A moment of relief, then all three were running again. Enemies needed time to reload or pick up another gun, time that Coke and Pitman ate in great strides to the door of the house. No other shot came, as they flung themselves each side of the entrance. A swift glance showed Coke a narrow entrance hall hung with gunsmoke, and a stair leading up to where a door now slammed.
‘The officer leads?’ offered Pitman, with a wave of his muzzle.
Coke took a deep breath, then ducked into the hall, pistol pointing up the stair. ‘ ’Tis clear,’ he called, and the others followed in. ‘There,’ said Coke, pointing his gun at the door. Muffled sounds came from behind it.
Pitman cocked an ear. What remained of his eyebrows rose. ‘Are they…praying?’
—
One of them was. And loading his pistol even as he testified.
‘ “And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and the power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.” ’
‘Brother Simeon!’
‘ “And the fifth angel –” No. No! “The seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying: It is done.” ’
‘Brother!’ Tremlett grabbed his arm. ‘The back window. We must flee.’
‘No!’ Simeon jerked free. ‘We do not leave here. We have no need.’ With his boot, he poked Daniel who crouched on the floor. ‘Cease your weeping, boy. Join me. Both of you. Raise up your voices in gladness.’ His eyes shone, in fervour, in reflected fire. ‘This is the time foretold. This is the apocalypse. Fire has scorched the world and King Jesus comes.’ He threw his arms wide. ‘It is done.’
‘It is –’ Daniel tried to rise, but fell back. ‘I can’t! I can’t.’
‘The roof’s afire,’ Tremlett called. They looked up, to the smoke streaming in. The builder moved to the back window and tried to open it. When it would not give, he kicked it out. ‘Come, brothers. There’s a way through here.’
‘The way is here!’ Simeon screamed. ‘Have you no faith?’
‘Stay if you want, you mad bastard,’ cried the builder, putting one leg across the sill. ‘But I want to live.’
‘And you shall, brother – forever,’ said Simeon and shot him.
Tremlett plunged from the window. ‘No! No! No!’ wept Daniel, curling up on the floor.
A voice came from beyond the door. ‘The house is afire,’ the man called. ‘We can get you out, if you come now.’
Simeon crouched, putting his arms around the weeping youth. ‘Shh! Shh! Daniel, hush. Hush!’ He rocked him. Smoke was fast filling the room and both coughed hard. ‘The kingdom of heaven is upon us. Enter into the New Jerusalem.’
‘No!’ screamed Daniel again, surging up. He was big, bigger than the man who held him, and he broke free, staggering to the door. ‘I am coming,’ he yelled through it. ‘Do not shoot me!’
‘Oh, ye of little faith,’ said Simeon sadly, lifting, aiming and pulling the trigger. But the pan flashed, nothing more. Jerking the door open, Daniel stepped out and tumbled down the stairs.
Simeon was up in a moment. Coughing hard, he stepped forward, kicked the door shut and staggered back to the table. Five boxes were in a row upon it. He slipped the lid off the top one.
His oldest friend was within, the one who’d never abandon him. ‘Eh! Eh! Eh!’ he croaked, lifting the battens, pulling Punchinello out by his strings. He held him standing, swaying upon the table. ‘Where’sa thata –’ he began. And then the roof fell in on top of him.
He was knocked down, but clutching his puppet to him, Simeon forced himself up, shaking off the beams that pressed in on him. Everything was burning now. He was burning.
But did not the martyrs burn for you, King Jesus? Will I not be raised up with them?
White agony took him. He did not know where he was. Somehow he was still upright. Somehow he was at the door. Somehow he remembered the words.
He was not sure if he had a tongue left with which to testify. But he spoke nonetheless. ‘ “And fire came down from God out of heaven…and devoured them!” ’
—
They had just got Daniel out onto the cobbles, Dickon sitting on him, when the door above crashed open and a fireball burst out. It rolled down the stairs, flames expanding as it came. There was another sound in the roar of it, some shriek from within. Leaping back, they could see shapes dissolving. For the briefest of moments, what was left of two faces showed – one with a great hooked nose, one with a nose smashed in and a scar above it. Then these turned into one, blended by fire.
The house was nearly gone. But the others beside it to the east had still not fully caught. No one had voice to call, nor need. There was only one path from the conflagration now, and they took it.
The water in the great tub had turned tepid, yet Sarah lingered. It was the coolest she’d been in – she could not remember how long. Since the fire, of course – and the Compter cell which had been ever hot, airless and rank with the odours of the inmates, herself included.
Mary Betterton had added essence of orange to the water and given her a rich soap to scrub herself. ‘It’s my husband’s own. Uses it to take his paint off after Othello. Comes all the way from Castile. Bergamot, or some such in it, he says.’ She’d giggled. ‘Wait till he catches a whiff of you. He’ll be furious.’
She had to get out soon, she knew. Not because of the water – for her baby. At the thought of him, she placed her hands on the tub’s sides, levered herself up and stood straight, letting the water run off her. She was a little stronger, but was it enough? It would have to be. In normal times, the walk to the outlying village would take four hours. But the times were not normal and neither was she. Yet she felt if she took it steady, she would make it, perhaps in twice that time. Set out at dawn, which could not be long away, and she’d be there by noon.
Hampstead. That’s where little William is, she thought. At that inn where Jenny’s sister lives. The more she’d considered it, the more convinced she’d become. All the reports from the open spaces beyond the walls were of terrible places, with little water, no food and scarce a yard of land to lie upon. But she knew Jenny from close acquaintance in the Poultry Compter. She would forever seek to improve the present situation. And she had the strength of a plough horse. She would have pushed on to where there was food, a bed, some comfort and in spite of a scolding sister. Two children to carry would have slowed her not a jot.
There were some linens to dry herself upon, hanging from pegs on the theatre’s bathhouse wall. As she rubbed herself dry, she realised that she felt clean for the first time in near three months and that it was truly a glorious thing.
There was a soft knock upon the door. Raising a sheet to cover herself, she called, ‘Mary? Is that you?’
‘Nay. ’Tis I.’
The voice, though muffled by wood, was his beyond any doubt. With a delighted cry, Sarah crossed to the door, unlatched it and opened it wide – onto a black apparition. ‘Well, Master Coke,’ she said, staring, ‘you are more a Moor than Betterton will ever be.’
His smile and his eyes were all that showed white in the blackness of his face. ‘Coke’s my name – and my colour, sure,’ he laughed, throwing his arms wide. From them soot fell, yet did little to diminish the amount that covered every part of his clothes and skin, blackening him from the crown of his head to his fingertips. ‘Yet, madam, I am sure if you try you can still find my lips somewhere in the dark. You always managed it at night.’
He stepped forward. She raised her hand, halting him. ‘Why, Captain, there is nothing I’d like more – had I not just rid myself of my own dirt.’ She dropped the hand. ‘And were other urgent matters not pressing us.’
He halted, his arms lowering. ‘The baby?’
‘Aye.’ She moved back into the room and lowered herself onto the tub’s edge. ‘We must go get him, William, as soon as there is light.’
‘Sarah, I thought we decided, that to s
earch on Moorfields –’
‘He is not there,’ she interrupted. ‘Ever since he was born I have had a – a sense of him. Even when he was not beside me.’
‘Then where is he?’
‘Hampstead.’
‘The village?’
‘Aye, or an inn near it, anyway. It is called the Spaniards.’ At his chuckle, she frowned and peered at him. ‘Do you know it?’
‘I should.’ Teeth shone again in the dark. ‘For I launched half a dozen robberies from its front parlour. Why there?’
‘That’s where Jenny has taken him. She has a sister there. I thought to set out with the light.’
‘Walking?’ He came closer. ‘Clean again you may be, my love, but are you also strong?’
‘No. But I warrant if I take it slow, I will make it now. My fellow players have fed as well as bathed me. I have even slept. And perhaps with your arm to support me?’
She reached out a hand to him and he took it, squeezing her fingers. ‘I think I can do better than that. My horse, Thunder, is in a stables not far from here, where the fire has not reached.’ He lifted her hand, kissed it, leaving a smoky oval imprint upon her skin. ‘Let me undertake this mission for you, Sarah. I can ride there and be back, with fortune, before noon.’ He smiled again. ‘With our child.’
‘Nay, sir. He will need me, need feeding and I –’ She shook her head. ‘I will not sit and wait. Can you hire an extra horse?’
‘Even had I the coin, every horse in London not privately owned has been conscripted to move goods away from the flames.’
‘Then I will ride with you. Thunder is huge –’
‘But will not be able to take a side saddle in addition to mine. And it’s a long way for you to ride before me.’
She thought a moment, then smiled. ‘I will not need a side saddle. There are advantages in this current fad in plays for women to be in breeches.’
‘Do you mean –?’
‘I will dress as a boy and ride behind you.’
Coke returned the smile. ‘Very well. Though we will make a sight, you and I. The comely clean youth and the –’ he indicated himself, ‘monster.’
‘Easily remedied, sir. There’s water here,’ she replied, her hand dipped to its surface. ‘And if it is not in its first cleanliness, marry, it is still much cleaner than you.’
‘Ha! Well, indeed. I would welcome the chance to bathe.’ He looked down. ‘But then to put on again these scorched and ragged things?’
‘Oh, I am sure that if the players can accommodate a boy, they can also dress a man.’
—
They set out with the light, tiptoeing past a snoring Dickon, a note left for him with Mary Betterton as to where they were going and when they hoped to return. If he woke, he would run beside the horse all the way to Hampstead. But Coke knew his ward was exhausted and needed his rest. He could have done with more himself, but at least after his bath he’d taken a couple of hours’ sleep and been woken at dawn by Sarah to ale, bread and cheese.
What a pair we make, thought Coke, as they walked, slow but steady, up to Holborn. Sarah had thought it best to fully assume the role of a youth, and had tucked her hair up under a hat, complete with green ostrich feather. The rest of her was soberly, if richly clad, in a chestnut jacket and breeches. Coke, however, had been given one of the few costumes that fitted his tall frame – a fop’s peach doublet with a superfluity of lemon lace. He had rejected the petticoat breeches that were the natural partner to the peach and had beaten the worst of the soot out of his own, much damaged pair. Mostly, though, these were covered in thigh boots, the only footwear that fitted him, his own shorter boots so encased in the melted lead from the roof of St Paul’s that it felt like walking in armour.
The street they passed along had not been caught up in the main conflagration, though many houses had been singed by wind-borne sparks, and a few stood in ruins, with men amidst the charred timbers, stamping out embers. The great fire was still present in distant explosions, where houses were being blown up to deny the fire growth. It was also there in the thick smoke cloud that hung not far above their heads.
‘The wind’s dropped,’ Coke said, pointing up, ‘otherwise all would not be so still above us. A blessing – for if God had kept plying his bellows, the flames would not have stopped till every house from Whitechapel to Westminster was burned.’
As they walked, he told her of events since they had parted – the pursuit of their main enemy and his flaming end. ‘I suppose he died thinking the Saints had got most of what they desired. An apocalypse indeed, though King Jesus has yet to appear. I think we would have heard of it if he had.’
‘And Pitman is certain these were the same foes who practised so against us?’ she asked. ‘Who got me into prison, and you into the arms of that houri?’
He stopped. ‘Sarah, I cannot tell you how foolish I feel. How sorry –’
‘Nay, William.’ She shushed him. ‘You were gallant, as ever. If there is a good flaw to have it must be that. I would not have you were it not for that flaw. I do not blame you. Does the thief-taker think we are clear of these Saints now?’
Coke began walking again. ‘We cannot be certain. One of those we pursued was certainly that bastard builder, Samuel Tremlett. The house we chased him into was destroyed and he must be dead. He may have heirs, though.’ He shrugged. ‘There’s also a certain Irish captain I’d hoped to meet again. He may not be about, or he may also be ashes now.’
They reached the stables, tucked behind Furnival’s Inn. The harassed owner, with horses to hire out, left Coke to the saddling and he helped himself to a thick blanket, double folded, for Sarah to perch on behind him and atop Thunder’s rump. Still, when he lifted her up and she straddled, he saw her wince in pain. ‘Are you certain?’
‘Certain, sir,’ she replied, taking a deep breath. ‘Come, let us go find our boy.’
He had ridden the route often, for some of the finest opportunities awaited a road knight somewhere along the Great North Road. Reasoning, however, that the areas directly above the city itself would be jammed with the displaced, he took them wide and by narrower ways to the village of Islington. This was as crammed with folk as if it was fair day; but there was no revelling, just several thousand who’d made it this far, camped in whichever space they could find, surrounded by whatever little they’d been able to save. At least the countryside around provided them with some food, and the inns were busy. Coke shuddered to think what people must be suffering closer to the walls, at Moorfields and Finsbury.
They made good speed along Holloway for Thunder had not been run out for a while – Coke could only bless his stars that one of the few things for which he’d provided before being snatched away was his horse’s care for some months ahead. The roads were still dry from the hottest of summers and the gelding took them at a pace.
The hill up to the village of Highgate taxed even him, so Coke reined in at the summit to let him drink. He helped Sarah down and as he led Thunder to the trough, she walked a few paces off to ease her cramped limbs. ‘Merciful Jesus,’ she said, her voice desolate.
He turned, and saw what she saw, gasping in his turn. Under a brown cloud that roofed the whole metropolis, fed by a thousand coiling columns, lay a devastated land. Fires still burned, though in isolated places now, the biggest around what Coke thought might be the Cripplegate. Mostly, though, the flames had gone out, for they had gorged on all they could and the wind that had so fanned them had died. Yet from the Tower in the east to halfway down Fleet Street in the west, from Moorgate in the city’s northern wall all the way to the Thames, lay a blackened wilderness. There were a few, a very few, buildings standing, churches or tradesmen’s halls that a trick of wind, a thicker stone, a caprice of flame had saved. But tens of thousands of structures were gone, from hovel to palace, tenement to tower. The very earth smoked, as if some vast marsh exhaled foul and noisome breath, curling up around the thousand steeples and chimneys that yet stood, though the
buildings they served were ash.
It was not his city, yet the sight saddened him. It was Sarah’s and she wept.
‘Come, love,’ he said, gently taking her arm.
He helped her up, mounted again in front of her, and clucked to Thunder to walk on. They rode along the hard-packed track from Highgate westwards, grateful that the trees of the encroaching heathland obscured all except that louring cloud.
Emerging from a copse of elm, at the top of the next rise, a whitewashed building stood.
‘The Spaniards,’ Coke called over his shoulder. He felt her hands, that had grasped him firmly the entire way, tighten to the point of pain.
They rode into the yard. Since it was a coaching inn there were various vehicles about, some so stuffed with goods that they must have come from the disaster. Sarah could hear the roar of people within the building as trade was being conducted. Coke dismounted ahead of her, reached up and helped her down. ‘Wait for me,’ he said, ‘while I see Thunder into the stables.’
‘I will go ahead,’ she replied.
The place she entered was indeed crammed with people, many of whom showed their status as refugees in mismatched clothes, smut-daubed faces and singed hair. A mix of peoples merged, lords and commoners united in the euphoria of survival. They gave way good-humouredly to her shoves as she passed through the crowd, her gaze seeking everywhere. She pushed up to the trestle, waving away the tankard that was thrust at her. ‘Jenny Johnson?’ she shouted. The man looked at her and for a moment she felt her heart thump. What if she was wrong? What if Jenny had not come? Then, to her joy, he raised his eyebrows to the ceiling directly above.
She found a narrow staircase. It led to a corridor of plaster walls, with half a dozen wooden doors along one side. ‘Jenny?’ she called, though her throat was suddenly weak and she had to clear it. ‘Jenny Johnson?’ she called louder.
A moment’s silence, then an oath from behind the door nearest her. Someone crossed within and the door was flung open. ‘Sarah!’ Jenny cried, pulling her friend into an embrace, smothering her in her bosom.
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