Fire Catcher

by C. S. Quinn

  Lily moved slightly behind Charlie. The Oracle moved forward, took her unresisting hand and rested his lips on it for slightly too long.

  ‘You see, my dear?’ he hissed. ‘There’s nothing to fear from me. Only Mr Wilkes and he stays out of the way. You’re a gypsy?’ he asked.

  Lily glanced at Charlie then nodded.

  ‘I can always tell by the eyes,’ said The Oracle. ‘A dark wildness to them. I can only imagine what secrets they hold.’ He was considering her face, still holding her hand.

  Then The Oracle’s gaze turned sharply back to Charlie. ‘Come to finish me off?’ he demanded. His hand was at a deep scar by his eyebrow.

  ‘I saved you from a gibbet at Tyburn,’ said Charlie, keeping his tone even. ‘I struck to disarm.’

  The Oracle glanced down distractedly.

  ‘Hard to know, hard to know,’ he mumbled. His pale hand spidered to his face. Then the fish-eyes swivelled to Charlie.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

  ‘Information,’ answered Charlie, ‘on a ship.’

  The sunken blue seemed to swirl in The Oracle’s filmy gaze. ‘Information costs money. More money than a thief taker has.’

  ‘You owe me,’ said Charlie. ‘You had more than your half.’

  The Oracle shook his head as though trying to dislodge some troublesome thought.

  ‘Information the thief taker wants,’ he whispered to himself. The Oracle tilted his head and appeared to listen intently. He straightened up.

  ‘Wilkes has decided,’ he said, ‘to pay the thief taker fair return.’

  ‘You may have your information, Charlie Tuesday,’ said The Oracle. ‘But then you’ll be gone. Or Wilkes will set Mr Jenks to break your skull.’ He gestured to the burly guard who had now retreated outside. ‘Mr Wilkes can be kind as well as cruel,’ added the Oracle. ‘Do not forget it.’

  Charlie nodded but Lily looked confused.

  ‘This place charts the ships?’ she asked, gazing at the array of dates, numbers and symbols. ‘For smuggling?’ She sounded confused.

  ‘The Oracle knows of any cargo ship in and out of London,’ said Charlie. ‘Nothing gets past without his charting it.’

  The Oracle smiled at the compliment.

  ‘I break no law in charting these things,’ he said to Lily. ‘Perhaps a large import might stop up customs. That could leave a few smaller ships longer unguarded on the Thames approach. Or a sunk cargo could mean a better price on the black market.’

  His attention returned to Charlie.

  ‘I give no names.’ There was a hardness to his voice now, and Charlie sensed a rising tension in him.

  ‘I don’t want any,’ he said quickly, working to allay any possible switch in mood. ‘We want information about a ship. One which sailed long ago.’

  The dark eyebrows twitched in thought.

  ‘I suppose I had better not ask your reasons?’

  ‘Perhaps not.’

  The Oracle thought for a moment.

  ‘How long ago? This ship?’

  ‘Seventeen years ago.’

  The Oracle licked his grey teeth. ‘I’ve no information from so long ago.’

  Charlie felt the disappointment like a physical blow.

  ‘The Shadow Trade has kept log for twenty-five years,’ added The Oracle. ‘But my predecessor was not literate.’ His brow furrowed. ‘There was a log of sorts – mostly pictures and shapes. Untidy,’ he added grimacing. ‘Disorderly.’

  ‘Could we see the log?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘It’s not nice to see,’ said The Oracle. ‘Not nice at all. I don’t know if it could tell you much.’ He’d begun clenching and unclenching his fist.

  ‘It was a large ship,’ said Charlie. He could see the signs of Wilkes emerging. But they had to take the risk. ‘The Mermaid.’

  The Oracle blinked rapidly and his mouth began moving.

  ‘The tall ship which sailed the year the King was beheaded?’ The Oracle’s voice was undulating strangely. ‘It’s famed,’ he added in a breathy whisper. ‘That ship took all the noble supplicants. Those who threw themselves on the Prince-heir Charles and hoped to be remembered to his favour.’

  Charlie and Lily exchanged glances.

  ‘There are stories too,’ continued The Oracle, licking his lips. ‘Treasure. Gold.’ His eyes flickered.

  ‘We’re not looking for treasure,’ said Charlie quickly. ‘Only a man who sailed on it.’

  ‘There could be something,’ said The Oracle carefully. ‘A ship of that fame. Perhaps. Certainly it had wealth worth charting.’

  ‘Might we see the log?’ pressed Charlie.

  The Oracle’s eyes glittered in the gloom. ‘Wilkes wants to know. Is your memory still as good as it was?’

  ‘That depends,’ said Charlie evenly.

  ‘Perhaps you might tell me something,’ said The Oracle. ‘I’ve a smuggler who owes. I’d like to find him.’ He pulled out a handful of money. ‘This is the coin he paid with.’

  Charlie regarded it. ‘You owe me a debt,’ he reminded him.

  The Oracle’s eyes shifted to Lily and then to the wall behind them. His pupils weaved over the symbols and numbers.

  ‘But Wilkes thinks there’s treasure,’ he said. ‘And Wilkes says there’s an extra cost for treasure.’

  Charlie ran a hand through his hair and made a decision.

  ‘Ald Gate,’ he said. ‘By the sign of the painted sun. There’s an official coin house there. That’s where your man’s coin was minted.’

  The Oracle nodded in satisfaction and slid away the coins. Then he beckoned them to a low corner of the earthen cave.

  ‘Here,’ said The Oracle. ‘This is the time of the treasure ship you seek.’

  Charlie stared at the pictures. He could hardly believe it.

  Chapter 49

  ‘You took this from Barbara Castlemaine’s apartments?’ Lucy Walter was turning the dun-coloured ball in her hand. ‘You’re sure?’

  Monmouth nodded. He was taking in his mother’s appearance in shame. Lucy was tricked out in garish jewels, badly matched horsehair curls fixed to her head. Her wobbling bust was erupting from a tight-fitting magenta dress.

  ‘Lady Castlemaine keeps fireballs,’ added Monmouth. ‘For what purpose I know not.’

  Lucy laughed delightedly. ‘Don’t you know what this is?’ She was pointing to a symbol stamped on the ball. It was a crown looped with knots.

  Monmouth shook his head. ‘Amesbury showed me that symbol,’ he said, toying with his lacy cuffs. ‘He asked me to look for it. To report if I saw it. He told me it was the mark of a rebel faction.’

  Monmouth curled his lip.

  ‘Can’t you find a proper hairdresser?’ he demanded. ‘Your false curls look ridiculous. I will be a laughing stock if you appear in court.’

  Lucy’s eyes flashed hurt.

  ‘And your dress,’ he continued, gesturing at the low-cut neckline, ‘your jewels. They are not fitting. You are mother to a great man,’ he added, straightening his lace cuffs self-importantly. ‘You dress like a harlot.’

  Lucy’s hand winged out and slapped his face. Monmouth reeled back in shock, touching his cheek. His eyes flashed fury and he raised his hand to retaliate. Then he noticed servants in the distance and pretended to be smoothing his hair.

  ‘How dare you!’ he hissed, his eyes sliding to the servants. ‘I am the son of a King.’

  ‘I am your mother,’ said Lucy, the fire in her countenance ebbing a little. ‘You must be careful how important you make yourself,’ she added. ‘Barbara has spies everywhere. She wants her children to be royal. Any excuse and she’ll have you tried as a traitor.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about Lady Castlemaine,’ said Monmouth. ‘We have a better understanding nowadays. She thinks me a force to be reckoned with,’ he added, smirking at the memory. Lady Castlemaine was in no doubt of Monmouth’s virility.

  ‘That’s what she wants you to think,’ sighed Lucy. She held
the ball up.

  ‘What do you think the symbol means?’ asked Monmouth, looking at the crown and knots.

  ‘That is the sign of the Sealed Knot,’ said Lucy, furrowing her little brow. ‘They were brutish men who fought for the King.’ She gave a little shudder at the memory of heavyset, stinking soldiers arriving in Holland.

  ‘They hated me,’ Lucy added, in her usual habit of bringing the subject back to herself. ‘The Sealed Knot wanted to plan war with your father. In Holland. But he preferred me to their battle-talk.’ She smiled. ‘Charles courted me like a true lady.’

  ‘You were pregnant with me in Holland,’ said Monmouth, who often grew exasperated by his mother’s flagrant lies. ‘And you had other men.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Lucy gave a vague wave of her hand. ‘You know how things are. And Charles acknowledges you as his son. That’s the important thing.’

  Her dark eyes were considering the symbol again.

  ‘You’ve not told Amesbury of this?’

  ‘Not yet, but . . .’

  ‘I’ll take this to him myself,’ said Lucy. ‘And you mustn’t talk of it. Amesbury has no business setting my son to spy.’

  Chapter 50

  Charlie and Lily stared. The corner of The Oracle’s cave was completely covered in tiny pictures of ships. There were hundreds and hundreds, sketched small and detailing the contents of the hulls.

  They were far more comprehensible than the elaborate symbols which spidered over the rest of the cave. At least ten years of London’s shipping was detailed in miniature.

  Charlie whistled. ‘I’ll wager even the Naval Office doesn’t keep such comprehensive records,’ he said.

  ‘From long ago,’ said The Oracle. ‘I would have scrubbed them out,’ he added, ‘but Wilkes says “no” and I must heed him.’

  Charlie knelt by the pictures. The rough-drawn shapes made more sense to him than The Oracle’s crazed hatchings. There were signs he took to be emblematic of goods.

  ‘Barrels for brandy?’ suggested Lily, squatting down beside him.

  ‘Or port,’ said Charlie, looking at the shape. ‘They’re wide. Those are brandy,’ he added, pointing to some smaller-drawn kegs. ‘And those black powder.’

  Charlie scanned down the column of symbols.

  ‘Pipes for tobacco,’ he decided, ‘feathers might be birds.’

  ‘There’s no sign to say which boat,’ said Lily. ‘No numbers. No letters.’

  ‘Nothing of which passengers might have sailed either,’ noted Charlie. ‘I suppose that’s a lesser concern to a smuggler.’

  The Oracle gave an angry hiss.

  ‘Wilkes doesn’t like that word,’ he muttered.

  ‘How might we know which was the Mermaid?’ Lily asked, scanning the drawings.

  ‘I’ve no idea how a mind like that works,’ said The Oracle. He’d moved to the wall of the cave and began patting his symbols in a distracted rhythm. ‘There’s no order at all to the thinking. No order.’ He worried at the cut on his face, picked up a piece of chalk and made a flurry of new neat symbols on the wall.

  Lily looked nervously at Charlie. They needed to work quickly.

  ‘Likely the ships are drawn in order of when they set sail,’ decided Charlie. He examined the sketches, letting his finger trace the outlines.

  ‘I think these ships sailed during the Civil War,’ he said. ‘Less goods, you see?’

  Lily nodded.

  The Oracle was crouched low now, the chalk poised in his hand. He stood, drew some more shapes, tapped the chalk and stood back. ‘Low tide,’ he muttered, his eyes twitching over the chalk markings. ‘Fingers. Cut.’

  ‘We should make haste,’ whispered Charlie to Lily, recognising the signs. ‘He’s becoming agitated. Things could get dangerous.’

  ‘These ships came afterwards,’ replied Lily, tracking down. ‘When trading was restored with Holland.’ Her slim fingers rested on a column of ten boats.

  ‘Here,’ said Charlie, moving forward. ‘That one.’

  His hand rested on one of the larger ships.

  ‘This could be a mermaid.’

  ‘Strange kind of mermaid,’ said Lily peering at the picture. ‘Looks more like a sea monster.’

  ‘But see there and there?’ Charlie pointed to the other ships. ‘An eagle, a lady. They’re mastheads. None are well drawn.’

  ‘Your sea-monster ship carried few goods,’ admitted Lily, scrutinising the deck plan. ‘That would fit if it was a passenger ship. But it tells us nothing of who sailed in it.’

  Charlie let out a little sigh of frustration. He had been hoping for some better clue.

  The Oracle gave a sudden shout of frustration.

  Lily looked up, startled, but he returned to muttering to himself.

  Charlie shot him a quick glance. He didn’t know how long they had until Wilkes made an appearance.

  ‘Wool was shipped,’ he muttered, reassessing the image, ‘this looks to be a little gold.’

  He stopped. There was a picture of a chest. It was drawn much larger than the other symbols and in more detail. Charlie recognised it instantly. An intricate banded locking mechanism had been sketched across the sides and top.

  ‘A chest . . .’ began Lily. Charlie caught her wrist to stop her speaking. But the Oracle’s sharp little blue eyes were already staring.

  ‘Some cargo trunk,’ said Charlie trying to sound nonchalant. ‘Could be anything.’

  ‘That is a trousseau,’ said the Oracle, beside them again now. ‘A locked wedding trunk.’

  Chapter 51

  The Oracle was looking at Charlie’s key. He licked his black lips. Charlie eyed him. The signs of Wilkes were more evident now. There was a cruel twist to the mouth.

  ‘Many valuable things in a wedding trunk,’ The Oracle was saying, twitching a strand of dark hair between pale fingers. ‘If there is one aboard a ship we try to record anything which would make it stand out. Even my foolish predecessor knew that.’

  ‘What are those?’ asked Lily. ‘She was pointing to a number of arrows which had been drawn under the deck of the ship.

  Charlie switched his gaze across.

  ‘That is the sign of the broad arrow,’ he said, tapping the shapes thoughtfully.

  Something odd struck him about it.

  ‘The broad arrow?’ asked Lily.

  ‘The broad arrow marks purchases for the country in the King’s money,’ supplied The Oracle. ‘Military goods, things of that nature. Likely there were weapons on the ship.’ His pale fingers had begun clenching and unclenching again.

  ‘But why would the broad arrow be drawn among the barrels and bales?’ Charlie puzzled out loud. ‘This was the year the King was beheaded,’ continued Charlie slowly. ‘There was no military property to be shipped.’

  They were all silent contemplating this.

  ‘What property did the King still have, when his head rolled from the scaffold?’ said Charlie eventually.

  ‘Everything he had belonged to Parliament,’ said Lily. ‘Everything worth owning.’

  Everything worth owning.

  Charlie turned the problem over in his mind. What wasn’t worth owning at the end of the Civil War?

  Suddenly he knew the answer.

  ‘Convicts.’ Charlie slapped the wall with his palm, sure now of the answer. ‘There were convicts on this ship.’

  He turned to Lily.

  ‘Convicts are military property. Even after the war was won. Some were kept in ships because the prisons were overflowing.’

  ‘But this was a passenger ship,’ said Lily. ‘They would not have housed them there.’

  ‘Passenger ships took prisoners who weren’t dangerous,’ interjected The Oracle. ‘They kept them for a few voyages. Then returned and docked them in a London prison.’

  Charlie looked at The Oracle’s clouded eyes uneasily. He was showing too much interest.

  Lily looked at Charlie. ‘What does that tell us?’

  He counted the arr
ows.

  ‘It tells us there were fifteen men who travelled on The Mermaid, who might still languish in a London dungeon,’ said Charlie.

  ‘It was seventeen years ago. They’ll be long dead.’

  ‘Likely most of them,’ admitted Charlie. ‘But a few might live still. Poor men imprisoned do not get out alive. They are taxed for the cost of their cells and food, and then held for their debt to the prison.’

  ‘We don’t know which prison holds them,’ said Lily.

  Charlie chewed a finger. There were seven prisons in London, each with their own distinct character of felons.

  ‘There’s something different about these prisoners,’ he decided. ‘Some reason they were held at sea. They can’t have been very dangerous. A ship is not particularly secure. Why would you choose some men over others, for a watery gaol?’

  ‘Someone wanted them out of the way?’ said Lily. For the smallest of moments Charlie thought he saw something flash in her face. Did she know something she wasn’t telling?

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Charlie, hesitating. He blew out his cheeks in thought. ‘New Gate prison wasn’t built then,’ he began slowly. ‘The Clink is local. For those who commit crimes south of the river. Bridewell and Lud Gate are for debtors.’

  He rubbed his forehead.

  ‘That leaves the Fleet and Marshalsea on Borough.’

  ‘And the Tower,’ suggested Lily.

  ‘That’s for prisoners of great importance,’ said Charlie. ‘Not those who have been stowed on a ship for want of a place.’

  His finger traced the shape of the arrows. Fifteen men, at the end of the war. Which small groups were captured at such a time?

  ‘They are almost certainly all dead,’ Lily was muttering.

  ‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. In any case it is all we have,’ said Charlie. He straightened thoughtfully. ‘The Fleet’s nearer the Thames,’ he said. ‘That’s the most likely. And you have friends there,’ he added meaningfully.

  ‘It’s already burned,’ said Lily. ‘You heard what the guards said.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Charlie. ‘There’s a chance.’

  ‘Even if it still stands, it would be right in the heart of the blaze,’ protested Lily.