Dark Fire

***

AS I RODE THROUGH the narrow streets to Queenhithe my anger ebbed. I found myself once more watching fearfully for dangerous movements in the shadows. The streets were empty, people indoors avoiding the heat if they could. I felt my cheek prickle with sunburn and pulled my cap lower. I jumped as a rat scurried from a doorway and ran down the street, hugging the wall.

The Gristwoods' house was unchanged, the split and broken front door still in place. I knocked, the sound echoing within. Jane Gristwood herself opened the door. She wore the same white coif and grey dress and there was a new unkemptness about her appearance; I saw food stains on the dress. She stared at me wearily.

'You again?'

'Yes, madam. May I come in?'

She shrugged and held the door open. 'That stupid girl Susan's gone,' she said.

'Where's the watchman?'

'Drinking and farting in the kitchen.' She led me past the ancient tapestry into the dowdy parlour and stood there waiting for me to speak.

'Any more news on the house?' I asked.

'Yes, it's mine. I've seen Serjeant's Marchamount's lawyer.' She laughed bitterly. 'For what it's worth. I'll need to take in lodgers – a fine class of tenant I'll get in this mouldy hole. He had my money, you know.'

'Who?'

'Michael. When we married he got a big dowry from my father, to get me off his hands. That's all gone and this is how I'm left. He couldn't even bring any decent furniture from the monasteries, just that ugly old wall hanging. Did you see that whore?' she concluded bluntly.

'Not yet. But I have a query, madam. I believe Sepultus may have worked with a founder in his recent experiments.'

The frightened look that came into her face told me I had hit the mark. Her voice rose.

'I've told you: I'd no interest in his mad doings beyond worrying he'd blow up the house. Why are you asking me these questions? I'm a poor widow alone!'

'You are keeping something back, madam,' I said. 'I must know what it is.'

But she had stopped listening. She was staring out at the garden, her eyes wide. 'It's him again,' she whispered.

I whirled round. A gate in the wall was open and a man was standing there. I dreaded seeing the pockmarked man but it was a stocky, dark-haired young fellow who stood there. Seeing us looking, he turned and fled. I stepped to the door, then paused. Even if I caught him, what then? He could overpower me easily. I turned back to Goodwife Gristwood. She had sat down at the table and was crying, her thin body wrenched with sobs. I waited until she calmed down.

'You know who that man was, madam?' I asked sternly.

She raised a piteous face to me. 'No! No! Why do you try to catch me in these coils? I saw him watching the house yesterday. He was there all afternoon, just watching, he near scared the wits from me. He's one of the men who killed Michael, isn't he?'

'I don't know, madam. But you should tell your watchman.'

'This is punishment for my sin,' she whispered. 'God is punishing me.'

'What sin?' I asked sharply.

She took a deep breath, then looked me hard in the eye. 'When I was young, Master Shardlake, I was a plain girl. Plain, but full of base lusts and when I was fifteen I romped with an apprentice.'

I had forgotten how coarse her tongue was.

'I had a child.'

'Ah.'

'I had to give him away and do hard penance, confessing my sin in church before the congregation, saying how unclean I was Sunday after Sunday. The old religion was no gentler than the new when it came to sins of the flesh.'

'I am sorry.'

'I was thirty before I found anyone to marry me. Or rather, my father did. Father was a master carpenter and Michael advised him once over an unpaid debt. Michael had a few unpaid bills himself, he'd been involved in one of his crazy money-making schemes and my dowry saved him from the debtors' prison.' She sighed. 'But God does not forget a sin, does he? He goes on punishing, punishing.' She balled her work-roughened hands into fists.

'The founder,' I said.

She sat there a few seconds more, her fists clenched. When she spoke again there was tense resolution in her voice.

'They made me give my son away to the nuns at St Helen's. The nuns wouldn't let me near, but I bribed a washerwoman to give me news. When he was fourteen the nuns got him an apprenticeship as a founder.

'And then, when he was free of the nuns, I made myself known to David. I've visited with him every week since then.' She smiled then, a triumphant little smile.

'And then Sepultus took house with you and was looking for a founder to help in his work?'

Her eyes widened. 'How do you know that?'

'I guessed.'

'I didn't tell you because I didn't want David involved in this terrible thing.'

'Madam, your son could be in danger if others know of his involvement. And he has nothing to fear if all he has been doing is honest work.'

She half rose. 'Danger? David in danger?'

I nodded. 'But if you tell me where he is, Lord Cromwell will protect him as he has you.'

She spoke quickly. 'His name is David Harper. It was my maiden name. He is junior to another man, Peter Leighton of Lothbury. It was Leighton that Sepultus worked with.'

'Does Master Leighton work on repairing the conduits?'

She looked at me sharply. 'How did you know?'

'Another guess.'

She stood up. 'I'll go to David now. Warn him. I'll have to prepare him before he'll see you – the founders are a close bunch.'

'Very well, but I must see him and this man Leighton.'

'Can I send word to you?'

I nodded and gave her my address.

'You will help us, sir?' she asked tremulously, an anxious mother, all her harshness gone.

'I will do all I can, I promise. And I will see that watchman of yours, make sure he stays alert. Take him to Lothbury with you. Keep all your doors locked.' I remembered the crossbow. 'And shutter the windows.'

'But it's so hot-'

'It would be safer.' Pock-face and now this young man; I remembered the two sets of bloody footsteps. I had known there were two of them.

Chapter Seventeen

IT WAS A RELIEF TO reach the river stairs. The tide was full, temporarily drowning the stinking mud, and a welcome breeze came off the river. There was no sign of Barak, so I left Chancery at the stables and stood looking at the high warehouses of the merchants of the Hanseatic League, for whom Brother Bealknap acted. The ancient privileges to trade with Baltic ports of these German merchants were increasingly flouted by English merchant adventurers, such as the one who had brought the strange drink from the far reaches of that cold sea. Bealknap could have known about the Polish stuff from his mercantile contacts, it could have been through him that it came to the Gristwoods.

I hitched my satchel over my shoulder. The river was crowded, not only with passengers going up and down and across to Southwark but with people of the wealthier sort who had hired tilt boats to ride upon the water and enjoy the breeze. Everywhere brightly coloured sails passed to and fro. I glanced over them, wondering if Lady Honor and her maids might be among them.

There was a touch at my shoulder; I turned to see Barak there.

'Did you find anything at the Guildhall?' I asked curtly, for I was still annoyed by his treatment of Guy.

'Ay, I got a list of names of founders who work on the conduit.' He looked shamefaced and I wondered whether he was beginning to realize that his rough ways with people were not suited to the delicacy of this investigation.