Fury from Fontainebleau

by Adrian Speed

  “Peter operated the shop in Birchin Lane while my husband kept the ships supplied and well crewed, and we did very well for a time. Then came the great sickness... then the fire, and now...” Elizabeth’s hands wrung on the hem of her skirts. “Now I must rely on Jacob.”

  “Who may not be reliable in the least,” Sir Reginald mused. “May I ask what your brother and husband traded in?”

  “We wanted spices but war with the Dutch cut that short,” Elizabeth shook her head. “But John always knew where there was ready coin in wine and fruit in Spain, Portugal and the Moorish lands.”

  “Portuguese wine, and Spanish oranges?” The words rolled out of my mouth like cannon balls.

  “Yes, that was always a very good pairing over winter,” Elizabeth smiled at the memory of happier times. “Last winter I think we supplied every orange seller in the city.”

  “My dear Elizabeth,” Sir Reginald set his hands down on the table. “I believe we have what we need to begin our investigation. Be assured, we will not rest until we find out the truth of your husband’s death, whether it be by sickness or events more morbid, and the nature of this last will of his.” Sir Reginald turned to me. “Come along Hannah, there is work to do.”

  But I was a million miles away thinking back to the orange seller in the shadows with his pistol.

  “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  *****

  Sir Reginald piloted the time machine back to Covent Garden in January. I was in too much of a daze. I kept thinking back to the night before. The one man, the one man who was at least thinking about trying to help me had died. Quite possibly he had been murdered, and murdered by his brother of all things. As the numbness started to fade away I started to feel anger at the unfairness of it all. I stomped up the stairs and slumped into a chair in the kitchen, shedding my coat with a thumpf.

  “I am tempting fate a little to check,” Sir Reginald said, scrolling through the tablet’s files, “but the only mention of John or Jacob Arnold in the research is their births, marriages and deaths.”

  “So? What does that matter?”

  “An Arnold born after the death of his father, while the fortune passes to the child’s uncle? Doesn’t that sound like the start of a junior branch to you?” Sir Reginald settled down in a chair opposite me. “We will not know until we settle the mystery and discover whether the child be a boy or a girl, but I think we might be able to discover whether there truly is a lost branch of Marlin’s tree.”

  “Would Lucon accept that? That’s a divergent path of almost seven hundred years.”

  “They would if I can demonstrate an unbroken line on both sides,” Sir Reginald said. He poured himself a mug of the ’43 claret and sipped it thoughtfully. “Do you think John Arnold could be our skeleton?”

  “That’s your first thought? Not the astonishing coincidence that the person we happened across because we read a newspaper four hundred years from now just happens to be related to an entirely different case we just happened to be investigating?”

  “Well I did ask Alsa to sort the mysteries by how interesting they were, perhaps it worked better than I thought…” Sir Reginald paused and took a sip of his wine. “They may seem like long odds from our narrow perspective, but I do not think they truly are. Think of how many descendants one may have over the generations. They increase exponentially. John and Jacob Arnold are at least twenty generations removed from Marlin Arnold. They could have a million descendants a piece by that time even at the most conservative estimate.” Sir Reginald sipped his wine again. “Save for the fact we know they all started dying off without doing the decent thing of progenerating after the twenty-first century.”

  “Those still seem like long odds to me.”

  “Once our mystery is solved, perhaps I can dedicate some time to calculating precisely how long they are,” Sir Reginald shrugged. “Coincidences do happen my dear. It is humanity that ascribes meaning to them, the laws of probability do not care.” He took another swig of wine. “And as I said, I did design Alsa to give us interesting cases. Perhaps there was a pattern in amongst all those letters I never noticed, or ever thought to look for, but the letter sorting apparatus could discern with its mechanical processes.”

  “Mechanical processes? You built a purely mechanical computer?”

  “Oh it’s far more reliable than semiconductors,” Sir Reginald said with a smirk. “Try getting a lump of admiralty brass to flip position because of cosmic rays.” He set his mug down for a moment. “Now then, to the matter at hand, do you think our skeleton is John Arnold?”

  “It would make sense,” I shrugged. “If his brother was passing him off as dead of sickness he wouldn’t be in the fire’s official bill of dead, and explain why it was being counted as a ‘ninth’ death,” I sighed. “But I don’t think we can investigate John Arnold’s death assuming he is the skeleton.”

  “Very wise,” Sir Reginald nodded. “So what would you do instead?”

  “Well first thing would be to scout out the relationship Jacob and John actually had. Try to figure out whether Jacob had enough reasons to want to kill his brother,” I said. “It’s all well and good showing he has motive but not everyone with motive has the ability to kill.”

  “You want to investigate the crime... before it takes place?”

  “All the evidence is going to be burned up in the fire. Unless I am actually there, watching the event happen, there’s no way we can find out after the fact.”

  Sir Reginald looked up from the tablet and stared at me for a few moments.

  “You’re sure of that?” Sir Reginald said. “No possible way to investigate it after it occurs?”

  “No, not unless you’ve got hidden twenty-ninth century ash-reconstructive technology.”

  “If... you are sure on that...” Sir Reginald let his stare falter slowly back to the tablet. “I trust you to do what is right.”

  “So I can’t expect your help on this one either?” I sighed.

  “Not while the link between Sotheby and Arnold goes unsolved,” Sir Reginald said, tapping the tablet. “Feel free to drop by for advice of course, at any time. No, no, don’t bring me back to the home screen. Blazing hells do I hate slate computing!”

  I pulled myself out of the chair and left Sir Reginald to his work. I’d have to change back into the ridiculous clothes of the seventeenth century. I’d have to don the name Andrew. One fit me about as well as the other.

  But it was necessary. John Arnold would die before the year was out and I had to know why.

  Chapter XVI

  “London Bridge,” I ordered a ferrymen as I stepped into a lighter. He wouldn’t move until he saw a flash of silver but then he was off like a bolt of lightning, paddling down the Thames between the river barges like a Venetian gondolier.

  The river steamed in the morning chill. I gripped my umbrella tightly as the lighter bobbed over the currents and my knuckles turned white. Travelling by water wasn’t the fastest way to the Exchange but I didn’t want to go back... not that way. Even dressed in men’s clothes.

  It wasn’t cowardice, I told myself. It was just not wanting to relive the experience when I didn’t have to. I glared darkly at the grey waters of the Thames. It wasn’t cowardice.

  “London Bridge,” the ferryman announced and held out his hand for payment. The lighter had run aground in the shingle quite a way from the bridge but I could hear the water sucking through its archways from here. Any closer and we’d shoot through like a cork.

  I handed over the silver and jumped out of the boat onto the shingle. The tide was low and it was a long walk up to the steps to bring me to street level. With the tide low the docks and quays were quiet, at least, by the standards of London docks. Casks and crates were still moving all up and down the riverside with horses and carts clopping along the cobbles as indomitable as the freight trains that would one day replace them.

  I ducked and weaved between them and headed north towards the Exchange an
d the merchant shop were John Arnold made his fortune. London traffic had hardly changed over the last four hundred years and I found myself struggling to make headway against the crush of bodies, carts and carriages rushing in every direction across the roads. The bell of St Michael Cornhill was striking the tenth hour and yet against the rabble of men and horses I could barely hear it. I looked towards the tower for just a second.

  Blackness filled my peripheral vision, I smacked into another person and tripped head over heels. My hat went flying across the road and disappeared under a horse’s hooves, but I was more concerned about not landing in the filth of the city. My limbs flailed like a first time hockey player as my feet slid on the slimy cobbles and I rammed my umbrella tip into the ground to stabilise me.

  Heart pounding in my chest, I stood balanced with one arm and one leg up in the air, holding onto the ground with just umbrella tip and toes. But at least I had avoided the ‘mud’ of London’s street. Not so lucky had been the man I’d bumped. He lay splayed on the corner. He must have come around it and gone straight into me as I’d looked up.

  I reached down a hand to help him up and cringed with recognition. John Arnold. I’d smacked right into John Arnold. As he looked up into my face recognition glinted in his eyes as well.

  “Could it be that I know you...?” He asked as I pulled him upright.

  “No... no, I don’t think so,” I gabbled, trying to think of an excuse madly. “I must be going, I am due to see John Arnold at his shop.”

  “He stands before you, I’m John Arnold,” John frowned in puzzlement.

  “In that case, my sister owes you a great debt.” The moment the words were out of my mouth the tension left John Arnold’s face. “I am Andrew Delaronde,” I lied. “And I came to thank you.”

  “Ah, your sister, that puts explanation to all.” John Arnold put his hands on his hips and spared a glance into the road where my hat was doing an impression of a dead pheasant. With a burst of speed he whipped out into the road, snatched it up and returned it to me. “It appears ruined, I must say, but this is yours.”

  “Er, thank you.” I held the broken hat gingerly. “I’m sorry for knocking you down.”

  “’Tis my own foolish fault,” John shook his head. “I could have taken a carriage but instead I desired the exertion. Then, fool as I am, I turned the corner at speed without a care for who will be beyond.” John tsked himself. “Come, come, a kind lad came to give me thanks and I paid it back by destroying his hat. I will not let that stand. Follow me, Master Delaronde, and we shall proceed to my milliners.”

  “I don’t want to put you to any trouble.” I grinned internally.

  “I insist!” John raised a hand and led the way. “The only hiccough is that I must visit Grey’s Court Inn as we travel.”

  “I did not realise you were a lawyer, sir.”

  “I am a merchant, Master Delaronde,” John said. “It is my brother who is the lawyer. At least, so he attempts to learn.”

  John led me down towards the river for a moment, and then down a long, quiet avenue and we kept up good time. As we walked John glanced askance at my umbrella.

  “You share your sister’s taste for parasols,” John noted. “Is January sun so bothersome?”

  “A family habit from France,” I said. Immediately I noticed John stiffen. “My father fled with the rest of the Huguenots after the fall of La Rochelle.”

  “Ah,” John relaxed a little. Frenchmen were not to be trusted, but Huguenots could be accepted. At least they rejected the pope like all clear thinking Protestants. “I am glad your family escaped when they did. I hear King Louis did terrible things to those who stayed.”

  I nodded. Stay vague, stay foreign enough to explain away mistakes, and let John open up.

  “Has your brother been at Grey’s Court long?”

  “Too long,” John’s expression soured. “He should have been called to the bar these past two years at least. Sometimes I think God swapped our fates at birth, and he should be the merchant and I the lawyer. We each do better at the other’s business.”

  “You seem to be a prosperous merchant.”

  “My brother would do better. He holds a skill at twisting truthful words to make a lie that I find enviable as it is distasteful.” John sighed. “If he bends to his study of law it would grant him the power to best any man in court. Yet, if he took my place as the merchant, sovereigns would flow like water from his finger tips.”

  “So why don’t you let him become a merchant?” I asked. “Surely he can take on some of the work.”

  John shook his head. “His legal career is our family’s path upwards. With the wealth that comes from the Indies the world will soon belong to the shopkeepers but no lord will bend the knee to a shopkeeper, no matter how deep his mortgage. Yet if the shopkeeper’s brother stands as a respected lawyer, the court may rule in the shopkeeper’s favour. And should that brother sire a son who becomes a lawyer, who sires a son who becomes a lawyer, within short order a great family is born. Each line pumps like a lung; the shopkeepers bring the wealth and the lawyers keep the wealth.”

  “That’s no small dream,” I said.

  “The Medici family started with a country doctor in rural Italy and yet they rule the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, sired four popes and have married into almost every royal family in Europe,” John said. “I hold no impossible dream, and by the grace of God I my descendants may achieve it.”

  “By the grace of God,” I nodded. The two of us walked up the road towards High Holborn. The thought of what happened the last time made me shiver.

  “’Tis bitter this winter,” John said, noticing me shake. “But milder than the last. The frost has not settled on the Thames and I pray it may not this year, lest my ships be forced to tie up in Tilbury. The quarantine is hardship enough for a merchant.”

  “I am surprised you stayed despite the plague.”

  “When first the plague descended I had a duty to look after my ships still landing in London as they were ordered when they left months before,” John said. “I tried to convince Peter, my brother by law, to quit the city and he made preparations to take to Norwich along with his sister, my wife; however, the sickness took him before he could. Peter was the true merchant; I simply stand in his shoes. I took over his business and by the time I thought ready to follow Peter’s plan to travel to Norwich winter was already descending and the plague slackened. As it stands now the other merchants and I who risk the Exchange make more for staying than for leaving.” John reached to a leather thong around his neck. A pouch hung from it. “Thus far, the quicksilver has protected me, thank the good Lord.”

  “Yes, thank the good Lord,” I agreed, because the quicksilver certainly wasn’t helping.

  We arrived outside Grey’s Court Inn. It didn’t look too far from how I remembered it in the twenty-first century. The buildings were different, but the same basic shape, surrounding the same courtyard and gardens. The older building was made of small little red bricks knitted together and put me in mind of Hampton Court Palace. It was not the sort of inn that Tolkein’s hobbits would have liked. This was where boys came to become lawyers.

  “As befits safety, all pupils quit the Inn last year, but I made arrangements that my brother could continue his studies until our planned move to Norwich,” John explained, removing his hat as he passed under the brick archway entrance. I copied his action. “More a fool I, eh?” John tapped on a door to the Inn and a hatch opened in the door.

  “Mr Arnold,” the porter recognised John instantly. “You’ll be wanting to discuss Master Arnold.”

  “I was summoned.”

  The porter’s eyes glared at me.

  “The boy will wait outside.”

  “Can he have leave of the fields?”

  “If he wishes,” the porter mumbled, slid the hatchway closed and opened the door. He held a wooden cross tightly as he waved John inside. It would do about as much good as the quicksilver at preventing plague if John
or I were carrying it. Once John was inside the Inn the porter pointed northwards.

  “Until your master returns, you can follow through those archways to the fields,” the porter sneered. It was just shy of an order, but I obeyed it. Gray’s Court had two courtyards, joined like an Oxford college’s quadrangles with archways wide enough for a cart to pass joining them together. I followed the route out into the ‘fields’. As I crossed the courtyard my footsteps echoed on the flagstones. There wasn’t a sound around me. Not a single student or legal scholar. Just the few winter birds and the distant roar of the city.

  They were laid out as a garden like the formal gardens of Versailles. Everything was dead or hibernating through the winter, but I could see the shadow of its summer glory. A heavy frost had survived in the shadows cast by the trees. It would be quite a pretty garden in summer. In winter it put me in mind of a prison exercise yard.

  I walked slowly around the trees and shrubs that were managing to hold on through the winter, listening to the flap of birds fighting over scraps, when the shouting started. It was distant, but it was growing. I turned my ear towards it and recognised John’s voice amongst the yelling.

  Ignoring the porter’s ‘orders’ I retreated back from the garden towards the sound of John’s voice. It was matched by an equally loud voice that kept trying to cut into John. It was too distant to make out the words but the tone was easily distinguished. It was earnest, it was pained, it was furious, and it was passionate. All that passion came from the love only two siblings would have for each other.

  I could almost follow it with my ears as the shouting ran along one gallery in the quadrangle and down to another on the ground floor. It was rapidly approaching the porter’s doorway.

  “You must learn when to acquiesce!” John’s voice began to ring clearly out of the building. “You’ll never be called to the bar while you refuse to show the proper respect.”

  The other voice almost screamed its defiance but John cut it off.