Fire

by C. C. Humphreys

  They picked their way across, their feet burning on the heated wood. The room was only a shell, its walls standing but its roof fallen in and windows melted.

  Coke sank down. There’d been some crazy hope in him that Sarah might be where last she was seen. Now, in the ruins of a prison, he began to weep. ‘What did she do here, Sarah? How did she live?’

  Dickon stepped close, hovering a hand over his guardian’s shoulder, finally letting it drop. Pitman looked where the Knight’s side had stood. Where he had come into a room and seen Sarah lying on a table between two men. It was nothing a husband ever need have in his mind’s eye. ‘She lived,’ he said fiercely, ‘for herself and for the soul she carried. I warrant she lives still. Look, Captain, there are no bodies here. We’d see what’s left of ’em, if there were. Trust me, for I’ve seen plenty. They got out before this place went up.’

  ‘But where to?’ Coke wiped his nose. ‘Would they have been moved to another prison?’

  ‘Mayhap. But the rats who ran this place would have put their own safety before their wards. She may be both safe and free.’

  ‘And with child? How close was she to her time?’

  Pitman sucked in air. ‘Bettina says as close as she herself.’

  ‘So she could be fleeing with a babe in arms?’ He rose. ‘I will seek until I find them.’

  ‘Captain,’ Pitman stepped nearer, ‘I would help but I fear the flames will overtake even my home soon and I must get my flock to safer ground.’

  ‘Is there any?’

  ‘Aye. The first place you should look: Moorfields. It’s open ground, where nothing can burn. Most of the city has fled there.’

  ‘Moorfields? Where we lay in a plague pit, you and I?’

  ‘Yes.’ A vision of their escape from Newgate prison the year before disguised as plague victims, of lying among the truly dead and rotting, made him shudder again. ‘Yet if we can be resurrected, so can your loves. Good fortune.’

  ‘And you.’ Coke took a step away, Dickon following, then halted. ‘I have survived so much to get here. I will find her.’ He nodded. ‘But if I do, that does not stop the evil that may be abroad in the town. I made a promise to the king to return to fight it. Shall we join again in partnership, Pitman? Thief-taker and thief united to the thwarting of our old foes, the Fifth Monarchy men?’

  ‘We shall. So we will need a rendezvous.’ Pitman narrowed his eyes. ‘I cannot think that any fire will reach as far as St Paul’s and even if it does, God and man will work its utmost to halt it there. Let us meet in its churchyard, if we are able, on the morrow at this same time.’

  Coke stretched out a hand. ‘A deal made.’

  Pitman took his hand and held it. Dickon stepped back and laid one of his on top of those joined. Then, with a nod, they parted.

  Blackfriars. Midnight

  As he pushed his way back into the city across the Fleet Bridge, through the fleeing hordes, Simeon Critchollow was smiling. ‘It is all according to your plan, Lord,’ he murmured, feeling the heat as if he was before a bonfire on a Sabbath night. London is the bonfire, he thought, and the Sabbath gives way to Christ’s imminent return.

  Beside him, Daniel was silent. He’d complained when his master had ordered him to leave their good work in the parishes – rousing the godly, spreading word and flame – for the cause of worldly goods. ‘What will puppets matter in the New Jerusalem?’ he’d muttered, even as he lifted the bulky wooden boxes and carried them down the stairs.

  Simeon had no need to answer: his word was law. But as the fire had drawn ever nearer their lodgings in Carter Lane, the thought of Punchinello and his crew turned to ashes irked him. Though the Saints foresaw a world of the righteous, they could only see some of what that world would contain. King Jesus, returned in the flesh to judge them, would resolve it all. Was it not possible that he would decree a place for every man’s skills? For the shepherd, the smith, the tanner? The puppeteer?

  His companions were safe now, at a brother’s house beyond the Fleet – and he was free to continue the good work. Across the narrow bridge, they entered straight into the narrow wynds of the liberty of Blackfriars, making their way through the ever-present smoke to the Devil’s Tavern, rendezvous for more mischief. It was full – from the squalid tenements the populace had come to ransack the inn’s cellars. As venial a mob as ever came out of those sinful streets, they were fuel for the Saints’ fire.

  A renowned liberty slattern was up on a table haranguing the crowd. ‘It’s the fucking Dutch what done it!’ Mad Moll yelled. ‘Fifty thousand Hogens landed at Tilbury yester’morn and they fired the Tower.’ A great yell rose at this, so she screamed louder. ‘They’ve come to take our freedom. And they’re being helped by all those they sent afore, who’ve taken all our jobs. The weavers, the brewers –’

  ‘The whores!’ someone shouted, to huge laughter.

  ‘Aye, the whores too!’ rejoined Moll. ‘All poxed, they infect our brave boys.’

  ‘Aye,’ cried many there, the signs of their own poxing clear in rotted noses and scragged lips.

  Many voices rose. Simeon spotted Brothers Tremlett and the huge brewer, Hopkinson, across the room and weaved his way through to join them. ‘We needed to do little,’ the builder said, inverting his tankard from which only drops ran. ‘They’ve drunk all the beer.’

  ‘This heat will only add to their thirst. And I saw something outside to slake it.’ Simeon leaned into Tremlett and whispered. The builder nodded, picked up a lit lantern and went out of the tavern’s rear door.

  Simeon stood back, listening to the mob’s growing fury. After just a few minutes, Tremlett came back and nodded. He was still carrying the lantern – but its flame no longer burned. The puppeteer pulled Hopkinson’s arm, and the big man leaned down to listen. Nodding, he stood straight and lifted his musket – many there carried them – above his head.

  ‘Loyal countrymen,’ the brewer bellowed, his deep voice quieting the crowd, ‘one of them poxy foreigners is outside, e’en now. Worked ’is evil, ’e ’as, and is trying to make ’is escape. Out upon ’im, I say!’

  ‘Out upon ’im!’ cried the crowd in one voice. They streamed from the ravaged alehouse and the Saints followed.

  The mob easily spotted Simeon’s next target. ‘Tinder,’ he said, as they caught up.

  ‘You think this is tinder?’ laughed Samuel Tremlett. ‘You should see what he had stacked up in the back of his shop.’

  The wine merchant stood on the box of his wagon, trying to steady the two horses in the traces, who fussed and jerked as the crowd swarmed around them.

  Moll mounted a crate. ‘Where you from, sweetheart?’ she called to the man with the reins.

  ‘I am from ’ere. You know me. I work ’ere all my life.’

  From the moment he opened his mouth, and foreign sounds came out, people were growling. ‘ ’E’s fucking Dutch,’ someone cried, others immediately echoing. ‘Dutch!’

  ‘Non! No, I am French. French!’ he shouted.

  ‘Also our enemy!’ screamed Moll. ‘ ’E’s going to burn the town down.’

  Simeon tapped Tremlett’s arm. The builder stepped forward. ‘Moll’s right,’ he shouted. ‘Look at his store. Look what he’s left us.’

  All looked – at the smoke seeping from gaps in the windows. One man ran forward and opened the door – and more smoke gushed out.

  ‘ ’E’s fired it! Frenchie’s fired ’is house!’

  ‘No, I did not do this. I save my wine –’

  He got no further. ‘Wine!’ yelled most there, swarming the wagon, its body stuffed with casks. The Frenchman was knocked down and pinioned in a rush of bodies.

  ‘ ’Ang ’im!’ Moll screeched above the roar and some heeded her, dragging him off the wagon, while others rolled barrels off it and stoved in their lids, dipping tankards borne from the inn.

  ‘Hey! Hey! There’s sugar over ’ere,’ a woman shouted from an open door opposite. Immediately, others broke those doo
rs down too, rolling out sugar casks and smashing them open. Men and women seized great handfuls, dropping it into their wine. If they never had the coin to drink the sweet sack beloved of the wealthy, today they tasted something near the same.

  Someone had found rope. One man used some to bind the Frenchman, another to plait him a noose. Moll, swaying upon her perch, her lips rimed in sugar, yelled, ‘ ’Ang ’im! ‘Ang ’im.’

  ‘ ’Ang ’im! ’Ang ’im! ’Ang ’im,’ screamed the mob. The rope was thrown over a crane spar in front of the Frenchman’s warehouse. He was hoisted back onto the wagon, the noose placed around his neck.

  ‘ ’Ang ’im! ’Ang ’im! ’Ang ’im!’

  The explosion made everyone duck, cry out. Simeon recognised the savour that had filled his nostrils on a dozen battlefields. And he saw, through the smoke, the men who had discharged the volley. They wore the red coats of the King’s Life Guards. Mounted on a horse behind the double rank of twenty was the Duke of York.

  ‘What mischief make you here?’ James cried into the shocked silence. ‘Who is the man you assault? Seize him.’

  A sergeant and two of his men pushed roughly through the crowd, mounted the wagon and grabbed the wine merchant. As they pulled the noose from his neck and turned to take him back, the mob found its voice again.

  ‘ ’E’s a Frenchie!’

  ‘They’ve invaded,’ others cried. ‘They’ve burned London.’ They began to jostle the soldiers, impeding them as they descended and tried to return to their ranks.

  ‘ ’Ang ’im,’ Moll screeched again.

  ‘ ’Ang ’im! ’Ang ’im! ’Ang ’im!’

  Another shot sounded now – but from a single gun, a pistol which the duke lowered as he shouted, ‘The fire is an accident. No Frenchman, nor Dutchman is involved.’ Under the cover of the shot, the soldiers forced their way back to their comrades. ‘Help defend your homes from the real enemy – the fire. There’s a post set up on Ludgate Hill. Report there. Aid your king. Your country. Your city.’ He shoved his pistol back into its saddle holster. ‘And let us pass.’

  The soldiers began to march, the mob giving way before them, many jeering, some spitting on the weeping Frenchman. Behind him in the doorway, Simeon heard a stirring. He turned. ‘Open the back door so we can escape,’ whispered Hopkinson, pulling back his hammer to full cock, shouldering his musket, taking his stance, ‘for I’m going to kill me a duke.’

  ‘No.’ Simeon placed a forearm underneath the barrel and lifted it up. ‘He is a capon. We want the cockerel.’ With a grunt, the man uncocked and lowered his musket. Simeon continued, ‘This is our time, comrades. As the fire spreads – as we aid in its spreading – the king cannot help but return to try and save his capital. We will be waiting. We will have both Stuarts at our barrels’ end – and end the Fourth Monarchy with two righteous shots.’

  He looked out – James was passing, so close he could have prodded him with a stick. ‘And for that glorious moment I would we had Captain Blood.’ He turned to the Saints beside him. ‘Separate and seek again at his haunts – those that have not burned. Tell him if you find him, to meet –’ He tipped back his head. A great bell was tolling nearby, and though its peal was rung backwards, like all in the city during the conflagration, its tone was one every Londoner knew well. ‘Tell him to meet tomorrow between six and eight bells in the churchyard of St Paul’s.’

  —

  The Guildhall crypt. 4th September, 10 a.m.

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘You must.’ Jenny bent again, placing a hand under Sarah’s elbow. ‘One, two –’

  She tried, as she had a half dozen times before. As with each previous attempt, her knees locked for a moment and she thought that she could do it. Again, though, when she tried a step, her legs failed and she sank down, only Jenny’s strength preventing her from tumbling onto the crypt floor. ‘It is no good,’ she said, flopping back. ‘I used all my strength getting here. I am not leaving this place.’

  ‘Then we’re not, neither,’ said Jenny. ‘Come, Mary.’ She reached to her daughter waiting near the stairs that led up to the main hall. ‘We’ll bide a while yet till Sar’s strong again.’

  ‘You will not!’ Though she had no strength in her legs, she had some still in her voice. ‘We talked of this. How the fire comes ever closer. How we must leave.’

  ‘Yes, we must.’

  ‘I cannot,’ Sarah said again. ‘Look,’ she gestured about her. ‘Almost everyone has already gone.’

  ‘Not all. Some still think these stones might resist it.’

  ‘Only those who have no choice.’ Sarah nodded at those around them. The crypt had been jammed with hundreds not an hour since. Now there were scarce a dozen souls remaining – and all those were old or crippled. ‘Yet the Guildhall stones might hold,’ she continued, letting her voice brighten. ‘So I am better off here than falling down a hundred yards away in the open.’ She reached out, took her friend’s hand and squeezed it. ‘You have to take the chance. And before the chance is gone.’

  Jenny looked down to the box beside Sarah. It was lined with the books, the parchment rolls and the sheaves of paper for which the crypt was a repository. They had made a suitable bed for the babe who slept soundly amongst them. ‘And you still think to –?’ she said, her lower lip trembling.

  ‘Yes.’ Sarah kept her voice steady. You are an actress, she thought, bloody well act. ‘I cannot let him take his mother’s risk. Not when he has a godmother willing to carry him.’

  Still Jenny did not move. ‘But you promise me – you’ll follow on?’

  ‘As soon as the fire passes by, and I am able.’

  ‘It’s still madness outside.’ Jenny tipped her head to the roar outside. ‘Moorfields is closest but there may be no space there. I’ve a sister in Hampstead. Lives with the landlord of the Spaniards Inn!’

  So far! Sarah thought, the village in the country five miles away. But she did not say anything, only nodded.

  ‘Be safer there. Food too. But I’ll not stop there long,’ continued Jenny. ‘Don’t like my sister, we always fall to quarrelling. Was a whore, found God, forever nagging me about the trade.’ She sniffed. ‘I’ll come back, soon as it is safe. But who will take the mite if’n –’ She flushed, as red as her hair, ‘if’n you don’t come for, ah, for a few days, like.’

  If I don’t come at all, is what she’s saying, Sarah thought. Who indeed? She had no family by blood, beyond a few cousins in St Giles, and she would not send her son to that cesspit nor into their care. Yet she did have another family, one she’d chosen. ‘Take him to the playhouse. Ask for Mary Sanderson – no, Mary Betterton now. If it’s burnt out, they will return – and it is where the captain will seek me, I suspect, if…when he returns.’ Sarah reached and lifted the baby from his cot. He felt so heavy, though she knew that he was not. ‘Please. Take him now.’

  Jenny did not reply. And in her silence the noises came loud from outside – the crazily pealing bells, the distant cries of ‘Hi! Hi! Hi!’ that showed that someone at least was still trying to fight the inferno. Above them all they heard the beast-like roar that had filled every citizen’s ear since dawn two days before. Flames devouring a city. Getting closer. ‘I beg you, Jenny, before I –’ She broke off.

  ‘Very well,’ her friend said, stooping to snatch up the child, so firmly that he woke. Immediately he began to wail.

  ‘Hush now,’ said Sarah, taking the little waving hand in hers. ‘Hush.’

  Jenny pulled him free, her mouth set in a line, and began to gather what they’d taken from the Compter and the shops near it, and what they’d picked up along the way. It took but moments and too soon she was finished. She turned back, and Sarah could see her tears. She knew she must not yield and join her in them. Not yet. ‘Here,’ she said, reaching up, and Jenny stooped, bringing the baby’s face level with hers. ‘Fare thee well,’ Sarah whispered, running her fingers down the silken skin of his forehead. ‘Remember me.’ Then she sh
oved the child away. ‘Go. May God keep you. May God keep you all.’

  ‘Amen.’ Jenny crossed herself fervently. Then, slipping the baby into the sling that Sarah had fashioned, setting it upon her back, seizing her one bag and her daughter’s hand, she strode to the stairs.

  A moment more, Sarah thought, watching her child wriggling in his cloth prison. One moment more.

  Yet they did not disappear. Jenny stopped halfway up the stair. ‘Have you a name for the mite yet?’ she called.

  She hadn’t, for she’d believed the parting she feared must come would be harder if she had to say his name. Now she knew she was wrong – for nothing could be harder than this. ‘William,’ she replied, her voice still strong. ‘His name is William Coke.’

  ‘William,’ echoed Jenny. She nodded and left, leaving Sarah at last able to sink down and weep her fill.

  —

  Moorfields. 10.30 a.m.

  William Coke woke from a dream of fire, to fire. He jerked suddenly – no gentle waking for him – reaching all around, for whatever was lost to the dream. His hands hit Dickon, with whom he’d been entwined, but the boy just grunted, turned his back and slept on, leaving Coke to rub his eyes clear, allowing him to see – at first not the terrible scene spread out before him upon Moorfields, but the one beyond it, over the city wall.

  ‘Holy Christ, does the whole of London burn now?’ he gasped.

  ‘Nearly all. But that occasions no need to take the Lord’s name in vain.’

  Coke took his gaze from the fire that appeared to reach right up and unite with the smoke clouds it formed across the width of London, and looked on the man who’d spoken – a portly, dog-collared rector, his back against a cart, his arms wrapped about a woman and a girl who slept.

  Coke came up onto his knees, his head still wrapped in dream and exhaustion. ‘What time is it?’ he muttered.

  The man pulled out a watch. ‘Half past ten o’clock.’