A Conspiracy of Violence

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Sleet pattered wetly on the dung-coated cobbles outside Lincoln’s Inn, and the biting wind had long-since blown out the lamp that swung above the gate. The night was so dark that it was difficult even to make out the craggy outlines of the chimneys and turrets that topped the ancient walls, and the sturdy gate was no more than a looming mass of black.

Thomas Chaloner eased farther inside the doorway of the Rolls Chapel, invisible in his black cloak and the blacker shadows. It was bitterly cold, and his hands and feet were numb from standing still so long, but he was used to that kind of discomfort. Observing the movements of others while remaining unseen was how he made his living, because Chaloner was a government spy. Or rather, he had been a government spy. He had been dismissed in March, and his situation was fast becoming desperate – he owed rent to his landlord, there was no food in the larder and even his best clothes were beginning to look hopelessly tatty. And that was why he was lurking outside Lincoln’s Inn on an icy December morning, waiting for dawn and the interview that might be his salvation.

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