A great cheer went up, hats were flung into the air, and ‘God save the King!’ re-echoed around Moorfields.
Charles the Second had never been more loved, would never be so loved again. Every man, woman and child listening to him that day had heard the stories of how he and the Duke of York had heaved water buckets or wielded spades alongside their subjects, oblivious to the threat of regicide. They had battled to save London, despite what London had done to their father. I was one of the few people in Moorfields who knew that all Charles Stuart’s kind words about his capital city were cant and hypocrisy, for like all the Stuarts, he detested the place. But this King was politician enough to know that you tell people what they want to hear, and he was a master of that.
Of course, the outpouring of unvarnished affection towards Charles Stuart did not last. In truth, it barely lasted until the winter. But there, amid the tents and timber shelters erected all across Moorfields, I witnessed it, and remember it still.
* * *
The King dismounted to speak with individual members of the crowd, who kissed his hand as though he were the Second Coming. I pushed my way through, Julian Carvell following close behind me, and bowed when I was before the King.
‘Damn it, Matt Quinton,’ said Charles Stuart, ‘are there six of you now? You’ve been everywhere, man. You and my brother, too. Thank God England had men prepared to exert themselves so! More than some others, that’s certain. Come, though, Matt, I’ll tell you a witty story, lately told me by Sir William Penn. Now, tell me, what kind of thing did men bury for safety during the fire, eh?’
‘I heard of many a goldsmith burying his horde in cellars, Majesty.’
‘Gold, naturally. Penn buried his wine – also good English common sense, that. But our friend Mister Pepys buried his Parmesan cheese!’
The King laughed, and I joined in dutifully, as did the Life Guards within earshot. Unlike them, though, I knew Sam Pepys, and knew it was exactly the kind of thing he would do.
‘So who’s this fellow, Matt?’ said the King, scrutinising Carvell.
‘This, Your Majesty, is the bold coxswain from the Royal Sceptre who taught me the stratagem for blowing up buildings.’
Carvell bowed deeply, and the King examined him still more closely.
‘To think, Sir Matthew, that I am known as the Black Boy. Well, here’s a pass. A most excellent pass. Up, man, and take the hand of your King!’
Carvell rose, reached out uncertainly, and kissed, then shook, the proferred royal hand.
‘M-majesty!’ he stammered. I had never before seen the garrulous, jolly fellow so tongue-tied.
‘Your name, good fellow?’
‘Carvell, Majesty. Late of your royal colony of Virginia.’
‘Virginia, eh? That explains it. You must tell me of Virginia, Master Carvell, for I have a mind to keep you close at hand. Such eminent service as you have rendered deserves reward, and I have the very thing in mind. The shipkeeper of the Royal Escape is lately dead. Sir Matthew, would you say this fellow is qualified for the post?’
‘Amply so, Your Majesty.’
‘Excellent. And you, Coxswain Carvell. You have facilitated my second royal escape, by God, so what say you to taking charge of the first?’
It would have been nearly possible to cram an entire sheep into Carvell’s gaping mouth.
‘Your Majesty’s bounty is… is…’
‘Splendid. A black boy to mind the ship that saved the Black Boy – what could be better? Then we are agreed. I’ll get my brother to command Mister Pepys to draw up a warrant. That’s assuming he’s finished exhuming his cheese, of course.’
The King laughed, mounted, and rode off, leaving the captain of the Royal Sceptre and the new shipkeeper of the Royal Escape alone. But Julian Carvell seemed to be on another planet, as though a cannon-of-seven had gone off in his ear. In one sense, the Royal Escape was the meanest vessel in the inventory of the King’s Navy: a simple Brighton fishing smack, no more. But in another, it was by far the most important ship in England. For this was the craft that had secretly smuggled Charles Stuart to safety in France following his defeat at the Battle of Worcester at the hands of Oliver Cromwell and his army. For weeks, the King had made his way across England in disguise, constantly in fear of being recognised and captured, hiding from Roundhead patrols – most memorably, in the branches of an oak tree at Boscobel House, and then disguised implausibly as perhaps the only six-foot-tall woman in England. But finally, he got to the coast, and the captain of the smack was persuaded to take him across the Channel, despite knowing full well who he was. Thus the humble vessel saved the life of the King, and when he was restored to his throne, he bought it, rechristened it Royal Escape, and moored it opposite the Palace of Whitehall, as a permanent reminder of his good fortune; and, indeed, as a warning, to ensure he never went on such travels again.
‘Jesus’ sake, Sir Matthew,’ said Carvell, at last, ‘what do I do?’
‘What you do, Mister Carvell, is to gather some of your fellow Sceptres, find an alehouse, get them to toast your good fortune, and get constable-baiting drunk. And if you wish to consider that an order, you may do so.’
* * *
I made my way westward, then south down Shoe Lane, through the smouldering ruins of Farringdon Without, then out onto Fleet Street. Everywhere, people were swarming over the ruins: householders trying to locate the charred remains of their homes, shopkeepers and artisans salvaging what they could from the wreckage of their businesses. Blackened brick chimneys poked above piles of rubble, the only standing testimony to the houses they had once warmed. Children played particularly lengthy games of hide-and-seek, there being innumerable places in which to hide nearly indefinitely. To the east, everything was devastation, across the Fleet River and up to the blackened, half-fallen walls of Paul’s Church.
I turned westward again and saw how, quite suddenly, the devastation stopped. It was as though an invisible wall had been erected, beyond which the fire could not pass. There, to the south of Fleet Street, stood the Temple and its glorious round-naved church. To the north, Saint Dunstan in the West survived, seeming a kind of gatehouse to the untouched buildings beyond it.
One of the first of which was Ravensden House.
My brother’s wish for the great fire to consume it had not been granted. The house still stood, entirely intact; or at least, as intact as its manifold cracks and defects permitted it to be. I found Musk inspecting it for damage.
‘How it remains standing is a mystery that passeth all understanding,’ he said. ‘In five hundred years’ time, antiquaries will be crawling all over it and puzzling over how it still survives, when the rest of London’s been reclaimed by forests and meadows centuries before.’
‘Are you turned seer now, Musk? The new Mother Shipton for our times?’
He gave me a look that indicated the question was beneath contempt.
‘Expect you’ll want to know where Her Ladyship is. Still at Whitehall, is where she is, supervising the loading of everything that’s now got to be brought back here. That’s if she’s not taking tea with Mistress Stewart or Lady Ossory.’
‘And her…’
‘Her health excellent, child kicking.’
‘And Captain Ollivier?’
‘With the Duke of York. Now the fire’s over, His Royal Highness’s thoughts have turned back to the sea, it seems, and the prospect of battle with the French. But he’ll never get anything out of the captain. The Duke’s too tight with his wine, thinks half a glass is enough for an entire meal. If it was me, I’d pour an entire hogshead down Captain Ollivier, and would soon have every one of King Louis’ secrets out of him.’
I left Musk to his inspection and his complaining, and went to my brother. Charles had been installed in a bed newly erected in the library, on the ground floor at the back of the house, thus obviating any need to get him back upstairs. He was evidently much improved, sitting up against his pillows, studying various papers in cipher.
‘Matt,’ he said, embracing me as warmly as he ever did. His voice was stronger, too. ‘Well, my young brother – the saviour of the realm from a second regicide!’
‘The King did much to save himself,’ I said. ‘And Goodman undoubtedly would have done the deed, were it not for Mistress Behn.’
‘Thank God. I dread to think what would have transpired if he had succeeded. The infant Duke of Cambridge made King at three years old, and who for a regent? His mother, Clarendon’s daughter? There would be rebellion in the blinking of an eye, and civil war would be come again.’
I nodded. The chief minister, the Earl of Clarendon, was universally detested, not least because his ugly daughter had ensnared the Duke of York into marriage through the simple stratagem of lifting her skirts and grabbing hold of his manhood.
‘It’s a miracle there was only the one attempt,’ I said. ‘The King and the Duke earned much credit with the people by being out on the streets, helping to pull down buildings and pump water. But it would have taken only one bitter old former New Model trooper with a pistol or a blade to hand.’
‘The paradox of royalty,’ said Charles. ‘Be remote and aloof, as our royal brothers’ late father was, and you are hated. Go out among the people, and, yes, you might be better loved – but you also place yourself in harm’s way, and become a target for every malcontent and madman in the land.’
We talked for a while of the fate of London, the great buildings that were gone, the wealthy men said to be ruined, and those who had demonstrated craven cowardice during the fire (the name of Sir Thomas Bloodworth, Lord Mayor, being high in that particular reckoning). Then, as our conversation seemed to be drawing to an end, when he was clearly tiring and in need of rest, Charles abruptly changed the subject.
‘Now that the matter of the Horsemen is concluded, I have thought fit to send Mistress Behn back to Antwerp. There, she is eminently useful to the King’s cause. Here, though…’
It seemed as if he intended to say more, but thought better of it. I wondered: does he know? Even if he did not know of the sin I had committed with the lady in question, had he somehow heard of the interest shown in her by both the King and the Duke of York? The politics of the court were fraught enough without Aphra Behn becoming a new mistress for either Charles or James Stuart – or, God help us, both – and Lord Percival might very well have calculated that temptation ought to be distanced from both brothers, as well as from Sir Matthew Quinton.
As always, though, my brother’s face was unreadable.
Nevertheless, my thoughts were in turmoil for the rest of the day, especially so when Cornelia returned from Whitehall. As we embraced, and she wept copiously – for she, too, knew of what had transpired in Great Saint Bartholomew’s – a part of me wanted Aphra gone, and far away in Antwerp. But another part of me wanted her close. Very close.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I could have let her go without a word.
Perhaps I should have done. Indeed, even as I rode out over London Bridge, that was still what I was minded to do. True, I had an explicit order from the Lord High Admiral, directing me to return to the Royal Sceptre at Woolwich to expedite her fitting out for sea; but both the Duke of York and I knew that this was a fiction, for my ship would not be coming out of dry dock before the winter. Whether she would come out after that was a moot point, as there was already talk that the King had too little money to contemplate setting out a fleet the following year, especially with London, the great fount of money, in ruins. On the other hand, Woolwich removed me from any prospect of an encounter with the Duke of Albemarle, who had arrived in London to save it, only to find all the fires put out days before His Obesity returned to the capital. It removed, me, too, from any further obligation to Captain Ollivier, whose parole had been taken up by the Duke of York himself. And it also removed me from the risk of betraying myself to Cornelia, although I had to trust in God that Phineas Musk would not somehow give me away instead. But the Lady Astraea was aboard a ship at Gravesend, waiting for the wind, and Gravesend was not so very far from Woolwich.
At the south end of London Bridge, I halted and turned in my saddle. When I had last been at that precise spot, only some three weeks earlier – three weeks, for Jesu’s sake – I had looked out at a London that was still intact and proud. Now, I could have been looking upon a scene painted by old Brueghel. Only a few blackened remnants of church towers, walls and brick chimneys stood above a vast heap of rubble, some of it smouldering. And overlooking it all, the shattered remains of old Paul’s, its roof and large parts of the walls gone. Yet even from the south bank, I could see tiny figures of men clearing space amid the wreckage, starting to erect the timber frames of new buildings. There had been no official permission to do so; but that was the way of Londoners. Nothing was more certain than that a new London would rise from the ashes. Whether it would be the sort of London that the King and his advisers in such matters, the likes of Christopher Wren, wished to see, was quite another matter.
I rode on, down the familiar highway that led through Deptford and Greenwich toward Kent and the sea. I cut inland to avoid the sight of Woolwich yard and the masts of the Royal Sceptre; I would be there soon enough, fighting pointless battles with Identifiable Pett. Instead, I pressed on to Gravesend, where the usual mass of ships huddled beneath the protecting, comforting walls of the blockhouse, some waiting to proceed up river, others out into the open sea.
Aphra Behn’s ship was a small flyboat, bound for Antwerp. The lady in question watched my approach as I was rowed out from the shore, and was waiting for me on deck when I got aboard.
‘Sir Matthew Quinton,’ she said. ‘I had not expected you. Not expected you at all.’
Now that I was there, a few feet in front of her, overwhelmed once again by her charms, I realised I had not the slightest idea what I intended to say to her.
‘I – I could not let you go without a word.’
She smiled.
‘Ah, the famous Quinton sense of honour. I’d have thought you knew enough of the world to realise that there are times when it is better to let matters rest – to part, indeed, without a word. The firing of London and the saving of the lives of the royal brothers would have marked a fitting break between us.’
I knew that her words were true, and sensible, and right. But to hear them from her lips felt like a culverin ball hammering into my chest and blasting my heart clear of my body.
‘I wanted to say – that is, I meant to say…’
She raised a finger to my lips. The touch of her flesh, even such a tiny part of her flesh, made me shiver.
‘To you, perhaps, I am a temptress,’ said Aphra. ‘What the preachers would call a fallen woman, a brazen harlot, or words to that effect. Perhaps, though, since the King’s return, we live in a time where the more enlightened might think of me as a woman of independence, striving to make her way in the world by whatever means she can. Or at least, I hope they would.’ She looked away, but I could have sworn there was a hint of a tear in her eye. ‘Ours was but a single, strange moment in time, in this strangest of years. The year of the Great Fire. The year of the Beast.’ A hint of her smile returned. ‘You should put me behind you, Matthew. Soon, you will have a child, and your world will change. And if you become Earl of Ravensden, it will change even more. But there is no world you can inhabit that has a place in it for the Lady Astraea.’
I could think of no reply; no reply that mattered, at any rate.
‘You will be safe?’ was all I could manage.
‘Those whom I watch in Flanders, on behalf of your brother and Lord Arlington, are milksops compared with our friends the Horsemen. But don’t concern yourself for me, Matthew. Concern yourself for the things that matter in your world – that truly matter. Who knows, though, perhaps one day I shall model a character upon you.’ She was smiling broadly again. ‘A worthy knight. A man of rare honour in a dishonourable world. Yes, I think a playwright could make something of that. With
embellishments, of course, and dramatic licence, for that is what we do.’ There was a curious edge to the smile now. ‘A little more roguish, perhaps. More of a rover.’
I could see the shipmaster fidgeting. I knew that stance: the eternal impatience of the captain who knows that the conditions are very nearly right to take his ship to sea. The wind was set fair for Flanders, and the wind must not be denied.
* * *
We parted, and I returned ashore. A little later, from the roof of Gravesend blockhouse, beneath the fluttering colours of the Union Flag that flew above it, I watched as the ship carrying Aphra Behn unfurled sail, picked up momentum, and began to move down Long Reach. Soon, it disappeared behind the land and the other hulls and sails thronging that stretch of the Thames. And as I watched it, I struggled with all that welled up inside me.
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