Dark Fire

'I don't know, sir. I was going rabbit hunting, up by Coney Garth, and in the orchard I found – a foot. A foot in a shoe, cut off. And blood everywhere.'

'Take us there,' I said. He hesitated a moment, then turned and led us towards the gate to the orchard on the north side of Gatehouse Court. Part of the crowd followed us, nosy as sparrows.

'Stay back,' I said. 'This is official.' People grumbled, but they remained outside as we passed through to the orchard. The apple and pear trees were in full leaf and a carpet of long-fallen blossom lay all around. The student led the way through the trees.

'What's your name, fellow?' I asked.

'Francis Gregory, sir. I wanted some rabbits for the pot. I came out early, but I ran back when I saw that – thing.' I studied his face. He seemed none too bright and very frightened.

'All right, Francis. There's nothing to fear, but a man is missing and we have been ordered to find him.'

Reluctantly young Gregory led us on into the trees. In the middle of the orchard, on the blossom-covered ground, we found a gruesome chaos. A wide patch of ground was covered with blood, black and sticky-looking. One tree had had a branch hacked off and a great gouge cut in its side. The mark of an axe, Wright's weapon of choice. And, lying at the bottom of the tree, was a shoe with an inch of white leg visible above.

I stepped on to the bloody ground to look at the severed foot, my stomach churning a little at the sight. It had been shorn off like a pig's trotter. Flies were buzzing around it.

'That's a gentleman's shoe,' Barak observed.

'Ay.' I saw something else among the blossom and, taking my dagger, brushed the delicate petals aside. Then I jerked upright in disgust. Three fingers from a man's hand lay there, sliced off like the foot, little black hairs standing out against the waxy skin. And on one of them a large emerald ring.

'What is it?' Barak called. He stepped across to my side. I had been steeling myself to pick up the finger, but Barak did it without flinching. 'That is Marchamount's ring,' I said, in a low voice so the student could not hear. He had not ventured onto the patch of bloody ground.

'Shit,' Barak breathed.

'He must have come to meet somebody by arrangement and they went for him with an axe.' I took a deep breath.

'Toky and Wright.'

'Ay. He must have struggled, tried to escape. They probably swung at his foot to bring him down. Then he tried to defend himself with his hands. Poor Marchamount.'

'Why did they take the body away and leave these remains?'

'If it was dark, they may not have noticed the fingers or the ring.'

'I thought this place was patrolled to keep the lawyers and their gold safe.'

'Only the inner court, not the gardens or the orchard. There are ways in here over the wall from Lincoln's Inn Fields.'

His back to the student, Barak pulled the ring from the severed finger and slipped it in his pocket, letting the finger fall to the ground again. We walked over to the boy.

'There's no saying who this is, lad.' I said. 'Best report to the authorities. Go on now.'

He was happy to run from the place. Barak and I followed more slowly. I was glad I had sent a note to Lady Honor last night, warning her not to go out without servants.

'So Marchamount was involved with Toky and Wright,' Barak said.

'So it appears. Perhaps he was worried I was going to have him before Cromwell and told his master. Who decided to stop his mouth.' I stopped on the path. 'God's death, he should have known the risk he ran, enough mouths have been stopped already. The two Gristwoods, the founder, Bathsheba and her brother. And now him.'

'Perhaps he was the master,' Barak said.

'What?'

'Perhaps he had been running the whole thing with Toky and Wright, told them things were getting hot and they decided to kill him and make off with the Greek Fire.'

'You could be right,' I said. 'In that case, they're the ones we need to find.'

'Toky knows how things work. An education from the monks and years soldiering. He could arrange to sell Greek Fire to the highest bidder. Perhaps a foreigner.'

'But where are they? Where have they taken Marchamount's body? Where are the apparatus and the formula? Come, let us see if Skelly has done that list.'

By the time we reached the courtyard young Gregory was back at the centre of a crowd, declaiming about what we had found.

'They're bound to connect this to Marchamount soon,' Barak said.

'They won't be able to prove it's him, not without the ring.' I saw Bealknap on the fringe of the crowd, his eyes wide, and wondered if he had guessed who it was that had been killed.

Back in chambers Skelly was waiting for us, a paper in his hand.

'It's all done, sir.'

'Thank you.' I laid it on the table and Barak and I looked over his untidy scrawl. Four pieces of litigation over land, one over a will, and the warehouse conveyancing. Pelican Warehouse, off Salt Wharf.

'What's a pelican?' Barak asked.