I put it down. So the friars had hidden the papers, and the barrel, away, realizing the potential for danger and destruction they had in their hands: not knowing that ninety years later King Henry and Cromwell would come and clear them all out. As I sat there, I had a vision of the fall of Constantinople, that great tragedy of our age; soldiers and officials and citizens fleeing the doomed city, making for the dock and the boats to Venice to the sound of booming artillery and the roars of the Turks outside.
I picked the paper up again, and sniffed it. It had a faint scent, pleasant and musky. I turned to the remaining papers, the same odour lingered on some of the others. I frowned; the smell was nothing like incense: surely it had not come from a monastery cellar. I had never smelt anything like it before. I laid the papers down again, then started as a moth flew into my face. The sun was touching the top of the trees over in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and cows were lowing in the distance. I turned to the books.
These were mostly Latin and Greek works that told stories of Greek Fire. I read old Athenian legends of magic garments that could burst into fire when worn, read Pliny’s description of pools by the Euphrates that discharged inflammable mud. It was clear the writers were merely repeating stories, with no real idea of how Greek Fire was actually made. There were also a couple of alchemical works, which discussed the matter in terms of the philosopher’s stone, the precepts of Hermes Trismegistus, and analogies between metals, stars and living things. Like the book I had taken from Sepultus’s workshop, I found them incomprehensible.
I turned back finally to the old parchment Cromwell had shown me in his room, the picture of the ship spouting Greek Fire, with the top part torn off. I ran my fingers along the torn edge. That act had cost Michael Gristwood his life.
‘Better the monks had destroyed everything,’ I whispered aloud.
I heard footsteps and looked up to see Barak approaching. He glanced over the flower beds.
‘This is a fine-smelling place.’ He nodded at the documents surrounding me. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what d’you make of it all?’
‘Not much. For all this great jangle of words no one seems to have any clue what Greek Fire really was. As for the alchemical works, they are incomprehensible riddles and obscure words.’
Barak grinned. ‘I tried to read a law book once, it made me feel like that.’
‘Guy may be able to make some sense of them.’
‘That old black monk of yours? He’s well known round where I lodge. By God, he’s a strange-looking one.’
‘He’s a very knowledgeable man.’
‘Ay, so they say round the Old Barge.’
‘That is where you live?’ I remembered those shutters closing.
‘Ay, it’s not a fine place like this but it’s in the middle of London - useful as my business takes me all over the City.’ He sat beside me and gave me a sharp look. ‘You’re to say as little as possible to the black monk, remember.’
‘I’ll ask him to elucidate these alchemy books, say it’s something I’ve to look into for a client. He won’t press me more than that, he knows I have to keep clients’ confidences.’
‘Guy Malton, the black apothecary calls himself,’ Barak said thoughtfully. ‘I’ll wager that’s not the name he was born with.’
‘No, he was born Mohammed Elakbar; his parents converted to Christianity after the fall of Granada. Your own name’s unusual, come to that. Barak, it is like Baruch, one of the Old Testament names reformers are giving their children now. But you’re too old for that.’
He laughed and stretched long legs in front of him. ‘You’re a scholar, aren’t you? My father’s family was descended from Jews who converted to Christianity in old times. Before they were all kicked out of England. I think of it whenever I have to visit my master at the Domus. So maybe it was Baruch once. I’ve a funny little gold box my father left me that he said had been passed down from those days. It was all he had to leave me, poor old arsehole.’ Again that sombre look passed quickly across his face. He shrugged. ‘Anything else those old papers reveal?’
‘No. Except I think the monks hid the formula and the barrel for fear of the destruction Greek Fire could cause.’ I looked at him. ‘They were right. The devastation such a weapon could wreak would be terrible.’
He returned my look. ‘But if it could save England from invasion. Surely anything is worth that.’
I did not reply. ‘Tell me what it was like. At the demonstration.’
‘I will, but tomorrow at the wharf. I came to tell you I’m going out. I have to fetch some clothes from the Old Barge. And I am going to ask around the taverns, see if any of my contacts know of that pock-faced man. Then afterwards I’ve a girl to see, so I’ll be back late. Got a key?’
I looked at him disapprovingly. ‘Ask Joan for hers. We must start very early tomorrow.’
He smiled at my look. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t find me wanting in diligence.’
‘I hope not.’
‘Nor will the girl.’ He gave me a lubricious wink and turned away.
Chapter Ten