Dark Fire

Then, as I turned past the great bulk of St Paul's, I heard the loud cry of a pamphlet seller. A scrawny fellow in a stained black doublet, a pile of papers under his arm, he was howling at the crowd. 'Child murderess of Walbrook taken to Newgate!' I paused and leaned down to pass him a farthing. He licked his finger, peeled off a sheet and handed it up to me, then went on bawling at the crowd. 'The most terrible crime of the year!'

I stopped to read the thing in the shadow cast by the great bulk of St Paul's. As usual the cathedral precincts were full of beggars – adults and children leaning against the walls, thin and ragged, displaying their sores and deformities in the hope of charity. I averted my eyes from their pleading looks and turned to the pamphlet. Beneath a woodcut of a woman's face – it could have been anybody, it was just a sketch of a face beneath disordered hair – I read:

Terrible Crime in Walbrook;

Child Murdered by His Jealous Cousin

On the evening of May 16th last, a Sabbath Day, at the fair house of Sir Edwin Wentworth of Walbrook, a member of the Mercers' Company, his only son, a boy of twelve, was found at the bottom of the garden well with his neck broken. Sir Edwin's fair daughters, girls of fifteen and sixteen, told how the boy had been attacked by their cousin, Elizabeth Wentworth, an orphan whom Sir Edwin had taken into his house from charity on the death of her father, and had been pushed by her into the deep well. She is taken to Newgate, where she is to go before the Justices the 29th May next. She refuses to plead, and so is likely to be pressed, or if she pleads to be found guilty and to go to Tyburn next hanging day.

The thing was badly printed on cheap paper and left inky smears on my fingers as I thrust it into my pocket and turned down Paternoster Row. So the case was public knowledge, another halfpenny sensation. Innocent or guilty, how could the girl get a fair trial from a London jury now? The spread of printing had brought us the English Bible, ordered the year before to be set in every church; but it had also brought pamphlets like this, making money for back-street printers and fodder for the hangman. Truly, as the ancients taught us, there is nothing under the moon, however fine, that is not subject to corruption.

***

IT WAS NEARLY NOON when I reined Chancery in before my front door. The sun was at its zenith and when I untied the ribbon of my cap it left a line of sweat under my chin. Joan, my housekeeper, opened the door as I dismounted, a worried expression on her plump face.

'He is here,' she whispered, glancing behind her. 'That girl's uncle-'

'I know.' Joseph would have ridden through London. Perhaps he too had seen the pamphlet. 'What case is he in?'

'Sombre, sir. He is in the parlour. I gave him a glass of small beer.'

'Thank you.' I passed the reins to Simon, the boy Joan had recently employed to help her about the house, and who now scampered up, a stick-thin, yellow-haired urchin. Chancery was not yet used to him and pawed at the gravel, nearly stepping on one of the boy's bare feet. Simon spoke soothingly to him, then gave me a hasty bow and led the horse round to the stable.

'That boy should have shoes,' I said.

Joan shook her head. 'He won't, sir. Says they chafe his feet. I told him he should wear shoes in a gentleman's house.'

'Tell him he shall have sixpence if he wears them a week,' I said. I took a deep breath. 'And now I had better see Joseph.'

***

JOSEPH WENTWORTH was a plump, ruddy-cheeked man in his early fifties, uncomfortable in his best doublet of sober brown. It was wool, too hot for this weather, and he was perspiring. He looked like what he was; a working farmer, owner of some poor lands out in Essex. His two younger brothers had sought their fortunes in London, but Joseph had remained on the farm. I had first acted for him two years before, defending his farm against a claim by a large landowner who wanted it to put to sheep. I liked Joseph, but my heart had sunk when I received his letter a few days before. I had been tempted to reply, truthfully, that I doubted I could help him, but his tone had been desperate.

His face brightened as he saw me, and he came over and shook my hand eagerly. 'Master Shardlake! Good day, good day. You had my letter?'

'I did. You are staying in London?'

'At an inn down by Queenhithe,' he said. 'My brother has forbidden me his house for my championing of our niece.' There was a desperate look in his hazel eyes. 'You must help me, sir, please. You must help Elizabeth.'

I decided no good would be done by beating round the bushes. I took the pamphlet from my pocket and handed it to him.

'Have you seen this, Joseph?'

'Yes.' He ran a hand through his curly black hair. 'Are they allowed to say these things? Is she not innocent till proven guilty?'