The Invention of Fire

‘White radishes, lettuces, more radishes, two bunches a farthing!’

‘Have ye a sore tooth, an aching gum, an abscess or a bleeder? For know that I am Kindheart the Tooth-Drawer, my good people, with gentle pincers in my hand and opium in my purse.’

The criers rattled on, their pitches rising to an impossible volume as I passed down the street.

Then, from the top of the way, the din of a herald’s bell, sharp brassy clangs cutting through the street noise. The sound abated as a tall young man in the royal livery stepped up on a half-barrel, looking down at the commons and asking for our silence and attention.

He was a palace man, recognizable as one of the showy types increasingly favoured by King Richard in those years. A rich coat buttoned tightly at his neck, a fur-trimmed cape chiselled with decorative slits, long legs in particoloured hose, three ostrich feathers stemming ostentatiously from his hat. He spread his arms, shook his feathers like a plumed bird, then brought his hands to his mouth, cupping the rhythm of his cries.

‘And now for a taste of foul crime, my good gentles and commons!

Now shall I shout of brigands and killers, slayers and thieves!

A poacher of pigeons, a smith turned to pilfer!

The most lawless of ladies at large in our land!’

He had our attention. Several outliers moved closer to the crier’s perch, crowding in and looking up at the man’s raised and thinly bearded chin as he went on.

‘Now give me your ears and your good hearing, people of London! Know all present that Robert Faulk, cook of Kent and poacher of His Highness the king’s forests, along with Margery Peveril, gentlewoman of Dartford and murderess of her husband, having jointly slain a sheriff’s turnkey and escaped from the sheriff’s gaol at the manor of Portbridge, do now flee, together or alone, through country and city, their destination unknown, with great bounty from King Richard to any man who would aid in their apprehension and seizure, singly or together.’

There were scattered exclamations, a fair amount of murmuring at the notion of a murderess at large. The crier repeated the announcement, added a brief description, then went on to shout a series of royal proclamations. The crowd loosened, the hubbub returned. Soon enough the royal servant’s drones were drowned beneath the renewed barks of the hucksters and their hired mouths.

‘Oysters! Oysters! Oysters! Get your oysters here, and your eels!’

‘Grind your knives or your shears? The sharpest blades in London ground here, my good gentles!’

‘There is Paris, there is Paris in this thread, the finest in the land!’

The poulterers’ coops stood along the western span of the street, forming a low, loud wall of fowl that lent an air of barnyard looseness to this city lane. The old ordinances had tried to restrict the poulterers to the wall by All Hallows, though recent mayors had proved more lenient. Hens pushed their feathers and beaks through the slats in a ceaseless hunt for grains, while a rooster strutted proudly along the perimeter. The constant murmur made a happy cover for conversations both ill-intentioned and benign.

I gathered a handful of kernels from between the pavers and was pushing them through the slats of the nearest coop when I felt a hand at my shoulder. I turned into the thick-lidded eyes of Adam Pinkhurst, a scribe for the new common serjeant at the Guildhall. As always I was distracted by the pied spectacle of his face, a patchwork of burnt and healthy skin patterned like some elaborate Moorish cloth, as if he had got in the way of one of an alchemist’s acid flasks.

‘John Gower,’ he said, the cleft in his chin deepening as he spoke, his gaze direct and confident, regarding me as an equal. Pinkhurst’s stature among the Guildhall clerks had grown somewhat over the last few years since Chaucer had designated him as his favoured copyist, commissioning three manuscripts of his poem on Troilus. I had never employed his services for my poetry, preferring to hire a dedicated bookman along Paternoster Row rather than a city scrivener like Pinkhurst. The Guildhall scribes were notorious for passing around unauthorized copies of their clients’ work, and I had no desire to see my making treated like so much fodder for the common gut. Though Pinkhurst, by near-universal acclaim, was trustworthy and discreet, I knew him as a forger of remarkable skill.

‘Pinkhurst,’ I said as we clasped hands, his ink-stained but smooth. ‘What brings you out of your cage?’

He grimaced. ‘I drew the short lot today, so I go in search of pies for our chamber of scribblers. Pork, chicken, liver, dog, friar – makes no difference, so long as they’re not rancid. Six pies then I’m back to inking, sadly enough, and on such a delightful day.’

‘It is that,’ I agreed, appreciating the man’s wit. It was no surprise he was Chaucer’s favourite; Geoffrey had told me that Pinkhurst had more than once suggested alternative rhymes and phrases in the margins of his rough copies, just the sort of revisions and improvements to which Chaucer so often subjected my own verse – yet only rarely accepted from me in turn.

He saw the kernels in my hand. ‘And you? Are you considering renting yourself a chicken coop, relocating from Southwark to Basinghall Street?’

‘Hardly,’ I said. ‘My residence is as far from the Guildhall as it can be. No city politics for me.’

‘You are a wise man,’ he laughed, then, in a lower voice fragrant with noontime cider, ‘Brembre cannot depart these precincts soon enough, I tell you. The man is a tyrant, some new Nero laying waste to the city. Even Exton will be a better pick, despite his current lodging in Brembre’s purse. How the fair Idonia stands for such mistreatment I will never know.’

Nicholas Exton, newly elected mayor, would be inaugurated at the end of October. Chaucer had told me of Pinkhurst’s besotted admiration for Idonia, the current mayor’s wife. While I already knew of his contempt for Brembre, I wouldn’t have expected him to risk such incautious vitriol in front of me.

‘We shall hope that Exton brings a new golden age to the Guildhall, then,’ I said.

Pinkhurst shifted on his feet. He had spoken rather too loosely, and seemed to know it. ‘Well.’ He nodded. ‘You will excuse me, Gower. A pie-seeker’s quest is not to be taken lightly.’

‘No indeed,’ I said, and watched him spin on his heel then disappear in the crowd bunched near the corner of Cat Street.

Only a few moments passed before I saw Gil Cheddar approaching from the opposite direction. The acolyte had shed his robes and now looked like any respectable young man taking air on a London afternoon, though his eyes widened when he saw me standing by the coops. As he approached he shot worried glances up and down Basinghall Street.

‘Here?’ I asked him.

A nervous sulk. ‘Ask your questions, Master Gower.’

‘Fine then. I understand you spoke to our good hermit.’

‘Aye.’

‘You spoke to him about a company entering the city, yes?’

‘Aye.’

‘A company of Welshmen.’

‘Aye.’

‘Through Cripplegate.’

‘Aye.’

‘And when did you see these men, Cheddar?’

He thought about it. ‘More than ten days ago it would have been. A Thursday, of that I am certain. It was Holyrood Day.’

Five days before Peter Norris had seen the Welshmen circling the gateyard.

‘I was sent by the parson to help with the night service on the vigil. Was after cleaning up from that and dodging home when I saw them.’

‘What were they doing?’

‘Walking through the lodge doors at Cripplegate, and well after curfew bell too. Can’t say I wasn’t surprised, such a large group of them.’ The outer wall of the Cripplegate lodge was served by two small doors for use after the shutting of the gates each night. Any company of outsiders entering the city that late would not fail to attract notice, and demands for bribes.

‘Surely someone must have bought them in.’

‘Aye.’

Silence.

‘And who might that have been?’ My purse came out. He saw it. He twisted on a toe, scratching his reluctance in the dirt. He glanced in both directions and blew out a breath.

‘Father’s who it was. Left after the service and met them up the street without the walls, below the Moorfields. The parson led them to the gate himself, hustling them along. I was standing on the St Giles west porch. Had a knot in my breech tie, was trying to untangle it. I saw him leave by the vestry door, go up toward the Moorfields, then he was back quick as you please, hurrying them for the gate, like he was a sheeper herding ewes.’