The Golden Dove

by Jo Ann Wendt

  TTiey hastily left. It was an even fight. John outweighed him by thirty pounds, but Dove was quicker, agile. Fired with hot anger, they gave each other a battering each would remember. When the fight finally ended, it ended abruptly, by unspoken mutual consent, as if each had lost the heart for battering.

  On his knees, panting, breathing hoarsely, Dove swatted dung from his torn wedding coat, grabbed a handful of straw and staunched his bleeding nose. A few feet away, breathing like a winded bull, John grabbed straw and staunched the cut on his forehead.

  When breath found its way back into his lungs, Dove spoke, panting. "John, the fire—Jericho—Black Bartimaeus—"

  "Ay—I'll saddle up—"

  Still panting, John stripped Dove's signet ring from his finger, die ring Dove had given in pledge. John looked at it cynically and hurled it into a dung heap. Then he staggered to his feet and saddled a mount.

  They rode hard, galloping their mounts where the road allowed, urging their mounts along at a trot where the road puckered into holes that could snap a horse's hock. Physically, they rode side by side. Mentally, they rode on separate planets. They kept their distance. When it was necessary to look at each other, they did so with the cold wary eyes of strangers.

  Our friendship is over, Dove thought, and felt the loss.

  Judas! Betrayer! John thought. Even if I win Jericho, what kind of marriage will it be? I will always be aware that he had her first. Worse, so will Jericho. Jericho. My shops. My house. Oh, God, my shops.

  The road to London was clogged with carts and people fleeing the city. At times, they had to force their way through. Ash fell in a continual shower, spooking the horses, making them hard to control. As they rode, they questioned refugees. Had Wattling Street burned? Cheapside? Seething Lane? John experienced both the best and the worst moments of his life when he learned Wattling and Seething Streets were safe, but Cheapside Street had burned. His shops gone! Hearing the news, Dove reached out and touched his shoulder in sympathy. John angrily cast his hand off. He didn't need sympathy from a Judas.

  Mindful that they would not make London at all if they killed their horses with hard riding, they stopped to rest them. While the horses drank from a stream, John watched Dove fret and pace, his bridegroom clothes ruined, torn by their fight, stained by the sweat of their fast ride. As he watched, a thought struck him. Dove loves her! This is his wedding day, yet there is nothing in his head but Jericho. It was a bitter revelation.

  They pressed on, galloping, trotting. Carts and coaches and people on foot clogged the road. Ash fell thicker, like a macabre gray snowfall. Some of the ash was still hot, and the horses shied and bucked, spooked by it. Daylight—such as it was—ended. Night burgeoned up all around them, thick and smoky. Reflecting the flames of London, the sky loomed overhead like an overturned bowl of murky yellow porridge.

  Pressing on, cantering the winded horses up the last low hill before London, they topped the rise and yanked the horses to a halt in fright, staggered by what they saw below.

  "Christ God." Dove crossed himself. "It's the end of the world. The whole world is on fire."

  "God have mercy."

  A conflagration of orange and blood red flames raged vividly against the dark night sky for miles. Fire raged everywhere, as far as the eye could see. There was nowhere that fire was not. The scene was like a macabre painting of hell. Wicked, malicious, bloody, evil flames lapped at the sky.

  Bound on three sides by its ancient wall and on the fourth side by the dark, snaking Thames River, London proper burned like an enormous cauldron of flames. At Ludgate, the gate they'd been heading for, the fire had jumped the wall. Flames rampaged in the outskirts of London, devouring Fleet Street, traveling along Fleet Canal, spreading in all directions, like a sunburst. Untouched as yet, even Whitehall Palace lay in its path.

  Dove raised a shaky hand to his head. The sight made him dizzy.

  Across the river, linked to the city by London Bridge, Southwark burned against the dark night sky—its taverns, its theaters, its lobster houses, its brothels, its bear-baiting pits, cockpits, dog pits. But London proper was the true horror. Within the walled city only Ludgate Hill stood untouched, the great tower of St. Paul's Cathedral standing there atop the hill like a martyr tied to the stake, awaiting the flames.

  John felt his courage fail him. He stared at Dove in utter disbelief when Dove said, "Let's get going. Let's get into the city."

  "Dove, good God! Jericho cannot be in there. She's a sensible girl. She will have taken Black Bartimaeus and left long before now."

  Emotionally pent up, Dove turned on him in fury. "Oh, will she! You don't know her, damn you. You think you do, but you don't. She's not sensible. She's a mule, she's a bullhead, she's stubborn as rock. / know her. She loves that goddamned dame school! She won't leave it until she has to. Not until the last goddamned minute."

  John waited until Dove's fury subsided, as shaken by it as he was by the fire and all he was losing to its flaming maws. His shops, maybe his house.

  "Granted. But use common sense, Dove. The 'last minute' surely came hours ago. Dove, she's gone, she's out, she's safe."

  "I know that. God damn you, don't you think I know that! But I have to make sure. I have to check. I won't rest until I know."

  "Dove. Be sensible."

  "You be sensible. Stay here and be sensible, if you wish. I'm going in. I'll go by water."

  Kicking his spooked horse in the ribs, Dove cantered off into the smoke and hot falling ash. After a moment, John cantered after him. "We'll never get a watercoach," John shouted.

  "We'll get one," Dove shouted, "if I have to kill for it."

  It almost came to that. They rode hard for Westminster, abandoned their spent horses in the Abbey yard and ran for the river stairs. A waterman was discharging three male passengers, unloading their goods, furniture they'd saved from the fire. Waiting for the boat and frantic, Dove paced the wet mossy stone stairs. Reaching the end of patience, he leaped into the boat, put a foot to an upright virginal, shoved viciously and toppled it into the river. It hit with a splash, rocking the boat, piano keys tinkling. The three men howled in outrage, dropped their loads on the river stairs, and came charging, but when Dove drew his sword they backed off, scared by the crazed look in his eyes. He pointed his sword at the addled waterman.

  "Get in! Row."

  "Ay, sir."

  They took off at full rowing speed, lurching through the river traffic, pulling hard against the tide. Dove crouched in the bow, eyes stinging, streaming. He tried not to breathe the engulfing smoke. Dipping his handkerchief in the river, he tied it over his nose. John and the waterman did the same.

  The heat. It was like being roasted alive! And the sound of it. The fire deafened, roaring as if it had the four winds and all the furies in it. As buildings burned, chimney stones and bricks exploded like grenades. Buildings collapsed with loud crashes. Fiery airborne debris showered down, hissing as it hit the water. The only sound Dove welcomed was the distant thundering boom, as somewhere in the doomed city intelligent men used casks of gunpowder to blow up houses and create a fire barrier.

  "Faster!"

  "Dove. He's rowing as fast as he can."

  They spurted past Whitehall Palace, where the Thames flowed into its forty-five degree turn, heading for London proper. Dove glanced ahead and blanched. His heart nearly failed him. Deep in the city, the medieval Guildhall had not burned. But its ancient, seasoned timbers were so hot the Guildhall shimmered like molten gold. Ahead, the black river flowed into a tunnel of flame. Looming in the tunnel, lighted by the murky, fiery sky and the shimmering Guildhall, London Bridge stood stark as dead bones, a smoking ruin.

  "Sweet God," John swore. "It's Judgment Day."

  When the waterman let up on the oars, panting, resting, Dove sprang up, shoved him out of the way and seized the oars.

  "Guide me, John. Find me somewhere to land that's not burning."

  "God Almighty. And where'd that be
?"

  "Find it!"

  This section of the river boiled with boats, with lighters and barges. Working frantically, the king's navy hauled waiting Londoners off river stairs, off wharfs that had not yet burned. Dove pulled down his handkerchief and shouted at a lighter that went plowing by.

  "Wattling Street! Is it afire?"

  An old granny who was guarding a bird cage on her lap called back, "Not yet, laddie. 'Twill be. Soon. I lived on Wattling Street, I did."

  His heart jumped. "A redhaired girl! Her name is Jericho Jones. She lives with a tall old black giant above a cookshop. Is she out?"

  "Ay, laddie," the old granny shouted back to him. "She's surely out. Ever'body's out."

  *'She's out," John said in the bow. But something nagged at Dove. Insecure, troubled, Dove swung around in fury.

  "Damn you, find me a place to land! I'm going to make sure."

  They put in at Baynard's Castle, an old Norman ruin. Tossing his sword to John and his shoes up on the crumbling stone heap that had once been the fortification's wall, he jumped into the river to wet his clothes, then clambered up over the rocks to his shoes and whipped them on. The smoke was impossibly thick here. His eyes streamed. His lungs burned.

  "Keep a sword on him," he shouted down to John, pointing at the waterman. "He'll take his boat and bolt if he gets the chance."

  "Not dead, he won't," John vowed.

  Just then, the hazy, sooty sky flared with blinding white light, like a long, sustained flash of lightning. Dove swung around. For an instant he stood stunned. It was a sight beyond belief. Covered with a web of repair scaffolding, St. Paul's —that great impregnable cathedral—had caught fire. It went up with the flare of a million lighted candles.

  "Mother of God! Dove, you cannot—"

  Dove swallowed clots of fear. "Wait for me!"

  Yanking his wet handkerchief up around his nose, he took off like a wild man. He ran like a maniac. The smoky deserted alleys and streets twisted and turned like snakes. Smoke swirled everywhere. Smoke and heat. Eyes blinded, streaming, he ran by instinct. He knew every nook and cranny in the walled city. He and Lark had run from Cromwell's troops in this maze, eluding them as easily as a fox eludes a stupid hound. But each lungful of smoke was a separate, distinct agony. Surely, surely he was on a fool's errand. Surely John was right. But what if John was wrong? Pansy Eyes. He had to make sure.

  Two or three times he dashed up an alley only to run straight into a wall of roaring fire, and then he had to prolong his agony, breathing smoke, retracing wasted steps, feet flying in panic, his wet clothes already drying in the heat.

  Fool's chase, fool's chase.

  Now and then, a gust of blessedly fresh wind cleared the air for an instant and he took advantage of it, breathing deep, cleaning his lungs. But mostly he ran and breathed smoke. You could die, you fool. People die of smoke. And for what? John's right. She's out, safe.

  Yet he couldn't make himself tum back. Just one look, he promised himself. Just one glimpse of Wattling Street. To make sure. He ran on, smoke-filled lungs on fire, eyes painful and streaming. Finally he plunged out of an alley and into

  * the bottom of Wattling Street. The public pump and troughs were on fire, crackling like kindling. The houses on both sides of the street were on fire. Smoke swirled, black and blinding. Roaring red flames raced along the rooftops, crackling. He couldn't see, he couldn't see. At the top of the street, on Ludgate Hill, St. Paul's was a hair-raising sight, burning with brilliant white incandescent light.

  After taking a glimpse through the gritty, blinding smoke, he'd whirled to retrace his steps and run back to the boat when, suddenly, he heard barking. Barking? Somewhere in the murky darkness, in the smoke and flames, a dog barked hoarsely. Pax? His heart quailed.

  "Jericho!" he shouted, his voice too hoarse with smoke to make itself heard. "Pax!" But the dog heard, and barked frantically. Dove tore forward, leaping over a burning pump- trough.

  Sobbing, coughing, tugging Black Bartimaeus with all her might, Jericho was at the end of herself. She'd reversed directions the instant St. Paul's caught fine. Now she wrenched the pallet downhill toward the bottom of Wattling Street. She had to get away from St. Paul's. They would be roasted alive.

  Smoke swirled dark and thick. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't see. She was so scared she sobbed. Smoke billowed in her face, singeing her eyes, her lungs. Fire drops showered down like burning rain. With a ferocious sob, she swatted a blazing ember off Black Bartimaeus, then grabbed his pallet again and dragged him along, her back nearly broken. Pax galloped circles around them, barking. She couldn't find breath. Dizzy, she fell to one knee, then forced herself up and on. Digging her broken nails into the pallet, she wrenched.

  I'm going to die, she thought. But, worse, the dizziness made her imagine things. In the terrifying roar of the fire, she imagined she heard Dove. With a sob, she wrenched the pallet onward. It was a cruel trick of her mind.

  Suddenly Pax went wild. Barking frantically, he bolted stiff-legged into the billowing smoke and disappeared.

  "Pax," she croaked, her voice nearly gone, hoarse. She swiped wildly at her streaming eyes. Her heart jumped sky high as a figure came leaping through the smoke, Pax barking at his side. Her lungs turned inside out.

  "Dove," she coughed, staggering to meet him. "Help. It's Black Bartimaeus—his heart!"

  Begrimed with smoke, he pounced on Black Bartimaeus and shouted instructions. "Grab fire buckets! Water. Douse us."

  With renewed energy, she flew through the thick smoke to the cookshop and came reeling back with the fire buckets, water sloshing. Dove had already thrust his arms under Black Bartimaeus's shoulders. Locking his grip; he dragged the giant drunkenly down the street. Her arm muscles screaming with pain, Jericho threw a bucketful on Dove and Black Bartimaeus, a bucketful on herself and Pax. The water was hot, but it was wet. Their clothes steamed. Then, she grabbed Black Bartimaeus's heavy feet and helped Dove.

  "Good girl," Dove gasped, dragging him down the street.

  Black Bartimaeus weakly flapped a hand. "Nay. Take— Jer'cho—go—"

  "Not without you, old man," Dove snapped.

  Even in his pain, Black Bartimaeus's old face lit with a loving smile. He gazed up at Dove, the master he'd loved.

  Suddenly, from the direction of St. Paul's, came a tremendous booming crash, a crash so mighty it shook the ground. They swung around, startled. St. Paul's lead roof was gone. It had collapsed into the nave. Fire shot out of the nave, the flames a hundred feet high. In the sudden flare of light, Jericho swung to Black Bartimaeus. At peace, his sightless eyes were fixed, unblinking on Dove.

  "Dove, he's dead."

  "No!"

  Lowering him to the hot ground, they frantically felt for a heartbeat. Another shower of embers fell. One burning chunk landed on Black Bartimaeus's unblinking eyes.

  "Black Bartimaeus!" she screamed, swatted it away and lay her own cheek against the burn.

  "Let's get out of here." Dove wrenched her to her feet.

  At the top of Wattling Street, the ground began to glow and shimmer, bubbling. Through streaming eyes, they watched for an instant, stunned as a silvery, black-crusted, molten river began to flow downhill toward them.

  "Dove!"

  "Christ, God. It's hot lead. St. Paul's roof has melted. Five acres of it. It's coming in a flood!"

  Grabbing her arm, he wrenched her into a flying run. Pax galloped with them, then veered suddenly and bravely trotted back to his beloved black friend, loath to leave him.

  "Pax!" Jericho wrenched free of Dove.

  With a ferocious shove, Dove pushed her ahead. "Run!" Wheeling, he flew back for Pax, scooped up the heavy dog and came running. Jericho's last glimpse of Wattling Street was one that would be seared into her brain forever.

  As the molten silvery lead reached Black Bartimaeus, it jostled him gently, flowing under and around him and over him, rocking him as gently as if he were a babe in a cradle. His clothing leaped in
to flames first. Then his hair. For an instant > in the light of his own burning hair, his ebony face glowed peacefully. Then, like a pyre, fire enveloped him.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  John waited under the fiery sky, heart in mouth. What was keeping Dove? He'd been gone too long. John's chest began to pound. He was enraged with Dove. But he didn't want him to die. Not like this. Not overcome by smoke in some foul alley.

  Unable to wait, he barked a threat at the waterman, vowing to hunt him down and kill him if he so much as moved the boat an inch. Eyes streaming, he clambered up the stone ruins. He'd almost reached the top when suddenly a grime-covered figure came bolting out of the thick swirling smoke, staggering dmnkenly under the load he carried. A begrimed woman ran at his side. It was a moment before he recognized them. Then he bellowed.

  "Dove! This way. Over here."

  Disoriented by the thick billowing smoke, they veered and came running.

  "Hurry, John—St. Paul's roof—it's melted—hot lead coming—a river of it—"

  "Mother of God!"

  Dove dropped Pax into his arms. John passed the heavy wheezing dog to the waterman. Then he grabbed for Jericho as Dove handed her down. He shot a glance at the smoky alley. Flames licked there now.

  "Black Bartimaeus?"

  "Dead," Dove said tersely.

  John didn't ask more. Taking Jericho, he helped her into the boat. Despite the heat, her smoke blackened skin was cold to the touch, clammy. She was so badly shocked her teeth chattered. John tore off his coat, covered her and pulled her into his lap.

  Moving fast as lightning, Dove whipped his shoes into the boat, jumped into the river to douse himself, then grabbed hold of the stern and boosted himself in. The vessel pitched under his violent movements.

  "Go!" John barked at the waterman. The waterman dug in his oars. The boat spurted out into the river, leaving the worst of the heat and the smoke and the fearful roaring noise behind. To John's sorrow, with Dove in the boat, Jericho wanted no more of him. She wrenched free and, like a wounded pitiful animal, crawled on hands and knees into Dove's wet dripping arms. Coughing, hacking, she clung to to him. John turned away, unwilling to watch, unwilling to hear the tender endearments Dove poured in her ear.