The Nightingale Gallery Read Online Free PDF Page B

foister; and two other pickpockets. At last they turned off the Holborn thoroughfare into Castle Yard. A pleasant place, the houses being fewer, better spaced, each ringed by sweet-smelling rose gardens and tree-filled orchards. Fortescue’s house was the grandest, standing in its own grounds, a massive framework of black timber, thick and broad as oaks, gilded and embossed with intricate devices. Between the black beams the white plaster gleamed like pure snow. Each of the four storeys jutted out slightly over the one on which it rested and each had windows of mullioned glass, reinforced with strips of lead. Cranston lifted the great brass knocker shaped in the form of a knight’s gauntlet and brought it down hard. A servant answered and, when Cranston boomed out who they were, ushered them through the open door into a dark panelled hall with woollen carpets on the floor and gold-tinged drapes on the wall.
    Athelstan noticed how cool the place was as they were led up an oak staircase and into a long gallery, so dark the wax candles in their silver holders had already been lit.
    The servant tapped on one of the doors.
    ‘Come in!’ The voice was soft and cultured.
    The chamber inside was rectangular in shape, walls painted red with silver stars and the polished tile floor covered with rugs; candles also glowed here because the light was poor and the mullioned window high above the desk was small. The candles bathed the area round the great oak desk in a pool of light. Chief Justice Fortescue, enthroned behind it, barely moved as they entered. One beringed hand continued silently to drum the top of the desk while the other shuffled documents about. Like all his kind, Fortescue was a tall, severe man, completely bald, with features as sharp as a knife and eyes as hard as flint. He greeted Sir John Cranston with forced warmth but, when Athelstan introduced himself and described his office, the Chief Justice smiled chillingly, dismissing him with a flicker of his eyes.
    ‘Most uncommon,’ he murmured, ‘for a friar to be out of his order even, and serving in such a lowly office!’
    Cranston snorted rudely and would have intervened if Athelstan had not.
    ‘Chief Justice Fortescue,’ he answered, ‘my business is my own. You summoned me here, I requested no audience.’
    Cranston belched loudly in agreement.
    ‘True! True!’ Fortescue murmured. ‘But this meeting was arranged by someone more powerful than I.’ He smiled mirthlessly and picked up a knife he used for cutting parchment, balancing it delicately between his hands. ‘We live in strange times, Brother. The old king is dead and for the first time in fifty years we have a new king, and he a child. These are dangerous times. Enemies within and enemies without!’ He lowered his voice. ‘Some people say that a strong man is needed to manage the realm.’
    ‘Like your patron, His Grace John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster?’ Cranston interrupted.
    ‘Like His Grace the Duke of Lancaster,’ Fortescue mimicked in reply. ‘He is the regent, proclaimed so by the late king’s will.’
    ‘Regent!’ Cranston snapped. ‘Not king!’
    ‘Some people say he should be.’
    ‘Then some people,’ Cranston barked, ‘are varlets and traitors!’
    Fortescue smiled as if he had tried to go down a path and realised it was blocked.
    ‘Of course, of course, Sir John,’ he murmured. ‘We know each other well. But Gaunt is regent, he needs friends and allies. Other lords seek his head; the Commons mutter about conspiracies, expenditure, the need to make peace with France and Spain. They object to taxes which are necessary.’
    ‘The Commons may be right,’ Cranston tartly replied.
    ‘About others,’ Fortescue continued, ‘they may be, but the regent is steadfast in his loyalty to the young king and looks for support from his friends and allies. Men like Springall, Sir Thomas Springall, goldsmith, merchant, and alderman of the city.’
    ‘Springall is dead,’