Dark Fire (8 page)

W
E RODE DOWN
Old Bailey Street. The Rolls House was not far, directly opposite Lincoln’s Inn in fact. A sprawling complex of buildings, it had once
been the Domus Conversorum, where Jews who wished to convert to Christianity were instructed. Since the expulsion of all Jews from England centuries before, the building had been used to house the
Court of Chancery Rolls, though one or two foreign Jews, who had washed up in England somehow and agreed to convert to Christianity, were still housed there from time to time. The Six Clerks’
Office, which administered the Court of Chancery, was located there too. The office of Keeper of the Domus was still combined with the Mastership of the Rolls.

‘I thought Lord Cromwell had given up the mastership,’ I said to Barak.

‘He still keeps an office in the Rolls House. Works there sometimes when he wants to be undisturbed.’

‘Can you tell me what this is about?’

He shook his head. ‘My master is to tell you himself.’

We rode up Ludgate Hill. It was another hot day; the women bringing produce into town were wearing cloths over their faces to protect them from the dust thrown up by passing carts. I looked down
over the red-tiled rooftops of London, and the broad shining band of the river. The tide was out and the Thames mud, stained yellow and green with the refuse that poured every day from the northern
shore, lay exposed like a great stain. People said that recently will o’the wisps of flame had been seen at night dancing over the rubbish and wondered uneasily what it portended.

I made another attempt to get information. ‘This must be important to your master. Forbizer’s not intimidated lightly.’

‘He’s a care for his skin like all men of the law.’ There was an edge of contempt in Barak’s voice.

‘This sore puzzles me.’ I paused, then added, ‘Am I in trouble?’

He turned. ‘No, not if you do as you’re told. It’s as I said, my master has a commission for you. Now come: time is important.’

We entered Fleet Street. The dust hung over the White-friars’ monastic buildings in a pall, for the great friary was in the course of demolition. The gatehouse was covered in scaffolding,
men hacking away at the decoration with chisels. A workman stepped into our path, raising a dusty hand.

‘Halt your horses, please, sirs,’ he called out.

Barak frowned. ‘We’re on Lord Cromwell’s business. Piss off.’

The man wiped his hand on his grubby smock. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I only wished to warn you, they’re about to blow up the Whiteys’ chapter house, the noise could startle the
horses—’

‘Look—’ Barak broke off suddenly. A flash of red light appeared over the wall, followed by a tremendous explosion, louder than a clap of thunder. A heavy crash of falling
stone, accompanied by cheers, sounded as a surging cloud of dust rolled over us. Hot-blooded as it looked, Barak’s mare only neighed and jerked aside, but Chancery let out a scream and reared
up on his hind legs, nearly unseating me. Barak reached across and grabbed the reins.

‘Down, matey, down,’ he said firmly. Chancery calmed at once, dropping to his feet again. He stood trembling; I was shaking too.

‘All right?’ Barak asked.

‘Yes.’ I gulped. ‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘God’s death, the dust.’ The powdery cloud, filled with the acrid tang of gunpowder, swirled round us and in a moment my robe and Barak’s doublet were spotted with grey.
‘Come on, let’s get out of this.’

‘I’m sorry, sirs,’ the workman called after us anxiously.

‘So you should be! Arsehole!’ Barak called over his shoulder.

We turned up Chancery Lane, the horses still nervous and troubled by the heat and flies. I was perspiring freely but Barak seemed quite cool. I was reluctantly grateful to him; but for his quick
action I could have had a bad fall.

I looked longingly for a moment at the familiar Lincoln’s Inn gatehouse as Barak led the way through the gate of the Rolls House directly opposite. At the centre of a complex of houses
stood a large, solidly built church. A guard in the yellow and blue quarters of Cromwell’s livery stood outside the door with a pike. Barak nodded to him and the man bowed and snapped his
fingers for a boy to lead our horses away.

Barak pushed open the heavy door of the church and we stepped in. Rolls of parchment bound in red tape lay everywhere, stacked against the walls with their faded paintings of biblical scenes and
piled up along the pews. Here and there a black-robed law clerk stood picking among them, seeking precedents. More clerks waited in a queue beside the door to the Six Clerks’ Office, seeking
writs or dates for hearings.

I had never visited the office, for on the rare occasions I did have a case on in Chancery I would send a clerk to deal with the notoriously lengthy paperwork. I stared at the endless rolls.
Barak followed my gaze.

‘The ghosts of the old Jews have poor reading,’ he said. ‘Come on, through here.’ He led me towards a walled-off side chapel; another guard in bright livery stood outside
the door. Did Cromwell take armed guards everywhere nowadays? I wondered. Barak knocked softly and entered. I took a deep breath as I followed him, for my heart was thumping powerfully against my
ribs.

The wall paintings of the side chapel had been whitewashed over, for Thomas Cromwell hated idolatrous decoration. The chapel had been converted into a large office, with cupboards against the
walls and chairs drawn up before an imposing desk lit incongruously by a stained-glass window above. There was no one behind it; Cromwell was not there. In a corner, behind a smaller desk, sat a
short, black-robed figure I knew: Edwin Grey, Lord Cromwell’s secretary. He had been at Cromwell’s side for fifteen years, since the time the earl had worked for Wolsey. When I was in
favour I had had much legal business through him. Grey rose and bowed to us. His round, pink face under the thinning grey hair was anxious.

He shook my hand; the fingers of his own were black from years of ink. He nodded at Barak; I caught distaste in his look.

‘Master Shardlake. How do you fare, sir? It has been a long time.’

‘Well enough, Master Grey. And you?’

‘Well enough, given the times. The earl had to deal with a message, he will be back in a moment.’

‘How is he?’ I ventured.

Grey hesitated. ‘You will see.’ He turned abruptly as the door was thrown open and Thomas Cromwell strode into the room. My old master’s heavy features were frowning, but at
the sight of me he smiled broadly. I bowed low.

‘Matthew, Matthew!’ Cromwell said enthusiastically. He shook my hand with his powerful grip, then went and sat behind his desk. I studied him. He was dressed soberly in a black gown,
though the Order of the Garter awarded to him by the king swung from his dark blue doublet. Looking at his face, I was shocked by the change in his appearance since I last saw him three years
before. His hair was far greyer, and his strong, coarse features seemed pulled tight with strain and anxiety.

‘Well, Matthew,’ he said, ‘how are you? Your practice prospers?’

I hesitated, thinking of my lost cases. ‘Well enough, thank you, my lord.’

‘What’s that on your robe? It’s on your doublet too, Jack.’

‘Dust, my lord,’ Barak replied. ‘They’re bringing down the Whiteys’ chapter house and nearly brought us down with it.’

Cromwell laughed, then gave Barak a sharp look. ‘Is it done?’

‘Ay, my lord. Forbizer gave no trouble.’

‘I knew he wouldn’t.’ Cromwell turned back to me. ‘I was interested to learn of your involvement in the Wentworth case, Matthew. It occurred to me then we might be of
help to each other for old times’ sake.’ He smiled again. I wondered uneasily how he had heard; but he had eyes and ears everywhere and certainly at Lincoln’s Inn.

‘I am most grateful, my lord,’ I said carefully.

He smiled wryly. ‘These little crusades of yours, Matthew. The girl’s life matters to you?’

‘Ay, it does.’ I realized that these past days I had thought of little but Elizabeth’s case. I wondered why for a moment. It was something to do with her wounded helplessness,
lying there in that filthy Newgate straw. If Cromwell wished to use her life as a rope to bind me to him, he had chosen well.

‘I believe she is innocent, my lord.’

He waved a beringed hand. ‘I’m not concerned with that,’ he said bluntly. He fixed me with a serious look; once again I felt the power of those dark eyes. ‘I need your
help, Matthew. It’s an important matter, and secret. The bargain is I’ll keep the girl alive for twelve days. We have only that for my task. Less than a fortnight.’ He nodded
abruptly. ‘Sit down.’

I did as bidden. Barak went and stood against the wall, folding his hands across a large gold-coloured codpiece. Glancing at Cromwell’s desk, I saw among the papers a miniature painting in
a tiny silver frame, an exquisite portrait of the head and shoulders of a woman. Following my gaze, Cromwell frowned and turned it over. He nodded to Barak.

‘Jack’s a trusted servant. He’s one of only eight that know this story, including myself and Grey here and his majesty the king.’ My eyes widened at that name. I still
held my cap, which I had removed on entering the church, and involuntarily began twisting it in my hands.

‘One of the other five is an old acquaintance of yours.’ Cromwell smiled again, cynically. ‘It’s not a matter to irk your conscience this time – you needn’t
crush your cap into a rag.’ He leaned back and shook his head indulgently. ‘I was impatient with you over Scarnsea, Matthew. I saw that later. None of us could have known how complex
that affair would turn out. I have always admired your mind, your skills at teasing out the truth in men’s affairs. Ever since the old days when we were all young reformers. Do you
remember?’ He smiled, but then a shadow crossed his face. ‘Days with more hope and less care.’ He sat silent for a moment and I thought of the rumours of his troubles over the
Cleves marriage.

‘May I ask who this old acquaintance is, my lord?’ I ventured.

He nodded. ‘You remember Michael Gristwood?’

Lincoln’s Inn is a small world. ‘Gristwood the attorney, who used to work for Stephen Bealknap?’

‘The same.’

I remembered a small, scurrying fellow, with bright sharp eyes. Gristwood had once been friendly with Bealknap and, like him, forever on the lookout for new money-making schemes. But he had none
of Bealknap’s calculating coldness and his schemes never came to anything. I remembered he had once come to me for help in a property case he had taken on. A mere unqualified solicitor, he
had got hopelessly out of his depth. The case was in a dreadful tangle, and he had been fulsomely grateful for my help. He had bought me a dinner in hall, where I had listened, half-amused, as he
offered to involve me in a number of hare-brained schemes by way of thanks.

‘He had a falling out of some sort with Bealknap,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t been around Lincoln’s Inn a long time. Didn’t he go to work for the Court of
Augmentations?’

Cromwell nodded. ‘He did. To help Richard Rich pull in the proceeds of the dissolution.’ He made a steeple of his fingers and looked at me over them.

‘Last year, when St Bartholomew’s priory in Smithfield surrendered to the king, Gristwood was sent to supervise the taking of the inventory of chattels to go to the king.’

I nodded. The hospital priory had been a large monastic house. I recalled the prior had been in league with Cromwell and Rich, and as a reward had been granted most of the priory lands. So much
for vows of poverty. Yet they said Prior Fuller was dying, of a wasting disease God had laid on him for closing the hospital. Others said that Richard Rich, who had moved into the prior’s
fine house himself, was slowly poisoning him.

‘Gristwood took some Augmentations men with him,’ Cromwell continued, ‘to quantify the furniture, the plate to be melted down and so on. He took the monastery librarian to show
him what books might be worth keeping. The Augmentations men are thorough: they poke into nooks and crannies the monks themselves have often forgotten.’

‘I know.’

‘And in the crypt under the church, in a cobwebby corner, they found something.’ He leaned forward, the hard dark eyes seeming to bore into mine. ‘Something that was lost to
man centuries ago, something that has become little more than a legend and a diversion for alchemists.’

I stared at him in astonishment. I had not expected this. He laughed uneasily. ‘Sounds like a mummers’ tale, eh? Tell me, Matthew, have you ever heard of Greek Fire?’

‘I’m not sure.’ I frowned. ‘The name is vaguely familiar.’

‘I knew nothing of it myself until a few weeks ago. Greek Fire was an unknown liquid that the Byzantine emperors used in warfare against the infidel eight hundred years ago. They fired it
at enemy ships and it would set them ablaze from end to end, a rushing inextinguishable fire. It could burn even on water. The formula for its creation was kept a close secret, passed down from one
Byzantine emperor to another till in the end it was lost. The alchemists have been after it for hundreds of years but they’ve never fathomed it. Here, Grey.’ He snapped his fingers and
the clerk rose from his desk and put a piece of parchment in his master’s hands. ‘Handle it carefully, Matthew,’ Cromwell murmured. ‘It is very old.’

I took the parchment from him. It was frayed at the edges and torn at the top. Above some words in Greek was a richly painted picture without perspective, such as the old monks used to
illustrate their books. Two oared ships of ancient design faced each other across a stretch of water. At the front of one ship a golden pipe was belching red tongues of fire, engulfing the
other.

‘This looks like a monkish thing,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘So it is.’ He paused, collecting his thoughts. I glanced at Barak. His face was sober, nothing mocking in it now. Grey stood beside me, looking at the parchment, his
hands folded.

Cromwell spoke again, quietly though there were only the three of us to hear. ‘Friend Gristwood was at St Bartholomew’s one day last autumn when he was called to the church by one of
the Augmentations clerks. Among the old lumber in the crypt they had found a large barrel, which, when they opened it, proved to be full of a thick, dark liquid with a terrible smell, like the
stench of Lucifer’s privy Gristwood said. Michael Gristwood had never seen anything remotely like it before and he was curious. There was a plaque on the barrel, with a name, Alan St John.
And some Latin words.
Lupus est homo homini.
’