Revelation

'Dr Frith is no use.'

'I am glad to see at least one keeper here cares for her patients.'

She blushed. 'You are kind, sir.'

'How did you come to work here, Ellen?' She looked at me, then smiled sadly. 'I used to be a patient.'

'Oh,' I said, taken aback. She had seemed the sanest person I had met there today.

'They offered me a position as an under-keeper when I was — was better.'

'You did not want to leave?'

The sad smile again. 'I can never leave here, sir,' she said. 'I have not been outside in ten years. I will die in the Bedlam.'

Chapter Four

I WAS BUSY in court over the next two days, but Thursday afternoon was free and I had arranged to take Roger to see Guy. It was Maundy Thursday, the day before Easter, and as I walked back from the court at Westminster to Lincoln's Inn I saw the churches were again full. Tomorrow the great veil that shrouded the chancels during Lent would be removed, and those who cleaved to the old traditions would creep to the Cross on their knees. After Mass the altars would be stripped of their vestments in commemoration of Christ's betrayal after the Last Supper, while down at Whitehall the King would wash the feet of twelve poor men. I felt sad at how little any of it meant to me now. There were four days' holidays to come, but to me they would be empty and dull. At least when Lent was over Joan, my housekeeper, had promised me roast saddle of beef.

The weather was still cold, the sky iron-grey although there had been no more snow. I called in at my chambers before going to fetch Roger, and was pleased to see that a large fire had been lit. Barak and my junior clerk, Skelly, were both busy at their desks. Barak looked up as I took off my fur-edged coat and warmed my hands before the fire. He had had a shave on Sunday, but I noticed his brown doublet had a button missing, and there was what looked like a beer stain on the chest. I wondered if he had been out all night, and thought again about Tamasin. The two lived quite near Guy's shop, and I resolved that on the way back from taking Roger I would call in on them, as though by chance.

'I called at the court office,' Barak said. 'They're going to hear Adam Kite's application next Tuesday, at the same time as the Collins case.'

'Good.' I was tempted to tell him to get his doublet cleaned up, but did not want to sound like an old woman. And he knew enough not to come carelessly dressed to court. I looked quickly through a couple of new briefs that had come in, then donned my coat again.

'I am going to take Master Elliard to Guy,' I said.

Barak had risen and was looking out of the window. 'What's wrong with that rogue Bealknap?' he said curiously.

'Bealknap?' I rose and joined him.

'Looks like he's about to peg out.'

Through the window I saw my old rival sitting on a bench next to the still-frozen fountain. A knapsack lay on the snow beside him. Even at this distance, his lean face looked an unhealthy white.

'What's the matter with him?' I said.

'They say he's been faint and ill for weeks,' Skelly said, looking at us earnestly from his table.

'I thought he looked under the weather at the play.'

'Let's hope it's nothing minor,' Barak said. I smiled enigmatically. 'I must go.'

I left them and walked back into Gatehouse Court. I had to pass the fountain to get to Roger's rooms. Bealknap had not moved. His thin form was swathed in an expensive coat lined with marten, but even so this was not weather to be sitting outside. I hesitated as I passed him.

'Brother Bealknap,' I asked. 'Are you all right?'

He looked at me quickly, then glanced away. He could never meet anyone's eye. 'Perfectly, brother,' he snapped. 'I just sat down for a moment.'

'You have dropped your knapsack. It will get wet.'

He bent and picked it up. I saw his hand trembled. 'Go away!' he said.

I was surprised to see that he looked frightened. 'I only wished to help,' I said stiffly.

'You, help me!' He gave a snort of mocking laughter, then forced himself to his feet and stumbled off towards his lodgings. I shook my head and passed on.

ROGER WAS in his outer office. A candle had been lit against the gloomy afternoon and he stood before it, an affidavit in his long fingers.

'A moment, Matthew,' he said with a smile. His head moved rapidly, scanning the document, then he passed it to the clerk with a nod. 'Well done, Bartlett,' he said. 'A very fair draft. Now, Matthew, let us go and see this leech.' He smiled nervously. 'I see you have your riding boots. Sensible. I will get mine, these shoes would be ruined in the slush.'

He collected his boots, strong old leather ones he often wore, and we walked to the stables. 'No more sudden falls?' I asked him quietly.

'No, thank God.' He sighed deeply; I could see he was still worried.

'Have you much work on?' I asked, to distract him.

'More than I can handle.' Roger was an excellent litigator, and since returning to London had built up a formidable reputation. 'And I have to go and see a new pro bono client tonight, after we have been to the doctor's.'

A voice calling Roger's name made us turn. Dorothy was hurrying towards us, an amused expression on her face, carrying a package wrapped in oilskin. 'You forgot this,' she said.

Her husband reddened as he took the package. 'His urine bottle for the physician,' Dorothy explained.

Roger gave me a wry smile. 'What would I do without her?' he asked.

'Forget your head, husband.' Dorothy smiled again, then shivered, for she wore only an indoor dress.

'Go back in, sweetheart,' Roger said, 'or you will have need of a doctor too.'

'I will. Good luck, my love. Goodbye, Matthew. Come to supper next week.' She turned and walked away, hugging herself against the cold.

'I hate deceiving her,' Roger said. 'She still thinks I have a bad stomach. But I would not worry her.'

'I know. Now come, and take care you do not drop that package.'

ROGER WAS PREOCCUPIED, saying little as we rode along Cheapside. The traders were packing up their stalls and we had to pick our way between the few late shoppers and the discarded wooden boxes thrown in the road. A pair of barefoot children in rags darted perilously close to the horses' hooves, picking up rotten vegetables, the dregs of last year's produce which the traders had thrown away. The beggars were crowded around the Conduit again, and one was waving a stick with a piece of rotten bacon on the end, shouting maniacally from the steps. 'Help Tom o'Bedlam! Help a poor man out of his wits! See my broken heart here, on the end of this rod!'

'He's probably never been anywhere near the Bedlam,' I said to Roger. 'If all the beggars who say they've been there had truly been patients, the place would be the size of Westminster Hall.'

'How is your client that has been put there?'

'Grievous sick in his mind. It is harrowing to see. I wish to ask Guy to visit him, and I hope he can make sense of it, for I cannot.'

'Dr Malton specializes in madness, then?' Roger gave me an anxious look.

'Not at all,' I answered reassuringly. 'But he has been practising medicine for nearly forty years and has seen every type of illness there is. And he is a good doctor, not like so many physicians who know of no remedies save bleeding and purging. 'Tis but your own fear that tells you you might have the falling sickness. Symptoms of falling over can have a hundred causes. And you have never had a ghost of a fit.'

'I have seen those fits, though. I once had a client who suffered from them and he fell down in my office, gibbering and foaming with only the whites of his eyes showing.' He shook his head. 'It was a dreadful sight. And it came on this man late in life.'

'You experience these falls and fix your mind on the most frightening thing you have seen. If I did not know you for a clever lawyer I would call you a noddle.'