Bruce Holsinger - The Invention of Fire

“The cutpurse?”

“The boy is at my house. He saw a man I believe to be Woodstock overseeing the dumping of the corpses in the Walbrook.”

“A duke, about the London streets at night, tossing bodies in the privy? Difficult to credit, Gower.”

I shook my head, my confidence rising. “You are wrong, Sir Nicholas. Gloucester would have trusted no one else with the task. He is known as a controlling lord in his domain, one who would never trust an underling with an operation of this sort. It was his men who emptied the Portbridge gaol, his men who slaughtered the prisoners in the woods, his men who brought them to London and threw them in the ditch. For you to find, Lord Mayor.”

“And who would believe the word of a boy over that of a duke?”

“Young Jack’s testimony is only one part of the proof against the duke. There is the bend given me in Calais, the word of the Portbridge reeve. And there is Gloucester’s banner, bound around the wrists of the victims.”

Brembre looked at me for a long moment, then rose and went to a low cabinet, returning with several sheets of frayed silk. The strips were in foul tatters and still smelled of the privy, though even with just two of them side by side we could make out the shape of Woodstock’s swans. Brembre had not destroyed the damning evidence he’d seized, despite what Strode had believed.

We stood there, the duke’s guilt shouting up at us from the mayor’s table.

“Gloucester will fight, you know,” Brembre said. “He’ll deny involvement as far as the moon if he has to. Is it worth the risk of civil war to bring a criminal to justice, however horrendous the crime?”

“I share your hesitation,” I said. “Yet this goes beyond murder. The duke has betrayed the safety of the realm, with powder and guns both, and no thought to the consequences.”

His gaze remained on the table.

“You are a London man, Sir Nicholas,” I wheedled. “I am of Southwark. Our lives and our towns are gravely threatened by the French force at Sluys. Thousands of ships, and the burning of London on a close horizon. The duke’s actions are threatening the realm, and the very life of this city.”

“Yes,” he said.

“I may be a conniver and an extractor, Lord Mayor,” I went on. “You may be a ruffian, with a taste for violence and corruption.” His lips pursed. “But we cannot allow such a betrayal to weaken the hand of the realm.”

“Then I move on him,” Brembre said, with a gathering strength in his voice. “And risk civil war.”

“It may not come to that,” I said. “Gloucester is not Lancaster. He is powerful but not invincible. To raise a standing army to defeat the king would require the combined might of the other lords. Mowbray, Warwick, Arundel. If you can expose Woodstock as a traitor in their presence and the king’s, you would have a chance of isolating Gloucester and bringing him to justice.”

“And breaking this appellant faction from within,” said the mayor, his eyes coming to life. “Thus strengthening the hand of King Richard.” He turned to me. “It must happen soon.”

“A suggestion, Lord Mayor.”

“Go on.”

“Beauchamp told me in Calais that the king has expressed a desire for the lords to process with Exton to Westminster, as a sign of fealty and solidarity.”

“Yes,” said Brembre, with a scornful smile. “Another empty pageant, painting a rotten wall with loyalty where there is treason within. Though by rights Exton must formally invite them to ride before they are permitted to mount with the procession.”

“He should invite them today, then, as a show of goodwill, a gesture to appease the king at a difficult moment for his relations with Parliament,” I said. “After the Riding all of them will naturally be in audience at Westminster before King Richard. Exton will process through the great hall and kneel at His Highness’s feet. You will be at Exton’s side as the king takes his hand and blesses his election as mayor. As you know, it is customary for the king to ask the new mayor if he wishes any shows of royal favor to mark his inauguration. At that moment, Exton will ask King Richard to consider a pressing matter of war. Exton will then turn to you, the king’s truest friend, the man who stood with him at Mile End against the rebels and did as much as anyone to save his head. You will present the case against Gloucester in the hearing of the peers of the realm, calling on their duty to expel a rotten apple from their fair barrel.”

Brembre, warming to it, said, “It pains me to make such an accusation, Your Highness.”

“And I would presume to do so only under the direst of circumstances, my liege lord,” I said.

“And only with indisputable evidence of the highest of treasons, sire,” said Brembre.

“Then you bring forth the banners, the bend, the boy,” I said. “And if Gloucester counters your accusation by raising the swerver interrogation, you simply laugh and demand that he show proof.”

“Which he may well produce.”

“If he has thought to bring the confession with him. Unlikely, and even if he has, so much the better. It is an obvious forgery. Even your wife knew it was a mere nothing, a jest. That is why she wrote a letter on its overleaf, you will say. Showing it before the king will only weaken the duke’s hand.”

We exchanged looks, thinking it through. It was a perilous plan, and much could go wrong, yet it had the appeal of surprise. At last Brembre said, “You should be a captain or an admiral, Gower, rather than a-whatever it is you are.”

“You are overly kind, Lord Mayor,” I replied, with the doubts wheeling through my mind. The lords were already disposed strongly against the king. It would take a convincing performance by Nicholas Brembre to achieve the desired effects. A weak plan, and a desperate one.

My concerns must have been visible on my face. “I am not a fool, Gower,” the mayor said. “I know what is at stake here, as well as the risks.” He looked around as a burst of shouting from the yard drifted through the silence of his chambers. Brembre had spent many years as lord mayor of London, and now, at the end of what would prove his final term and at the very height of his power, he projected a melancholy awareness of things coming to an end. “Leave me, Gower. And, Bernes?” he barked to a waiting attendant. The man had slipped in unnoticed and stood by the edge of the partition.

“Yes, Lord Mayor?”

“See to Master Gower’s guard, will you? Four men for Southwark and the priory starting this moment, rotated out for the next two weeks. Exton will approve on my word after tomorrow.”

“Yes, Lord Mayor.” Bernes spun on his heel and left the chamber.

Brembre regarded me. “I thank you for this, Gower. You have prevented a great deal of anguish with the recovery of this record. Perhaps even helped to save the city, and certainly my relations with Lady Idonia.” He allowed me a mayoral smile. I returned it, thinking of the new and heavy coin in my purse of favors owed by this powerful victualler. He dismissed me with a promise to speak on the morning of the Riding. Before returning to Southwark I stopped in on Hawisia Stone. She was in the foundry’s display room, thankfully seated this time, though even at rest she appeared greatly afflicted, her breathing labored, her skin flushed.

Our exchange was brief. She had spoken with Stephen Marsh at the Tower, she told me, though could get nothing out of him about the guns, nor discern a glimmer of Snell’s plans.

“Wouldn’t say much of a word but mum,” she said between breaths. “Wanted to shake the fellow but he just stood there like a sapling.”

“Did Marsh give any indication that he understood the peril his guns are causing the realm?”