Mike Shevdon - Sixty-One Nails

I wasn't looking at the paper. My mind's eye was scanning back through fragmented images.

"A forge?"

"Yes. What about it?"

"Do you remember I told you in the vision that I'd seen a dark hall filled with water? It had an island in the middle of the stream with a misshapen altar on it."

"Yes, I remember."

"That's what I've been trying to recall. The shape was peculiar but I couldn't put my finger on it before. It was quite distinctive, even under the flotsam clinging to it. It's not an altar."

"If it's not an altar, then what is it?"

"It's an anvil."

Blackbird handed me the leaflet, pointing out the relevant section. I scanned through it quickly, then went back to the beginning and read it through slowly.

In respect of The Moors, the Quit Rent consists of the presentation of a blunt knife and a sharp knife. The qualities of these instruments are demonstrated by the Comptroller and Solicitor of the City of London, who will bend a hazel rod of a cubit's length, one year's growth, over the blunt knife and break it over the sharp.

Hazel rods of this length were used as tallies, which is like a counting rod, to record payments made to the Court of Exchequer by notches made with a sharp knife along their length and after the last payment, split lengthways with a blunt and pliable-bladed knife, one half being given to the payer as his receipt and the other half being retained by the Courts to vouch its written record. This quit rent has been rendered for over 750 years, the earliest recorded notice being in the Shropshire Sergeantries in 1211, during the time of King John.

The Quit Rent in respect of the tenement called The Forge consists of six horseshoes and sixty-one nails, which the Comptroller and the City Solicitor count to demonstrate that the numbers are correct before rendering them to the Queen's Remembrancer on behalf of Her Majesty.

"Why would they still be doing this after seven hundred and fifty years? Surely the rent for Australia House can't still be some horseshoes and nails, can it?" If it was, then I was paying far too much for a flat in the suburbs.

"Maybe it can. Maybe they've been doing this for so long, they no longer wonder why. It's strange, though. I mean, here we have a ritual going back hundreds of years that involves the splitting of a hazel rod and an exchange of iron. Hazel has always been symbolic for the Feyre and iron — well you already know about iron. Maybe it means something?"

"Do you think the ceremony is what we came here for?"

"The anvil is what you saw in the vision, but the forge may be the connection between Australia House and the anvil."

"In the vision, there was a door, like a hatch, high up on the wall across from where the anvil stands." The image of it floated in my memory like a fragment from a bad dream.

"Then if we find the anvil, we find the door. Wait a moment, there was something else here." She flicked through the pages of the leaflet searching for something. "Here it is, on the back.

I read over her shoulder. "'There are in excess of a hundred and fifty Judges, Registrars and Masters in the Royal Courts of Justice.'"

"Not there. Here."

"'The River Fleet runs under the buildings.' Do you think that could be the underground river I saw in the vision?"

"It must be. It can't be a coincidence, surely? We just need to find a way down to it."

"OK, but you've seen the security in there. They're not going to let us wander around in the basement looking for a lost river."

"There will be external manholes, I expect, but they will be covered by cast iron. I think you've had enough iron for one day, don't you?"

"In the vision, I followed the flow back up from the outflow into the Thames, but it had a huge grating in the way. From the brief look I got at it, the grating looked pretty solid."

"Come on." She walked down the steps into the sunlight.

"Where are we going?"

"We're going to see if there's someone who knows how we get down to the underground river."

She turned and walked out into the daylight, tucking the leaflet inside her coat and leaving me to follow on behind. I trotted after her then slowed as I caught up to walk along beside her into Fleet Street. Reaching the entrance to a narrow alley between buildings, she caught my arm.

"Down here."

She ducked into the passage, which opened out into a sidestreet with Georgian doorways facing along one side. She approached a black door and lifted the brass knocker, letting it fall with a clatter.

I heard a faint voice from within. "Come."

Blackbird pushed open the door and we entered a dim hallway. The bare brickwork along its length was soot-stained, the mortar crumbling from the joints. The door swung shut behind us, leaving us in semi-darkness. There was a doorway to the side that shed an uncertain light on the wall opposite and Blackbird moved forward to stand in it, her shadow shifting and dancing on the wall behind.

"Greetings, Marshdock," she said. "I give you good day."

"And a good day to you too, Blackbird," came a deep voice. It had an oily tone to it, though, as if the welcome were not entirely heartfelt. "What have you brought for me today?"

Blackbird stepped inside and I moved to stand in the doorway behind her. A wide stone fireplace in the back wall held a bronze basket with a great log laid across the heap of ash beneath. Flames licked up the side of the log, casting a fitful light into the room and across the ceiling. The window to the street was barred by heavy shutters, the only light coming from the fire.

The room was dominated by an enormous desk, its surface inlaid with dark leather scattered with oddments like paper knives and inkwells. The figure behind the desk had pale brown skin with a worn creased texture to it. He looked rumpled, shrunken. He wore an old-fashioned coat that looked two sizes too big for him and I wondered if he had indeed once been larger. His eyes and nose were too big for the rest of his face and it gave him a childlike quality that was immediately dispelled by the hardness in his eyes.

"I have a question for you. Something I'm trying to locate," she told him.

He leaned back in his stud-backed chair, an expression of light distaste curling his thick lips, as he considered us both.

"You've come to the well too often to be dipping again without something to give, Blackbird."

"This is only a small thing. I need to tap into your formidable local knowledge."

"Even small things have value, girl, and once again you bring me nothing. Who's this?" He nodded towards me.

"He's the one who wants the answer to the question. I wouldn't ask for myself."

"Ask for whom you wish. It wouldn't matter to me if he were the High King of Auld Albion. The answer would be the same: you're wasting your time. You could be out there finding some useful snippets of information, something of value. Instead you're dawdling here, eating up the warmth from my fire."

"I want to know if there's an easy way down to the Fleet River where it runs under the Royal Courts of Justice. There must be a way down. I just want to know where it is. I'll owe you a small favour."

"You owe me a small favour already."

"I'll owe you another."

"I don't need another."

"Come on, Marshdock. This is a tuppenny question."

"It is until you don't know the answer," he smiled.

"Are you going to tell me?"

"Are you going to give me something in return?"

Blackbird paused. "Fenlock's dead," she announced.

"Half the market knows that, Blackbird. Carris is running around like mad cat, pulling her hair and shrieking about her lost love. I'm surprised you can't hear it from here."

"Is she swearing revenge?" Blackbird asked.

"Who wants to know?" he countered.