who are Rules?’
Chelling smiled, comfortably superior. ‘Clearly you were not bred to the legal profession,’ he said with a touch of pity. ‘In this Inn, there are twelve Rules under the Principal. Sometimes we call them the Ancients. They form the council that administers the affairs of the Society according to our statutes, as laid down by our honoured Founder.’
‘But your members are all lawyers, I take it – like those of the Temple, for example, or Lincoln’s Inn.’
‘The case is not quite identical, sir. We enjoy a different status. We are an Inn of Chancery, whereas such places as the Temple and Lincoln’s Inn are Inns of Court. In times past, our members were attorneys and solicitors who followed the Courts of the King’s Bench or Common Pleas. Or they were young gentlemen from the universities or from our grammar schools, who came here to gain a grounding in the law before moving to one of the Inns of Court. And it is the Rules who decide who shall enter our fellowship, and who shall be admitted to a set of chambers within the Inn. We—’
‘So Mr Gromwell is a lawyer?’ I cut in.
Chelling puffed out his cheeks. ‘I should hardly call him a lawyer.’ He paused to drink more wine. ‘One can hardly call him anything that’s worth the name. True, as a young man, he was admitted to the Society, so he may have some scraps of legal knowledge, but that’s all … He’s a man of fits and starts and idle fancies. He tried the law, and failed in that. He calls himself an antiquary, which means he fiddles about among dusty old papers and grubs about in ruined places and preys on the generosity of his friends.’
‘If he’s no lawyer, why is he here?’
‘A 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
