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Greer pushed two steps into the crowd when gasps filled the air.
“Watch out!” someone called. Lucy ducked. Greer spun back to her as a ball of fire flew over the crouched people.
Chapter Thirteen
“Fireballs purify the world by consuming evil and warding off witches and evilspirits.”
Pre-Christian theory from Clan.com
Asmall fireballflew toward them, and people scattered screaming. On London Bridge, with all the houses made of wood, a fireball was bloody dangerous.
“’Tis Hogmanay!” a man yelled as he staggered forward.
“Wait there,” Greer yelled over the noise and raced after the flaming ball. He stomped on it, his heavy boots breaking through the ball of peat. He kicked dirty snow onto the flames and several men stomped along the singe mark that the ball had left as a trail.
A tin whistle chirped out a warning as two men dressed in official livery ran toward the scene. “You, there!” one called at Greer. They both charged toward him as if he were the guilty party.
Greer left his sword sheathed. If he sliced one of the queen’s guards open, it would be difficult to continue his investigation. So he crossed his arms over his chest, his legs parted in a battle stance. People scurried to get out of the way, and faces appeared in all the windows lining the narrow path along the bridge.
“You could burn the whole bridge down with your filthy fireball, Scot.”
“It wasn’t his,” Lucy yelled, coming forward. Her usual smile was replaced by stern rebuke. “Master Buchanan was escorting me to purchase a gift for the queen. I am Lady Lucy Cranfield. The fool you should be apprehending is passed out next to the apothecary. And he isnota Scot.” Her stern words condemned the two men, calling them out as fools before the onlookers.
“Pardon, milady,” one of the guards said, his face taking on a reddish hue. “’Tis a Scottish tradition.”
“Which that inebriated Londoner apparently heard about,” she said, pointing back the way they’d come. Several other people mimicked her action, pointing toward the man slouched against the waddle and daub wall.
“’Tis a dangerous custom,” the second guard said, still glaring at Greer as he had created it.
“When done on a crowded bridge made of wood, aye,” Greer said. “Done in a gravel clearing at night, ’tis quite festive.”
The guards moved on to the man against the wall, and Lucy wove her arm through Greer’s. People resumed their business, gathering food and gifts for New Years. It was a slow-moving river of humanity. The tang of human bodies mixed with the smell of food and human waste, making Greer long for the open moors of Scotland.
“Have ye visited the countryside?” he asked Lucy.
“When the queen goes on progress, we travel with her. ’Tis much better smelling in the country.”
When they stepped off the bridge, Lucy tugged him toward a narrow, uncrowded street where the noise and press of people lessened to a tolerable level. “To the Bear’s Inn?” Lucy asked, tugging his arm before he could even answer.
“Maybe Jasper Lintel or the man on the bridge will be there,” he said, and they hurried along the narrow avenue, stepping around the filth that was dumped onto streets.Daingead. He preferred the cow shite in the fields to the open sewers in the cities. Lucy held her skirts aloft and they dodged puddles, snow, and shit. He couldn’t imagine the stink in the heat of the summer season.
The Bear’s Inn was quiet that early in the day, with one barkeep inside wiping the tables.
“Excuse me, Goodman,” Lucy said, walking forward with her sweet smile. The man stopped immediately to smile back, although it faded when he spotted Greer.
“We are looking for an employee of yours,” she said. “An Irishman named Jasper Lintel.”
The man’s face pinched in, and he rubbed his long beard. “Don’t know a man by that name.”
“He has a wife, both of them recently from Ireland,” Greer said, coming forward. “Said he served here.”
The barkeeper’s brow rose. “Then he lies. The only servers I hire are English, and there is no one by that name.”
Jasper Lintel, or whoever he was, had lied to Simmons and Mistress Wakefield. “Thank ye,” Greer said.
Lucy held a coin out for the man. “If you happen to hear of a Jasper Lintel, please send word to Lucy Cranfield up at Whitehall.”
They brushed by two rough men on their way out, both of them turning to inspect Lucy. Too closely. Greer sent them a fierce frown and slid his arm around Lucy’s shoulders.
