Bruce Holsinger - The Invention of Fire

And a new lord chancellor for all to love. We give you Arundel, come to save King Richard’s young hide.

A most wise and wonderful Parliament, everyone’s shoutin’ it. A new council to rule the realm, a dozen new helmsmen to steer our ship aright with good governance-

And land the lighter levies on our poor shoulders. Much better to have a council than a king taxin’ our souls, though a penny’s a penny in my purse at all rates.

Irreverent, slightly scandalous, though not touching treason; the sort of patter one often hears in the taverns and markets as a mark of casual discontent with the crown and Parliament.

Yet the news of the chancellor’s impeachment, however expected, filled me with melancholy and a great worry for the realm. For years Michael de la Pole had stood as a fount of wisdom, prudence, and counsel, and while he had perhaps gone too far in supporting King Richard’s steeper war levy, his had been a calm and durable voice of reason at Westminster, without the rabid factionalism infecting relations among the upper gentry of late, from Robert de Vere on one side to Lancaster on the other. The new chancellor, Thomas Arundel, was a man utterly unworthy of the office, in my view, a flatterer and a conniver of the worst sort. It was more than distressing to learn of the Parliament’s successful ousting of a chancellor whom I had long counted my highest supporter in the king’s affinity.

Once the ferry passed the Tower and pulled in by the customhouse I hired a wherry to take me to the Southwark bankside. Rather than shoring below the bridge or shooting through to dock at Winchester’s Wharf, the craft at my request let me off a good way short of the bridge, along the eastern butchers’ wharfs, nearly empty at that hour, though heavy with stench from the flows of offal and dung let loose in the Thames. Dodging around several piles of waste on the quays I took Butchers Lane above the wharf up to the high street, which I crossed while keeping a careful eye on the roaming crowds. Another two turns and I was at my own door, nestled at one side of a small courtyard against the priory wall. Unlocked, though not for long. Once inside I pushed it to, turned the lock, and set the rising bar tightly in place.

Will Cooper took my cloak and coat, holding them over his arm as he greeted me with his usual efficiency. “Your bag, Master Gower?”

“In Calais. I will send for it next week.”

“Very well,” he said, then saw the distress on my face.

“Are you quite well, master?”

I nodded, calming myself. “I am, Will. Shaken from the travel.”

“We have a guest in the house,” he said.

“Is it Simon?” My heart leapt. Could it be-

His eyes widened; then he shook his head. “No, Master Gower. Not Simon.”

“Ah,” I said, recovering from the absurd hope. “One of your family then?” The Coopers, with my permission, had more than once invited relations to lodge at the priory.

“Warm yourself in the hall, if you will. I’ll summon him from the kitchens, where my wife has busied him peeling roots.”

“A guest at St. Mary’s, peeling roots ?”

He smiled and left me to my hearth. A few minutes passed, and I had almost dozed off from my weariness when Will returned, leading a reluctant boy into my presence. It took me a moment to recognize young Jack Norris. I could not have been more astonished if King Richard himself had appeared in my hall.

The boy stood straight at the sight of me, then gave a low and exaggerated bow. “The Earl of Earless at your service, sire.”

“Tell me what you saw.”

Another child, another witness to atrocity, things the young should never have to behold. We had gone to the hall and taken chairs at one end of the table. Jack Norris spoke, and in remarkable detail he related everything he had heard and seen on the night it all began.

He had settled down for sleep that evening in the church of St. Stephen Walbrook, where the parson was known to house and feed vagrants on occasion. Needing to relieve himself, he slipped out of the nave and up toward the crossing at Cornhill.

“Needed a squat, didn’t I, and the parson doesn’t take friendly to dunging up the nave or yard. So I sneaked me out for a visit to the Long Dropper. Don’t have to pay at night. I was just stepping down a gutter ’cross the way when I hear the creaks.”

“The cart?”

“Aye, a cart and horse, comin’ right up the mids of the street, all dark, with no lamp to light the way. Couldn’t cross now, could I, not if I hoped to stay out of the Counter or the Tun. So I made small and thought I’d wait for it to pass. But it stopped, didn’t it, right spot in front of the Long Dropper. There’s one fellow leading the horse, and him and two others with him start takin’ somethings out a the cart, up the steps, and in. I could hear the splashings all the way across.”

“Could you see their faces?” I asked.

“Not whiles they unloaded. Didn’t get a look at any of those three, nor what they were throwin’ in the Walbrook,” he said.

I blew out a breath, unable to mask my disappointment.

Then Jack said, “Saw their master, though.”

“In the dark?”

“Was a night constable came by,” he said. “Had a lamp in his hand half-covered. Doesn’t give a yell like the night watch always does. Instead he comes up to the master who’s been standin’ by the cart, like they’re expecting to meet. The master holds out a purse, and the constable lifts his lantern to look at the coin. That’s when I saw the fellow, plain as the moon.”

“Describe him.”

“Brown hair, brown beard, nice jet about him.” He shrugged. “Looked like a fair lot a’ higher men I seen in the walls.”

“A lord?”

“Could be. Or a knight or a prince, all I know.”

“Was it the mayor, or any of the aldermen you saw at the Guildhall that day of your father’s trial?”

He shook his head. “Not one of them, I’m sure a that at least.”

“Was the man wearing livery? Heraldry of any sort? A badge, a bend, a collar?”

He looked up, considering it. “Not as I saw it. His coat were plain, nor’d he wear a hat.”

“You would recognize him, though, be able to choose him out of a crowd?”

“Oh, as to that, sire, aye, I surely would,” said Jack with a fierce series of nods. “Know that face anywhere, I would, and the way he stands and such.”

“Did the cart return a second time?”

“Aye it did, and it was a close thing, as my breeches was about my ankles when I heard it comin’ back up.”

All sixteen bodies must have been Thames-side, then, before their hauling up to the Long Dropper.

“Got out in time, though. Closed the door soft as you like, flew across th’ way and back to St. Stephen’s. Didn’t think naught of the whole thing till I told my father of it the next day.”

Once the news of the bodies had spread through the city, Peter Norris would have grasped immediately the significance of what his son had seen. No wonder that he twice tried to barter for his freedom and then his life with the information-which the mayor refused to entertain or even hear given his intimidation by the duke. Now the earless boy was being pursued through the streets by Gloucester’s men, who had already murdered another cutpurse loosely resembling Jack.

“You have done well to stay alive, boy,” I said. “You may remain here for the present. You will sleep in the kitchen and assist the Coopers with household tasks as they require.”

“Yes, Master Gower,” said Jack, eyes showing his surprise.

I looked over the boy’s gaunt but able frame, trying not to think about his future. “You seem a bright one, Jack. Too bright to be cutting purses.”