The Ashes of London

by Andrew Taylor

  Edward Alderley spat, his spittle just missing my shoe. ‘The expense doesn’t bear thinking of, sir.’

  His father stared at the ruins. ‘There’s no help for it.’ He scratched his forehead, reaching up under his wig with long fingers. ‘But there may be a silver lining. Others will be in our position, but less capable of managing the matter.’ His lips twisted into a half-smile. ‘In which case, they may wish to dispose of some of their freeholds, along with the responsibilities that go with them, at a reasonable price. We must enquire into that.’

  I bowed and asked permission to leave them, knowing that I had no excuse to linger.

  But Edward put a hand on my sleeve. ‘Stay. Where’s the nearest tavern?’

  ‘I can’t say, sir. There are booths selling beer in Cheapside. But for a tavern you may have to go up to Smithfield or towards Moorgate.’

  ‘God’s teeth.’

  ‘There’s no need for a tavern, Edward,’ his father said, in a voice that did not invite discussion. ‘We shall dine at home. Come – we shall hire a hackney by Ludgate, if you wish, but it will be quicker to walk.’

  I bowed. Master Alderley gave me a nod as they left. His son and his steward gave me nothing.

  At the Savoy, I glimpsed something red, the colour as vivid as blood against the sooty stone, at the corner of the passage to the Newcombs’ lodgings. I walked quickly towards it, my mind full of what I had learned in Bow Lane, and my belly rumbling with hunger.

  As I approached the corner, the sound of my footsteps bouncing like balls between the high walls on either side, a soldier in the uniform of the King’s Guards appeared. I forgot my hunger for a moment and felt a lurch of fear instead.

  They had come for my father.

  I broke into a run. ‘What is it?’ I said, my voice rising. ‘What’s happening?’

  The soldier held up his hand to make me stop.

  ‘My father’s ill,’ I said. ‘He’s done nothing wrong, I swear it. If you ask for Master Williamson, at my Lord Arlington’s lodging, he will—’

  I broke off as a second soldier appeared. It was Lieutenant Thurloe.

  ‘Master Marwood?’ he said in a formal, interrogatory voice as if he didn’t know me from Adam, though we had parted on reasonably cordial terms at our previous meeting three weeks before, when we had brought the body of Jeremiah Sneyd upriver to Scotland Yard by barge.

  ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘are you here for my father? His health is not good, and I beg you to—’

  ‘No, sir.’ Thurloe beckoned his men. ‘I’m looking for you. I’m commanded to convey you under escort to Whitehall. Without delay.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘AM I UNDER arrest?’ I said again.

  Thurloe didn’t turn his head. But this time he spoke to me at least. ‘That’s not for me to say.’

  ‘If I’m not, sir, then why are these men behind us? Why you?’

  He gave no sign that he had heard me. But still he wouldn’t look at me.

  He had a barge waiting at the Somerset Stairs. He and I sat under the awning at the stern, with the soldiers on either side. I had left my father in tears. He was convinced that I was to be conveyed to the Tower, and that he would never see me again on this side of the grave.

  The tide was with us and we were at Whitehall in ten minutes. I expected us to put in at the common stairs beside the palace, but we went further upstream to the Privy Stairs. A crowd of boats was waiting there already, landing and receiving passengers. Instead of having to wait our turn, however, we were waved directly to the upstream side of the steps, where we disembarked at once.

  A manservant was on the watch for us. He and Thurloe had a whispered conversation on the stairs. The two soldiers stayed in the boat, exchanging chaff with the watermen as if nothing of significance had happened.

  Thurloe and the servant took me through a maze of passages and chambers, some cramped and ancient, others grand and furnished in the most modern taste, to a small chamber on the second floor. It contained a table, two stools and a chair that looked as if they had stood there since the time of the King’s grandfather. A fire burned in the grate.

  ‘You’re to wait,’ Thurloe said. He glanced over his shoulder. The servant had already withdrawn. For the first time, he looked directly at me. ‘I don’t know if you’re to be arrested, sir,’ he murmured. ‘But they were so pressing about bringing you here, so damned urgent, and they said I was not to speak to you, nor allow you to speak to others.’

  He gave me a nod and left the room. A key turned in the lock. I examined my prison. It did not take long – the chamber measured three paces one way and four the other. The window was small, with tiny leaded panes whose glass distorted the outside world. It overlooked a paved court filthy with bird droppings. I could not see the sky.

  I sat at the table. Weariness flooded over me. Nothing good could come of this. The manner of the summons suggested that I was under suspicion. It must surely be connected to my failure to report the presence of Thomas Lovett in Alsatia. Unless it had something to do with Olivia Alderley, in which case I understood even less about this matter than I thought I did.

  The hours passed slowly. The light faded beyond the window. Once or twice I rose from the table to feed the fire with another shovelful of coals. I tried to ignore the emptiness of my stomach. Occasionally I heard footsteps, and once the raised voice of a man berating a servant. By this time the only light was the reddish glow from the dying fire. I was slumped over the table with my head resting on my hands, drifting into that place between wakefulness and sleep.

  The rattle of the door handle jerked me back to alertness. The key scraped in the lock.

  ‘Marwood?’ Chiffinch’s figure filled the doorway, with light behind him. ‘What the devil are you doing in the dark?’

  He turned his head and called to an invisible servant to bring candles. I rose to my feet, blinking as I adjusted to the light. My limbs were stiff and clumsy. I bowed as well as I could.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Chiffinch demanded.

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’ My mind was as stiff as thick porridge. I groped for the right words. ‘They brought me here between midday and one of the clock.’

  He shrugged. ‘The fools should have given you food and light.’

  ‘Why am I here?’ I asked, too weary to be polite, though I knew better than to complain about being kept waiting.

  ‘Because I summoned you, of course.’ He glared at me.

  ‘But sending soldiers, sir …’

  ‘You were wanted immediately.’ Chiffinch stepped aside to allow the servant to enter and place candles on the table. He frowned at me, disliking my presumption in asking him questions. He waited until the door had closed behind the servant. ‘But then it became less urgent, so you were obliged to wait.’

  And of course he hadn’t bothered to let me know, he had let me wait in fear.

  I tried to change the subject. ‘I saw Master Alderley this morning.’

  ‘What?’ The frown deepened. ‘You went to Barnabas Place?’

  ‘No, sir – I was in Cheapside, and I chanced to see him and his son. They went into Bow Lane.’

  His attention sharpened. ‘Where the Lovetts used to live?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ I began to hope that he had heard nothing about my father and Alsatia. ‘I followed them. The house was quite destroyed. But Master Alderley and his son were in the yard. They were inspecting the damage with their steward. I hadn’t realized that they owned the freehold.’

  Chiffinch shrugged. ‘So?’

  ‘Isn’t it all of a piece with Coldridge? As if Master Alderley has found another way to enrich himself at the expense of the Lovetts.’

  ‘The case is quite different,’ he said. ‘The Bow Lane freehold was confiscated when Lovett fled abroad. Then the King granted it to Master Alderley.’

  He told me this in a voice that did not invite questions. I knew that Alderley had lent the King money. Perhaps it was not unrea
sonable that there should have been other transactions between them.

  But Bow Lane? Why this freehold?

  He was still looking at me, his face dancing above the flame of a candle set on the table between us. He said slowly and softly, ‘You might say that Master Alderley earned it.’ His fingers fiddled with the wart on his cheek. ‘But it would not be wise to say it in Master Alderley’s hearing.’

  I realized then that Chiffinch did not like Master Alderley. ‘Earned it, sir?’

  ‘He laid information about his brother-in-law, and he was rewarded. As it happened, Lovett evaded capture. Otherwise the reward would have been bigger.’

  Both my tiredness and my hunger were now forgotten for the moment. The information that Alderley had betrayed his brother-in-law as well as stolen from his niece was another fact to be added to the pile, something else to be considered.

  ‘Come,’ Chiffinch said.

  I followed him along passages, through chambers, up and down steps. Candles burned in sconces on the walls and on tables, lighting our way but leaving pools of darkness between them. I soon lost all sense of direction, just as I had when I had followed Lieutenant Thurloe earlier today. In the interval, the palace had changed under the influence, and not for the better. It had become more than ever like a labyrinth, a place where watchers and monsters lingered out of sight in the shadows or around corners.

  This was a part of Whitehall I had never seen before. I was becoming familiar with the areas that the public were allowed to frequent – the Matted Gallery, for example, the courts, the gateways and the great buildings like the Great Hall and the Banqueting House. But we were now among the suites of private apartments where the members of the royal household lived, along with favoured courtiers and their armies of dependants and hangers-on.

  The air was dense with the smells of tallow, perfume and drains. Sometimes we passed through apartments full of brightly clothed people and dazzling lights, endlessly reflected in mirrors. People made way for Chiffinch, parting to let him through, but they hardly gave me a second glance. Guards were stationed at intervals, usually at doorways. They opened doors for Chiffinch, but otherwise we might have been invisible. At Whitehall, men saw only what they wished to see.

  We came down a flight of stairs. A guard swung open one leaf of a heavy door. As we went outside, the raw night air rushed in to meet us, heavy with the tang of coal smoke from scores of chimneys. I felt raindrops on my cheek. I realized that we were in the Privy Garden, with the Matted Gallery rising somewhere behind us. It was not dark – lanterns hung at intervals from standards placed along the paths between the beds, and light filtered through the glass of dozens of uncurtained windows. In the distance, an orchestra was playing a stately saraband for invisible dancers. Above our heads flew invisible seagulls, their cries mingling with the thin, reedy strains of the music.

  Chiffinch led me towards the range at right angles to the Matted Gallery. It consisted of the privy gallery and a long suite of apartments stretching west towards the Holbein Gate and the square bulk of the Banqueting House. We passed through another doorway with guards posted on either side.

  There were more guards inside and servants in livery. Chiffinch took me up another flight of stairs to the gallery itself. Its walls were lined with tables on which stood many clocks and other curious pieces of machinery whose purpose I did not know. He tapped on a door on the left, and a voice called out that we should wait.

  A moment later there was an explosion. I felt the blast like a wave seconds before I heard it. The door muffled the sound, but the impact was enough to set the chimes tinkling in the clocks.

  There were running footsteps on the stairs and men were shouting downstairs.

  Chiffinch swore. He flung open the door of the chamber. Smoke rolled out, making me cough. The room beyond was brightly lit, illuminating the smoke so that it looked like sheets of blue-grey gauze swirling and swaying in the draught.

  ‘Sir,’ Chiffinch cried. ‘Sir – are you hurt?’

  ‘God’s fish,’ a man said. ‘Was ever such ill luck?’

  His shape loomed out of the rising smoke, from the ground up. First I saw broken-down leather shoes, sagging stockings, filthy breeches and a long leather apron. The smoke rose higher and higher, revealing more and more of a body that seemed taller than any man’s had a right to be.

  ‘It is a fault in the saltpetre,’ he said. ‘It must be. I’ll take my oath that the quantities were exact, so it can’t be that. Devil take that damned apothecary.’

  At last I saw the long, swarthy face, dark as a black man’s, the heavy lips, the folds of skin beneath the brown spaniel eyes. I fell to my knees.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ I muttered, and then added foolishly, ‘I beg your pardon,’ though what I had done amiss I could not have begun to say.

  ‘Get up, man,’ he said irritably. ‘Open the other windows as quick as you can and clear this smoke.’ He raised his voice and shouted at the knot of men congregating in the doorway, ‘Go away, you fools, you’re not needed. Shut the door, Chiffinch.’

  I stumbled to my feet. The King towered over me. I had seen him before, but always from afar. He wore no wig but had a dirty kerchief bound around his head. Sweat cut shining grooves on his forehead. He did not look like a king. He looked like a swarthy blacksmith in a bad temper.

  He was saying something to Chiffinch. I crossed the room to the tall windows lining the opposite wall. One of them was already open, which must have lessened the force of the blast by allowing it somewhere to go, thereby preventing the glass from shattering. As I opened the other windows, I looked down and saw that a crowd had gathered below in the Privy Garden, their faces upturned towards me.

  Behind me, Chiffinch was speaking to the King in a low and urgent voice. I turned to face them. Now the smoke was ebbing away, I saw clearly the room we were in. This was the Royal Laboratory, a place many talked about but few visited. It was fitted with tables and benches, with shelves on one wall and great ironbound presses against another. There was a variety of instruments, including sets of scales. One shelf held glass retorts and another a row of books, irregular in size.

  The King was looking over Master Chiffinch’s head at me. His eyes met mine. For an instant, his lips twisted into a half-smile.

  God help me, I found myself smiling back.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Come here.’

  Chiffinch moved towards the door and waited. I took his place in front of the King.

  ‘So you’re Marwood,’ he said. ‘How does your father do?’

  The question took me entirely by surprise. There was no sense of threat to it. It was a courteous enquiry, nothing more, one man to another. Except that one man was a king and the other the son of a disgraced Fifth Monarchist.

  ‘He grows old, sir. And increasingly feeble.’

  ‘He has his wits still?’

  ‘Some of them.’

  A line appeared between his eyebrows. ‘And does he seem happy?’

  ‘I – I think so, sir. I do what I can for him. He is treated kindly where we lodge.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘We should care for our fathers when they can care for us no longer, and honour them for what they were. Do you not agree?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  I had heard of the Stuart charm, and I felt it then, lapping around me, drawing me towards the King. But there was no calculation to it – or not then, I think, no desire to bend me to his will. He genuinely wanted to know how my father did, and how I treated him.

  I felt the colour rising to my cheeks. I had seen the King’s father die in front of the Banqueting House, only a few yards from where we were standing. I had seen the executioner hold up the dripping head to the crowd. The King could not know this. Could he?

  We should care for our fathers when they can care for us no longer.

  ‘Even,’ the King said softly, ‘when they are in their graves.’

  He gave the last word a faint upward twist, c
onverting a statement to a question.

  I looked up at him. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You should know that I have a most particular reason to want Thomas Lovett.’

  Of course he did, I thought: Lovett was on the list of Regicides that Master Williamson had shown me. Thomas Lovett – fugit.

  The King seemed to divine my thoughts. ‘Not just the fact he’s exempted from the Act of Indemnity and therefore should be arrested and stand trial. There’s more. There’s worse.’

  Worse than a Regicide?

  Chiffinch stirred, and the King turned his head towards him.

  ‘Peace,’ he said in a low voice that held a hint of anger. ‘I know what I’m about, Chiffinch.’ He turned back to me. ‘You have a quality, Marwood, that may make you invaluable to me. I know what your father was. And I also know that you are not he, and that you’ve rendered me good service these last few months. When you see Mistress Alderley on Sunday, you must do as she asks.’ He smiled, for he must have seen the surprise in my face.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ I said, ‘pray, what will she ask me to do?’

  In the distance, a bell began to toll, quickly but irregularly. I had lost the King’s attention. Chiffinch said something, his voice low and urgent.

  The King glanced at him. ‘Tell them to bring my coat and hat and wig. At once.’

  Chiffinch opened the door. In the doorway he collided with a youthful officer in the Foot Guards, his face as scarlet as his coat.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ the young man gasped, ‘the palace is on fire.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THE KING STRODE down the gallery, with a dozen of us trailing after him. He had long legs, and we had almost to run to keep up with him. Chiffinch was close at his heels, along with the young officer and two or three soldiers, as well as servants bearing lights and gentlemen I did not know. I came last of all. The King had not told me to attend him, but nor had he told me to leave.

  The bell continued its frenzied tolling. Trumpets were sounding outside. Someone was shouting orders in a voice more like a bull’s than a man’s. Underneath everything was the steady thump of drums.