Gregory House - The Liberties of London

Damn! Ned thumped his thigh with a fist, and moving mainly by feel, slipped over to the narrow alley leading out of the court. Well Walter had to head this way, but left or right? One solution was to split up. They had a chance. However the menace of Earless Nick and his lads remained. They’d be recovering from Meg’s alchemist’s ploy, and he reckoned, keen for mischief and revenge. So separately they were vulnerable and no doubt Earless Nick knew the twists and turns of this patch better than the back of his hand. Ned returned the dozen or so paces to report his lack of discovery and beheld Mistress Black calmly digging into her hidden satchel. He let out an exasperated sigh — what was she doing? A smoke incendiary wasn’t any use here. Even flint and steel wasn’t going to light up that cloth, damp from the falling snow and sleet.

Ned huddled in the limited shelter of a projecting upper story and watched his partner in disaster fiddling around with another small flask. First she uncapped and poured some of its contents onto the bundled cloth in the improvised torch. Well he grudgingly conceded that may work. It smelled rank like the rock oil they used in liniments. The second though, had Ned amazed. This was a small mechanical tinder box. Meg wound a very small handle, then holding it close to the cresset, flicked a lever. Suddenly it shot out a small fountain of sparks and the cresset immediately lit up with a steady bluish flame. By the saints they had light! For the third time that evening, Ned seriously wondered what else the apothecary’s apprentice had stashed away, and as his daemon had asked, why?

***

Steadily they pushed along the back lanes and alleys off Bride Lane, pausing every now and then to check the deep prints left in the snow by the fleeing Walter. Ned had to admit it. Some minutes ago he’d been flummoxed, but Meg Black’s satchel of wonders had set them back on the hunt. By the saints, an improvised lantern. He’d even publicly admit it was damned clever, for a girl, although there was an enormous obstacle in the proclamation, and it wasn’t his touchy pride.

During the chase he’d had some time to think over a recurring question. Why the satchel and why did she always have it whenever she left the apothecaries? A court rhymester like Wyatt would have produced a set of sweet couplets circling around the theme of rescuing a lover of durance vile. Ned though, was somewhat more realistic. The simple reason was the continual hunt for heretics by the Bishop of London and the new Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More. Ned had seen it claim a few he knew at the Inns of Court last year, and by chance, during the affair of the Cardinal’s Angels some months ago, they’d brushed past a pack, seeking heretics for the Lollard towers. Sometimes over a dozen a week were rounded up and marched off to prison to face Foxford, the Bishop’s grim faced pursuivant of heresy.

It was a risky time to speak up about the abuses of the Church or complain about the high handed actions of clerics. Even a simple dispute about the amount of tithes to pay could land you in front of a tribunal of canon lawyers, questioning your faith and then suggesting a charge of heresy. Ned should know. He’d seen a few cases pulled from the common courts because they questioned the legal right of priests to do, well whatever they wanted. Richard Hunne, a prosperous merchant of London, had tried that some dozen years ago and was murdered in a Lollard tower for his honesty. Then when already dead, he was declared a heretic and all his wealth seized. An action completely beyond the law, but the Bishop of London got away with it, because as they sneeringly said, the secular was exempt from commons judgement, by the authority of the Apostolic See.

As far as Ned could see that created a problem, one he suspected still remained unresolved since the removal of Cardinal Wolsey. King Henry, in his pursuit of an annulment from his current wife, Katherine of Aragon, needed the support of the English Church. However Pope Clement in Rome wanted the Queen’s nephew, Emperor Charles V, kept at a distance, especially since a few years ago the Emperor’s army had sacked Rome and held Clement hostage. So the Pope was unlikely to tell the English church to accede to King Henry’s request.

So in a nut shell, during perilous times any person with reformist inclinations erred on the side of caution. In Meg Black’s case, add in a penchant for smuggling forbidden books, and it was no surprise she was ready to flee in an instant.

Thus they came to the problem of Walter, the quarry of their pursuit. Ned was almost certain the supposed young reformer had a set of priorities at variance with those of either Meg or his family. Normally he wouldn’t care a fig about this but his patron, Councillor Cromwell, directed otherwise, and then there was the other problem. Walter had fallen in too easily with the likes of Earless Nick, a notorious rogue, and his incentives for turning were as cheap as a blonde punk and purse full of gilt. That was poor enough, but as Ned trudged through the snow heading along Fleete Street a worse prospect hovered overhead. What if young lamb Walter had been scooped up by More’s pursuivants? A lad who’d fallen for his first flash of tits was unlikely to possess the moral resilience to resist the Lord Chancellor’s questioning. Ned’s daemon readily suggested that Walter would sell out anyone to save a bruised finger, and as loath as he was to condemn, Ned had to agree. Walter Dellingham was proving too unpredictable to be allowed to have free range of the city. Something would have to be done.

The snow was coming down heavier and even their improvised lantern was spluttering. As for visibility, well Ned could see Meg to his front and Gruesome Roger some two paces on. However after that even the few outside lanterns either side only shed a fitful illumination at the odd doorway. Ned shivered. This was damnedly bleak weather to seek out the lost lamb. They’d better find him soon or else they be frozen. He’d heard how earlier this week several beggars had been found huddling on the Church steps, all dead and frozen by the piercing cold. He for one didn’t want to end up like that.

Suddenly Ned bumped into a stationary Meg. Gruesome Roger had halted just in front and was crouched down, shielding the cresset in a doorway. He stretched out a hand and pointed at a figure wrapped in a cloak quickly walking down the road maybe twenty feet ahead. “There’s our little lamb!”

How Roger knew, Ned didn’t have to ask. The furtive way the figure kept on looking over his shoulder reminded him too much of the service at St Paul’s. All they had to do was grab him. Feeling an overwhelming desire for a touch of retribution after all the lost lamb’s diversions, Ned volunteered to sprint after Walter and seize him, while the others watched out for Earless Nick’s men. Anyway Gruesome Roger was still limping from his earlier run in with their dear lost lamb.

Slipping out from their cover, Ned strode through the snow. His long legs made it relatively easy and while the knee high horseman’s boots were cumbersome, his feet were dry. He’d picked a shadowed approach, moving fast from doorway to corner water butt, trying to keep out of Walter’s darting, over the shoulder scans. Ahead Ned could see the lanterns on the bridge. In between the flurries of fresh snow they glimmered like the mythical Faerie who lured travellers astray.

The becloaked Walter was at best ten paces from the Fleete Bridge. After that up the steep hill there was the gate into the city. At this time of the night it would be closed, but for a fee, the Common Watch would let you through. The gate was the perfect barrier to slow down Walter, except that who knew what sort of fracas the fool would raise when collared. Ned didn’t want to take the chance of loosing him again, so he left his final patch of cover and ran as fast as he could towards Walter.