‘It is the price I pay for trying to bring men of different ideas together, in hope that by reasoned discussion over good food they may resolve their differences.’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘And perhaps the arguments are entertaining to watch?’
She laughed and raised a finger. ‘You have found me out. But usually it does no harm. The duke can be good company when he is sober.’
‘You would like your nephew to regain your family’s old fortunes? A place at court beside the king?’ Norfolk could offer that, I thought - in return for information about Greek Fire? Was that why he had first welcomed the boy, then ignored him?
She inclined her head. ‘I would like my family to regain what it lost. But perhaps Henry is not the one to do it, he is not the brightest boy, nor the most robust. I cannot see him at the king’s side.’
‘They say the king’s manners can be rougher than the duke’s.’
Lady Honor raised her eyebrows. ‘You should be careful what you say.’ She looked around quickly. ‘But no, you are right. Have you heard the tale that the duke’s wife once complained to him about his flaunting his mistress before her, and the duke ordered his servants to sit on her till she was silent? They kept her lying on the floor till blood flowed from her nose.’ Her lip curled with disgust.
‘Ay. You know, I have a workfellow just now whose origin could not be lower, and he and the duke have much the same manners.’
She laughed. ‘And you stand between the highest and the lowest, a rose between the thorns?’
‘A poor gentleman only.’
We both laughed; then our laughter was lost in a tremendous crash of thunder right above us. The heavens opened and a great torrent of rain fell down, soaking us in an instant. Lady Honor looked up.
‘0 God, at last!’ she said.
I blinked the rain out of my eyes. The cold water was indeed marvellous after the broiling heat of the last days. I gasped with the relief of it.
‘I must go in,’ Lady Honor said. ‘But we must talk more, Master Shardlake. We must meet again. Though I have no more to tell about Greek Fire.’ And then she came close and quickly kissed my cheek, a sudden warmth amidst the cold rainwater. Without looking back, she ran though the door to the stairs and closed it. As the rain pelted down on me I stood there with my hand on my cheek, overcome with astonishment.
Chapter Twenty-two
I RODE AWAY FROM THE House of Glass through sheets of rain that fell straight and hard, bouncing off my cap like a million tiny pebbles. But the storm was quickly over; by the time I reached Cheapside the last fading rumbles of thunder were sounding. The sewer channels had been turned into streams, fed with refuse from lanes that had been turned from dust to mud in half an hour. The last light of the long summer evening was fading and I jumped as Bow bells sounded loudly behind me, striking the curfew. The Ludgate would be closed and I would have to ask for passage through. Chancery was plodding on, his head down. ‘Come on, old horse, we’ll soon be home.’ I patted his wet white flank and he gave a little grunting whicker.
The extraordinary conversation with Lady Honor went round and round in my head like a mouse in a jar. Her kiss, while chaste, was a daring thing from a woman of rank. But it was only after I had got her to admit she had read the papers that her tone became intimate. I shook my head sadly. I was attracted to her, all the more so after this evening, but I must be wary; this was no time to allow my mind to be cloyed by affection for a woman. Tomorrow would be the second of June, and only eight days left.
There was a stir about the Ludgate; men were going to and fro with torches to one side of the ancient gatehouse that held the debtors’ prison. I wondered whether someone had escaped, but as I drew closer I saw a small part of the outer wall, where scaffolding had been erected, had collapsed. I pulled Chancery to a halt in front of a constable, who stood examining a pile of flagstones in the road with a lantern, watched by the gatekeeper and some passers-by.
‘What has happened?’ I enquired.
He looked up, doffing his cap when he saw I was a gentleman. ‘Part of the wall’s collapsed, sir. The old mortar was crumbling and the workmen dug it out today, then the storm soaked what was left and some of the wall fell down. It’s ten feet thick, or the prisoners would be scrambling out like rats.’ He squinted up at me. ‘Pardon me, sir, but are you able to read old languages? Only there’s something written on these stones, like pagan symbols.’ There was a note of fear in the man’s voice.
‘I know Latin and Greek.’ I dismounted, my thin pantofle shoes squelching on the wet cobbles. A dozen ancient flagstones lay in the road. The constable lowered his lamp to the inner surface of one of the blocks. There was some sort of writing carved there, a strange script of curved lines and half-circles.
‘What do you think it is, sir?’ the constable asked.