Inferno

by Jo Macauley

  Making sure the coast was clear, Beth ran across the hall – taking a slight detour along the way to hitch up her skirts and empty the contents of a large bowl of fruit on a little side table into them – and went through the door on the right. She found herself in a narrow, dark corridor with a door on either side at the end of it. She listened behind the first one and, hearing no signs of life, quietly opened it. What she saw brought a broad grin to her face. It was a sort of storeroom, where food from the kitchens below was kept before being taken into the dining room. What particularly caught her eye was more fruit in a basket, just like the sort she carried herself when she used to sell oranges at the theatre.

  She added the fruit from her skirts to it, then, picking up the basket, went to listen at the other door. She could smell baking bread – a good sign – but then she heard footsteps coming up what must have been a flight of stairs behind the door. She had to think fast, and instead of waiting and looking suspicious, she threw open the door and began to boldly descend the stone steps, pretending not to notice the servant girl who was coming up them.

  “Ooh, sorry darlin’ – didn’t see you there.”

  The young girl, wearing a flour-stained blue apron, was initially lost for words. “Are ... are you supposed to be down here? Cook’s very particular...”

  “Supposed, luv? Supposed?” said Beth in her broadest Cockney accent. “I’d be in trouble if I weren’t goin’ down there. You all needs yer energy, don’t yer?”

  “Energy? For what?”

  “When the fire comes!”

  The girl gasped. “Is it really coming this way? They were saying it should soon be put out...”

  “Put out? There ain’t no putting that fire out, darlin’. Won’t be long before it reaches ’ere, and you need to be ready. Lots o’ work to do, and they sent me to see yer well provided for.”

  “Who did?”

  “Why, the Lord Mayor and ’is officers! Ordered all the orange-sellers to go out and provide sustenance for the poor folk fleein’ the fire.”

  The servant now seemed suitably alarmed, so Beth stood to one side and allowed her to hurry past. The stairs took her directly into the kitchen. She expected people to turn and stare at her, but instead the cook was bawling out orders and everyone was busy preparing for what looked like a sumptuous meal. Despite the initial preparations for evacuation upstairs, down here it seemed life was carrying on as normal.

  “Oranges! Who’ll take my juicy oranges?” Beth announced, but it was a rather tentative cry. In the hubbub of the kitchen, with the cook barking orders to her deputies, and her deputies yelling at the skivvies, no one even took any notice of her. Then she remembered the lessons in voice projection she’d received from William Huntingdon.

  “ORANGES! DON’T BE SHY – COME AND GET ’EM! RIPE AND JUICY!”

  “Somebody get that cheeky wench out of my kitchen,” growled the cook without looking up from her work. A young man who had been skinning rabbits dropped a bloody carcass on the table and shuffled hesitantly towards her. He was no older than her, and the closer he got the less sure of himself he seemed.

  Beth shook out her long, chestnut-brown hair and flashed her green eyes at him. “This is where they keep all the good-lookin’ ones, then!”

  Heat instantly came to the boy’s cheeks, and he seemed uncertain of whether to smile or try to look stern.

  “Cook doesn’t like people in her kitchen that don’t belong,” he mumbled.

  “Don’t belong?” Beth exclaimed. “Me and you belong together, that’s what I thought as soon as I saw yer.” She grinned. “These oranges has been sent special, like – here, take one!” She picked one from her basket and held it out to him.

  He had half an eye on Beth while glancing in Cook’s direction, seemingly at a loss as to what to do next. The cook didn’t appear to be paying them any attention, but when it became apparent that her reluctant ejector wasn’t getting anywhere, she abruptly stopped what she was doing and turned on Beth.

  “Does this place look like a theatre, missy?” She was tall, almost Beth’s height, with a strong, jutting chin. Not as stout as Big Moll, but still big-framed. She had a gruff look about her but, Beth sensed, a gleam of humour never far from her eye.

  “No, no, I’ve ’ad my fill o’ them places!”

  “Then what, may I ask, are you doing in here?”

  “The Lord Mayor sent me.”

  “Oh yes? Well, the King told me to tell you to hop it. I’m not going to tell you again—”

  “’Tis true!” Beth protested. “’Tis to do with the fire.”

  “The fire near the Bridge? What’s that got to do with orange-sellers?”

  “Well, when it gets ’ere you’re all gonna be too busy to eat, but you’ll need to keep your strength up. The Mayor thought oranges might be just the thing.”

  “And I bet he’s making a tidy profit out of them!”

  “No – they’re free. He made it quite plain, bless ’im. ‘I’ll not profit from my people in times of distress’ was his exact words.”

  By now the cook was looking more puzzled and apprehensive than angry. “Distress? The fire by the Bridge? How big is it, then? Is it really spreading as the rumours say?”

  By now work in the kitchen had almost ground to a halt as people who had overheard the talk of fire began to gather round.

  “What with the ’ot summer dryin’ everythin’ out, and now the wind blowin’ the sparks all over the place, it don’t seem like nobody can do nothin’ to stop it, missus. And that wind is bringin’ it this way!” Beth said dramatically.

  Cook rolled her eyes. “Typical. This place has just gone down and down since dear old Henrietta went to France. She stayed on here after they chopped the old King’s head off, may the Lord bless him, and she was very good to me...” She paused to wipe a tear from her eye.

  “So who lives here now?” Beth pressed.

  “Royal hangers-on, and I don’t mind who hears me say it. Oh, they all go by fancy titles: Lord this and Sir that, but none of them can hold a candle to Her Majesty. Only interested in squandering their money on fancy clothes and parties like the one we’re supposed to be having tonight. They’re out playing Pell Mell while London burns!”

  “Well,” said Beth, “I’m not sure ’ow long it’ll take the fire to come this far – but all I can say is I reckon there’ll be plenty of roasted stuff on the menu! I just hope Ed’s safe...”

  “Ed?”

  “Oh, Ed Hewer. Friend o’ my brother. Last I ’eard he was workin’ here but maybe ’e’s moved on...?”

  “Oh, him. No, he’s still Lord Cumbria’s manservant but he’s not here at the moment. His master’s one of them out playing Pell Mell on the Strand, would you believe?”

  “Ah. Maybe I’ll bump into him on my way home, then,” Beth replied as casually as possible. As soon as she had finished giving the staff of Somerset House their own oranges, Beth went back upstairs to find John and Ralph. The pile of belongings had turned into three piles by now. It seemed the news of the fire was spreading – the smell of it was now clearly in the air, even here. She found her friends helping to transfer heavy strong-boxes, presumably containing money and valuables, into a coach with an ornate coat of arms emblazoned on its door. She hung around until no one else was around, and then pulled John aside.

  “Find anything out?”

  “They seem to be mostly royalist supporters here, so it’s an odd place to find a republican spy,” he said.

  “But if you’re a republican spy,” said Ralph, sidling up to join them after depositing some silver candlesticks in the coach, “you’d want to be among royalists! Good disguise, isn’t it?” He glanced back at the expensive items yearningly, but Beth shook her head warningly.

  “The upper crust certainly weren’t taking the fire seriously, at least not at first,” said John. “A servant was sent out not long after it started to see what it was all about and heard the Lord Mayor say a young boy could pee it out
!”

  “They’ll worry soon enough,” Beth said, looking at the black pall of smoke in the east. “But I’ve been doing my own snooping – and I know where we can find Ed Hewer.”

  Chapter Eight - Hewer’s Secret

  “Good strike, sir!”

  Beth, John and Ralph observed the Pell Mell players keenly from a short distance away. The speaker was a man wearing a shiny auburn wig and a resplendent blue velvet coat trimmed with fine white lace. A prominent belly stretched his waistcoat to its very limits, yet his silk breeches revealed a pair of surprisingly skinny legs.

  “Thank you, Cumbria. But I’ve taken eight hits to your six so I must improve my game if I’m to win.” The portly man’s opponent was just as finely attired, taller, and wore a black wig. He wore a chunky gold ring on his little finger with a large diamond in its centre that glinted in the sunlight. The men each had a sort of long wooden mallet and a small wooden ball that they were hitting between hoops at either end of their course.

  “I’ve seen this played in St James’s Park,” said John. They were standing in the shadows of an alley between Somerset House and the building beside it, trying to look as unobtrusive as possible as they watched. “I’ve always thought it looked quite fun...”

  “Can’t see the point meself,” Ralph remarked sniffily.

  “’Tis whoever can hit their ball to the far end, through the hoop, then back again and through the other hoop in the fewest hits,” John said obliviously.

  “Lord Cumbria is obviously losing, then,” said Beth. “But at least we know who he is. Now we just have to wait and see which of the servants attends to him, and we’ll have Ed Hewer.”

  One of the two servants accompanying the two noblemen up the course was a wiry, angular young man with sharp features and lank fair hair. Ralph put his wager on this being Hewer, and Beth agreed. The game came to a premature end when Cumbria’s ball rolled into a pile of horse dung by the side of the road, and he simply laughed, turned his back on it and walked away. As the two players sauntered back to Somerset House, the manservants hurried to their masters’ sides and took the mallets. The wiry, sharp-featured young man took Cumbria’s.

  Ralph grinned. “See – that’s our man! You two stay here a minute. I reckon if I have a quick chat I’ll soon get what we need out of him.”

  “Are you sure you should do it?” John said anxiously.

  “Yeah! Trust me, I know these types of servants. They may seem lah-di-dah, but they’re usually closer to my sort of background really. I’m pretty sure I’m the best one to relate to someone like Hewer...”

  “Be careful, Ralph!” Beth warned. “If he’s been dealing with Groby he may well have been warned about us.”

  Ralph waved her fears away dismissively. “This’ll be a breeze!” He put his hands in this pockets and wandered over to Hewer, who was delicately picking the ball out of the horse dung while everyone else returned indoors.

  Ralph tutted, causing Hewer to look up from his unpleasant task. “We get landed with all the best jobs, don’t we?”

  “Eh?”

  “Oh, I’m the Earl of Coddingham’s manservant. He once dropped a gold sovereign into his chamber pot, and guess who he made fish it out?”

  “Earl of Coddingham? Not sure I’ve heard of him.” Hewer retrieved the ball and wiped it on his sleeve tentatively.

  “Yorkshire man. Not all that fancy, and he don’t get to London often. Anyway, he’s gone drinking in Southwark, so he’s given me the morning off.”

  “Ah,” said Hewer, straightening his sinewy body up and holding out his hand. “Edward Hewer, manservant to Lord Cumbria.”

  Ralph looked at the hand and pulled a face. “Don’t mean to appear rude...”

  Hewer let it drop to his side, smiling sheepishly. “Oh, yes. Anyway, well met, uh...?”

  “Yates,” Ralph lied smoothly. “So, what’s yours like for wages?”

  “Not very generous,” Hewer said, pursing his lips.

  “Mine neither, considering all the hours they make us work – and the dirty jobs they give us!”

  Hewer laughed.

  “But,” continued Ralph, “there’s ways you can improve your lot, shall we say...”

  Hewer scratched the side of his nose, leaving a dirty smear there. “How d’you mean?”

  Ralph dropped his voice conspiratorially. “Well, only last night I was talking to a feller in the Duke’s Arms, where we’re staying. Turns out he’s got a nice little scheme selling on his master’s wine. The old boy is such a boozer he don’t miss a bottle or two. This man says I can make meself at least three shillings if I want to be a temporary partner in the venture – maybe take some to sell back up north.”

  “Three shillings?” Hewer snorted. “I’m about to make as much money in a week as I could ever hope to earn in ten years!”

  Ralph broke out in a smile. To Hewer it meant he was impressed, but inwardly Ralph was feeling smug. He knew the youth had taken his bait. “Oh, yeah? Do tell me more, friend.”

  “I wish I could bring you in on it, but it’s not that kind of plan. See, I was approached by three men – right shady-looking bunch too – asking for a favour...”

  “Sounds like an expensive favour.”

  Hewer looked around. “I shouldn’t be telling you this,” he whispered, “but turns out all they need is the use of a room. Well, there’s loads of ’em in Somerset House since Old Henrietta left. The whole east wing’s been shut up for over a year. So all I have to do is provide ’em with a key, not notice any funny comings and goings, and bang – I’m a rich man!”

  “Lucky devil! Look a bit villainous, do they, these men? Locals?”

  “Look ... I’ve said too much already. But one of ’em, lord! He’s got a—”

  “HEWER!”

  They both spun round. Lord Cumbria was calling from the door of Somerset House.

  “Better go. Nice meeting you, Yates. If I call into the Duke’s Arms I’ll buy you an ale.”

  Just as he was about to leave, a loud explosion rent the air, and then its shock wave echoed several times before it faded to nothing.

  The two of them looked towards the City, where the dark smoke now bellowed skywards like a vast thundercloud.

  “Someone’s store of gunpowder’s gone up in the fire,” Ralph speculated. “Looks bad.”

  “Aye. Looks very bad.”

  Hewer hurried back into Somerset House, and Ralph took another glance back over his shoulder at the advancing fire. Shaking off the images it conjured, he ran back to Beth and John.

  “He spilled the beans. I think I know where the kidnapper’s base is...”

  “Where?” John demanded urgently. “Where is it?”

  Ralph turned his eyes on Somerset House, and the others followed his gaze. “You’re lookin’ at it.”

  Chapter Nine - Thoughts of Home

  “What are we waiting for, then?” John said. “Let’s go and investigate! Polly might be in there right now!”

  Beth glanced at Ralph, and they both looked warily at their friend. “I know you want to look into this as quickly as possible,” Beth said gently, “but it’s getting too busy at Somerset House now. People are starting to panic about the fire, and we need to regroup and see if we can get in touch with Strange again. He might have received intelligence of his own alerting him to what’s happening now, so he might be able to help.”

  John shook his head. “My sister’s life is at stake—”

  “We know,” Beth said, resting a hand on her friends arm. She caught his gaze so that he could see she was sincere. “And we’re going to do everything we can to get her back and stop Groby and his men. We just need to be careful.”

  “That’s right,” Ralph said, nodding. “We’re going to—” His words disintegrated into a violent fit of coughing. A sudden gust of wind had brought a cloud of acrid smoke billowing along the Strand straight into their faces. They had to stop and turn their backs until it dissipated, and then Beth suddenl
y felt hands roughly brushing against her back.

  “What are you doing?” she cried, spinning round. And then she saw – they all had tiny glowing specks on their clothes, sparks carried on the wind from the fire. She helped John and Ralph to brush them from their own clothing, and hurried on downwind. As they turned into Fleet Street, Beth could hardly believe the scene that met her eyes. It was like the crowds she had seen rushing to catch a glimpse of a royal procession – but this throng was not stampeding towards something, but away from it. Carts, carriages and horse riders crowded the centre of the road, with people on foot swarming around them like midges.

  “That’s Sir Richard Farmer!” Ralph exclaimed. He was looking at a man and woman still in their dressing gowns. They were riding a cart piled precariously high with wobbling chairs, tables and an assortment of other domestic items, all held in place with rope. Behind them came a very sickly-looking woman wrapped in blankets despite the heat, carried on a makeshift stretcher. Not long afterwards Beth spotted another invalid being moved to safety. This one was still actually in his sick bed, with four men at each corner struggling under the weight. To work their way against this tide of humanity Beth and the others had to flatten themselves against the walls and edge along crabwise. They could clearly see the flames in the distance above the rooftops now; the constant cracking of burning, splitting timbers sounded like an exchange of musket fire between two armies.