It was now that Ned cursed the efficiency of Meg’s little incendiary. It had been damned useful below, but up here the drifting smoke made the search dangerous. Several times he’d had to turn aside his blade as a charging figure through the smoke had resolved itself into a young girl clad only in a chemise. If only for a bit more light, Ned sighed. That last one looked really cute with those long shapely legs. An urgent thump from Meg Black brought him back to the here and now. A large figure was swimming through the grey light towards them from the glints ahead in the smokey fog they were armed. Ned pushed Meg behind him, and dagger out, took up a half crouch and calling out menacingly, “One more step and I’ll gut you!”
Rather than a challenge or a girlish scream, instead Ned gained a very familiar curse. “Damn y’ for sluggedly wastrel, Bedwell. About time y’ got here! I hope y’ caught him, that slippery little ferret!”
Ned relaxed as Gruesome Roger limped into view, his face the usual grim scowl, though he did dip his head slightly embarrassed when he saw Meg. Then the import of his word struck home and Ned thumped the wall and swore. “What! Damn yourself, Hawkins, you useless puttock! Do you mean you lost Walter?”
“You slovenly fool, Bedwell. While you where fiddling with your cards, I was up here fighting off that clawing bitch, Anthea and two of Earless’ men!”
Ned sucked in a breath for a fitting retort. That was a stupid move and he ended up rasping his throat with the brimstone. Before the discussion could digress any further, Meg pushed between them giving each a significant glare from smoke reddened eyes. “We don’t have time for this! Where did you last see him?”
Her question was accompanied by a cuff to each of them to emphasis her request for cooperation. “Three doors back when he pulled loose and kicked me.”
Ned raised an eyebrow. Walter tackled Gruesome Roger? By the saints, he wouldn’t have credited it. The meek lamb had grown horns! A quick stumble around the hallway gave them only one choice — a door wedged shut two along from where they stood. A joint effort, shoulders to its rough wood, had them soon through it, to reveal an empty room with a rope of sheets trailing out the open window. Walter had escaped again. Ned looked at Roger and both looked at Meg, who gave a frustrated sigh and bundled up her good dress. It seemed the chase was still on.
By chance or design, Walter had picked the best escape route. This window overlooked a small, quiet courtyard. Within minutes they’d dropped down, even Meg hindered as she was by her skirts. Ned tried to peer through the wintery gloom. This was impossible — it had started to snow again and visibility had closed down to bare yards. By statute, the citizens of London were required to have a small lantern outside their dwelling. It was to be lit at dusk, between the celebrations of Hallowtide and Candlemass. As he’d seen too often, decrees may be grandly proclaimed, but the population as a whole ignored it. If those goodly householders weren’t going to waste good tallow rushes then who could expect it of the Liberties?
So to Ned it seemed that they’d reached a dead end. How could they track Walter? It was as dark as a Blackamore’s soul! Roger though, proved more resourceful. The retainer wrenched a cresset off the nearby wall and stuffed part of their sheet rope into it as a wick. Ned gave shrug. He’d already thought of that and dismissed it. So what — it was useless without tallow or a flint. Knocking on a door around here to beg some wasn’t going get you anything other than cudgel around the ears and a boot to the backside.
Damn! Ned thumped his thigh with a fist, and moving mainly by feel, slipped over to the narrow alley leading out of the court. Walter had to head this way, but left or right? One solution was to split up. They had a chance. However the menace of Earless Nick and his lads remained. They’d be recovering from Meg’s alchemist’s ploy, and he reckoned, keen for mischief and revenge. So separately they were vulnerable and no doubt Earless Nick knew the twists and turns of this patch better than the back of his hand. Ned returned the dozen or so paces to report his lack of discovery and beheld Mistress Black calmly digging into her hidden satchel. He let out an exasperated sigh — what was she doing? A smoke incendiary wasn’t any use here. Even flint and steel wasn’t going to light up that cloth, damp from the falling snow and sleet.
Ned huddled in the limited shelter of a projecting upper story and watched his partner in disaster fiddling around with another small flask. First she uncapped and poured some of its contents onto the bundled cloth in the improvised torch. Well he grudgingly conceded that may work. It smelled rank like the rock oil they used in liniments. The second though, had Ned amazed. This was a small mechanical tinder box. Meg wound a very small handle, then holding it close to the cresset, flicked a lever. Suddenly it shot out a small fountain of sparks and the cresset immediately lit up with a steady bluish flame. By the saints they had light! For the third time that evening, Ned seriously wondered what else the apothecary’s apprentice had stashed away, and as his daemon had asked, why?
***
Chapter Twelve: Fleete of Foote
Steadily they pushed along the back lanes and alleys off Bride Lane, pausing every now and then to check the deep prints left in the snow by the fleeing Walter. Ned had to admit it. Some minutes ago he’d been flummoxed, but Meg Black’s satchel of wonders had set them back on the hunt. By the saints, an improvised lantern. He’d even publicly admit it was damned clever, for a girl, although there was an enormous obstacle in the proclamation, and it wasn’t his touchy pride.
During the chase he’d had some time to think over a recurring question. Why the satchel and why did she always have it whenever she left the apothecaries? A court rhymester like Wyatt would have produced a set of sweet couplets circling around the theme of rescuing a lover of durance vile. Ned though, was somewhat more realistic. The simple reason was the continual hunt for heretics by the Bishop of London and the new Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More. Ned had seen it claim a few he knew at the Inns of Court last year, and by chance, during the affair of the Cardinal’s Angels some months ago, they’d brushed past a pack, seeking heretics for the Lollard towers. Sometimes over a dozen a week were rounded up and marched off to prison to face Foxford, the Bishop’s grim faced pursuivant of heresy.
It was a risky time to speak up about the abuses of the Church or complain about the high handed actions of clerics. Even a simple dispute about the amount of tithes to pay could land you in front of a tribunal of canon lawyers, questioning your faith and then suggesting a charge of heresy. Ned should know. He’d seen a few cases pulled from the common courts because they questioned the legal right of priests to do, well whatever they wanted. Richard Hunne, a prosperous merchant of London, had tried that some dozen years ago and was murdered in a Lollard tower for his honesty. Then when already dead, he was declared a heretic and all his wealth seized. An action completely beyond the law, but the Bishop of London got away with it, because as they sneeringly said, the secular was exempt from commons judgement, by the authority of the Apostolic See.
As far as Ned could see that created a problem, one he suspected still remained unresolved since the removal of Cardinal Wolsey. King Henry, in his pursuit of an annulment from his current wife, Katherine of Aragon, needed the support of the English Church. However Pope Clement in Rome wanted the Queen’s nephew, Emperor Charles V, kept at a distance, especially since a few years ago the Emperor’s army had sacked Rome and held Clement hostage. So the Pope was unlikely to tell the English church to accede to King Henry’s request.
So in a nut shell, during perilous times any person with reformist inclinations erred on the side of caution. In Meg Black’s case, add in a penchant for smuggling forbidden books, and it was no surprise she was ready to flee in an instant.