Dark Fire (5 page)

‘Elizabeth – ’ there was a tremble in her uncle’s voice – ‘this is Master Shardlake. He’s a lawyer, he has the best mind in London. He can help you. But
you must talk to him.’

I squatted on my haunches so I could look into her face without sitting on that disgusting straw. ‘Miss Wentworth,’ I said gently, ‘can you hear me? Why will you not speak? Are
you protecting a secret – yours, or perhaps another’s?’ I paused. She looked right through me, not even stirring. In the silence I heard the tapping of feet from the street above.
I felt suddenly angry.

‘You know what will happen if you refuse to plead?’ I said. ‘You will be pressed. The judge you will come before on Saturday is a hard man and that will be his sentence without
a doubt. They’ve told you what pressing means?’ Still no response. ‘A dreadful slow death that can last many days.’

At these words her eyes came to life and fixed mine, but only for a second. I shivered at the pit of misery I saw in them.

‘If you speak, I may be able to save you. There are possible ways, whatever happened that day at the well.’ I paused. ‘What did happen, Elizabeth? I’m your lawyer, I
won’t tell anyone else. We could ask your uncle to leave if you would rather speak to me alone.’

‘Yes,’ Joseph agreed. ‘Yes, if you wish.’

But still she was silent. She began picking at the straw with one hand.

‘Oh, Lizzy,’ Joseph burst out, ‘you should be reading and playing music as you were a year ago, not lying in this terrible place.’ He put a fist to his face, biting his
knuckles. I shifted my position and looked the girl directly in the eyes. Something had struck me.

‘Elizabeth, I know people have come down here to look at you, to taunt. Yet though you hide your body you show your face. Oh, I know that straw is vile but you could hide your head, it
would be a way of preventing people from seeing you, the turnkey would not be permitted to let them in. It is almost as though you wanted them to see you.’

A shudder ran through her and for a moment I thought she would break down, but she set her jaw hard; I saw the muscles clench. I paused a moment, then got painfully to my feet. As I did so,
there was a rustle from the straw on the other side of the cell and I turned to see the old woman raising herself slowly on her elbows. She shook her head solemnly.

‘She won’t speak, gentlemen,’ she said in a cracked voice. ‘I’ve been here three days and she’s said nothing.’

‘What are you here for?’ I asked her.

‘They say my son and I stole a horse. We’re for trial on Saturday too.’ She sighed and ran her tongue over her cracked lips. ‘Have you any drink, sir? Even the most
watery beer.’

‘No, I’m sorry.’

She looked over at Elizabeth. ‘They say she has a demon inside her, that one, a demon that holds her fast.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘But demon or no, it’s all one to the
hangman.’

I turned to Joseph. ‘I don’t think there’s any more I can do here now. Come, let us go.’ I led him gently to the door and knocked. It opened at once: the gaoler must have
been outside listening. I glanced back; Elizabeth still lay quite still, unmoving.

‘The old beldame’s right,’ the turnkey said as he locked the door behind us. ‘She has a devil inside her.’

‘Then have a care when you bring people down to goggle at her through that spy hatch,’ I snapped. ‘She might turn herself into a crow and fly at their faces.’ I led
Joseph away. A minute later we were outside again, blinking in the bright sunlight. We returned to the tavern and I set a beer in front of him.

‘How many times have you visited since she was taken?’ I asked.

‘Today’s the fourth. And each time she sits there like a stone.’

‘Well, I can’t move her. Not at all. I confess I’ve never seen anything like it.’

‘You did your best, sir,’ he said disappointedly.

I tapped my fingers on the table. ‘Even if she were found guilty, there may just be ways of stopping her from being hanged. The jury might be persuaded she was mad, she could even claim
she was pregnant, then she couldn’t be hanged till the baby was born. It would buy us time.’

‘Time for what, sir?’

‘What? Time to investigate, find what really happened.’

He leaned forward eagerly, nearly knocking over his tankard. ‘Then you believe she is innocent?’

I gave him a direct look. ‘You do. Though her treatment of you, in all honesty, is cruel.’

‘I believe her because I know her. And because, when I see her there, I see—’ He struggled for words.

‘A woman whose air is of one who has been done a great wrong, rather than one who has committed a great crime?’

‘Yes,’ he said eagerly. ‘Yes. That is it exactly. You feel it too?’

‘Ay, I do.’ I looked at him evenly. ‘But what you or I feel is not evidence, Joseph. And we may be wrong. It is not good for a lawyer to base his work on instinct. He needs
detachment, reason. I speak from experience.’

‘What can we do, sir?’

‘You must go and see her every day between now and Saturday. I don’t think she can be persuaded to speak, but it will show her she is not forgotten and I feel that is important, for
all that she ignores us. If she says anything, if her manner changes at all, tell me and I will come again.’

‘I’ll do it, sir,’ he said.

‘And if she still does not speak, I will appear in court on Saturday. I don’t know if Forbizer will even hear me, but I’ll try and argue that her mind is disturbed—’

‘God knows, it must be. She has no reason to treat me so. Unless – ’ he hesitated – ‘unless the old woman is right.’

‘There’s no profit in thinking that way, Joseph. I’ll try to argue that the issue of her sanity should be remitted to a jury. I am sure there are precedents, though Forbizer
doesn’t have to follow them. Again, that would buy us time.’ I looked at him seriously. ‘But I am not optimistic. You must prepare your mind for the worst, Joseph.’

‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘While you are working for us, I have hope.’

‘Prepare for the worst,’ I repeated. It was all very well for Guy to talk of the merit of good works. He did not have to come before Judge Forbizer on gaol-delivery day.

I
RODE FROM
N
EWGATE TO
my chambers at Lincoln’s Inn, just up the road from my house in
Chancery Lane. When King Edward III ordered that no lawyers should be allowed to practise within the precincts of London, necessitating our removal outside its walls, he did us great service for
the Inn was semi-rural, with wide orchards and the space of Lincoln’s Inn Fields beyond.

I passed under the high square towers of the Great Gate, left Chancery at the stables and walked to my chambers across Gatehouse Court. The sun shone brightly on the redbrick buildings. There
was a pleasant breeze; we were too far from the City walls here for London smells to penetrate.

Barristers were striding purposefully around the precincts; the Trinity law term began the following week and there were cases to set in order. Among the black robes and caps there were also, of
course, the usual young gentlemen in bright doublets and exaggerated codpieces strutting around, sons of gentry who joined the Inns only to learn London manners and make social contacts. A pair of
them walking by had evidently been rabbiting in Coney Garth, for a pair of hounds frisked at their heels, their eyes on the furry bodies dripping blood from poles slung over their masters’
shoulders.

Then, ambling down the path from Lincoln’s Inn Hall with his customary amiable smile on his beaky features, I saw the tall, thin figure of Stephen Bealknap, against whom I would be
pleading in King’s Bench in a few days. He halted in front of me and bowed. The courtesies require that barristers, even when opponents in the bitterest of cases, must observe the civilities,
but Bealknap’s friendly manner always had something mocking in it. It was as though he said: you know I am a great scamp, but still you must be pleasant to me.

‘Brother Shardlake!’ he declaimed. ‘Another hot day. The wells will be drying up at this rate.’

Normally I would have made a curt acknowledgement and moved on, but it struck me there was a piece of information he could help me with. ‘So they will,’ I said. ‘It has been a
dry spring.’

At my unaccustomed civility, a smile appeared on Bealknap’s face. It seemed quite pleasant until you came close and saw the meanness in the mouth, and realized the pale-blue eyes would
never quite meet yours no matter how you tried to fix them. Beneath his cap a few curls of wiry-looking blond hair strayed.

‘Well, our case is on next week,’ he said. ‘June the first.’

‘Ay. It has come on very quick. It was only in March you lodged your writ. I am still surprised, Brother Bealknap, that you have taken this up to King’s Bench.’

‘They have a proper respect for the rights of property law there. I shall show them the case of
Friars Preachers
v.
the Prior of Okeham.
’

I laughed lightly. ‘I see you have been ferreting in the Assize of Nuisance Rolls, Brother. That case is on a different point and it is two hundred years old.’

He smiled back, his eyes darting around. ‘It is still relevant. The prior pleaded that matters of nuisance such as his faulty gutter were beyond the council’s
jurisdiction.’

‘Because his priory came directly under the king’s authority. But St Michael’s priory comes under yours now. You are the freeholder and you are responsible for the nuisance
your priory causes. I hope you have better authority than that to hand.’

He would not be drawn, bending to examine the sleeve of his robe. ‘Well, Brother,’ I said lightly, ‘we shall see. But now we are met, I would ask a question on another matter.
Will you be at the gaol delivery on Saturday?’ I knew that running compurgators in the bishop’s court was one of Bealknap’s disreputable sidelines, and he often lurked around the
Old Bailey justice hall looking for clients. He flicked a curious glance at me.

‘Perhaps.’

‘Judge Forbizer is on, I believe. How quickly does he deal with the cases?’

Bealknap shrugged. ‘Fast as he can. You know the King’s Bench judges; they think dealing with common thieves and murderers beneath them.’

‘But Forbizer has good knowledge of the law for all his hardness. I wondered how open he would be to legal argument for the accused.’

Bealknap’s face lit up with interest and his eyes, bright with curiosity, actually met mine for a moment. ‘Ah, I had heard you were retained for the Walbrook murderess. I said I
didn’t believe it, you’re a property man.’

‘The
alleged
murderess,’ I replied flatly. ‘She comes up before Forbizer on Saturday.’

‘You won’t get far with him,’ Bealknap said cheerfully. ‘He has a Bible man’s contempt for the sinful, wants to hasten them to their just deserts. She’ll have
little mercy from Forbizer. He’ll want a plea or a kill.’ His eyes narrowed and I guessed he was thinking whether he might turn this to his advantage. But there was no way, or I should
not have asked him.

‘So I thought. But thank you,’ I added, as lightly as I could. ‘Good morning!’

‘I shall look out for you on Saturday, Brother,’ he called after me. ‘Good luck: you will need it!’

I
T WAS IN NO GOOD
temper that I entered the small set of ground-floor rooms I shared with my friend Godfrey Wheelwright. In the outer office my clerk,
John Skelly, was studying a conveyance he had just drawn up, a lugubrious expression on his thin face. He was a small, weazened fellow with long rats’ tails of brown hair. Although not yet
twenty he was married with a child and I had taken him on last winter partly from pity at his obvious poverty. He was an old pupil of St Paul’s cathedral school and had good Latin, but he was
a hopeless fellow, a poor copier and forever losing papers as I had told Guy. He looked up at me guiltily.

‘I have just finished the Beckman conveyance, sir,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m sorry it is late.’

I took it from him. ‘This should have been done two days ago. Is there any correspondence?’

‘It is on your counting table, sir.’

‘Very well.’

I passed into my room. It was dim and stuffy; dust motes danced in the beam of light from the little window giving onto the courtyard. I removed my robe and cap and sat at my table, breaking the
seals on my letters with my dagger. I was surprised and disappointed to find I had lost another case. I had been acting on the purchase of a warehouse down at Salt Wharf, but now my client wrote
curtly to say the seller had withdrawn and he no longer required my services. I studied the letter. The purchase was a curious one: my client was an attorney from the Temple and the warehouse was
to be conveyed into his name, which meant the purchaser must want his own name kept secret. This was the third case in two months where the client had suddenly withdrawn his instructions without
reason.

Frowning, I put the letter aside and turned to the conveyance. It was clumsily written and there was a smudge at the bottom of the page. Did Skelly think such a mess would pass? He would have to
do it again, with more time wasted that I was paying for. I tossed it aside and, sharpening a new quill, took up my commonplace book, which held years of notes from moots and readings. I looked at
my old notes on criminal law, but they were scanty and I could find nothing about
peine forte et dure
.