The Fire Court

by Andrew Taylor

  ‘You’re not going out,’ he said.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then you’re stark raving mad,’ he muttered.

  ‘And I’ll whip you if you don’t mend your manners.’

  Sam glared at me. We both knew I was in no condition to whip anyone. But he could not stop me from doing as I pleased, though he attempted to enlist both Margaret and Cat to support him. I overrode them all. Margaret was particularly furious. I ordered her back to the kitchen with a passable imitation of anger.

  Cat was harder to dismiss. She lingered in the parlour when the others had gone. ‘Where do you want to go?’

  ‘To find Mistress Hampney’s maid. Tabitha.’

  ‘It suits you,’ she said.

  I stared at her, unsettled by the change of subject. ‘What does?’

  ‘The wig. It makes you look older.’

  I turned away. ‘As long as it conceals at least part of my face. That’s what matters.’

  ‘It does. You may rest easy on that score.’

  I swung back, thinking that Cat might be on the verge of laughing at me. But her face was as grave as a nun’s on Good Friday.

  ‘But you shouldn’t go out,’ she said. ‘You’re not well enough yet.’

  ‘You will not tell me what I should do.’

  She stared at me. My anger deflated like a punctured pig’s bladder.

  ‘I want you to come with me,’ I said. ‘You know what the woman looks like.’

  ‘If they catch me outside—’

  ‘I know.’ She had not left the house since she had returned, foul-smelling and filthy, by way of the graveyard on Friday evening. ‘But they can’t be watching all the time. And in broad daylight there’s not much they can do.’

  ‘Do you want to get rid of me?’ she said.

  ‘Of course not. You can’t go back to Henrietta Street because they will be looking for you there. But you can stay here as long as you need.’

  ‘And how long will that be?’

  ‘We know this,’ I said. ‘There have been two murders. And the Dragon Yard petition comes up before the Fire Court on Wednesday. In two days’ time. That will bring matters to a head.’

  We knew something else: that the murders and the Fire Court case interested my two masters, which suggested that in some way they affected the constant manoeuvring for power at Whitehall.

  ‘But what can you do about it? You?’ There was a world of scorn in Cat’s voice, though I do not think that she meant to speak unkindly.

  I said, ‘I want to find out what happened to my father. I don’t care about the rest.’

  I was lying, of course. I did care about the rest. I cared about Cat’s safety, because I was the one who had put her in danger. I cared about my Whitehall clerkships and feared to lose them. And I cared most bitterly that the fire had turned me into a spectacle that would sour milk and frighten babies in their cradles, into a terrified apology for a man who dared not show his face in public.

  That’s why I had to leave the house now. Because otherwise I feared I would never have the courage to venture out into the world again.

  We took a boat from the Savoy Stairs. I found it exquisitely painful, particularly when, with the combined help of Cat and one of the boatmen, I crossed from the dry land into the swaying craft. What made it worse was a squall of rain that chose to come scudding down the river, making the boat’s timbers slippery and soaking our cloaks in minutes.

  We huddled under the awning in the stern, and the boatmen pulled away. I didn’t envy their task. True, the tide was on the ebb, and we were going upriver as well as across it. But the gusts of the west wind fought us, making the water choppy. Sometimes I could not prevent a whimper from escaping me as I was jolted against the side of the boat or Cat’s arm.

  Neither of us spoke. We watched the clusters of wherries and barges, gigs and light horsemen that bobbed about the surface of the Thames, their oars twitching and rising and falling like the legs of insects. It was cold for May, especially on the water, and I wished I had worn my winter cloak. My hands were cold, and I could not warm them. The seat of my breeches grew damper and damper until I could not pretend it was anything other than wet.

  Slowly the untidy huddle of Whitehall slid away from us, then the Palace of Westminster. The boatmen pulled across the river to Lambeth, towards the brick buildings of the archbishop’s palace, with the tower of St Mary’s church close by. To the south lay the settlement that had grown up in their shelter. Beyond it, orchards and gardens were scattered along the bank of the Thames, interspersed with dilapidated houses and other buildings. There were marshes here as well, and patches of waste ground. The area had a ragged, untended appearance.

  Our boat was making for the stairs beside the palace. I leaned forward and directed the rower who owned the boat towards a landing place nearly a mile further south.

  As I moved, the wind caught the periwig, and the hair lifted on the left side, exposing some of my face, and perhaps what remained of my ear. The man’s expression changed, just for a moment. I thought I saw surprise, swiftly followed by disgust.

  The moment passed. Upstream from Westminster, the river was much less busy. The men rowed on. I leaned against the back of the seat. No one spoke. Cat swayed towards me, and her left arm briefly touched my right arm. I knew that I would have to become used to this: to seeing my injuries reflected in the expressions on other people’s faces, or at least imagining that I did, which in some ways was worse.

  The boat’s hull grated on the bottom. The tide had not yet covered the upper part of the foreshore. I paid the exorbitant fare the boatmen asked and told them not to wait. I did not want to see their faces again. Besides, the less they knew about us and our movements the better.

  A walkway of old timbers stretched up the glistening mud of the foreshore to a small jetty, where there was a narrow flight of steps. There was room to walk abreast, and Cat took my arm, as if she needed my support; though God knows it was the other way round.

  On the jetty a small crowd watched our approach. Perhaps it was the weather, perhaps it was my state of mind, but Lambeth seemed dreary beyond belief. There were beggars, scavengers and those who picked over the exposed mud in search of oysters and other delicacies. Their clothes were the same colour as the foreshore itself. At the top of the steps, they parted to allow us to pass among them, though three beggars, a woman with two children clinging to her filthy skirts, held out their palms.

  The beggars followed us along the path, with the woman whining monotonously for alms. When we were clear of the jetty, I stopped and waited for them to draw closer.

  ‘I beg you, master,’ she said. ‘A penny or two to get us across the river. My sister’s there, she’ll help us.’

  ‘Do you know a tavern called the Cardinal’s Hat?’ I asked.

  She pointed a finger that lacked a nail at a group of buildings a hundred yards away. I dropped two pennies into her hand. They vanished into the folds of her dress, and then her outstretched palm returned.

  ‘And a young woman named Tabitha, who lives nearby with her mother?’

  ‘Not now she don’t, master. The old one died. Mean old bitch.’

  ‘But Tabitha’s here still?’

  ‘Came back a week or two ago. That’s her cottage.’

  The beggar pointed to a house on the very edge of the hamlet. It lay on a parcel of waste ground, separated from its neighbours, including the tavern, by a shallow stream. It was little more than a wooden shed with a roof of rotting shingles. Shutters covered the only window. There was a brick chimney but no smoke was rising from it.

  I gave the woman two more pennies and they vanished as rapidly as their predecessor.

  We walked away, with the beggars trailing after us. I glanced back after a few yards, and they had stopped, but remained standing there in the rain, staring after us as if hoping against reason and experience that we might turn back and give them more money.

  Cat said, ‘How are you, sir
?’

  ‘I manage,’ I said. ‘It’s easier on land.’

  It was true that the damp discomfort of the boat had been harder to bear. Now I was walking, the exercise seemed slightly to moderate the nagging pain. Even the rain felt refreshing on my face. It was good to remind myself that I was not entirely helpless now, that my limbs would obey my commands.

  As we neared the cottage, a cur staggered from the shelter of a water butt beneath an overhanging eave. He circled us slowly, barking and showing his yellow teeth. His coat was matted with blood, and it had a wound on its side that oozed pus. I fended off the brute with my stick and it slunk away to the side of the house.

  We made our way across water-filled cart-ruts to the door. I knocked three times. There was no answer. I gave another knock, then tried the door. The latch lifted. The door opened into the room beyond, scraping on the mud floor.

  As the door opened, light poured into the single room of the cottage, picking out a pile of clothes, a blackened cooking pot, a straw mattress strewn with blankets, a servant’s box, a partly broken-up barrel, and a pile of ashes in the grate.

  Something moved in the corner beyond the door, where the light barely reached.

  Cat pushed past me and stepped inside. ‘God have mercy,’ she whispered.

  I opened the door as widely as it would go and followed her into the cottage. A tie beam ran across the building, preventing it from collapsing under its own weight. A large bundle dangled from it. It stirred slightly in the draught from the door. My first thought was that someone had hung it there to keep it clear of the rats.

  And then I saw that it was a young woman. Her head was uncovered. Her neck was at an angle to the body, pulled there by the noose around her neck and her own weight. She was bare-footed. On the floor beneath her feet was an overturned stool and a wine bottle lying on its side.

  The face was suffused with blood. The tongue poked out of the mouth. It looked blackened, as though charred by fire.

  ‘Tabitha,’ Cat said. She turned away and vomited on the floor. She went outside.

  I fought a desire to do the same. I made myself examine her more closely. The arms hung at the side. I touched one and tried to raise it, but it resisted me. The stiffness that follows death had already seized her limbs. But my efforts made the body rotate slightly, bringing her face to face with me. I shuddered, and left her to death.

  I tried the lid of the box. It wasn’t locked. Inside was a clutter of clothes and shoes. I stooped, wincing, and poked at them. It was too painful for me to bend so low and examine them properly. The clothes seemed well-worn but many were of good quality, perhaps cast-offs from Tabitha’s mistress. They were worth good money on a second-hand clothing stall.

  Cat returned and joined me. She knelt by the box and explored it more thoroughly. She fished out a darned woollen stocking with something hard in its toe. She pushed her hand inside and found a gold piece and a handful of silver.

  I glanced back at the body, at the stool on the floor. ‘Whatever happened here, it wasn’t robbery.’

  ‘Did she kill herself?’ Cat said.

  ‘It might have been designed to look like it. We should go before someone finds us.’

  Cat looked up at me; she had a pair of women’s shoes in her hand. ‘And leave her hanging here?’

  ‘She won’t mind. Not now.’ I felt callous for saying it, but it was true.

  ‘Shouldn’t we find a justice? We could ask at the tavern.’

  ‘If we do that, there will be questions. Who we are. Why we came here.’

  ‘But they will search for us after they find Tabitha.’

  ‘It’s only the beggar who knows we were looking for her, and she was waiting for a boat. With luck they’ll never find her, even if they try. It’s a risk worth running.’

  ‘It can’t be right to leave her like this,’ Cat said.

  ‘Right or wrong be damned,’ I snapped. ‘What choice do we have?’

  She shook her head but said nothing more about it. She was examining the shoes. They were of yellow leather, with blue embroidery, with high red heels, perhaps a cast-off from Tabitha’s mistress, for the leather was scuffed and stained. While we were speaking, Cat had been extracting balls of paper which had been stuffed inside the shoes to keep their shape. Methodically, she smoothed them out.

  There were perhaps half a dozen sheets. I looked over her shoulder at them. They looked crudely printed, some with woodcuts at the head. Ballads and broadsheets, I thought, nothing of interest. But something had caught her attention.

  ‘What’s that you have there?’ I asked, hoping to divert her from uncomfortable questions of right and wrong.

  She held up a sheet of paper. ‘Look. This one was folded, not made into a ball. As if she was hiding it. A clever girl. She made the money easier to find than this.’

  The first thing I noticed, with the printer’s eye I owed to my father’s training, was the quality of the paper, which was far removed from the cheap, coarse stuff they used for ballads and such. There were a few lines of handwriting on it. And, at the bottom right-hand corner, a large, curling capital L.

  ‘Limbury?’ Cat said.

  There was no time to waste. We went back outside. The dog greeted us like old enemies and this time I hit him so hard that I stunned him. He fell on his side and for a moment lay there, panting, his eyes open and fixed on me.

  It was then that I saw the wound on his side clearly. It was a small, neat puncture, flat and symmetrical, though the flesh around it was swollen with infection.

  With painful slowness, the dog rose to his feet. He stared balefully at me. I raised my stick. He backed away. Weaving like a drunk, he slunk into the doorway of the cottage.

  We dared not go back to the place where we had landed. Instead we followed a lane protected with high hedges, which ran north in the direction of the palace and the church. We did not speak of what we had seen. I was in considerable pain, and I could hardly drag one foot after the other. I leaned heavily on Cat as I walked. The lane was narrow and very muddy and the rain fell incessantly. But we met no one.

  Near Lambeth Palace, the houses increased, and we met other people, passing to and fro. Few of them gave us a second glance. There was a little crowd waiting at the palace stairs for the common barge which with every tide passed up and down the river between London and Windsor. There were people of all sorts, many of them strangers to each other, and Cat and I lost ourselves among them.

  We were fortunate – there was also a tilt boat taking passengers aboard to cross the river to Westminster Stairs. I paid our fares and we crossed to the other side. We were more exposed to the rain on the water, and the sudden gusts of wind made the boat sway and buck like a wild thing, throwing us to and fro and driving gouts of spray on board.

  I felt more dead than alive by the time we reached Westminster. There was a cab stand in Palace Yard, but I was in acute pain and we were both cold, wet, weary and miserable. I could not face the prospect of the jolting hackney ride to the Savoy.

  ‘Come, sir,’ she said. ‘We must find shelter for a while.’

  I no longer cared what we did. Cat took my arm and steered me towards the Dog, a vast tavern on the north side of the yard, near the gate to King’s Street. The noise of the place almost overwhelmed me – since Chelling’s murder, I had lost the habit of moving freely in the world. The great barroom was crowded but Cat found us places on a bench at the end of one of the common tables. I called for aqua vitae and she, more wisely, ordered us soup, bread and a jug of ale. The waiter gave me a curious look. I turned my head away.

  We ate and drank in silence. The spirit made me cough violently but its fire slid down to my belly. The soup gradually warmed and revived me. I had not realized how hungry I was.

  Afterwards Cat fumbled with her dress while I poured the last of the ale. She took from her pocket the paper she had found among Tabitha’s clothes. It was now crumpled and damp. She smoothed it out on the table before us. In
places the rain had smudged the ink but the tall, slanting handwriting was perfectly legible.

  Whenas in Silks My CELIA goes

  Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flowes

  That Liquefaction of her Clothes.

  Next, when I cast mine Eyes and see

  That brave Vibration each way free;

  O how that glittering taketh me!

  L

  ‘Verses,’ I said softly, though there was little risk of our being overheard in this crowded place. ‘A love poem written by Limbury to Mistress Hampney in her silks. Her yellow silk gown?’

  ‘He didn’t even write it,’ Cat said. ‘He copied it, and changed the lady’s name to hers.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The lines are by Mr Herrick. My Aunt Quincy set them to music once.’ She glanced at me. ‘You wouldn’t think it,’ she went on, ‘but he’s a clergyman.’

  ‘If we match the writing to Limbury’s, then—’

  ‘Then we have him. Only as Celia’s lover, true, but that’s a great deal.’

  ‘Tabitha must have taken the verses from her mistress’s papers,’ I said. ‘After her murder, to use as a tool for extorting money. Which means she knew her mistress had a lover.’

  ‘And Tabitha knew who he was, too,’ Cat said. ‘The way she behaved to Mistress Lee shows it, and her lack of interest in finding another position. She believed that Limbury would keep her, to ensure her silence.’

  ‘Then he decided it was wiser to shut her mouth permanently.’

  ‘But perhaps she did kill herself,’ Cat said. ‘When she’s found, they may think that her mind was disordered – perhaps with grief from her mother’s death – and that is why she did it. And you and I can’t be sure that it wasn’t like that. After all, there’s nothing to show that Limbury was there.’

  I stirred on the bench. ‘Nothing?’ I dug my nails into the palm of my right hand to distract myself from the pain. ‘Not quite. Someone was there. A man, very possibly a gentleman.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘The dog. I think it had been stabbed with a rapier and left for dead.’