Dark Fire (35 page)

‘Have you any idea what death by the press means?’ I asked him. A couple of aldermen walking up the steps stared round at my raised voice, but I took no heed. ‘It means lying
for days under heavy stones, in an agony of thirst and hunger, struggling to breathe as you wait for your back to break!’

Sabine began to cry. Sir Edwin looked round at her, then turned back to me. ‘How dare you speak of such things in front of my poor daughter!’ he shouted. ‘She aches for her
lost brother as I ache for my son! Black-robed, stinking, bent lawyer! You can tell
you
have no children!’

His face was contorted, spittle gathering at the corners of his mouth. People going up and down the steps had stopped to watch; someone laughed at his tirade of insults. To stop the spectacle
making Elizabeth’s name a talking point again, I stepped past Sir Edwin. Needler sidestepped too, blocking my path, but I stared at him fiercely and he gave way. Followed by a host of stares,
I walked down the steps and away to the stables.

When I reached Chancery’s stall I found I was trembling. I stroked his head and he nuzzled my hand, hoping for food. Sir Edwin’s fury had been unnerving; there seemed something
almost unbalanced in his hatred of Elizabeth. But he had lost his only son and he was right – I had no children, I could only imagine how he must feel. I slung my bag of books over my
shoulder, mounted and rode out. Sir Edwin and his party had disappeared.

I rode north towards the City wall, where the former Franciscan priory of St Michael’s lay. It was situated in a street where good houses were mixed in with poor tenements. The street was
empty, quiet and shady, St Michael’s halfway along. It was a small place, the church no bigger than a large parish church. The wide doors stood open and, curious, I dismounted and looked
in.

I blinked with surprise at the interior. Both sides of the nave had been blocked off with tall, flimsy-looking wooden partitions. There was a series of doors at ground-floor level and rickety
steps led up to more doors, making a dozen apartments in all. The centre of the nave had become a narrow passage, the old flagstones strewn with dirt. The passage was dark, for the partitions
blocked off the side windows and the only light came from the window at the top of the quire.

Beside the door a couple of iron rings had been hammered into an ancient font. From the piles of dung on the floor I could see this was where horses were tethered. I slung Chancery’s reins
round a ring and walked down the central passage. So this was Bealknap’s conversion. It was so rickety it looked as though the construction could come down at any moment.

One of the doors on the upper floor opened. I glimpsed a poorly furnished room, where cheap furniture was lit by rich multi-coloured light from the stained-glass window that now formed the
apartment’s outside wall. A thin old woman stepped out and stood at the head of the staircase; it wobbled slightly under her weight. She gave my robe a hostile look.

‘Have you come from the landlord, lawyer?’ she asked in a sharp northern accent.

I doffed my cap. ‘No, madam, I represent the City council. I have come to look at the cesspit; there have been complaints.’

The old woman folded her arms. ‘That pit’s a disgrace. Thirty of us share it, those who live here and the others round the cloister. The vapours off it would stun a bull. I’m
sorry for them living next door to the church, but what can we do? We have to go somewhere!’

‘No one blames you, madam. I am sorry for your trouble. I hope we may get an order for a proper cesspit to be built, but the landlord is resisting.’

She spat fiercely. ‘That pig Bealknap.’ She nodded at her apartment. ‘We’ve refused to pay him rent till he takes these great windows out and boards them up. We bake with
the sun coming through them, the wretched papist things.’

She leaned on the rail, warming to her theme. ‘I’m here with my son and his family, five of us in this one room, and we’re charged a shilling a week! Half the floorboards fell
out of one of the tenements last week – nearly killed the poor creatures living there.’

‘Your conditions are clearly bad,’ I agreed. I wondered whether her family was one of the thousands being forced off their land in the north to make way for sheep.

‘You’re a lawyer,’ she said. ‘Can he throw us out if we don’t pay our rent?’

‘He could, but I guess if you withhold your rent Bealknap will negotiate.’ I smiled wryly. ‘He hates losing money above all.’ Speaking thus about another lawyer was
professional disloyalty, but where Bealknap was concerned I did not care. The old woman nodded.

‘How do I get to the cesspit?’ I asked.

She pointed up the passage. ‘There’s a little door by where the altar was. The pit’s in the cloisters. Hold your nose, though.’ She paused. ‘Try and help us, sir.
This is a hellish place to live!’

‘I’ll do what I can.’ I bowed and walked to the door she had indicated, which hung drunkenly from loose hinges. I felt sorry for the old woman; there was little I could do in
the short term with the case going up to Chancery. But if Vervey bribed the Six Clerks’ Office, that might help.

The former cloister yard had been converted too, the roofed walkway filled with more wooden partitions between the pillars to make a quadrangle of tiny ramshackle dwellings. Rags hung at the
windows in place of curtains; these were hovels for the poorest of the poor. I blinked in the sunlight reflected from the white quadrangle stones where once the friars had paced.

The smallest of the little dwellings had an open door, from which a horrible stink issued. Holding my nose, I looked inside. A hole had been dug in the earth, with a plank set on bricks thrown
across. It was a ‘whistle and thud’ cesspit, and should have been twenty feet deep so the flies could not reach the top, but from the cloud of them buzzing round the planks I guessed it
was no more than ten feet deep. I held my nose as I looked down the dark, evil-smelling pit. It had not even been lined with wood, let alone the mandatory stone: no wonder it leaked. I remembered
what Barak had said about his father falling down one of these pits and shuddered.

I stepped outside with relief. I must visit the house next door, the one the council owned, then get back to Chancery Lane. The morning was wearing on, the hot sun near its zenith. I paused and
rubbed my sleeve across my brow, easing the uncomfortable weight of my satchel.

Then I saw them. They stood one on each side of the door to the church, so still that I had not immediately noticed them. A tall thin man with a pale face as pitted with pox marks as though the
devil had scraped his claws across it, and on the other side an enormous, hulking fellow who kept small frowning eyes fixed on me as he hefted a chopping axe, the shaft cut short to make a fearsome
weapon, in his big hand. Toky, and his mate Wright. I swallowed, feeling my legs begin to tremble. Other than the door to the church there was no way out of the cloister yard. I glanced along the
rows of doors but all were shut, the inhabitants no doubt out at work or begging in the streets. I felt for my dagger.

Toky smiled, a broad smile that showed a perfect set of white teeth, as he lifted his own dagger. ‘Didn’t see us following you, did you?’ he asked cheerfully in a sharp voice
with a country burr. ‘You’ve been getting careless without Master Barak at your side.’ He nodded at the cesspit. ‘Fancy going down there? They wouldn’t find you till
they cleaned it out, wouldn’t notice the smell with what’s down there already.’ He grinned at Wright. The big man nodded briefly, never taking his gaze off me. His eyes were
focused and still, like a dog stalking its prey; Toky’s glittered with the bright cruel intensity of a cat’s. He smiled with pleasure.

‘Whatever you are being paid,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady, ‘Lord Cromwell will double it in return for the name of your employer, I promise.’

Toky laughed, then spat on the ground. ‘That for the tavern keeper’s son.’

‘Who is paying you?’ I asked. ‘Bealknap? Marchamount? Rich? Norfolk? Lady Honor Bryanston?’ I watched their faces for any sign of recognition, but they were both too
professional for that. Toky spread his arms and began moving towards me while the big man stepped to the side, raising his axe. Toky was trying to nudge me towards his confederate, so he could make
the killing blow, guiding me to the slaughter like a sheep. ‘Help!’ I called out, but if anyone was within the wooden hovels they were not going to intervene. None of the window
curtains stirred. My heart thudded in my breast and despite the heat I felt cold, paralysed. I was done for this time. I almost gave in. Then in my mind’s eye I saw Sepultus Gristwood’s
shattered face and I resolved, if I was to end like that, at least I would go down fighting.

Their eyes were concentrated on my dagger arm. I let my shoulder drop so the strap of my satchel slid down my other arm, then I grabbed it and swung at Wright with all my strength. The heavy
books caught him on the side of the head and he stumbled with a cry.

I ran for the doorway, thanking God for the broken door. I heard Toky close behind me and winced in anticipation of a blade thrust into my back. I grabbed at the door. It came right off the
hinges. I turned and thrust it at Toky; he stumbled against it with a cry, giving me time to run into the nave. The old woman was still on her staircase, talking to a younger woman who had emerged
from the next-door hovel. Their mouths fell open in amazement as I ran down the passage. I passed them and turned. Toky was standing in the doorway, blood running from his nose. To my surprise, he
laughed.

‘We’ll put you down the pit
alive
for this, matey,’ he said. He stepped aside as Wright charged through the door and headed straight for me, axe raised high.

Then he stopped with a howl as a flood of liquid landed on him from above, followed by an earthenware pot that banged on his shoulder. I stared upwards. The old woman had thrown a full pisspot
at him. Her neighbour ran from her door, carrying another. She hurled it too at the big man. This time it caught him on the forehead and he stumbled against the wall with another cry, dropping his
axe.

‘Run!’ the old woman yelled. Toky was running down the aisle, fury in his eyes now. I sped for the main door, jerking Chancery’s reins free. He was wide-eyed and trembling with
anxiety, but allowed me to haul him outside. Riding away was my only chance – on foot they would get me in the street. I leaped clumsily into the saddle and grasped the reins. Then they were
seized from below, jerking Chancery’s head aside. I looked down. To my horror I saw Toky directly underneath me, staring up at me with a snarling smile, the sunlight flashing off his dagger.
I fumbled frantically for my own, which I had slipped up my sleeve as I mounted, but I was too late. Toky thrust upwards at my groin.

Chancery saved me. As Toky stabbed he reared up, neighing in terror and kicking out. Toky jumped back. I saw with a thrill of horror that his dagger was bloody; I glanced down at my waist,
clutching the slippery neck of the rearing horse, but it was Chancery’s blood that stained it, welling from a great gash in his side. Toky dodged the flying hooves and struck at me again but
Chancery, screaming now, shied away, almost unseating me. Toky looked quickly round; along the street shutters were banging open; a group of men had appeared in the doorway of an inn at the top of
the street. I pulled at the reins and Chancery stumbled towards them, his blood dripping on the road. I looked over my shoulder. Wright had joined Toky now but half the street lay between us. The
sunlight glinted on Wright’s axe.

‘Hey, what’s going on?’ someone called. ‘Constable!’ The men from the inn spilled into the road; doors were being opened along the street, people looking fearfully
out. Toky glanced at them, gave me a savage look, then turned and ran off up the street, Wright running after him. The men from the inn came over to where Chancery stood trembling from head to
foot.

The innkeeper approached me. ‘You all right, lawyer?’

‘Yes. Thank you, yes.’

‘God’s death, what happened? Your horse is hurt.’

‘I must get him home.’ But at that moment Chancery shuddered and slipped forward to his knees. I had barely time to jump off before he fell on his side. I looked at the blood still
welling on to the dusty cobbles, and thought how easily it could have been mine. I looked at his eyes and but already they were glazing over; my old horse was dead.

S
OME HOURS LATER
, as the heat of the day began to fade, I sat under the shade of a trellis in my garden. I had told the
crowd in the street that I had been the victim of a robbery, bringing forth mutterings about the type of people living at the old friary. The innkeeper had insisted a cart be sent for to remove the
horse, which was blocking the narrow street, and that I pay for it. When the cart arrived I had a ridiculous urge to ask the driver to take Chancery’s corpse to my house; but what would I do
with it there? As they loaded him on the cart, to take him to the Shambles, I walked down to the river to catch a boat. I blinked back tears. There was no point in going to Lady Honor’s now,
I was too dusty to present myself at the House of Glass, and my legs were trembling as I walked.

I closed my eyes at the memory of the sudden stillness in Chancery’s eyes. He had died of shock as much as loss of blood and I blamed myself; for days I had ridden him beyond endurance
through London in the heat. The poor old horse, with his quiet gentle ways. Young Simon wept when I told him Chancery was dead. I had not realized the boy was so fond of him; he had seemed more
taken with Barak’s mare.

I remembered the day I bought Chancery. I had been eighteen, not long in London, and he was the first horse I had bought for myself. I remembered how proud I had been as I led the pretty white
creature with the broad hooves from the stables, how gentle he had been from the start. I had promised myself I would put him out to grass, but now he would never enjoy those last years in the
orchard behind my garden. Tears formed at the corners of my eyes again. I wiped them away.