Excerpt from The Invention of Fire by Bruce Holsinger, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Yet such conflicts are indispensable to my peculiar vocation. Nicholas Brembre was a difficult man, by all accounts, though I had never discovered anything on him, and John Gower is not one to enjoy ignorance. If I could nudge the chancellor the right way, then use what he gave me to do a favor to the mayor in turn, I would be in a position to gather ever more flowers from the Guildhall garden in the coming months.

I put a hand on Ralph Strode's wide back and helped him mount. He regarded me, his large nostrils flaring with his still-labored breaths.

"You will help, then?"

A slight bow to Strode and his horse. "Tell the lord mayor he may consider John Gower at his service."

He sucked in a cheek. "That I cannot do." He glanced about, then hunched down slightly in his saddle, lowering his voice. "Here is the difficult thing, John. The mayor has been stirred violently by this atrocity, yet despite his anger he seems reluctant to pursue the matter, for reasons I cannot discern. He's bribed off the coroner, discouraged the sheriffs from looking into things, and threatens anyone who mentions it. It was he who ordered me to oversee this quick burial, with quicker rites, and no consideration for the relations of the deceased, whoever they might be. Nor will he hear Norris out about his witness." Here Strode paused to look over his shoulder. Then, softly, "There are whispers he may have had evidence destroyed."

"What sort of evidence?"

"Who can say? The point is that Brembre has decided this will all be quashed, and no one has the stomach to gainsay him."

"What about the sheriffs and aldermen? Surely they would wish for an open inquiry."

He grimaced. "They are as geldings and maidens, when what's needed is a champion wielding a silent and invisible sword." Strode looked back toward the churchyard and the murmuring priest, then straightened himself. "That is why I have come to you. For your cunning ways with coin, your affinity with the rats, the devious beauty of your craft. And for your devotion to the right way, much as you like to hide your benevolent flame under a bushel of deceit. This atrocity has thrown you as much as it has thrown me, John. I can see it in your eyes."

I looked away, a sting in those weakening eyes. A friend is a second self, Cicero tells us, and knows us more intimately than we know ourselves.

"The mayor cannot learn you are probing this out for us, or it will be my broken nose fed to the pigs."

"I understand, Ralph," I said, looking appropriately solemn, yet secretly delighted to learn of the mayor's peculiar vacillations. A new bud of knowledge on a lengthening stem. "My lips shall be as the privy seal itself."

"Good then." With a brisk nod, Strode pulled a rein and made for Aldersgate. I followed him at a growing distance, watching his broad back shift over the animal's deliberate gait until man and beast alike faded into the walls, blurring with the stone.

Chapter 2

THE GATES OF LONDON are so many mouths of hell, Chaucer once observed, swallowing the sinful by the dozen, commingling them in the rich urban gruel of waste, crime, lust, and vice that flows down every lane. Yet each gate possesses a character and history uniquely its own: its own guards, residents, and prisoners, its own parish obligations, the particular customs and rituals that define every entrance to the inner wards as a small world unto itself. To know the gates of London is to know the truest pathways to the city's soul.

In those middle years of King Richard's reign the city gates were all connected by a series of towers, sentry walks, and repair scaffolds that together traced a wandering crescent around the lofty stone walls and provided the most efficient means of getting from gate to gate. You couldn't stroll along the inner wall down below given all the clearing and destruction, while skirting the outer circumference would land you in waste ditches and subject you to the streams of refuse and trash—some foul, some quite dangerous—hurled from above.

Excerpted from The Invention of Fire by Bruce Holsinger. Copyright © 2015 by Bruce Holsinger. Excerpted by permission of William Morrow. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.