Dark Fire

'When people made remarks like that at first I would correct them, tell them we have snow in Granada, which we do. But now I just agree with them. They are never sure if I joke or not. Still, it keeps me in their minds. Perhaps he will tell his friends in Lothbury.'

'He is a founder?'

'Ay, Master Pettit has just finished his apprenticeship. A serious young fellow. He spilt hot lead on his arm, but hopefully that old remedy will ease him.'

I smiled. 'You are learning the ways of business. Turning your differences to advantage.'

Apothecary Guy Malton, once Brother Guy of Malton, had fled Spain with his Moorish parents as a boy after the fall of Granada. He had trained as a physician at Louvain. He had become my friend on my mission to Scarnsea three years before, helped me during that terrible time, and when the monastery was dissolved I had hoped to set him up as a physician in London. But the College would not have him, with his brown face and papist past. With a little bribery, however, I had got him into the Apothecaries' Guild and he had managed to build up a good trade.

'Master Pettit went to a physician first.' Guy shook his head. 'He stitched a clyster thread into his leg to draw the pain down from his arm, and when the wound became inflamed insisted that showed the clyster was working.' He pulled off his apothecary's cap, revealing a head of curly hair that had once been black but now was mostly white. It still seemed odd to see him without his tonsure. He studied me closely with his keen brown eyes.

'And how have you been this last month, Matthew?'

'Still better. I do my exercises twice a day like a good patient. My back troubles me little unless I have to lift something heavy, like the great bundles of legal papers that mount in my room at Lincoln's Inn.'

'You should get your clerk to do that.'

'He gets them out of order. You've never seen such a noddle as Master Skelly.'

He smiled. 'Well, I will have a look at it if I may.'

He rose, lit a sweet-smelling candle, then closed the shutters as I removed my doublet and shirt. Guy was the only one I allowed to see my twisted back. He got me to stand, move my shoulders and arms, then stood behind me and gently probed my back muscles. 'Good,' he said. 'There is little stiffness. You may get dressed. Keep on with your exercises. It is good to have a conscientious patient.'

'I would not like to go back to the old days, fearing ever-worsening pain.'

He gave me another of his keen looks. 'And you are still melancholy? I see it in your face.'

'I have a melancholy nature, Guy. It is settled in me.' I looked at the chart on the wall. 'Everything in the world is made of a mixture of the four elements, and I have too much of earth. The imbalance is fixed in me.'

He inclined his dark head. 'There is nothing under the moon that is not subject to change.'

I shook my head. 'I seem to take less and less interest in the stirs of politics and the law, though once they were the heart of my life. It has been so since Scarnsea.'

'That was a terrible time. You do not miss being close to the centre of power?' He hesitated. 'To Lord Cromwell?'

I shook my head. 'No, I dream of a quiet life in the country somewhere, perhaps near my father's farm. Maybe then I will feel like taking up painting again.'

'Yet I wonder if that is the life for you, my friend. Would you not become bored without cases to sharpen your wits on, problems to solve?'

'Once I might have. But London now-' I shook my head- 'fuller of fanatics and cozeners every year. And my profession has enough of both.'

He nodded. 'Ay, in matters of religion opinions get more extreme. I tell people nothing of my past, as you may imagine. Dun's the mouse as the proverb has it; colourlessness and stillness keep one safe.'

'I have no patience with any of it these days. Sometimes I think all that matters is faith in Christ and all else is no more than a jangle of words.'

He smiled wryly. 'That is not what you would have said once.'

'No. Yet sometimes even that essential faith eludes me, and I can believe only that man is a fallen creature.' I laughed sadly. 'That I can believe.' I pulled the crumpled pamphlet from my pocket and laid it on the table. 'See there, the girl's uncle is an old client of mine. He wants me to help her. Her trial is on Saturday. That is why I have come early, I am meeting him at Newgate at nine.' I told him of my meeting with Joseph the day before. Strictly it was breaching a confidence, but I

knew Guy would say nothing.

'She refuses to speak at all?' he asked when I had finished, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

'Not one word. You'd think she'd be startled out of that when she learned she'd be pressed, but she hasn't been. It makes me think her wits must be affected.' I looked at him seriously. 'Her uncle begins to fear possession.'

He inclined his head. 'It is easy to cry "possession". I have sometimes wondered if the man from whom Our Lord cast out a devil was not merely a poor lunatic'

I gave him a sidelong look. 'The Bible is quite clear he was possessed.'

'And today we must believe all that is said in the Bible and only that. Master Coverdale's translation of it, that is.' Guy smiled wryly. Then his face became thoughtful and he began pacing the room, the hem of his robe brushing the clean rushes on the floor.

'You can't assume she is mad,' he said. 'Not yet. People have many reasons for silence. Because there are things one is too ashamed or frightened to reveal. Or to protect someone else.'

'Or because one has ceased to care what happens to one.'

'Yes. That is a terrible state, near to suicide.'

'Whatever her reasons, I'll have to persuade the girl out of it if I'm to save her life. The press is a horrible death.' I stood up. 'Oh, Guy, why did I let myself get drawn into this? Most lawyers don't touch criminal cases, the accused not being allowed representation. I've advised one or two before their trials, but I don't enjoy it. And I hate the stink of death around the assizes, knowing in a few days the carts will roll to Tyburn.'

'But the cans go to Tyburn whether you see them or no. If you can make an empty space in one of those carts-'

I smiled wryly. 'You still have a monk's faith in salvation through good works.'

'Should not we all believe in the righteousness of charity?'

'Yes, if we have the energy for it.' I stood up. 'Well, I am due at Newgate.'

'I have a potion,' he said, 'that can sometimes lift a man's spirits. Reduce the black bile in his stomach.'

I raised a hand. 'No, Guy, I thank you but so long as my wits are not dulled, I will stay in the state God has called me to.'

'As you wish.' He extended a hand. 'I will say a prayer for you.'

'Beneath that big old Spanish cross of yours? You still have it in your bedroom?'

'It was my family's.'

'Beware the constable. Just because evangelicals are being arrested now it doesn't mean the government's any easier on Catholics.'

'The constable's a friend. Last month he drank some water he bought from a carrier and an hour later staggered into my shop clutching his stomach in agony.'

'He drank water? Unboiled? Everyone knows it is full of deadly humours.'

'He was very thirsty; you know how hot the weather has been. He was badly poisoned – I made him swallow a spoonful of mustard to make him sick.'

I shuddered. 'I thought salted beer was the best emetic.'

'Mustard is better, it works at once. He recovered and now he stumps merrily around the ward calling my praises.' His face became serious. 'Just as welclass="underline" with all this talk of invasion foreigners are not popular these days. I get insults called after me in the streets more frequently; I always cross the street if there is a gang of apprentices around.'

'I am sorry. The times get no easier.'