Fire Catcher

by C. S. Quinn

  Blackstone smiled thinly.

  ‘I learned twice,’ he said, ‘that the word of a Stuart King is worth nothing. First the father betrayed me. Then the son. Charles regretted his haste. Things with Lucy turned sour and he wanted to forget I ever helped him.’

  Blackstone shook his head.

  ‘Torr was preaching forgiveness and humility. But I knew. The only way to be certain is to take what you want.’

  ‘But then my mother took it from you,’ said Charlie, with a hard edge to his voice. ‘And you killed her.’

  ‘And now I have the papers again,’ said Blackstone. ‘I will give them to Monmouth,’ he continued. ‘The boy is as greedy and stupid as his mother. I will easily persuade him to fight for his birth-right.’

  Blackstone smiled. ‘Civil war,’ he said. ‘King Charles will not survive it.’

  He looked at the barrels of gunpowder surrounding Teresa.

  ‘Those papers must be destroyed,’ said Charlie. ‘They will tear England apart.’

  Something seemed to clarify on Blackstone’s face.

  ‘You will have heard that your father is dead,’ he said carefully. ‘It is not so. There is a letter in that chest from Tobias.’

  Blackstone smiled.

  ‘You have your father’s cleverness about you,’ he said. ‘He wouldn’t have you surrender your birth-right to a traitor King.’

  Charlie could feel the key burning. He tightened his grip on the flaming wood.

  ‘You have lands due to you,’ said Blackstone. ‘Don’t you want to go home?’ His face was tired suddenly and Charlie thought he saw something of the old soldier.

  ‘London is my home,’ said Charlie. As he spoke a great rumble was heard in the distance. It reverberated around the old cathedral like an earthquake.

  Blackstone smiled. ‘Hear that?’ he said. ‘Fire has reached the Tower. Your traitor King has lost his Kingdom. London is gone,’ concluded Blackstone. ‘A smoking shell.’

  ‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘She will rise again.’ He blew again on the wooden shard in his hand. Flame flared high.

  ‘You can claim your estate,’ said Blackstone. ‘The King will give anything for those papers. Lands, fine houses . . .’

  ‘That’s your dream,’ said Charlie. ‘Perhaps it was my father’s. It isn’t mine.’

  And he threw the fiery ember into an open keg of gunpowder.

  Charlie grabbed Lily’s arm and pulled her towards the gap in Teresa’s possessions. They dived through it, hitting the stone floor and rolling.

  Inside the circle Blackstone staggered back, firing his pistol. Shot reverberated around the private chapel.

  A wave of heat and noise exploded. It drove apart Teresa’s possessions, exploding the chest beneath her and blowing her corpse to dust. Fire roared.

  The blast drove Charlie and Lily backwards. They were propelled skidding over the chapel floor, out into the main cathedral.

  There was an ominous rumbling sound. The ground beneath their feet shook.

  ‘The crypt underneath us,’ said Charlie. ‘All is paper.’ As he spoke a great section of roof shrieked above them and a house-sized piece of stone vaulting plummeted down. It hit the tiled floor with a mighty boom, splitting straight into the crypt below.

  ‘The scaffold on the roof falls,’ said Charlie. He scanned the cathedral. ‘The main doors,’ he decided. ‘That way.’

  Softened lead tiles splattered on the stone floor. Then burning beams began hurtling through the air like flaming spears.

  There was a crash of cindery sparks and then all was strangely silent. Apart from an ominous rushing of air. The floor of the cathedral seemed to ripple.

  Charlie knew what was about to happen. The vault full of paper was about to meet a flaming backdraft.

  ‘Run,’ said Charlie. ‘Now.’

  As he spoke the ground opened up only a few feet from where they stood. Flames rushed up as they sped away towards the back of the cathedral.

  ‘The east floor will give way first,’ shouted Charlie, mentally mapping the crypt. ‘Keep to the west side.’

  Blackstone emerged with a roar from the chapel. He was beating out fire from his clothes. With no time to reload his pistol, he dug in his clothes and brought out a bottle of lye.

  Blackstone took careful aim and hurled it. The bottle smashed against the stone floor by Charlie’s bare feet, forcing him to dodge left. Charlie felt the contents spray on his calf and then a dreadful burning pain. He staggered, gritting his teeth.

  The leather pouch of vinegar. He delved into his coat as they fled.

  The pouch felt light in his hand. Charlie untwisted the stopper, and shook the contents towards his blazing leg. A few drops of vinegar splashed out. The pain ebbed slightly. It was enough to think straight, but not to stop the burn.

  Another shot fired and the pouch went spinning from Charlie’s grip. He watched helplessly as the last drops puddled away to nothing.

  Charlie looked ahead. Two directions.

  Left to the main doors, right to the vestry.

  The lye on his left leg bit deep.

  ‘The vestry!’ Charlie gasped, trying to use his uninjured leg for extra speed. ‘Go right.’

  Chapter 143

  Blackstone allowed himself a quiet smile as the ground gave way across the eastern part of the church. Tobias’s boy was panicking. It was always the way. He was almost sorry for how easy it would be.

  He smiled. ‘Tobias Oakley,’ he muttered. ‘I hope you are watching. The grave will not protect you from my revenge.’

  He made a cool assessment. Tobias’s boy was injured and running to the vestry, just as Blackstone hoped. The bottle of lye had been deliberately thrown to force him away from the exit. Foot soldiers invariably ran for cover under fire. Like rats to their holes. Without thinking through the outcomes.

  Blackstone calculated. A good general knew every part of the battlefield and he knew every part of St Paul’s. The vestry was where the commoners put their scant possessions. Barrels of food. Beer. A few bales of herbs. No weapons. He had checked it only hours ago. There was nothing there the boy could use. Not even a keg of gunpowder.

  His leg would have burned through to the bone by now. He would be maddened by pain. But the girl . . . Could she be a threat? Blackstone had learned never to underestimate women. The cathedral was burning now. Approach carefully and break her neck quickly, he decided. There would be enough time to take his revenge on Tobias’s boy.

  Blackstone reloaded his pistol and felt for the bottle of lye in his cloak. Scald the face and shoot the stomach, he decided. Let Tobias’s son bleed it out whilst the flames finished the job.

  Blackstone tried the vestry door carefully. It had been barricaded shut. Interesting. Blind panic or was there some plan afoot? There were always two doors to a vestry. Perhaps Tobias’s son had formulated some rudimentary attack. He hoped so. It seemed a shame how easy it had become.

  Approaching the second door Blackstone found it open. As he opened it a cloud of fragrant smoke hit him in the face. As he expected it was piled high with possessions. Common things.

  A bale of herbs had been set alight by the door. He shook his head at their idiocy. Smoke. He had fought in cannon and gun smog. His eyes adjusted and he saw Tobias’s boy slumped by a barrel. His hand was at the tap and beer trickled over his burning leg.

  ‘It will not help you,’ said Blackstone. ‘Lye cannot be washed away.’

  Then he saw the crypt door had been opened. So that was the plan. Draw fire underneath the vestry. Distract him with smoke. Then direct him to stand where the floor would collapse. It was not a bad plan at all. Particularly considering it had been formulated at such speed. But Blackstone had all the advantage. He had planned. He knew the terrain.

  Then from nowhere a knife appeared from the smoke. The girl. Blackstone dodged, shocked by her speed. She brought the knife around in a perfect arc. He twisted away, but the knife slashed his cheek. Blackstone was impressed. Such s
kill. It seemed a shame to kill her. The blade had missed his neck by inches.

  In a practised move he tossed up his sword, caught the blade and swung the huge handle hard into the girl’s stomach. She folded in half and slumped to the floor, clutching her belly. Blackstone swung back his enormous leg and made two powerful kicks to her prone form. She made a moan he was familiar with from battle. It was the satisfying sound of fainting pain.

  Blackstone was assailed by the most wonderful certain feeling. London was toppled and in a few moments he would emerge triumphant to claim his prize. The girl had been unexpectedly fast. But his battle skill had not failed him. Now God had served him up yet another just reward. Revenge on the boy. Finally, after all this time, the heavens were favouring him.

  Blackstone turned, fingering the lye in his cloak. Perhaps he would have time to douse more than the face. He took out his gunpowder flask and began reloading his pistol.

  Blackstone approached Tobias’s son. Belongings had been placed strangely and he found himself taking a circuitous route. He frowned.

  His mind wasn’t working as sharply as he was used to. Blackstone’s fingers weren’t moving as he wanted either. Something was slowing his movements. It didn’t matter. Elation was soaring through him.

  ‘Do not take it to heart,’ he said, tamping the gunpowder clumsily. ‘Your father wasn’t as good as I was either. I knew you would run to the vestry. I calculated it. Fear made you predictable.’

  ‘So did I,’ said Tobias’s son. ‘And what you did not calculate is that every common man owns a barrel of vinegar pickles.’

  Realisation hit Blackstone. It wasn’t beer flowing from the tap.

  Tobias’s son was dousing his wound with vinegar. A stream of pickle juices staunched his lye burn.

  Then Tobias’s son stood.

  Chapter 144

  ‘I can tell you something else about common men,’ said Charlie, as the burn in his leg ebbed away. ‘They buy smuggled goods. The smoke you breathe is called opium.’

  Blackstone swung in confusion. Somewhere towards the vanquished shape of the girl and the door to the vestry he could see the smoking bale. It had been placed so he breathed the smoke but they didn’t. A current of air drew silkily over him. It meant something. He didn’t know what.

  For the first time since he could remember, Blackstone felt uncertain. He tried to summon his knowledge of the cathedral and found that he couldn’t. Tobias’s boy had laid the room out, he could see that now. Blackstone had been drawn to stand with the large stained-glass window behind him. There was something wrong about that. But he couldn’t work out what. Thoughts rolled like warm treacle. He couldn’t gather them together.

  Charlie took aim and sent a candlestick winging towards the stained glass window. It dented the lead fixings and smashed away two small portions of glass. Just enough to force a current of air whistling into the still cathedral.

  Blackstone turned slowly. His eyes lifted to the stained glass window behind him. It seemed to be shimmering. The Virgin Mary stared at him. She had a face he knew. Sally Oakley, leaden tears running across her cheeks.

  ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘You died.’

  The cathedral seemed to take a giant breath. The whistling sound rose to a shriek. A network of cracks split out from the holes in the stained glass. Then the entire window bowed inwards as air rushed to fuel the fire.

  ‘This is not a war,’ said Charlie. ‘It is a fire. Fire doesn’t fear its own skin, or seek riches. All fire wants is food. You have released a monster you can’t control.’

  ‘You think you can control fire?’ asked Blackstone.

  ‘No man commands fire,’ said Charlie. ‘But I can predict where it will go.’

  The window smashed apart in an explosion of coloured glass. Blackstone held up his hands as the glass shards pelted him. He looked wonderingly at his arms. They were sliced to the bone, but the wounds didn’t hurt him.

  Then the ground beneath him shuddered as air rushed through the crypt beneath.

  Blackstone staggered as the floor split apart.

  A great split appeared in the floor, showing the burning books and papers below. They glowed like hellfire. He staggered again. The ground was uneven. It was hard to stay upright.

  His last thought was the pistol. Blackstone thought it was loaded. He could fell a man across a battlefield after a day and night’s hard fight. Tobias’s son would waste time saving the girl. Tobias was the same. Sally Oakley had always been his weakness.

  Blackstone aimed the pistol. His mind swirled like a thick fog.

  He had been right. Tobias was pawing at Sally’s unconscious form. The pistol sights wavered and then fixed. A chest shot was safest. He couldn’t miss.

  Charlie looked up from Lily’s collapsed figure. Blackstone’s gun barrel was pointed square at his chest.

  Then a knife whistled through the air and lodged deep in Blackstone’s throat. His eyes widened in amazement and his hand went to the knife. He tugged at it in puzzlement but it had been driven too deep.

  The ground shuddered beneath him. Blackstone slipped, twisted, then fell headlong into the fiery bonfire of papers below. Beside Charlie, Lily dropped her knife arm.

  Below them Blackstone gasped as the fire burned his hair and clothes. Then he stood with arms outstretched.

  ‘Teresa,’ he choked as blood filled his throat. ‘Is it you?’

  He staggered forward into the fire. And then the flames masked him out.

  Chapter 145

  Lily doubled over again, clutching her stomach.

  ‘Here.’ Charlie grabbed a burning stem of opium poppy. ‘Breathe this. It will take the pain away.’

  Lily inhaled gratefully and stood a little more upright.

  ‘Better,’ she agreed. ‘We need to get out of here.’

  The stone floor split and collapsed a few feet away as Charlie helped her out of the vestry. Out in the wide cathedral all was chaos. The huge roof had split open revealing the dark sky above. Possessions were aflame and the floor had collapsed into a fiery pit.

  Charlie took it in with the practised eye of a cinder thief.

  ‘This way,’ he said, drawing them away from the main air flow.

  They broke out into St Paul’s graveyard gasping from the smoke. Behind them the mighty cathedral blazed. London’s most iconic landmark was destroyed. The great spire had smashed through the burning roof. The paper-filled crypt had blown apart the thick walls and sent all tumbling down.

  Above them the dark sky crackled. A sliver of yellow sun peaked low beneath the black clouds. It was morning. Charlie felt a cinder land on his face. Then another fell. And another. But they didn’t seem to be burning him.

  Charlie brought his hand to brush them away and was surprised to find it wet.

  ‘Lily,’ he grinned. ‘Rain.’

  She tipped her head back and smiled up at it.

  ‘The wind has died as well,’ she said. ‘Perhaps it will do some good.’

  They looked up at the flaming cathedral. There was no saving it. Somewhere deep inside were the papers, blazing in Teresa’s wedding trunk.

  ‘Did you mean it?’ asked Lily. ‘About your father? You really don’t want to know?’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘It hardly matters now. Perhaps it is best some things stay buried.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Lily. ‘Because if you want them, I have the papers.’

  Charlie stared at her. ‘You have the papers?’

  ‘Yes.’ Lily nodded.

  ‘Why? How?’ Charlie could barely get the words out.

  ‘I had your key,’ said Lily. ‘I made a copy. On my way to Bridewell Prison. I spy for Amesbury,’ she added, ‘I know men who will forge a key in a few hours.’

  ‘How did you take the papers from the chest?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘You were distracted by Teresa’s magical things,’ said Lily.

  Charlie was thinking back. ‘I thought the body moved,’ he said. ‘It was you. Opening the chest
.’

  Seeing Charlie’s expression Lily pulled them out of her bodice.

  ‘Don’t be angry,’ she said. ‘I had my reasons.’

  Mutely he took them.

  ‘Torr said they were dangerous to England in the wrong hands,’ said Lily. ‘It was only when you fired the chest I knew you could be trusted with the papers. They could bring down England you know,’ she added earnestly.

  ‘Is not a man’s word . . .’ Charlie stopped speaking and shook his head. His gaze dropped to the papers.

  ‘Women,’ he muttered.

  ‘Aren’t you going to look at them?’ asked Lily. ‘You’ve waited long enough.

  Charlie shot her an incredulous glance. Then shaking his head, he unrolled them.

  Chapter 146

  The King turned to his troops. Everyone was covered in a fine dusting of gunpowder.

  ‘You thought well,’ admitted James. ‘To use gunpowder.’

  ‘It was your naval men who placed the barrels right,’ said Charles. ‘They raced up those buildings like monkeys.’

  ‘They’re good men,’ said James. ‘I’d give my life for them and they for me. But your plan was what saved us. It was a good one. A barrel of gunpowder is worth twenty men.’

  They looked at the smoking devastation where buildings had been. It had only taken a few well-placed barrels of gunpowder to make a wide enough firebreak. Gunpowder smoke scented the air. Sooty-faced men grinned at the victory. The Tower was safe.

  The wind was dying down and, unexpectedly, rain began to fall. A muted cheer went up. The smoking shell of the city began to whisper and hiss.

  Amesbury was looking admiringly to the King and his brother.

  ‘Say what you will about the Stuart brothers,’ he said, looking to the Tower, ‘they come into their own in a crisis.’

  ‘We must rebuild without delay,’ said the King. He was looking at St Paul’s still burning in the distance. ‘Did we not have plans for the cathedral in any case?’