The cart lurched away from the shouting butchers and their shrieking customers, away along the lane, swaying and ponderous but fast enough for Lamprecht, who clung on underneath, like a barnacle to a hull.
He did not see the crush which spilled over a butchers stall, the flood of contents like a glistening shoal of fresh-caught eels. He did not see Kirkpatrick, leaping back from another wild Malise swing, collide with someones back, slip on the coiled guts and offal and disappear into the mass of it. He did not see Malise flung away from Kirkpatrick, losing his knife but slithering out of the fray and up an alley.
The oxcart driver wanted to see it; Lamprecht felt the cart stop, heard the man climb laboriously up into it, swing over and drop then the world exploded in howling pain as the drivers thick-soled wood and leather clogs ground Lamprechts plank-clutching fingers to pulp.
He shrieked, which made the driver move to the side to find the screamer beneath him, allowing Lamprecht to tear his fingers free and fall to the cobbles. He scrambled out, whimpering and stumbled away, ignoring the shouts of the driver, nursing his broken fingers and blinded by pain by sheer animal instinct he headed for the one refuge he had known for some time now.
Malise, wiping his mouth and aware that he was covered in blood and guts and shit, sidled out of the alley and along the fringes of the howling maelstrom that was now Ironmonger Lane; somewhere in there, he thought to himself with a grim, hot glow of malevolent satisfaction, was Kirkpatrick another second and I would have had him, liver and lights.
Reminded of his lost dagger, he instinctively looked down and round for it then caught sight of a familiar figure.
Lamprecht, hands tucked under each armpit. Headed for Old Jewry, Malise thought. The little shit, putting him to all this trouble.
Kirkpatrick was still on Lamprechts trail. He had not drowned in the writhing, sodden spill of animal entrails, but fought out from it with his dagger still in his fist, surfacing like a breaching whale into the rat-eyed stare of a thief stuffing offal in his jerkin before darting off.
Kirkpatrick hid the dagger, skated his way across the slip-sliding cobbles between the struggling, bellowing fighters. He ducked a swung fist, half-skidded on the slimed cobbles past a shrieking harridan and was out of the struggle, moving swiftly along the side of buildings, then up an alley in the wake of the hurrying Malise. Old Jewry, he thought. They are headed for Old Jewry.
Old Jewry was a sinister place, abandoned a decade before when Longshanks had expelled the Hebrews from England, immediately plundered and now left to the rats and the rain and the wind. Houses, boarded up when their owners fled, had been ripped open like treasure kists, though they found precious little of worth left from a people too used to fleeing in a hurry with all that was worth taking.
Old Jewry was a sinister place, abandoned a decade before when Longshanks had expelled the Hebrews from England, immediately plundered and now left to the rats and the rain and the wind. Houses, boarded up when their owners fled, had been ripped open like treasure kists, though they found precious little of worth left from a people too used to fleeing in a hurry with all that was worth taking.
A few folk had moved in, the desperate poor who preferred to shiver from fear of what heathen devilry still lurked in the shells of Jew houses than from the cold and wet of no shelter at all.
At the end closest to the lane, where the houses huddled round St Olaves like children round a mothers skirts, a few Lombard goldsmiths had moved in. They were the unlucky spill of Longshanks generous invite, who came too late to reap the benefits of the fine houses along the Street of Lombards and were now trying to raise the status of Old Jewry by donating generously to St Olaves.
The old church had been there forever, Kirkpatrick knew, a refuge for Norwegians who came to the City he knew this because the Bruces relations used it. He frowned, for the tall ragstoned edifice was where Malise was headed, sure as a night ship to a beacon.
Old Jewry in daylight was bad enough, Kirkpatrick thought as he crabbed up the overgrown street, with the gaping doorways leering at him and the half-splintered window shutters seeming to glare balefully, like injured eyes. At night, it would be a place of horrors, real and imagined, and he was glad to reach the sanctuary of St Olaves, sliding through the open doorway into the dim and cool illusion of safety, all balm to his sweating fear.
Voices. He paused, feeling the sweat slide down his back, but he forced himself to speak when he saw the owners of the voices a priest in black habit and scapular, tall, gaunt and angular, arguing with a white-haired, red-faced man in paint-stained tunic and hose which an apron, as riotously daubed as Josephs Coat, had failed to protect.
Ho, Kirkpatrick hoarsed out and both men whirled, startled.
Is this some alehouse? The red-faced man thundered, staring accusingly at Kirkpatrick, where folk can rush in and out as they please?
There is a riot in Ironmonger Lane, the priest said gently, adding woefully, again.
Have folk come in here? Kirkpatrick demanded in a rasp even he did not like. A scuttling little man followed by another, black and spider-like?
The priest looked him over and Kirkpatrick felt a spasm of irritation at how he must look; it had been bad enough when he was disguised as a beggar, in sackcloth hood and torn old clothes which stank of the cabbage smell you get from marinading in your own farts. Now he was slathered with fluids and watery blood and grease, so he realized he was unlikely to get reasonable treatment the red-faced man confirmed it.
Who the Devil are you, sirra? he demanded truculently, but the priest held up one placating hand for he had heard the voice, at odds with a beggars look. No whine or deference in it on the contrary, it had the tone and timbre of command so the priest stepped carefully.
Ekarius came in. Another followed him, asking after him as you have done.
Who is Ekarius? demanded Kirkpatrick and the red-faced man elbowed the priest aside.
My assistant and who are you?
Assistant what? answered Kirkpatrick and the red-faced man went purple, drew some of the fat from his belly to his chest and puffed up like a pigeon.
I am William of Thanet, Master artist, he bellowed. I will not ask again
Neither will I.
Kirkpatrick showed him the dagger; even at six feet of distance it pricked a hole in the mans pompous bluster and he sagged and sputtered. The priest made the sign of the cross and said: Christ be praised.
For ever and ever, Kirkpatrick answered, then jerked the dagger meaningfully.
Ekarius mixes paints for Master William, the priest answered quickly and the dumbed William nodded furious agreement.
Little man, speaks strangely, says he is a pilgrim from the Holy Land?
As to that last, my son, I could not say, the priest declared and William of Thanet found his voice.
From Cologne, he spluttered. He has seen the church of St Maria Lyskirchen, as have I he can recall some of the frescoes and is helping me recreate them here
He waved and Kirkpatrick saw, for the first time, the great, intricate webbing of scaffold clawing up two of the walls, half masking Christ in His Glory and The Last Supper. Cologne well, that fitted at least Ekarius was almost certainly Lamprecht.
Can he paint? Kirkpatrick asked, bemused and William of Thanet exploded.
Christ in Heaven, no he simply recalls figures and positions I have forgotten. I let him limewash, mind you. When he is not darting around
Where is he now?
Both men pointed upwards.
He has made a nest up there, snorted William. Like a squirrel.
Kirkpatrick looked up, then back at the men.
It would be best, he said, if you went about your business elsewhere for the moment.
It would be best, the priest answered firmly, if you were to hand me that dagger and kneel in prayer.
William of Thanet knew that was not about to happen and dragged the priest away. At a safe distance they would run and fetch a bailiff if they could find one in all the ructions and if they could find one willing to enter Old Jewry even in daylight.
Kirkpatrick found the way to the net of lashed poles, a series of slatted wooden rungs with ropes hung on either side as handholds; when he looked up, the edifice towered above him, the height of a good castle wall and, to his left, another scaffolding dappled the half-finished Annunciation with light. He bounced a little, testing the first rung and swallowed a dry spear in his throat as the entire cats cradle of wood swayed alarmingly.
Sixty feet above Malise felt it just as he closed in on the whimpering Lamprecht, who was huddled in the darkest corner among pots of limewash and long brushes; the stink of paint and flax seed oil caught his throat and stung his eyes so that his frayed nerves sprang to a temper he had to fight to control.
Lamprecht, you stinking little goniel erse o a hoor slip
Lamprecht heard the voice and found some rat courage.
Non aver di te paura, malvoglio. Tocomo er tutto lo mondo fendoto
Malise cursed; he had no idea what Lamprecht was saying, but he heard the shrill, desperate threat in the voice and swallowed his ire until it all but choked him.
Lamprecht, he said soothingly in French, which he knew the little rat understood. Listen to me I am here to help you
You come to kill. Everyone she wishes to kill Lamprecht. Fater unser, thu in himilom bist
Malise heard the whine of him, heard also the descent into muttered German. Then he felt the sway of the platform and knew at once what had caused it.
Oaf, he hissed. Unhalesome capernicous gowk
He caught himself again, forced French between the grind of his teeth.
Who is my master, imbecile? The Comyn Earl of Buchan, kin to the Comyn Lord of Badenoch and both of them seeking only to reward you for what you know. Why in the name of God and all His angels would I wish you harm? I wish only to keep you safe from the imps of Satan that the Earl of Carrick has set on your trail.