Dark Fire (51 page)

‘I’ll answer to Forbizer. I have an apothecary who may be able to help her. He might be able to cure her fever. Then it won’t spread, eh?’

He still looked doubtful. ‘Who’s to carry her up there? I’m not going near, and nor are my men.’

I hesitated a moment, then said, ‘We will. There must be some back stairs we could use.’

He pursed his lips. ‘Two shillings a night’s the price. I’ll show you where to take her.’ Even in his terror of gaol fever the man’s greed glinted in his sharp
eyes.

‘Agreed,’ I said, though the price was outrageous. I reached for my purse and held up a gold half angel. ‘For five nights. That’ll cover her till she goes before
Forbizer.’

That seemed to decide the wretch. He nodded, holding out his hand for the coin.

I
T WAS A NIGHTMARE
climb, up four floors from the Hole to the tower room my half angel had bought. The gaoler walked well ahead with a candle while Barak
and Joseph carried the unconscious Elizabeth between them. I clambered up behind as they half-dragged, half-carried the poor girl up the stone steps, the outlines of Elizabeth’s and
Barak’s two shaven heads making weird shadows on the walls. A vile smell came from poor Elizabeth’s unwashed, feverish body. As I climbed painfully upwards, I realized my strength was
ebbing again – I could not possibly make it to the well that night.

We were shown into a light, airy room with a good bed with a blanket, a ewer of water on a table and a large window which though barred was at least open; a gentleman prisoner’s room.
Joseph and Barak laid Elizabeth on the bed. She seemed unaware of her removal, only stirring slightly and moaning, Then she muttered a name. ‘Sarah,’ she muttered. ‘Oh,
Sarah.’

Joseph bit his lip. ‘The girl who went to Bedlam,’ he whispered.

I nodded. ‘Maybe if she recovers she will speak at last, tell us why the girl upset her so. Tell us everything she has chosen to keep to herself while we are distracted with worry,’
I added with sudden bitterness.

Joseph looked at me, then said softly, ‘I become angered with her too.’

I sighed. ‘My apothecary should be here soon.’

‘You are generous, sir,’ Joseph said. ‘How much—’

I raised a hand. ‘No, Joseph, we can discuss that later. Barak, you look exhausted. You should go home.’

‘I can stay,’ he said. ‘I’d like to see whether the Old Moor can help her.’

It was strange, even touching, to see how absorbed he had become in Elizabeth’s fate. Yet I did not want him here when Guy came; I had secreted the pewter jar of Greek Fire in a pocket of
my robe. ‘No, go,’ I said sharply. ‘I don’t want you risking gaol fever, I need you fit.’

He nodded reluctantly and went out. I clutched at the jar of Greek Fire as Joseph and I stood in silence, listening to Elizabeth’s fevered breathing.

G
UY ARRIVED
an hour later. The gaoler himself fetched him up, goggling at his brown face till I bade him sharply to be gone. I introduced Guy to Joseph,
who likewise stared at him in surprise, although Guy affected not to notice.

‘So this is the poor girl whose travails have worried you so,’ he said to me.

‘Yes.’ I told him of the onset of her fever. He looked at her for a long moment.

‘I don’t think it’s gaol fever,’ he said at length. ‘The fever would be higher. I’m not sure what it is. It would help to see her urine. Does she have a
pisspot?’

‘She was left to piss on the straw in the Hole.’

He shook his head. ‘Then I will give her something to try and stop her burning up, and it would be good if she were to be washed and that filthy dress taken off her.’

Joseph blushed. ‘Sir, it would hardly be proper for me to see her unclothed—’

‘I will do it, if you like. In my trade a naked body is hardly a new sight. Could you buy her a shift tomorrow and bring it here?’

‘Yes. Yes, I will.’

As we watched Elizabeth stirred and made a little moan, then lay back again. Guy shook his head. ‘What pain and anger there are in that face, even while her mind sleeps.’

‘Is there any hope, sir?’ Joseph asked.

‘I do not know,’ Guy said frankly. ‘This may be one of those cases where much depends on the sufferer’s will to live.’

‘Then she will surely die,’ he said.

‘Come, we do not know that.’ Guy smiled gently. ‘And now, if you will leave me, I will wash her.’

Joseph and I waited outside while Guy carried out his task. ‘I cannot help being angered, sir,’ he said. ‘But I love her; for all she has put me through I still love
her.’

I touched his shoulder. ‘That is very plain, Joseph.’

At length Guy called us back. He had laid Elizabeth under the blanket and lit some sort of oil in a lamp, which made a sweet smell in the room. A cloth, black with dirt, floated in the ewer.
Elizabeth’s face was clean, the first time I had seen it so.

‘She is pretty,’ I said. ‘How sad she should come to this.’

‘Sad whether she is pretty or ugly,’ Guy said.

‘What is that smell?’ Joseph asked.

‘An infusion of lemons.’ Guy smiled. ‘Sometimes when a soul is in pain a foul or cruel environment can drive it deeper into darkness. Thus light and cleanliness and soft airs
may help lift her spirit, perhaps even reach it while she lies unconscious.’ He shrugged self-deprecatingly. ‘So I think, at least.’ He looked at us. ‘You both look
exhausted. You should sleep. I will stay with her till morning if you wish.’

‘I could not ask that—’ Joseph protested.

‘Please, I would be happy to.’

‘I would stay a little too,’ I said. ‘I have something else I wish to discuss with you.’

Joseph left, with fulsome thanks, his weary footsteps clattering down the stairs.

‘Thank you for this, Guy.’ I said.

‘It is all right. I confess I am intrigued. This is a strange condition.’

‘I have something even more intriguing,’ I said. I reached into my pocket and took out the cloth with the pewter jar in it. ‘This, I believe, is Greek Fire. No one else knows I
have it.’ I unwrapped the jar and laid it on the table, first putting the oil lamp on the floor. ‘Don’t bring the candle near, Guy. I fear it may take light.’

He examined the stuff as best he could in the weak light, rubbing the dark liquid between his fingers, sniffing it with a look of distaste. ‘So this is it,’ he said. ‘Dark
Fire.’ I had never seen his face more serious.

‘Ay. I wondered how fire could be dark; I see now they meant the liquid was black.’

‘Perhaps they also meant the darkness it could bring to men’s lives.’

‘Perhaps. They called it the devil’s tears as well in the old books.’ I told him how I had found it at Smithfield, how narrowly it had escaped Rich’s clutches.
‘Take it. Will you examine it tomorrow?’

‘On the terms I gave you. I will do nothing to help Cromwell use it.’

‘Agreed.’

He shook his head. ‘You would be in serious trouble, Matthew, if he were to find you had given this to me instead of to him.’

I smiled nervously. ‘Then we must be sure he does not find out.’ I shook my head. ‘Yet I cannot help thinking – ’ I hesitated – ‘Cromwell has done many
evil things. But at least he has a vision of a Christian commonwealth, while Norfolk would take England back to superstition and darkness.’

‘A Christian commonwealth? Is such a thing even possible in this fallen world? Surely the annals of the last thousand years show it is not. That is why many like me chose to escape to the
cloister before that was forbidden.’

‘Yes, the old Church always believed the sinful world was heading towards a final cataclysm; nothing man did could make any difference. And that excused much oppression.’

‘You would need fierce measures to make a perfect commonwealth. If you were to end poverty and beggary you’d need to squeeze their wealth from the rich, for example.’

‘Sometimes I think that would be a good thing.’

‘Now you sound like an Anabaptist.’

I laughed. ‘No, just a puzzled old lawyer.’

He looked at me seriously. ‘But ending social injustice is not Cromwell’s first priority, you know that. What matters to him is the Protestant faith and he would use Greek Fire to
cut a terrible swathe to achieve that if he could.’

I nodded sadly. ‘Yes, you are right. He cannot be trusted with it. No one can.’

Guy looked relieved. ‘Thank Christ you see that.’ He looked at the pewter pot, then carefully put it in his pocket. ‘I will let you know as soon as I have something to tell
you.’

‘Thank you. Tomorrow if you can – there are only five days now till the demonstration before the king.’ I sighed. ‘On the day Elizabeth goes back to court.’

As though in response to her name Elizabeth stirred, her legs moving beneath the blanket. We turned to her. ‘Sarah,’ she muttered again, then, ‘that evil boy. The evil
boy.’ And then her eyes fluttered open and she looked at us uncomprehendingly.

Guy leant over her. ‘Miss Wentworth, you are in a clean room in the prison. You have a fever. I am Guy Malton, an apothecary. Your good uncle and Master Shardlake had you brought
here.’

I leant over her. Her eyes were heavy with fever but she seemed fully conscious. Knowing this was a chance that might never come again, I said slowly, ‘We are still trying to find the
truth, Elizabeth. We are trying to save you. I know there is something in the well at your uncle’s house—’

She seemed to shrink back. ‘The death of God,’ she whispered. ‘The death of God.’

‘What?’ I asked, but her eyes closed again. I made to shake her but Guy held my arm.

‘Do not distress her further.’

‘But – what did she mean? The death of God? God’s death is a common curse, but—’

He looked at me seriously. ‘The death of God is despair. When I was a monk sometimes one of my brethren would lose his faith, succumb to despair. Usually they came back to faith, but until
they did – ’ he shook his head – ‘it felt as though God was dead.’

‘The well,’ Elizabeth muttered. ‘The well.’ And then she fell back to her pillows, sinking once more into unconsciousness.

I
LEFT SOON AFTER
. I was so exhausted that the short ride home through the darkness felt as though it lasted for ever, and
once I had to pinch myself to stop myself from falling asleep in the saddle. I wondered whether Guy would be able to fathom how Greek Fire was made up. So many had died to keep that secret.

When I arrived home it was past two in the morning and Barak had already gone to his room. I hauled myself upstairs and fell fully clothed onto the bed. I fell asleep at once, but found myself
troubled by a nightmare. I dreamed I was back in Forbizer’s court, sitting watching as the judge coldly sentenced a succession of prisoners to death. Yet their faces were those of people
already dead: Sepultus and Michael Gristwood, Bathsheba and her brother, the watchman and a strange man in a leather apron whom I knew must be the founder. All their faces were sad, yet whole, not
shattered and bloodied as I had seen them. In my dream I took the pewter jar of Greek Fire from my robe, lifted it and let it fall on the floor. At once a roaring tide of flame shot from it,
engulfing everyone: prisoners, spectators, judge. I saw Forbizer raise his arms with a scream as his beard flared and crackled. I sat in the centre of the flames, untouched for a moment, but then
the fire seemed to gather itself and rushed at me, engulfing me. I felt its searing heat on my face and screamed, then jolted awake to the bright light of morning, the sun hot on my face and the
bells of London’s hundred churches clamouring in the distance, calling the City to prayer. It was Sunday, the sixth of June.

I was stiff and aching, and as I dressed slowly I told myself that when this matter was done I would leave London. It seemed my clients had had enough of me, and I had just enough money for a
quiet life in the countryside if I was careful. Still frightened by my dream, I stumbled downstairs to find Barak sitting at the parlour table, staring gloomily at a letter.

‘From Cromwell?’ I asked, taking a seat.

‘Ay. It’s from Hampton Court, he must be there on some business for the king. You might as well see it.’ He tossed the sheet of paper over to me. It was in Cromwell’s own
hand.