'Perhaps he doesn't know the earl's involved.'
I looked after Rich thoughtfully. 'Bealknap scurries away and a second later Rich appears. And he was doing something that involved Rich that day at Augmentations.'
'Perhaps he has Rich's protection.' Barak set his lips. 'The earl must know of this.'
I nodded reluctantly. 'God's death, Rich involved too.' I exclaimed crossly as someone jostled me. 'Come, let's get out of here. We're due at Lothbury.'
THE RIVER WAS CROWDED again and we had to wait at the steps for a boat. Barak leaned on the parapet.
'Do you think Bealknap bribed that judge?' he asked.
'I wouldn't be surprised. Heslop has a poor reputation for honesty.'
'Will you win if you take the case to Chancery?'
'We should do. They'll look at the merits of the matter. But God knows when we'll get on. Bealknap's right about their delays – I named my horse for their slow ways.' I looked at Barak seriously. 'Find one of these compurgators. We can offer a reward and perhaps immunity from prosecution if Cromwell will agree. We need a lever over Bealknap, especially if he's got Rich behind him.'
'Ay, I'll do it.' He turned to face me. 'I'll not go to my stepfather, though, even if I knew where he and my mother lived. Not even for the earl.'
'No? I thought there were no limits to your loyalty.'
His eyes flashed. 'I loved my father, for all he smelt of shit. My mother would have nothing to do with him; he took up his trade after I was born or I'd not be here at all. I was twelve when he died.' I nodded, interested. For the first time my difficult companion was showing me something of himself.
'We'd had this cheating attorney as a lodger for years, Kenney his name was. He had the best part of the house while we had two rooms. He was good with words and my mother liked him, he was- ' Barak almost bit off the words – 'a step up the social chain. She married him a week after father died: the poor old arsehole wasn't even cold in the ground. D'you know what she said to me? Same as you did coming from that house in Wolf's Lane. "A poor widow must look after herself."'
'So she must, I suppose.'
'After that, I went mad for a while.' He gave a bark of laughter. 'Sometimes I think I'm still a bit mad. I ran away from home, left school, though I'd been doing well. I got in with the gangs. A poor child must look after himself too, you know.' He stared out over the water. 'Ended by getting caught stealing a ham. I was put in prison and would have faced the rope; it was a big ham, worth over a shilling. But the warden was a Putney man and recognized my father's name. Coming from the same part of the world as Lord Cromwell he had contacts with him; I ended up going before him and he put me to work, running errands at first and then other things.' Barak turned to me. 'So I owe the earl everything. My very life.'
'I see.'
He stood up, taking a deep breath. 'There was a pub by the Tower where my stepfather met Bealknap. I think it was a meeting place for Bealknap's stable of rogues. I'll go down there, try to find it.'
I looked at him. 'No wonder you have no good opinion of lawyers.'
'You're more honest than most,' he grunted.
'You never see your mother or stepfather?'
'I've seen them once or twice about the City, but I always turn away. I'm dead for all they know or care.'
WE TOOK A WHERRY as far as Three Cranes Stairs, then walked north to Lothbury. I had to hurry to keep up with Barak's loping pace. By the Grocers' Hall a couple of young gentlemen in fine doublets were mocking a beggar who sat in the doorway, displaying a face caked with weeping sores to stir the public's pity.
'Come, fellow, you should go for a soldier!' one was saying. 'Everyone is needed at muster now, to fight the pope and the king's enemies.' He took a sword from a leather scabbard and waved it. The beggar, who looked hardly fit to rise let alone take up arms, scrabbled back in panic, making the hoarse grunts of a dumb man.
'He can't speak the king's English,' said the other fellow. 'Maybe he's a foreigner.'
Barak walked over, hand on his own sword, and looked the young gallant in the eye. 'Leave him,' he said. 'Unless you'd like to try your luck with me?'
The fellow's eyes narrowed, but he sheathed his sword and turned away. Barak took a coin from his pocket and laid it by the beggar. 'Come on,' he said curtly.
'That was a brave gesture,' I said. The words of the motto on the barrel of Greek Fire came back to me.
Barak snorted. 'Those arseholes are only fit to bait those who can't fight back.' He spat on the ground. 'Gentlemen.'
We reached Lothbury Street. Ahead of us stood St Margaret's church, beside which narrow lanes led off into a warren of little buildings from where a metallic clangour could be heard. Because of the endless noise virtually no one save the founders lived in Lothbury.
'Goodwife Gristwood will meet us at her son's foundry,' I said. 'We go up here, Nag's Lane.'
