The Flame Eater

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  The clouds had darkened, squeezing out the last flickers of pallid sunshine, and the rain was beginning to strengthen again, a soft rippled patter across the river waters. The newcomer paid the wherryman, and climbed the steps to the docks, followed by Mister Prophet. The four men stood looking at each other as the rain cloaked them.

  “David Witton,” Nicholas repeated. “Where exactly is he now?”

  Adrian’s pale blue eyes narrowed. “You think I’ve trussed the young idiot and carried him off to some dungeon? Don’t be a fool, Nicholas.”

  “I would not once have believed it,” Nicholas said, “but nor would I have believed you capable of treason. Now I tend to think you capable of anything, except, perhaps, intelligence. I’m guessing your brawler was sent to the Strand stables to inform Sissy of your imminent need to see her, and take her away. But your same brawler, one Francis Prophet I imagine, changed the message quite purposefully. He has no interest in your reunion with your sister. He was far more interested in getting me here to instigate some sort of quick annihilation. So before I throw your man bodily into the Thames, I suggest you find out what has happened to my squire. Otherwise, your new visitor may find he follows your henchman into the turgid waters, and enjoys a hearty mouthful of London’s excrement for his dinner.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  The newcomer bowed, smiled very faintly, and kept his mouth shut. Francis Prophet averted his eyes. Adrian appeared belligerent but genuinely confused.

  Nicholas read the signs. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll find my squire myself.” He turned, but looked back. “As it happens, I’d guess your men don’t work directly for you at all, Adrian, and are loyal either to the French or their puppet Tudor. I advise you to watch your back, cousin. You may think yourself the leader but you are not in charge here.”

  Strolling off across the cobbles, Nicholas waited neither for reply nor for questions. He knew exactly where to go, for Rob had already described the cheap rental where Adrian was boarding. Nicholas, seeing he had not been followed, quickly adjusted the hiding place of both knives within his belt and the sword strapped within the lining of his stiff waxed and weather proof cape. Then he pushed open the main door and ran up the short flight of narrow unlit stairs. The door to Adrian’s rooms was locked. Nicholas waited a moment, listening. He then inserted the point of his shorter knife into the keyhole, and twisted. A hovel, cheap wattle and daub and a door of thin planks; the lock was equally lightweight. It clicked open on the second attempt and Nicholas entered silently into the musty shadows within.

  There was one room divided by a low screen and the tiny window was nailed shut with scratched parchment, barely passing light. But Nicholas’s eyes adjusted quickly. He stared back at the five men watching his appearance, four in surprise. David Witton himself did not seem surprised at all.

  One man held David, still tying the ropes. The three others rushed Nicholas. Sword in one hand, the longer knife in his other, he retaliated before they reached him. David yelled, “My lord. Where’s Prophet? And Sir Adrian?”

  Nicholas did not answer. He was busy.

  Her ladyship Baroness Wrotham and her daughter Avice were walking a little faster as they approached the Tower. It was raining much harder than they had expected, and Avice was regretting having suggested walking so far. Dragging a little behind, Nurse Martha and the maid Petronella were clutching their cloaks around their shoulders, one hand clamped on their heads to keep their hoods from blowing off. A little ahead, though already at a weary slouch, old Bill tramped faithfully on towards the huge shadows of the stone walls, the distant despondent roar of some monstrous foreign creature known as a lion, and the busy march of the Tower guards. The baroness, though sidestepping the crowds, gazed up at the thickening clouds and sighed. “I should have guessed,” she said faintly, “that your idea this morning was on a level with most of your others, Avice.”

  Avice glowered. “You said you thought it was a good idea at the time.”

  “Maternal prejudice. I imagine. The blindness of fond hope.”

  “Mother, really. You’ve no notion of what maternal prejudice means. As for fond hope – it’s just as unlikely. You simply wanted to see what the Tower looks like.”

  Her ladyship straightened her back. “Don’t be petulant, Avice, or I shall leave you here to be thrown into the dungeons or eaten by lions. And I hear there’s an interesting contraption known as the Duke of Exeter’s daughter.”

  “Then I hope the duke is nicer to his daughter than you are, Maman.” Avice stopped abruptly, looking across at the rising river waters to their right. “Well, I’ve seen the walls. Perhaps we could just go home now. I’m starving.”

  Bill was leaning against the long side of the adjacent warehouse, sheltering from drips. Hopefully, “Reckon tis well past dinner time, m’lady.”

  Martha caught them up. “The docks are just one minute’s walk away, my lady, and the eel boats sell cheap at this hour. Then I could buy us some for supper if you’d care to see the bustle. Far more interesting, I imagine, than those cold turrets.”

  The baroness looked down her nose in affronted astonishment. “I can hardly imagine the sheer joy of being caught in the push and shove of a busy harbour, Martha, nor the even greater delights of carrying a basket of smelly fish all the way home across the city. But I fear I must decline.”

  “I want to go,” decided Avice. “And Petronella can carry the basket.”

  “The great Tower,” sighed the baroness, “is one of Christendom’s most beautiful palaces. The White Keep, the silver moat, the vast council chambers and the royal apartments where every king for five hundred years has stayed to await his holy anointing.” She stared up at the walls again, and lowering clouds above. “A place of gaiety and pleasure, but also of responsibility and wise political governance.” She shook her head. “And instead it seems I have come to gaze at a pit of eels drowning in their own slime.”

  Although one of the three men now striding the riverside up Lower Thames Street was the younger brother to an earl, it was not at all obvious to any passer-by. All three men, two of them short and thickset, the other tall and slim built but wide shouldered, were dressed as market traders and their short capes barely kept the rain from their legs nor their heads.

  “Dammed weather,” complained Jerrid Chatwyn. “What wretched dockside did you say the boy was heading for?”

  “Bilyns Gate,” muttered Rob Bambrigg, “what’s no more’n a sniff and a blink away now, m’lord, as I reckon you already knows right well.”

  “I’ve been sniffing and blinking for the past hour,” objected Jerrid, “and I’m tired of tramping through rain and mud. If the wretched boy needs his useless lifesaving, then let’s hurry up and do it before supper.”

  “We ain’t had dinner yet,” Harry pointed out from beside and slightly below. “But there’s a good few decent taverns round here does a tasty pottage and a good pot o’ beer.”

  “Well, you should know,” nodded Jerrid. “You both lived somewhere near here once, didn’t you?”

  “Tenement to the left,” Rob said. “Docks to the right. Both smell the same.”

  In the small annexe within the Cock Inn at Bilyns Gate dockside, Emeline shook her head and stood in a hurry. “It’s been long enough, Mister Venter. And since you can’t leave these premises to go to his lordship’s aid while you’re supposed to be watching over me, then I shall have to come too.”

  Alan looked alarmed. The stool toppled back as he stood. “My lady, if I might escort you first to the little church we passed –”

  “Certainly not,” said Emeline. “I intend looking for my husband.”

  The rain now slanted, steel ice. Emeline stared through the veils, peering for some sign of Nicholas. Instead she saw Adrian. He was talking to another man, sheltering at the corner of the main storage shed and barely visible through sleet and bustle. Emeline set off towards him. Alan followed close, his huff of disapproval lost amongst the restless
noise.

  Adrian turned, swore, and, stepping forwards, managed to smile. Emeline said, “Where is he?”

  “A delightful surprise,” Adrian said with a slight bow, “I did not expect to see you here, my lady. The weather is not – but no doubt coming from Gloucestershire, you are accustomed. May I assist you with something, my lady, or perhaps you have a message from my sister?”

  “I’ve a message for you, sir, but not from Sissy,” Emeline informed him. “I came with Nicholas some hours ago, because he received a message from you. Or thought he did. What’s all this silly nonsense of false names, anyway?”

  Adrian frowned. “That message was never intended for my cousin,” he said with an impatient nod towards his companion. “And I’m now much occupied, madam. I apologise if I seem unhelpful, but Nicholas left some time back and I have no idea where he went.”

  From slightly behind, Alan Venter cleared his throat. “I’ve a notion where, my lady, if you’ll come away now.” And Emeline scowled at Adrian, wished him a cold damp afternoon, and hurried away. “I know the rental where his lordship would be searching,” Alan said, under this breath. “And I’ll be off there now to see what’s amiss. But you can’t come, my lady. Not in no conditions, nor will I permit it.”

  Emeline thought a moment. “Go on then,” she relented. “He’s been away too long and must need help. But I shall wait at that other corner where there’s some shelter, and they’re selling eels from those big baskets. There’s a lot of other women there and I shan’t seem conspicuous, but I can see if you come back with his lordship and David.”

  Resigned and in too much of a hurry to argue, Alan ran to the building where Rob had already informed them Adrian was lodging. Emeline put her hood up and her head down and hurried to the baskets of live eels and the fishwives jangling their purses and objecting to whatever price was mentioned.

  “And what,” suddenly said a disastrously clear voice behind her, “are you doing here, my girl? When I’m fully aware I left you at the Strand not three hours gone?”

  “Oh, Lord have mercy,” stuttered Emeline. “Maman! I don’t know whether to be pleased or horrified.”

  “You might as well be pleased,” said Avice, grabbing at her sister’s sleeve. “Since we’re here anyway. And Martha. And Bill. And Nell. So what are you up to and where’s Nicholas?”

  “That’s exactly what I want to know,” said Jerrid Chatwyn, his voice booming from a few paces away as he strode across the open harbour towards them.

  Rob pushed unceremoniously in front. “Has his lordship gone to the rental where I seen Sir Adrian?” he demanded.

  Emeline nodded, turned, and pointed. “That’s what Alan thinks. And he’s just gone there too.”

  “Third floor,” added Rob, “can’t be missed.”

  “Right then,” said Jerrid, “no time to waste.”

  Avice and the baroness stared in amazed alarm. “No time to explain,” Emeline said. “Come on.”

  They followed, Martha close behind and Petronella with Bill at a distance, as Jerrid pushed open the half broken door to the leaning four storey building, its frontage almost touching that of the little house opposite across the lane. “This hovel?” demanded her ladyship. “I am expected to enter here?”

  “No, not ‘xpected,” said Harry, turning at the foot of the stairs. “Best not, in fact.”

  “Buy eels instead,” suggested Rob.

  “I’m coming in,” insisted Emeline, picking up her skirts and running up the stairs.

  There was a clatter and a squeak. A small boy hurtled down the steps from the echoing darkness. Avice grabbed the skinny bare wrist. The boy squealed. “Twenty –thirty – and fighting,” and he pointed upwards. Avice let the child go and he ran. She took a step forwards but the baroness pulled her back.

  “But Maman, Emma’s up there.”

  “You are far too young and feeble,” her mother informed her. “I shall sort it out myself. Are you coming, Martha?” She began a sedate climb.

  Several things had happened at the same instant. Jerrid, Harry and Rob reached Sir Adrian Frye’s rented chambers on the black shadowed third floor and found the door wide open. Before they were able to enter, one man rushed out. Limping badly and bleeding from a slashed leg and torn ear, he tumbled down the stairs, pushing aside those on their way up. It was lightless, with a smutty leakage of dark smoke from above where the city’s effluent of coal fires and urine filled gutters leaked down the chimney and through the broken windows, and the stench of river, brine and fish from below.

  The noises were of scraping feet, heavy breathing, the thump and creek of floorboards and the clash of steel. In one corner of the small squashed rented chamber, David Witton, pleading for release at the top of his voice, was bundled in an uncomfortable tangle of fish scale crusted ropes. Two bodies lay slumped on the floor, one dead, one half alive, his groans fading as he gurgled blood. Nicholas, feet dancing across the sprawling body, was fighting two other men. But his breathing was strained, his forehead was streaming blood and his knuckles on one hand were slashed to the bone.

  He raised his sword again, parrying the steel thrust against him, but his knife now hung limp, his wounded left hand trembling. One assailant again raged forwards with a sudden shout and surge, the knife aiming for Nicholas, his face and his eyes.

  Then the voice behind said softly, “Safe to back off now, boy. Step back quick. We’re here now.” Rob and Harry moved in, clutching at Nicholas, helping him back against the wall as Jerrid’s sword slashed down, straight through one heaving shoulder, killing the other man instantly. Jerrid faced the last man as Rob freed David, quickly slicing through the ropes. Harry said, “And Alan, my lord? He were afore us.”

  Nicholas’s voice was hoarse. “Up – there,” he murmured. “Upper stairs. Go – help.” He wiped the blood streaming into his eyes from the long wound across his forehead and slumped down, leaning against the wall and releasing his grip on both sword and knife.

  Jerrid looked back over his shoulder. “Rob, get upstairs and find Alan. David, stay with our boy. Harry – here.”

  Jerrid and Harry killed the last man between them. David knelt over Nicholas. “He’s fainting. Deep wound to the head. Lost a finger and might lose another. Exhaustion of course. But nothing to threaten his life.”

  Jerrod moved beside him. “Why the devil did he come so scarce accompanied and ill equipped?”

  David looked up and shook his head. “Myself and Alan – it should have been enough, my lord. The message was a joke – his lordship barely took it seriously.”

  “He don’t take nor life nor nuffing serious,” frowned Harry.

  Which is when Emeline appeared breathless in the doorway and said in a rush, “Where is he?”

  “Here, my dear.” Jerrid nodded down to where Nicholas sat, half conscious. But as Emeline hurried to kneel beside her husband, through the shadows behind with a thump and huge reverberation, a heavy set man tripped, hurtling down the stairs, and reaching out with both hands. Emeline turned in a swirl of muddy hems and faced the newcomer. He growled and pushed her aside with a wild kick at Nicholas. Emeline picked up the stool which had rolled on its side at her feet, swung it with all her force, and hit the newcomer over the head. He crumpled with a guttural sigh.

  Jerrid clapped his hands. “Excellent, my dear lady. Well done.”

  “He wanted to kick my husband,” agreed Emeline, once more on her knees beside Nicholas.

  Alan Venter was behind, racing down the stairs, saw the newly prone adversary beginning to stumble back to his feet, and grabbed him around the neck. “Bastard Francis bastard Prophet,” he muttered, which appeared to be an effort at explanation. He looked up at Jerrid. “Him and another. His lordship killed the one but Prophet is a harder bastard to trounce. Do I kill the bugger, my lord? Or hand him over to the constable?”

  “Since the constable don’t appear to be around,” decided Jerrid. “Best kill the bugger.”

  Alan did.<
br />
  Mister Prophet stared upwards at the sword which swept towards him, and opened his mouth to yell. He was dead before the sound emerged, his neck sliced in two. The mess leaked, splintered bone and the ravaged bloody brain lying exposed. Nicholas was half back on his feet and trying to focus. With her kerchief covered in his blood, Emeline had been cleaning his face when the baroness as Martha heaved into the doorway, staring in dismay at the bodies strewn around them.

  “Good gracious,” exclaimed the baroness with several steps backwards. “I feel a little superfluous.” She stared a moment at the carnage, heaved, put her kerchief to her mouth and turned away.

  “Water,” said Martha, already rolling up her sleeves. “There must be a bowl here somewhere. A water butt? Cloths, bandages, a sheet to rip into strips? How many are wounded?”

  “Nicholas,” said Emeline at once, trying to stop him from staggering to his feet. “And perhaps David, though just rope burns. And maybe that horrid man lying choking over there.”

  The tiny dark space shed its shadows, figures quickly moving into coherent and visible symmetry. Somebody found a bowl, then a water hug. Martha knelt, adjusting her skirts.

  “My lady,” Jerrid addressed the baroness. “This fight is over, and well won. A single adversary lives – there,” he indicated the groaning man, “but it seems Nicholas was alone at first, facing four, perhaps five men by himself. He’s wounded. We need to get him out of here.” But Lady Wrotham faced the doorway, and would not look back.

  “Adrian?” Nicholas muttered, heaving himself upwards.

  “Outside with some foreigner,” Emeline said. “Does he know nothing of this?” She shrugged, both her hands to her husband. “Now stay still, my love. You’re badly hurt.”

  “Not so bad.” Nicholas blinked through blood and the insistent tying of ragged bandages. “Sore head. Sore hand. Nothing more. But if one of them is left alive, keep him alive. I need someone to question. There’s more to this than I knew before. I need to know the rest.”