Dark Fire (63 page)

‘You’re in no state to go to Hampton Court,’ I said. I turned to Grey. ‘Is the king’s physician here?’

Grey shook his head, hovering fussily over Barak. ‘The king ordered Dr Butts and his assistant away yesterday. They wanted to open the ulcer on his leg again and he ordered them out with a
volley of oaths. Threw his cushions at them.’

‘Then you should see Guy, Barak,’ I said. ‘I’ll take you.’

‘No. You must go to Hampton Court. Leave me here.’

‘I’m half-fainting myself.’ I turned to the secretary. ‘Master Grey, can you have a message taken to Hampton Court at once? By someone you can trust, someone who is loyal
to the earl?’

He nodded. ‘If you think that best. Young Hanfold is here.’

‘I remember him.’ I smiled wryly. ‘He brought me a message from the Tower once that sealed the fate of a monastery. Yes, send him.’ I took a quill and scribbled a note to
Cromwell. Grey impressed Cromwell’s seal on the letter and bustled from the room with it, calling for Hanfold. I looked out over the sodden garden.

‘What will Norfolk do now?’ I asked pensively.

‘He still thinks he’s safe. It’ll be hours before he starts to worry because no message has come from the warehouse.’

I studied him; he was still very pale. ‘Can you make it to Guy’s? We can come back after, or Cromwell can send for us there.’

‘All right.’ He got up slowly. ‘Maybe I’d better, before I bleed to death over Master Grey’s fine chair.’

The secretary returned to say the message was on its way and a boat was waiting to take us back downriver. I gave him the address of Guy’s shop and we hurried away. Another half-hour in
the rain and we disembarked. Barak was stumbling now and I helped him through the lanes to Guy’s shop, staggering along the alleys like a pair of scarecrows.

Guy answered the door and let us in with little more than raised eyebrows; he was becoming used to this. We sat down in the shop; Barak removed his shirt and Guy examined his arm. It was a
horrible gash, very deep. Barak clutched at his mezuzah as Guy’s fingers probed.

‘I think I should sew your arm, Master Barak,’ Guy said. ‘Can you bear some pain?’

Barak screwed up his face. ‘Have I any choice?’

‘Not much, I fear, unless you would bleed to death.’

I waited in the shop while Guy took Barak through to his workshop, after coating my wrist with some stinging oil. He brought dry clothes and I changed in the shop, glad there was no one to see.
I wondered again what Lady Honor might make of my bent form if she saw it. Well, she knew what to expect and did not seem to find me so bad. As I transferred my belt and purse to my borrowed hose,
wincing at another stifled cry from Barak in the other room, I felt a spurt of irritation at my long preoccupation over how I looked. It was a sort of dark vanity, almost, I thought, a sort of
martyrdom. Well, my path was free to make friends with Lady Honor now and I would not miss my chance. My heart had plummeted when, in the warehouse, it had seemed for a while that she could be the
one behind the Greek Fire plot after all. Plummeted far enough to make me realize the depth of my feeling for her.

I went across to the window and looked out; the rain seemed to be lessening. The window had steamed up and I leaned my head on the cool glass, shutting my eyes for a moment. The door opened
behind me and Guy entered, flecks of blood on his robe.

‘There,’ he said quietly, ‘that’s done. I’ve told him to rest an hour. He’s a brave young fellow.’

‘Ay, he’s hard as nails.’ I smiled tiredly. ‘We’ve won, Guy. There will be no Greek Fire. It’s all burned up.’

He sat down on a stool. ‘Praise God.’

‘Did you destroy what was in that pot?’

‘It’s in the Thames.’

I told him what had happened at the warehouse. ‘All that’s left is to get that message to Cromwell.’

‘Well, you have won, Matthew, fulfilled your mission and destroyed Greek Fire as well.’

‘Ay, though that last was by strange chance. If Marchamount hadn’t lunged at Barak—’

Guy smiled. ‘Perhaps that was the hand of God, answering your prayers and mine.’

‘God’s hand struck Marchamount hard, then.’ I looked at him seriously. ‘I have hardly prayed at all these last days. What they did, Marchamount and Norfolk, all those
people killed – they did it with the aim of restoring the pope, you do realize that?’

‘As Cromwell too has done many evil things.’

I shook my head sadly. ‘Once I did believe the world could be perfected. I don’t think that any more. But I believe I’ve defended the bad side against the worse.’ I
frowned. ‘Yet—’

‘What?’

‘Why does faith bring out the worst in so many, Guy?’ I blurted out. ‘How is it that it can turn men, papist and reformer both, into brutes?’

‘Man is an angry, savage being. Sometimes faith becomes an excuse for battle. It is no real faith then. In justifying their positions in the name of God, men silence God.’

‘But have the comfortable belief that, having read the Bible and prayed, they cannot be wrong.’

‘I fear so.’

From within, I heard Barak call out for water. Guy rose. ‘There, your friend is thirsty. I thought he would not lie quiet for long.’ He smiled. ‘I think he is no man of faith,
but he has an earthy honesty.’

T
HERE HAD BEEN NO
message from Cromwell by the time we left Guy’s an hour later. Nor was there any news at home. I sent Simon to retrieve the
horses from the inn near St Paul’s. Then Barak and I ate lunch and waited in my parlour as afternoon turned slowly to evening. We were too exhausted to do more than sit half-dozing.

‘I must go to bed,’ Barak said at length.

‘Ay, I need rest too.’ I frowned. ‘Why hasn’t Cromwell contacted us?’

‘He’s probably waiting for a chance to see the king,’ Barak said. ‘Likely he will do that first, then fetch us later if we’re needed. We’ll hear something in
the morning.’

I heaved myself upright. ‘Barak, do you think you are fit enough to come to the Wentworths tomorrow? It will be our last chance.’

He nodded, getting to his feet. ‘Ay. It takes more than a sword thrust to lay me low. And what’s to fear from a greasy steward, a fat old merchant and a brood of women? I’ll
come. The business started there after all, didn’t it?’

‘Ay, and it must end there, before Elizabeth comes back before Forbizer.’

N
ORMALLY
J
OAN WOULD
have woken us for breakfast, but after seeing the state in which Barak and I had returned home the good woman
must have decided to let us sleep. Neither of us woke until nearly midday. I felt much better, though my wrist still hurt, and Barak seemed almost restored to his usual self, though still a trifle
pale. It had stopped raining, but the sky was dark and heavy. To my surprise there was no word from Cromwell, only a plaintive note from Joseph begging for news.

‘He must have seen the king by now,’ I said. ‘Surely he’d at least let us know.’

Barak shrugged. ‘We’re small fry, you and me.’

‘Maybe we should send another message?’

‘Demanding news? That would be a mighty insolence.’

‘At least we can send a message saying if we’re not here we’ll be at the Wentworths, and ask him if he needs us.’ I looked at him. ‘Are you fit to go to
Walbrook?’

‘Fit as a fly. You look better too.’ He laughed. ‘You’re not as weakly as you pretend.’

‘It’s all right for you to say that at your age. I’m going to write a note, then we ought to go. I’ll send Simon, get him to put it into Master Grey’s hands
himself. That’ll be an adventure for him, going to Whitehall. I’ll borrow your seal, if I may, so I can stamp it in the wax.’ I hesitated. ‘I ought to go myself, but
there’s no time. We should not have slept so long, it is less than twenty-four hours before Elizabeth returns to court.’

W
E TOOK A BOAT
into the City, then walked up to Walbrook. I had dressed in my robe and my best doublet and urged Barak to borrow my second-best robe to
conceal his bandaged arm.

A maid answered the door. ‘Is Sir Edwin in?’ I asked. ‘I am Master Shardlake.’

Her eyes widened a little; she recognized my name. I wondered how much the servants knew of what had happened here.

‘He’s at the Mercers’ Hall, sir.’

‘Goodwife Wentworth, then?’ The girl hesitated. ‘Come,’ I said briskly, ‘we have business with Lord Cromwell at Whitehall today. Is your mistress in?’

Her eyes widened further at Cromwell’s name. ‘I’ll see, sir. Please wait.’ She left us at the door and scurried off into the house. Minutes passed.

‘What’s keeping her?’ Barak asked irritably. ‘Let’s go in.’

I held him back. ‘She’s coming.’

The girl reappeared, looking flustered. She took us upstairs, and once again we were led into the parlour with its tapestries and cushioned chairs, its view of the garden and the well. The room
was cold today. This time the old woman was the only member of the family present. She was still dressed in black, her dark hood highlighting the paleness of her lined face. The young steward
Needler stood behind her, his broad features impassive but his eyes watchful. The old woman had evidently just eaten, for a tray stood on a table at her elbow, with the remains of a dish of spring
vegetables and a hunk of cold beef. I saw that the empty plate, the mustard pot and the little salt cellar were all of silver.

Goodwife Wentworth did not get up. ‘You will forgive me if my steward stays, Master Shardlake. There are no other members of the family at home just now.’ She smiled. ‘He can
be my eyes. Tell me, David, who is it that accompanies him? He has the steps of a young man.’

‘A bald young fellow,’ Needler said insolently. ‘Though he dresses well enough.’

Barak gave him a steely look.

‘He is my assistant,’ I told her.

‘Then we each have a chaperon,’ Goodwife Wentworth said with another smile, showing her horrible false teeth and wooden gums. ‘Now, what may I do for you? I understand the
business is urgent. Elizabeth returns to court tomorrow, does she not?’

‘She does indeed, madam, unless fresh evidence can be brought. Evidence, for example, of what lies at the bottom of yonder well in the garden.’

‘Our well?’ she asked quietly. ‘Whatever can you mean, sir?’ Her composure was remarkable.

‘The bodies of the animals your grandson Ralph tortured and killed for sport are there. Including Elizabeth’s cat that Sabine and Avice brought to him. And a tortured child, a little
beggar boy. Whom Needler must have seen, but which you said nothing of at the inquest.’ I looked from one to the other of them. They were silent, their faces expressionless.

‘The boy had things done to him that would make a hangman sick,’ Barak added.

The old woman laughed then, a shrill cackle. ‘Are they mad, David? Are they frothing at the mouth, plucking straws from their hair?’

I spoke evenly. ‘It must have been hard, these last weeks, for your granddaughters to keep such a secret.’

‘Elizabeth is my granddaughter too,’ the old woman said.

‘Sir Edwin’s children are all you have ever cared for. Them and their advancement.’

She was silent for a long moment. Then her lips set hard. ‘I see you have learned much.’ She sighed. ‘It seems I must tell you all. David, I would like a glass of wine. Master
Shardlake, you and your assistant will have one?’