I SAT IN MY BEDROOM, staring down at the jar of Greek Fire on my table. I had brought a plate from the kitchen and poured a little onto it; the brownish-black viscous liquid lay there, glistening like a toad’s skin. I pulled the table over to the open window to dispel the acrid tang of the stuff. I left the candle on the other side of the room for safety, though that meant there was insufficient light to examine it further. In truth, I was afraid of it. Tomorrow, I had decided, I would take it to Guy.
A knock at the door made me jump. Wincing at a spasm from my back, I hastily covered the jar and plate with a cloth, calling, ‘Wait a moment!’
‘It’s me,’ Barak replied through the door. ‘Can I come in?’
‘I - I’m getting dressed. Wait in your room, I’ll come to you.’ To my relief I heard retreating footsteps. I sniffed the air, but the smell was faint and could not have reached him through the door. Leaving the window open, I slipped out of the room, locking it behind me.
Barak had been asleep when I had returned from St Bartholomew’s half an hour before and I had left him. As I knocked at his door I recalled that in the conflicts that had raged around reformers over which of apparently conflicting biblical passages one should follow, I had ever preferred, ‘Obey God rather than man,’ over ‘Let every man be subject to the governing authorities.’ I knew I would have to lie to Barak now, and did not relish it, but I felt in my heart that taking the Greek Fire to Guy was the right course. I shuddered at the thought that if the servant had not arrived when he did, Rich might have had it. Although he might have plenty already, for all I knew.
Barak was sitting on the bed in his shirt, mournfully examining a pair of dusty netherstocks. He put his finger through a hole. ‘Hard riding’s done for these,’ he said.
‘I’m sure Lord Cromwell will pay for more.’ The room was a mess, dirty clothes and greasy plates strewn over the floor and the table. I remembered my former assistant Mark, who had once had this room, how tidy he had kept it.
Barak crumpled the torn stocks into a ball and threw them into a corner.
‘Any luck at Barty’s!’
‘No. We dug up the grave but there was nothing in it, only St John’s skeleton. Rich was there. He came up and demanded to know my business.’
‘Shit. What did you tell the arsehole?’
‘I thought there might be trouble, but the summons from Cromwell arrived just then and he went off in a hurry.’
Barak sighed. ‘Another trail gone cold. We must see what the earl gets out of Rich. He’ll send a message once he’s talked to him.’
‘And Marchamount is back tomorrow. I’ll go into chambers and see him.’
Barak nodded, then looked up at me. ‘Are you up to trying the well again tonight? There won’t be a message from the earl for hours, perhaps not till tomorrow morning. My shoulder’s much better.’
I was far from up to it, I ached with tiredness from head to toe and my arm hurt. But I had promised, and after all it was for Elizabeth that I had agreed to do everything else in the first place. I nodded wearily. ‘Let me just get some food, then we will go.’
‘Good idea. I’m hungry too.’ Barak, evidently restored by his rest, leaped from the bed and led the way downstairs. I followed, guilt at my deception of him gnawing at me.
Joan had prepared a pottage for us, which she brought to the parlour.
Barak scratched at his near-bald pate. ‘Shit, this itches, damn it.
I’ll have to wear a cap when I go out from now on, I hate the way people stare at me, my head bald as a bird’s arse like some old dotard—’
He was interrupted by a loud knock at the front door. ‘That’ll be the message,’ he said, rising. ‘That was quick.’
But it was Joseph Wentworth that Joan showed into the parlour a moment later. He looked exhausted, his clothes were dusty and his hair glinted with sweat. Haggard eyes stared from a dirty face.
‘Joseph,’ I said. ‘What has happened?’
‘I’ve come from Newgate,’ he said. ‘She’s dying, sir. Elizabeth is dying.’ And then the big man burst into tears, covering his face with his hands.
I made him sit down and tried to calm him. He wiped his face with a dirty rag of handkerchief, the same one he had brought the day he first came to the house, which Elizabeth had embroidered. He looked up at me, helpless and distraught, his earlier anger at my lack of progress apparently forgotten.
‘What has happened?’ I asked again gently.
‘These last two days Elizabeth has had another cellmate. A child, a mad beggar girl who has been running round the wards accusing all she meets of abducting her little brother. She made trouble at a baker’s shop in Cheapside—’
‘We saw her the other day—’