'The reason the law gives is that the evidence needed to convict in a criminal trial must be so clear no counsel is needed. That is all nonsense, I'm afraid; the cases are run through quickly and the jury usually decide merely by preferring one man's word against another's. Often they favour the accused because most juries don't like sending people to hang, but in this case' – I looked at the wretched pamphlet on the table – 'a child killing, their sympathies will be the other way. Her only hope is to agree to plead and tell me her story. And if she did act in a fit of madness, I could plead insanity. It might save her life. She'd go to the Bedlam, but we could try for a pardon from the king.' That would cost more money than Joseph had, I thought.
He looked up and for the first time I saw hope in his eyes. I realized I had said, 'I could plead,' without thinking. I had committed myself.
'But if she won't speak,' I went on, 'no one can save her.'
He leaned forward and clutched my hand between damp palms. 'Oh, thank you, Master Shardlake, thank you, I knew you'd save her –'
'I'm not at all sure I can,' I said sharply, but then added, 'I'll try.'
'I'll pay, sir. I've little enough but I'll pay.'
'I had better go to Newgate and see her. Five days – I need to see her as soon as possible, but I have business at Lincoln's Inn that will keep me all afternoon. I can meet you at the Pope's Head tavern next to Newgate first thing tomorrow morning. Say at nine?'
'Yes, yes.' He stood up, putting the handkerchief back in his pocket, and grasped my hand. 'You are a good man, sir, a godly man.'
A soft-headed man, more like, I thought. But I was touched by the compliment. Joseph and his family were all strong reformers, as I had once been, and did not say such things lightly.
'My mother and brother think her guilty, they were furious when I said I might help her. But I must find the truth. There was such a strange thing at the inquest, it affected me and Edwin too –'
'What was that?'
'When we viewed the body it was two days after poor Ralph died. It has been hot this spring but there is an underground cellar where they store bodies for the coroner to view, which keeps them cool. And poor Ralph was clothed. And yet the body stank, sir, stank like a cow's head left out in the Shambles in summer. It made me feel sick, the coroner too. I thought Edwin would pass out. What does that mean, sir! I have been trying to puzzle it out. What does it signify?'
I shook my head. 'My friend, we do not know what half the things in the world signify. And sometimes they signify nothing.'
Joseph shook his head. 'But God wants us to find the true meaning of things. He gives us clues. And, sir, if this matter is not resolved and Elizabeth dies, the real murderer goes free, whoever he is.'
Chapter Two
EARLY NEXT MORNING I RODE into the City again. It was another hot day; the sunlight reflecting from the diamond panes of the Cheapside buildings made me blink.
In the pillory by the Standard a middle-aged man stood with a paper cap on his head and a loaf of bread hung round his neck. A placard identified him as a baker who had sold short weight. A few rotten fruits were spattered over his robe but the passers-by paid him little attention. The humiliation would be the worst of his punishment, I thought, looking up at where he sat, then I saw his face contort with pain as he shifted his position. With his head and arms pinioned and his neck bent forward, it was a painful position for one no longer young; I shuddered to think of the pain my back would have given me were I put in his place. And yet it gave me far less trouble these days, thanks to Guy.
Guy's was one of a row of apothecaries' shops in a narrow alley just past the Old Barge. The Barge was a huge, ancient house, once grand but now let out as cheap apartments. Rooks' nests were banked up against the crumbling battlements and ivy ran riot over the brickwork. I turned into the alley, welcoming the shade.
As I pulled to a halt in front of Guy's shop, I had the uneasy sensation of being watched. The lane was quiet, most of the shops not yet open for business. I dismounted slowly and tied Chancery to the rail, trying to look unconcerned but listening out for any movement behind me. Then I turned swiftly and looked up the lane.
I caught a movement at an upper storey of the Old Barge. I looked up, but had only the briefest glimpse of a shadowy figure at a window before the worm-eaten shutters were pulled closed. I stared for a moment, filled with a sudden uneasiness, then turned to Guy's shop.
It had only his name, 'Guy Malton', on the sign above the door. The window displayed neatly labelled flasks, rather than the stuffed alligators and other monsters most apothecaries favour. I knocked and went in. As usual the shop was clean and tidy, herbs and spices in jars lining the shelves. The room's musky, spicy smell brought Guy's consulting room at Scarnsea monastery back to my mind. Indeed the long apothecary's robe he wore was so dark a shade of green that in the dim light it looked almost black and could have been mistaken for a monk's robe. He was seated at his table, a frown of concentration on his thin, dark features as he applied a poultice from a bowl to an ugly burn on the arm of a thickset young man. I caught a whiff of lavender. Guy looked up and smiled, a sudden flash of white teeth.
'A minute more, Matthew,' he said in his lisping accent.
'I am sorry, I am earlier than I said I would be.'
'No matter, I am nearly done.'
I nodded and sat down on a chair. I looked at a chart on the wall, showing a naked man at the centre of a series of concentric circles, Man joined to his creator by the chains of nature. It reminded me of somebody pinned to an archery target. Underneath, a diagram of the four elements and the four types of human nature to which they correspond: earth for melancholic, water for phlegmatic, air for cheerful and fire for choleric.
The young man let out a sigh and looked up at Guy.
'By God's son, sir, that eases me already.'
'Good. Lavender is full of cold and wet properties, it draws the dry heat from your arm. I will give you a flask of this and you must apply it four times a day.'
The young man looked curiously at Guy's brown face. 'I have never heard of such a remedy. Is it used in the land you come from, sir? Perhaps there everyone is burned by the sun.'
'Oh, yes, Master Pettit,' Guy said seriously. 'If we did not wear lavender there we should all burn and shrivel up. We coat the palm trees with it too.' His patient gave him a keen look, perhaps scenting mockery. I noticed that his big square hands were spotted with pale scars. Guy rose and passed him a flask with a smile, raising a long finger. 'Four times a day, mind. And apply some to the wound on your leg made by that foolish physician.'
'Yes, sir.' The young man rose. 'I feel the burning going already, it has been an agony even to have my sleeve brush against it this last week. Thank you.' He took his purse from his belt and passed the apothecary a silver groat. As he left the shop Guy turned to me and laughed softly.
'When people made remarks like that at first I would correct them, tell them we have snow in Granada, which we do. But now I just agree with them. They are never sure if I joke or not. Still, it keeps me in their minds. Perhaps he will tell his friends in Lothbury.'
'He is a founder?'
'Ay, Master Pettit has just finished his apprenticeship. A serious young fellow. He spilt hot lead on his arm, but hopefully that old remedy will ease him.'
I smiled. 'You are learning the ways of business. Turning your differences to advantage.'
Apothecary Guy Malton, once Brother Guy of Malton, had fled Spain with his Moorish parents as a boy after the fall of Granada. He had trained as a physician at Louvain. He had become my friend on my mission to Scarnsea three years before, helped me during that terrible time, and when the monastery was dissolved I had hoped to set him up as a physician in London. But the College would not have him, with his brown face and papist past. With a little bribery, however, I had got him into the Apothecaries' Guild and he had managed to build up a good trade.