'We watched the boat, just a mass of flame now, clouds of thick black smoke rising into the sky. I looked at my master. He wasn't afraid, he just stood watching with his arms folded, a gleam of excitement in his eyes.
'Then I heard the screaming. I think it had been going on for a while but I hadn't noticed. It was the horses, they'd seen those huge gouts of leaping fire and they were terrified. I ran to them and they were kicking and flailing, trying to escape from the posts. I managed to calm them before they did themselves real harm, for I've a way with horses, and thank God there were no more sheets of flame; what was left of the boat was sinking now. When I went back to the jetty it had gone, even the rope holding it had burned away as you can see. My master was talking with the Gristwoods, who were looking pleased with themselves for all that their clothes clung to them with sweat. They began packing up their stuff.' He laughed and shook his head. 'The river was quiet again, the boat had sunk and the fire on the water had gone out, thank Christ. It was like nothing had ever happened: except a thirty-ton crayer had been burned to nothing in moments.' Barak took a deep breath and raised his eyebrows. 'And that's it, that's what I saw with my own eyes. Afterwards, when the Gristwoods had driven off again, my master told me that what I had seen was called Greek Fire, told me how Michael Gristwood had found the formula at Barry's, and swore me to secrecy.'
I nodded. I walked to the end of the jetty, Barak following. I looked down into the dark, heaving waters.
'Were you at the second demonstration?'
'No. My master commissioned me to find another, larger, ship, an old balinger, and have it taken here, but he attended that one alone. He told me the second ship was destroyed in exactly the same way.' He looked into the river. 'So there's the remains of two of them down there.'
I nodded thoughtfully. 'So to get Greek Fire to work you need that apparatus. Who built it for them, I wonder, and where did they keep it?'
Barak looked at me quizzically. 'You believe in it now that you've heard what I saw?'
'I believe you saw something very extraordinary.'
A merchantman came into view, sailing up the middle of the river, a huge carrack returning home to London from some far corner of the world. Its sails were unfurled to catch the light breeze, the high castellated prow riding the waves proudly. The seamen on deck, seeing us, shouted and waved; probably we were the first Englishmen they had seen in months. As the ship passed up to London, I had a terrible vision of it aflame from end to end, the sailors screaming, no time to escape.
'You know there are many who say the last days of the world are upon us,' I said quietly. 'That soon the world will be destroyed, Christ will return and the Last Judgement will come.'
'Do you believe that?' Barak asked.
'Not until now,' I said. I saw another boat, tiny by comparison, pass the carrack and approach us. 'Here's our boatman, we must get back to London, look for that librarian.'
WE GOT THE WHERRYMAN to take us on to Westminster, for the Court of Augmentations' offices were housed in a room off Westminster Hall. We climbed Westminster Stairs and paused in New Palace Yard to get our breath. The sun was high now; it was another hot day. The water in the fountain was low; I thought of pumps, siphons, tanks.
'So this is where the lawyers come to argue,' Barak said, staring with interest at the high north face of the hall with its enormous stained-glass window.
'Ay, this is where the civil courts sit. Have you never been here?'
'Like most honest people I keep clear of the place.'
He followed me up the steps to the north door. The guard, seeing my lawyer's robe, nodded and we passed inside. In winter the interior of the giant stone building is icy, everyone shivering except for the judges in their furs. Even today it felt chilly. Barak looked up at the giant carved ceiling and the statues of ancient kings by the high windows. He whistled, the sound echoing as every noise did there.
'Bit different from the Old Bailey.'
'Yes.' I looked down the hall, beyond the empty shop counters to the courts behind their low partitions, King's Bench and Common Pleas and Chancery, the benches and tables deserted and silent. Tomorrow the law term would begin and every inch of the place would be thronged. I remembered I was to argue against Bealknap here next week: somehow I would have to find time to prepare. I looked across to a door in a far corner, from behind which a murmur of voices was audible. 'Come on,' I said and led Barak to the Court of Augmentations' office.
It was no surprise that Augmentations had obtained a dispensation to open on a Sunday. Responsible for the sale of hundreds of monastic buildings and for the pensions of the former monks, there was no busier place in the land. Inside there were counters on two sides of the room where clerks dealt with enquiries. A gaggle of anxious women in sober dresses stood arguing with a harassed-looking clerk.
'Our abbess was promised the High Cross,' one of the women was saying plaintively. 'That she might have it to treasure, sir, a memory of our life.'
The clerk gestured impatiently at a paper. 'It's not mentioned in the surrender deed. Why d'you want it anyway? If you ex-nuns are still meeting together for papist services, that's against the law.'
I led Barak on past a little group of well-dressed men poring over a ground plan which showed the familiar shape of a monastic church and cloisters. 'It's not worth a thousand if we've to bring the building down,' one was saying.
We came to a counter marked 'Pensions'. There was nobody there. I rang a little bell and an elderly clerk appeared from behind a door, looking cross to be disturbed. I told him we wished to trace the address of a former monk. The man began to say that he was busy, we should call back later, but Barak delved in his doublet and produced a seal with Cromwell's coat of arms. He slapped it on the table. The clerk looked at it and at once became servile.
'I'll do anything I can, of course. To help the earl-'
'I'm looking for one Bernard Kytchyn,' I said. 'Former librarian at St Bartholomew's Priory, Smithfield.'
The clerk smiled. 'Ah yes, Barty's – that'll be easy. He'll collect his pension from here.' He opened a drawer and, producing a massive ledger, began leafing through it. After a minute he stabbed at an entry with an inky finger.
'There it is, sirs. Bernard Kytchyn, six pounds and two marks a year. He's listed as chantry priest at St Andrew's Church, Moorgate. It's a wicked scandal, sir, the chantries being allowed to stay open, priests still mumming Latin prayers for the dead day after day. They should bring the chantries down too.' He smiled at us brightly; as we were Cromwell's men he would expect us to agree. I only grunted, however, and turned the ledger round to check the entry.
'Barak,' I said, 'when I go back to Chancery Lane, I suggest you go and find Kytchyn, tell him-'
I broke off, as the door behind the clerk opened. To my astonishment Stephen Bealknap stepped out, a frown on his thin face. 'Master clerk, we had not finished. Sir Richard Rich requires-' He broke off in turn as he saw me. He looked surprised, his eyes meeting mine for a second before angling away.
'Brother Shardlake-'
'Bealknap, I did not know you had an interest in Augmentations pensions.'
He smiled. 'I don't usually. But there… there is a corrodian, a pensioner with right of residence, attached to my property at Moorgate. It seems I have taken on responsibility for him too. An interesting legal problem, is it not?'
'Yes.' I turned to the clerk. 'We are finished now. Well, Brother, I shall see you the day after tomorrow.' I bowed to Bealknap. The clerk replaced his book and ushered Bealknap back to his room. The door closed behind them.