisoners would be scrambling out like rats.' He squinted up at me. 'Pardon me, sir, but are you able to read old languages? Only there's something written on these stones, like pagan symbols.' There was a note of fear in the man's voice.

'I know Latin and Greek.' I dismounted, my thin pantofle shoes squelching on the wet cobbles. A dozen ancient flagstones lay in the road. The constable lowered his lamp to the inner surface of one of the blocks. There was some sort of writing carved there, a strange script of curved lines and half-circles.

'What do you think it is, sir?' the constable asked.

'It's from the time of the old druids,' someone said. 'Heathen spells. The stones should be broken up.'

I traced one of the marks with my finger. 'I know what this is, it's Hebrew. Why, this stone must have come from one of the Jews' synagogues after they were expelled near three hundred years ago. They must have been used on some previous repair — the gatehouse goes back to Norman times.'

The constable crossed himself. 'The Jews? That killed Our Lord?' He looked at the writing anxiously. 'Perhaps we should break them up after all.'

'No,' I said. 'These are of antiquarian interest. You should tell the alderman — the Common Council should know of this. There is a new interest in Hebrew studies these days.'

The man looked dubious.

'There may be a reward in it for you.'

He brightened. 'I will, sir. Thank you.'

With a last glance at the ancient writing I returned to Chancery, my shoes squelching unpleasantly in the mud. The keeper opened the gate and I rode over Fleet Bridge. I heard a great rush of water beneath me, and it made me think of all the generations who had lived in this City, dashing and scurrying through their lives, some to leave great monuments and dynasties of children, others rushing only to oblivion.

===OO=OOO=OO===

WHEN I REACHED HOME Barak had not yet returned and Joan was abed. I had to rouse young Simon to take the horse to the stables; I felt a little guilty sending the boy stumbling off into the night, heavy-eyed with sleep as he was. I took a mug of beer and a candle and went up to my room. Looking through the open window, I saw the sky was clear, all the stars visible. The heat was gathering again already. Rainwater had come in, dripping on the floor and on my Bible, which stood on a table beside it. I wiped it, reflecting it was many days since I had last opened it. Only ten years ago the very idea of a Bible in English being allowed would have filled me with joy. I sighed and turned to the papers on the Bealknap case I had brought back from court, for I must prepare my recommendations for the council about an application to the Court of Chancery.

It was late when I heard Barak come in. I went to his room and found him in his shirt, in the process of hanging his doublet out of the window to dry.

'You were caught in the storm, then?'

'Ay, I've had a busy time going from place to place and the tempest caught me on my way to the tavern where the compurgators gather.' He gave me a serious look. 'I've seen the earl. He's not pleased. He wants progress, not a stream of refugees.'

I sat down on the bed. 'Did you tell him we've been going back and forth across London day after day?'

'He has to go to Hampton Court to see the king tomorrow, but he wants to see us the day after, and he wants some progress by then.'

'Was he angry?'

Barak shook his head. 'Anxious. He didn't like the idea Rich may be involved in this. I talked to Grey. He gave me disapproving looks like he usually does but he said the earl's a worried man.' I saw again the fear behind Barak's customary bravado, fear for his master — and for himself if Cromwell fell. 'What happened at the banquet?' he asked.

'The Duke of Norfolk was there, in a foul mood and drunk.' I told him all that had passed. I even told him about Lady Honor's kiss, impelled to frankness by the worry I had seen in his face. For good or ill, Barak and I were in this together. I half-expected some mocking remark, but he only looked thoughtful.

'You think she was making up to you because you found out she'd read those papers?'

'Perhaps. There's more besides.' I told him of the conversation I had overheard. 'Norfolk wants something from her, something that Marchamount knows about.'

'Shit! Norfolk may be in the know too. That would be far worse than Rich. Lord Cromwell will have to be told about that. Do you think Norfolk's trying to get what was in those papers out of her?'

'Perhaps. There's not that much information in them, but he doesn't know that. But if he's pressing her, why didn't she tell me?' I looked at him seriously. 'I had the sense she thinks Cromwell may not be able to offer protection to his friends much longer.'

Barak shrugged. 'That's the rumour.'

'I'm going to see her again tomorrow. I'll take the papers, say I'd like to go through them with her, use that as an excuse to press her further.'

Barak smiled wryly and shook his head. 'Caught by her rich woman's scent, eh?'

'Yes. I knew the smell on those books was familiar.'

Barak ran his fingers through his hair. 'Perhaps they're all in together. Bealknap, Lady Honor, Marchamount, Rich, Norfolk. That would bake a fine pie.'

'No. That doesn't make sense. Whoever killed the Gristwoods and Leighton — for I think he must be dead too — knows all about Greek Fire. They have the formula, and they're trying to stop people's mouths. If I'm right, Norfolk may be trying to open Lady Honor's mouth. That means he doesn't know about Greek Fire. Not yet.'

'The earl should have had Bealknap and Marchamount and her ladyship in the Tower at the start, shown them the rack.'

I winced at the thought of Lady Honor in the Tower. Barak looked at me. 'Fine feelings won't help us in this,' he said impatiently.

'And if those people were taken to the Tower, how long would it have been before some gaoler or torturer started rumours that Greek Fire's been found and lost again?'

Barak grunted. 'That's why Lord Cromwell won't do it. Though there'll be plenty going to the Tower if he falls. Probably you and me with them, if the pope comes back.' He shrugged. 'At least I've made some progress on other matters. I've found who pock-face is.'

I sat up. 'Who?'

'He's called Bernard Toky. He's from out Deptford way, he started life as a novice monk apparently.'

'A monk?'

'Ay, he can pass for an educated man. But he was defrocked for something, spent the rest of his youth soldiering against the Turk and developed a taste for killing apparently. The other man, the big one, is called Wright. He's an old mate of Toky's. They've been involved in various bits of dirty business, though they've never been caught. Toky had a bad dose of smallpox a few years back, which accounts for his face, but it didn't change his habits.'

'Dirty business for whom?'

'Whoever will pay. Rich merchants with scores to settle mostly, who don't want to dirty their fine hands. He left London for somewhere in the country a few years ago, things were getting too hot for him. But now he's back. He's been seen, although he seems to be avoiding old friends. But I've got people looking for him.'

'Let's hope he doesn't get to us first.'

'And I found the tavern where the compurgators hang out.'

'You've had a busy time.'

'Ay. I told the tavern keeper I'd pay well for information about Bealknap. He'll be in touch. And I went to the tavern where the sailors hang out too. Offered money for information about that Polish cargo. The tavern keeper remembers someone trying to sell the stuff there, a man called Miller. He's at sea now, bringing coal down from Newcastle, but he should be back the day after tomorrow. If we go to the tavern then the innkeeper can introduce us.'

'Excellent. And if we can follow its trail from there to the Gristwoods' house… you've done well, worked hard.'

He looked at me seriously again. 'We've much more to do,' he said. 'Much more.'

I nodded. 'I sat next to a mercer's wife at the banquet, who said a strange thing about young Ralph Wentworth. Told me he drove his mother to an early grave. What can she have meant?'

'Was that all she said?'

'Ay, then she clammed up.'

We both jumped suddenly at a knock on the front door. Barak reached for his sword as we hurried down the stairs. Joan, roused from her bed, was already at the door, a startled look on her face. I motioned her back. 'Who is it?' I called.

'A message,' a childish voice called. 'Urgent, for Master Shardlake.'

I opened the door. An urchin stood, holding a letter. I gave him a penny and took it.

'Is it from Grey?' Barak asked.

I studied the superscription. 'No. This is Joseph's writing.' I broke the seal and opened the letter. It was brief, and asked me to meet him first thing tomorrow at Newgate, where a terrible thing had happened.