The Fire Court: A gripping historical thriller from the bestselling author of The Ashes of London
good question, sir.’ By now, Chelling was sweating profusely. ‘In the last fifty years, Clifford’s Inn has opened its doors to people our Founder would never have countenanced. Mr Gromwell’s uncle was once a Rule, and he spent a great deal of money refurbishing his chambers, as a result of which he was granted the right to bestow them on an additional life after his own. He chose to bestow them on his nephew.’
‘Number Three, on Staircase Fourteen.’
Chelling nodded but shot me a suspicious glance.
I said, ‘It seems most unjust, sir, that such a man should benefit by his uncle’s generosity, and in that way. And at the cost of others, too.’
‘Precisely.’ Chelling hammered his fist on the table, distracted from his suspicion. ‘One could hardly have come up with a less appropriate choice.’ He peered up at me, and wiped his brow with the trailing cuff of his shirt. ‘We live in terrible times. Since the great rebellion against his late majesty, nothing has gone right for this unhappy country. Or for Clifford’s Inn. We can’t get the students now. Not in the numbers we used to before the war. They go elsewhere. Before the war, I tell you, the Ancients would never have sunk so low as to elect a man like Mr Gromwell as a Rule. It beggars belief! He claims to have influence at court, but he has no more influence than’ – Chelling stamped hard on the floor – ‘than my shoe.’
During this last speech, Mr Chelling’s words had begun to take on a life of their own. They collided with one another. Consonants blurred, and vowels lengthened. Sentences proceeded by fits and starts.
My guest, I realized, was well on his way to becoming drunk on a mere bottle of wine. But perhaps this had not been the first bottle of the day. Or even the second. I doubted I would get anything useful about the Fire Court from him this afternoon. But at least he seemed happy enough to rant about Gromwell.
‘My father called at Mr Gromwell’s chambers last week,’ I said, attempting to seize control of the conversation before it was too late.
‘To see Gromwell? But why?’
‘He called there by mistake. I’m not sure that he saw Mr Gromwell at all.’
Chelling drained his glass and looked mournfully at the empty bottle. I raised my hand to the waiter.
‘Surely your father can inform you whether he did or not?’
‘Unfortunately he died on Friday.’
‘God bless us, sir!’ Chelling seemed to take in my suit of mourning for the first time. ‘How did it happen? It wasn’t plague, I hope, or—’
I shook my head. ‘An accident.’
‘The poor gentleman. We … we must drink to his memory.’
The second bottle came, and Chelling accepted a glass. His interest in my father had departed as rapidly as it had come, however, and we did not drink to my father’s memory. Instead, Chelling returned to the subject of Gromwell, and worried at it like a dog scratching a flea bite.
‘The trouble with Gromwell,’ he said, ‘is that he believes he’s a cut above the rest of us. He was born the heir of a fine estate in Gloucestershire. His father sent him up to Oxford but he frittered away his time and his money there. Then his father died, and the estate was found to be much embarrassed – every last acre mortgaged, I heard, and the land itself was in a poor state. To make matters worse, his brothers and sisters claimed their legacies by their father’s will, but there was no money left to pay them, so they all went to law against their brother. Gromwell is a fool, and fought them all the way rather than settle the business out of court. As a result he has nothing left but worthless old books and papers and a great heap of debts. I tell you frankly, sir, he has no more idea of how to manage his affairs than my laundrywoman.’
‘Then how does he afford to live?’
‘I told you: he’s a perfect parasite – he preys on his friends.’ Mr Chelling was still capable of relatively coherent thought, but his speech had now acquired an other-worldly quality, as if spoken with care by a foreigner who did not fully understand the meaning of the words or how to pronounce them. ‘Gentlemen he knew in his prosperity. He has friends at Court, and one of his schoolfellows is even a Groom of the Bedchamber. They say he’s quite a different man when he’s with them. Ha! No one could be more affable or obliging.’ He shrugged, a mighty convulsion of the upper body that almost dislodged him from the bench on which he sat. ‘He can make himself good company if he wishes, and he makes himself useful to them, too. He will find out their pedigrees for them, or keep them entertained with his conversation. In return, they lend him money and invite him to stay and lay a place for him at their tables. For all his airs, Lucius Gromwell is no more than a lapdog.’ Chelling glared at me and shook his fist. ‘Let him beware, that’s what I say. No man is invulnerable.’
‘That is very true, sir.’
‘Believe me, I shall make him laugh on the other side of his face before I’m done. I have the means to wound him.’
Chelling paused to take more wine. His face was very red and running with moisture.
I said, ‘You know something that will do him—’
Chelling slammed the glass down on the table so forcefully that its shaft snapped.
‘A lapdog!’ he cried in his booming voice, so loudly that the taproom fell silent for a moment. ‘You must be sure to tell His Majesty when you see him. Gromwell is a damned, mewling, puking, whining, shitting lapdog!’ His face changed, and he looked at me with wide, panic-stricken eyes. ‘Oh God, I am so weary of it all.’
His body crumpled. He folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them. He closed his eyes.
For a small man, Mr Chelling was surprisingly heavy.
Once I had paid our bill, a waiter helped me manhandle Chelling down the stairs to the street door, a perilous descent because he twice made an attempt to escape, insisting that he had always stood on his own two feet and had no intention of changing his policy in that regard.
I had to bribe the servant a second time to help us across Fleet Street. With the lawyer dangling between us, sometimes kicking at our shins, we carried him safely past St Dunstan’s to the gate of Clifford’s Inn. At this point a porter came to our assistance.
‘Been at it again, has he?’ he said. ‘He’s got no head for it, sir. On account of his size, I reckon. Stands to reason: if you put a quart in a pint pot, it’s bound to overflow.’
‘I have the heart of a lion,’ Chelling mumbled. ‘That is what matters.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The porter winked at me. ‘I just hope the Principal don’t hear you roar.’
‘Take him to his chamber,’ I said.
The porter patted Chelling’s pockets until he found a bunch of keys. ‘Sooner he’s out of sight, the better.’
He left a boy to mind the gate. He and another of the Inn’s servants half-carried, half-dragged Chelling across the court, watched by a small but appreciative crowd of spectators outside the hall, where the Fire Court was still in session. I paid off the waiter and followed them.
Chelling lived in chambers on Staircase V, part of a range on the eastern side of the court that butted up against the north of St Dunstan’s churchyard. The building was one of the oldest parts of the Inn, dating back to its days as a private house, and the staircase was cramped and ill-lit. At each landing there were two doors, one on either side, just as there were in New Building, but there were few other resemblances. The air smelled of damp and decay, and the stone steps were uneven, worn by generations of feet.
As luck would have it, Chelling’s chambers were on the attic floor, which had been added to the building as an afterthought. The porter unlocked the door. They dragged him into a study with sloping ceilings and a sloping floor. It was sparsely furnished with a table, a chest, an elbow chair and a single stool. A dormer