'Down, matey, down,' he said firmly. Chancery calmed at once, dropping to his feet again. He stood trembling; I was shaking too.

'All right?' Barak asked.

'Yes.' I gulped. 'Yes. Thank you.'

'God's death, the dust.' The powdery cloud, filled with the acrid tang of gunpowder, swirled round us and in a moment my robe and Barak's doublet were spotted with grey. 'Come on, let's get out of this.'

'I'm sorry, sirs,' the workman called after us anxiously.

'So you should be! Arsehole!' Barak called over his shoulder.

We turned up Chancery Lane, the horses still nervous and troubled by the heat and flies. I was perspiring freely but Barak seemed quite cool. I was reluctantly grateful to him; but for his quick action I could have had a bad fall.

I looked longingly for a moment at the familiar Lincoln's Inn gatehouse as Barak led the way through the gate of the Rolls House directly opposite. At the centre of a complex of houses stood a large, solidly built church. A guard in the yellow and blue quarters of Cromwell's livery stood outside the door with a pike. Barak nodded to him and the man bowed and snapped his fingers for a boy to lead our horses away.

Barak pushed open the heavy door of the church and we stepped in. Rolls of parchment bound in red tape lay everywhere, stacked against the walls with their faded paintings of biblical scenes and piled up along the pews. Here and there a black-robed law clerk stood picking among them, seeking precedents. More clerks waited in a queue beside the door to the Six Clerks' Office, seeking writs or dates for hearings.

I had never visited the office, for on the rare occasions I did have a case on in Chancery I would send a clerk to deal with the notoriously lengthy paperwork. I stared at the endless rolls. Barak followed my gaze.

'The ghosts of the old Jews have poor reading,' he said. 'Come on, through here.' He led me towards a walled-off side chapel; another guard in bright livery stood outside the door. Did Cromwell take armed guards everywhere nowadays? I wondered. Barak knocked softly and entered. I took a deep breath as I followed him, for my heart was thumping powerfully against my ribs.

The wall paintings of the side chapel had been white-washed over, for Thomas Cromwell hated idolatrous decoration. The chapel had been converted into a large office, with cupboards against the walls and chairs drawn up before an imposing desk lit incongruously by a stained-glass window above. There was no one behind it; Cromwell was not there. In a corner, behind a smaller desk, sat a short, black-robed figure I knew: Edwin Grey, Lord Cromwell's secretary. He had been at Cromwell's side for fifteen years, since the time the earl had worked for Wolsey. When I was in favour I had had much legal business through him. Grey rose and bowed to us. His round, pink face under the thinning grey hair was anxious.

He shook my hand; the fingers of his own were black from years of ink. He nodded at Barak; I caught distaste in his look.

'Master Shardlake. How do you fare, sir? It has been a long time.'

'Well enough, Master Grey. And you?'

'Well enough, given the times. The earl had to deal with a message, he will be back in a moment.'

'How is he?' I ventured.

Grey hesitated. 'You will see.' He turned abruptly as the door was thrown open and Thomas Cromwell strode into the room. My old master's heavy features were frowning, but at the sight of me he smiled broadly. I bowed low.

'Matthew, Matthew!' Cromwell said enthusiastically. He shook my hand with his powerful grip, then went and sat behind his desk. I studied him. He was dressed soberly in a black gown, though the Order of the Garter awarded to him by the king swung from his dark blue doublet. Looking at his face, I was shocked by the change in his appearance since I last saw him three years before. His hair was far greyer, and his strong, coarse features seemed pulled tight with strain and anxiety.

'Well, Matthew,' he said, 'how are you? Your practice prospers?'

I hesitated, thinking of my lost cases. 'Well enough, thank you, my lord.'

'What's that on your robe? It's on your doublet too, Jack.'

'Dust, my lord,' Barak replied. 'They're bringing down the Whiteys' chapter house and nearly brought us down with it.'

Cromwell laughed, then gave Barak a sharp look. 'Is it done?'

'Ay, my lord. Forbizer gave no trouble.'

'I knew he wouldn't.' Cromwell turned back to me. 'I was interested to learn of your involvement in the Wentworth case, Matthew. It occurred to me then we might be of help to each other for old times' sake.' He smiled again. I wondered uneasily how he had heard; but he had eyes and ears everywhere and certainly at Lincoln's Inn.

'I am most grateful, my lord,' I said carefully.

He smiled wryly. 'These little crusades of yours, Matthew. The girl's life matters to you?'

'Ay, it does.' I realized that these past days I had thought of little but Elizabeth's case. I wondered why for a moment. It was something to do with her wounded helplessness, lying there in that filthy Newgate straw. If Cromwell wished to use her life as a rope to bind me to him, he had chosen well.

'I believe she is innocent, my lord.'

He waved a beringed hand. 'I'm not concerned with that,' he said bluntly. He fixed me with a serious look; once again I felt the power of those dark eyes. 'I need your help, Matthew. It's an important matter, and secret. The bargain is I'll keep the girl alive for twelve days. We have only that for my task. Less than a fortnight.' He nodded abruptly. 'Sit down.'

I did as bidden. Barak went and stood against the wall, folding his hands across a large gold-coloured codpiece. Glancing at Cromwell's desk, I saw among the papers a miniature painting in a tiny silver frame, an exquisite portrait of the head and shoulders of a woman. Following my gaze, Cromwell frowned and turned it over. He nodded to Barak.

'Jack's a trusted servant. He's one of only eight that know this story, including myself and Grey here and his majesty the king.' My eyes widened at that name. I still held my cap, which I had removed on entering the church, and involuntarily began twisting it in my hands.

'One of the other five is an old acquaintance of yours.' Cromwell smiled again, cynically. 'It's not a matter to irk your conscience this time – you needn't crush your cap into a rag.' He leaned back and shook his head indulgently. 'I was impatient with you over Scarnsea, Matthew. I saw that later. None of us could have known how complex that affair would turn out. I have always admired your mind, your skills at teasing out the truth in men's affairs. Ever since the old days when we were all young reformers. Do you remember?' He smiled, but then a shadow crossed his face. 'Days with more hope and less care.' He sat silent for a moment and I thought of the rumours of his troubles over the Cleves marriage.

'May I ask who this old acquaintance is, my lord?' I ventured.

He nodded. 'You remember Michael Gristwood?'

Lincoln's Inn is a small world. 'Gristwood the attorney, who used to work for Stephen Bealknap?'

'The same.'

I remembered a small, scurrying fellow, with bright sharp eyes. Gristwood had once been friendly with Bealknap and, like him, forever on the lookout for new money-making schemes. But he had none of Bealknap's calculating coldness and his schemes never came to anything. I remembered he had once come to me for help in a property case he had taken on. A mere unqualified solicitor, he had got hopelessly out of his depth. The case was in a dreadful tangle, and he had been fulsomely grateful for my help. He had bought me a dinner in hall, where I had listened, half-amused, as he offered to involve me in a number of hare-brained schemes by way of thanks.

'He had a falling out of some sort with Bealknap,' I said. 'He hasn't been around Lincoln's Inn a long time. Didn't he go to work for the Court of Augmentations?'