‘Who?’
‘What did you call him? Sourface? The one who’s trying to find you.’
Cat squeezed the handle of the knife. ‘I must go now.’
‘Listen, Jane, now we’re friends, why don’t you come out on the river with me this Sunday?’ Hope flared in Brennan’s face. ‘It’s different now, so can’t we—’
‘No,’ Cat said. ‘No, no, no.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The tide was on the turn, and the boatman had to pull hard to approach the shore. It was past ten o’clock in the evening when they approached the Savoy but the Thames was busy, with boats and barges moving in both directions. Most of them had their lanterns lit, and they bobbed like fireflies on the water.
Cat could be sure of this, if nothing else: it would be safer to approach from the river. Sourface had followed Marwood when they brought him back to the Savoy after the Clifford’s Inn fire. He had also been to Henrietta Street to ask for her. Who was he? A hireling of Gromwell’s? What scared her was the fact that he and perhaps others were looking for them both, for Marwood and herself, and they knew both where she worked and where he lived. They might well have seen her leave the house today.
She had left Brennan among the ruins, plodding back towards Dragon Yard and Mr Poulton, assuming the old man had not already left in anger. The knowledge that she had somehow attracted his – his what? his devotion? his lust? his love? – made her feel physically queasy. She did not want to be the object of anyone’s affection. But it was a relief to know that Brennan’s motives were not more sinister.
The Savoy’s river gate was still open. The only people about were going home to their lodgings, their minds on their own business, many the worse for drink. The porter was an idle fellow who took little notice of their comings and goings. He did not even look up as Cat passed under the archway.
Once inside, Cat did not make her way directly to Marwood’s lodging in Infirmary Close, which would have meant going down the narrow cul de sac. If anyone were watching Marwood’s house, it would be there, near the mouth of the alley. Instead, she took the path leading to the burial ground by the chapel.
Its ground level was several feet higher than elsewhere in the Savoy, rising to an irregular mound towards the centre. The graveyard had been filled several times over during the year before the Fire, when the plague had killed so many thousands. They had buried the dead on top of each other, layer upon layer, bringing wagon-loads of earth and quicklime to cover them. But the ground could not digest so many bodies: Margaret had told her that it vomited out what it could not consume: dismembered limbs and skulls, scraps of skin, clothing and rotten flesh.
No one went there by choice, even those who had recently buried a loved one. The smell was insupportable. Even to look at it, Margaret said, was dangerous, because the stink of the dead was so pernicious it insinuated its poison into a person through his organs of sight.
At the back of Marwood’s lodgings, two small mullioned windows overlooked the graveyard, one above the other. Because of the smell, they were never opened, and the edges of casements were stuffed with rags and scraps of paper. The upper one belonged to the bedchamber where Cat slept, which had once belonged to Marwood’s father. The lower window was in the kitchen, tucked into the alcove where Margaret kept pails and brooms.
The sky was not dark but a pale, luminous blue that shaded into grey. Cat paused to let her eyes adjust. Other windows overlooking the graveyard glowed with the murky flickering of rushlights.
She followed the line of the buildings around the graveyard, ducking in and out of the shelter of the buttresses that propped them up. Occasionally she stumbled on something protruding from the ground, and once something crunched beneath the sole of her shoe, and the ground gave way under her weight.
Better not to think too much about what lay beneath her feet. Better not to look down, either. She tugged her foot free and forced herself to plod on until she reached the back of Marwood’s house.
The sill of the lower window was less than a foot above ground level outside. Cat crouched by the lattice and rapped with her knuckle on one of the squares of glass. Nothing happened. She looked round, suddenly convinced that someone was at her shoulder. But there was no one there, only the restless dead. She took up a fragment of stone and knocked harder.
A fingertip flattened itself against the other side of the glass. It rubbed the square with a circular motion, scrubbing away some of the grime. Cat spat on her finger and did the same on her side.
The pane cleared. The finger inside disappeared, to be succeeded by a distorted eye. The glass was so impure that she could not hazard a guess to whom the eye belonged.
It vanished. Cat huddled in the angle between the nearest buttress and the wall. Time passed, long enough for her fears to breed furiously among themselves.
There were faint sounds – a stealthy scrape, a click, another scrape. With a creak, the casement swung outwards, but only by an inch.
‘Margaret?’ Cat whispered.
The window opened a little more. There was Margaret’s face and shoulders. She was open-mouthed. Behind her, the familiar kitchen glowed like the promised land.
‘What – what are you doing?’
‘Let me in,’ Cat whispered. ‘Quickly.’
The window was less than two feet high, and the gap between the mullion and the side of the frame was narrower still. Cat tugged open the window as wide as it would go. She raised her arms above her head. Like a diver in slow motion, she inserted herself into the gap.
Her shoulders caught, and she wriggled on to her side, grazing her skin. Margaret seized her under the armpits and tugged. For a moment, their two straining faces were only inches away from each other. Margaret’s cheeks were red and slicked with sweat. Her breath smelled of onions.
Suddenly Cat was through. Her left hip bumped painfully over the sill, and her legs and feet followed rapidly after her. The speed of it took Margaret by surprise, and she fell backwards on to the flagged floor, with Cat sprawling untidily on top of her.
They rolled apart from each other.
‘For God’s sake,’ Margaret gasped. ‘The smell. Close the window.’
Cat scrambled up and pulled the casement shut.
‘You’re lucky I heard you,’ Margaret said. ‘God in heaven, what are you about? Why can’t you come in at the door like a Christian?’
‘It may not be safe.’
Margaret shot her a glance but said nothing. She opened the other kitchen window, the one to the yard, and also the back door. She turned back towards Cat. The room was lit by a single candle on the table, guttering in the draught, four rushlights and the glow of the dying fire.
Margaret’s face was blurred and shadowed. ‘This can’t go on, mistress,’ she said.
‘I know.’ Cat shook out the folds of her cloak.
‘The master flew into a passion when he’d heard you’d gone. Never seen him in such a rage.’ Margaret sniffed. ‘And him in the state he’s in, too.’
‘Is he worse?’
‘No. But he’s downstairs.’ The words hissed with outrage. ‘And that’s your fault. I couldn’t stop him. He’s been in the parlour this last hour.’
‘But the doctor said he shouldn’t come down for at least a week. And not before he’d seen him again.’
‘And master said the doctor’s a fool who only wants to make another visit because it means another fee for him. And he says you’re a fool, too.’
‘I’ll go to him,’ Cat said. ‘Try to make him see sense. About the doctor, anyway.’
She heard the weariness in her voice. The day had been a succession of terrors and crises, and here was yet another; she had no time to think, nor time to rest or even to eat.
‘He won’t thank you,’ Margaret said. ‘Especially smelling like that.’
Cat climbed the stairs to the hall. She straightened her back and went into the parlour. Marwood was slumped in the chair by the empty fireplace. He
was wearing only a bedgown and a pair of slippers; and his head was bare, apart from a loose bandage, which gave him the appearance of a slovenly Turk.
‘What foolishness is this?’ she said, more harshly than she had intended.
He winced. ‘Where the devil have you been?’
‘You should let us help you to bed. Have you taken your laudanum today?’
‘No.’
‘Then you shall have it now.’
‘I shall not,’ he said.
Suddenly she was furious with him and his obstinacy, and ready to blame him for everything that had gone wrong since their ill-fated meeting outside the Fire Court. ‘Then you must look after yourself, you fool. I wish to God we’d never met. I shall go away. I shall leave you to your folly, I shall—’
‘Peace, woman,’ he snarled, without even looking at her.
‘Don’t you dare peace me!’ Her voice was rising in volume, and she didn’t care who heard her. ‘Peace? I’ll give you peace. I am not your servant or your sister, sir. You’re nothing to me. Less than nothing.’
He raised his head and looked at her at last. They glared at each other. The bandage had slipped, exposing the left side of his skull and the livid skin that had been concealed by it. The nearest candle was on that side of him, and by its light she saw shades of mottled pink, from pale to angry red, shimmering with the movements of the flame. Pity, that treacherous emotion, ambushed her.
‘Where have you been?’ he said in a quieter voice. ‘Why have you come back so befouled? And you stink like a dead thing.’
She answered the first question. ‘I’ve seen Mr Poulton.’
‘Where? Why?’
‘At Dragon Yard. I want to find Tabitha, Celia Hampney’s maid. I think she knows more than she’s saying, and someone’s bribed her to keep her mouth shut about her mistress’s lover.’
‘Who?’
‘Why, the lover, of course. Poulton thinks the maid’s mother lives over the river, near a tavern called the Cardinal’s Hat, and the girl’s probably there. I would have asked him more, but Brennan found me.’
‘The draughtsman? He haunts us both.’
Cat’s cheeks grew warm, but she hoped Marwood saw nothing. ‘He was bringing plans to Mr Poulton. He told me a man asked for me at the drawing office. The one Sam calls Sourface. Not many teeth in his—’
Marwood made a sudden movement. He cried out.
She said quietly, ‘Are you in much pain?’
He didn’t reply. After a moment, he said, ‘So. You mean the man I met in the alley by the Half Moon?’
‘I think so. And there’s worse. When they brought you back here after the fire in Chelling’s rooms, Brennan followed. And he said that Sourface was there as well. He knows who you are, and where you live. And he must also know there is a connection between us. That’s why I came back through the graveyard and in by the kitchen window. In case the house was watched.’
‘Who’s he working for?’ Marwood said. ‘If we—’
There was a hammering on the outer door to the lane.
‘Who is it?’ she whispered. ‘At this hour?’
‘Sam will send them away.’
They listened to men’s voices rumbling in the hall. The parlour door was thick, and Cat could not distinguish the words. Then the door was suddenly flung open. Sam was on the threshold, propping himself on his crutch. Another, taller man stood in the shadows behind him, his hat on his head.
Sam drew himself up and announced in a loud voice, attempting to sound like a properly trained servant in a respectable household, ‘Mr Williamson, master.’ Then he spoiled it by adding when he saw Cat, ‘Oh God, where did you spring from?’ He glanced from her to Marwood and jerked his thumb in the direction of Williamson. ‘He just marched in as if he owned the place. I couldn’t stop him.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
Joseph Williamson. Under-Secretary of State. My master. The sight of him at my parlour door was like seeing a swallow in the depths of winter. It was against nature.
We stared at each other, and it would have been hard to say who was the more dismayed. He knew I had been injured in the fire at Clifford’s Inn, but he had not seen what the fire had done to me. I was not a pretty sight, particularly without the protection of the bandage, and particularly to one taken unawares.
‘Merciful God,’ he blurted out, for once careless of his words. ‘What have you done to yourself?’
Of all the many people I did not want to see at present, Williamson ranked high. My absence must have sorely inconvenienced him – and puzzled him, too, because of the business with Mr Chiffinch, my other master, and the plainly unnecessary journey to Scotland that only my injuries had prevented. Williamson had both the power and the intelligence to ask awkward questions about what I had been doing. Worst of all, he had now seen Cat.
She dropped him a curtsy, but it was the sort of curtsy that does not imply respect. Nor did she lower her eyes, as a maid should, to show becoming modesty. To compound the problem, her clothes were worse than shabby: they were filthy, as if she had dragged herself through a field of mud and ashes to be here. And then, of course, there was her graveyard smell.
‘Jane,’ I said sharply. ‘Why are you dawdling there? Tell Margaret to send up a bottle of Rhenish and something to eat for our honoured guest. And put yourself under the pump.’
Cat sidled round Williamson and slipped out of the parlour.
I stood up. The effort made me cry out. Both Sam and Williamson started forwards. ‘Sir,’ I said between clenched teeth, ‘pray do me the honour of taking the chair.’
‘For God’s sake, man,’ Williamson said. ‘Sit down.’ He waved Sam forward. ‘You. Help your master.’
Sam hobbled forward, took my right arm and made me sit. There was only one chair in the room and in normal circumstances Williamson would have taken it by right. We both knew that his very presence here in my house was an immense act of condescension, whatever the reason, and he had every right to expect it to be recognized. Why was he here? If he had wanted simply to know how I was, he could have sent someone to enquire.
He unclasped his cloak, dropped it on the bench by the table and sat down beside it. He was dressed with more care than usual in a dark-blue velvet suit, and he wore new gilt buckles on his shoes. I wondered whom he had been visiting. A clerk must notice such things about his superiors.
‘Was that your maid?’ he asked, wrinkling his nose.
‘A new girl, sir.’ I waved towards the flask of laudanum on the table, which Margaret had left at my elbow to tempt me. ‘She fell in the gutter on the way back from the apothecary.’
Williamson shrugged, dismissing Cat from his mind. ‘I chanced to be passing,’ he said. ‘And it wasn’t out of my way to call to see how you do.’
‘I’m very sensible of the honour, sir, and I’m truly sorry that I have been unable—’
He cut me off with a wave of his hand. ‘I give you one thing, Marwood, you’re not usually shy of work.’ He tapped his fingertips on the table until the silence became uncomfortable. ‘How badly were you burned?’
‘It’s my left side.’ I swallowed, for my mouth had become unaccountably dry at the memory of the flames. ‘My face and my hand are the worst. And the wrist. The burns are less on the rest of my body – my clothes gave some protection. I was lying on my right side and, thank God, that’s barely touched.’
‘You could very well have died,’ he said flatly.
‘I was fortunate. They were able to drag me out in time.’
Williamson looked down his nose at me. ‘I heard the man who died was a clerk at the Fire Court.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘How did the fire start?’
There was a knock at the door, and Margaret brought in wine and a dish of oysters. By now I was in worse pain, accentuated by every movement in the chair, and by the effort of talking. I was aware of a niggling desire to look at the apothecary’s flask beside me, and perhaps uncork it and at least
sniff the contents.
Margaret poured us each a glass of wine, curtsied and left the parlour. Neither of us drank.
‘When will you be ready to return?’ Williamson asked.
‘I can’t tell, sir.’ I was terrified that I might lose my clerkship. ‘I wish I could come back tomorrow. I will need a day or two, I think, perhaps three. Not a moment longer than—’
He held up his hand to stop me. ‘You are no use to me unless you are well, Marwood.’
‘No, sir. I will come as soon as—’
‘I command you to make sure you are restored to health before you come back to Whitehall. However long that may be.’ Williamson picked up his glass, held it to the candle flame as if examining the wine’s colour, and set it down without drinking. ‘I saw Mr Chiffinch in the Privy Garden today. He asked me how you did.’
I bowed my head, as if overwhelmed by such consideration.
‘He said it was a pity you had not gone to Scotland after all. He said you were a rash young man, though you had abilities.’
‘Sir – why did Mr Chiffinch want me to go to Scotland?’
For a moment I thought I had presumed too far. Williamson took an oyster from the dish, ate it, and tore off a piece of bread to ram it down. He swallowed a mouthful of wine.
‘Have you heard of a man called Limbury?’ he said.
‘The courtier?’
Williamson nodded. ‘Sir Philip Limbury. A Groom of the Bedchamber.’
Yes, I thought, and therefore a man with the King’s ear. And therefore perhaps Chiffinch’s ear too, for Chiffinch was rarely far from the King. Chiffinch who had wanted me in Scotland on a fool’s errand, and who had told Williamson I was a rash young man.
‘A good family, but impoverished by their support of the late King. Sir Philip served with courage against the Dutch – reckless courage, some would say – but he was nearly court-martialled when he came back. There was a scandal about the division of prize money. The King chose to let it go. They say Chiffinch had a word … and a month or two later Sir Philip was betrothed to Jemima Syre. The sole heir of her father, Sir George. He’s worth eight or nine thousand a year, if it’s a penny.’
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