Fire (26 page)

‘I was in a fire. Not this one. In battle.' His eyes darkened. ‘Can you spare a sip of that ale?'

‘Aye, man. Drink and tell me all.' As Coke swigged, he continued, ‘Start with the end, how did you find me?'

‘Josiah. It was the devil's own job getting to your house through London. Even though the west of the city has no flames, the streets are filled with those fleeing them, those marching to fight them.' He handed the mug back. ‘Most of the streets are blocked by soldiers, those that are not choked with refuge-seekers. I had to dodge and duck about and it is not a part of the town I know well. I came to your house and your son told me you were with the watch, making a stand near here.'

‘Where was Bettina?'

‘He said she had gone to help some who were burned. I did not stay to enquire more, but came on straight.'

‘You did not see the babe?'

‘She is delivered?'

‘A healthy boy.'

Coke reached a hand and shook Pitman's. ‘I wish you well of him. But that brings me to the point, man,' he swallowed. ‘Where is Sarah? Is she delivered too?' Pitman sighed, and Coke started, seizing the other's arms. ‘Nay, tell me straight. Does she live?'

‘She does.' He hesitated. ‘Though she is not well.'

‘Has she had the baby? Where is she?' Coke's voice rose. ‘I must go to her straight.'

‘I will take you to her.' Pitman looked over the captain's head. Lord Craven was on horseback, sending messengers off, directing the men he'd brought. It looked like another bout of house-pulling was imminent. ‘My lord,' he called, ‘may I take a brief absence?'

His Lordship looked down and smiled. ‘Pitman, isn't it? The duke told me of you,' he replied. ‘I know that you and your watch have been most diligent. But you look exhausted, and these whom I have brought are fresh.' He waved at a group of men, a mix of
soldiers and citizens forming to his left. ‘Rest a while, return when you are able. Would one-tenth of London's men showed your appetite for this fight.'

‘I am grateful, my lord.' Pitman turned to his constables. ‘Back to the parish, lads. Eat, drink, sleep if you can. Rally again when the Bow Bells sound midnight.' As they rose, picked up their equipment and began to head up Bread Street – near empty now, for all those who lived around had already fled – he took Coke's arm. ‘Come, sir, and we will seek Mrs Chalker – Coke! Damn me, will I never get that right?' He shook his head. ‘We shall find her at the Poultry Compter.'

Coke stopped. ‘The debtors' prison? Why?'

‘For she is a debtor. You both are. Come.'

They walked, and the dirty story was swiftly told. ‘Oh, I am a fool. A fool!' cried Coke, striking his forehead. ‘Why did I think to buy us a house?'

‘You thought to put a roof over wife and child. It was a worthy aim. You could not know that you were buying it from those who hated you.'

‘The Saints, eh?' He ground his teeth. ‘I will pay them for this.'

‘I hope you will get the chance.' Pitman looked around. ‘If the apocalypse they have prayed for has not come.'

‘You think they are behind this?'

‘Its genesis? No. I saw how it began, at Farriner's bakeshop. But its continuation?' He shrugged. ‘How they will love this. It speaks to all their prophecies. And it would surprise me not at all if they are doing the opposite of us – hastening, not trying to halt, the destruction.' They'd reached Bow Lane, and St Mary's steeple was above them. ‘My house. Let us see if Bettina's returned.' He
raised a hand against the captain's protest. ‘I must see that my family are well, Captain. And preparing,' he glanced back the way they'd come, where the smoke spiralled high, ‘for I fear we will be on the move this night. Wait here, or come, as you will. I will be but moments.'

Coke stamped up the cobbles to Cheapside and out to the middle of the widest avenue in the city. The sight from there nearly had him running, Pitman or no. For the vast dancing crown of flame burned brightest to the east. It had swallowed the Exchange and beyond. Only his uncertainty as to the whereabouts of the Compter kept him shuffling there.

Pitman was indeed not long – and he did not come alone. ‘Dickon, you are well,' Coke cried, as the youth ran into his arms.

‘Well, enough, Cap'n. Though hot. D-devilishly hot.' He swung out of Coke's embrace. ‘Though she was not at Sheere Lane, Sarah.'

‘I know. We go for her now. You wait here.'

‘Oh no, Cap'n.' Dickon drew himself up. ‘I come.'

The gleam in his eye told Coke that this time there would be no arguing. ‘Come then,' he growled, setting off at pace, Dickon running beside.

Pitman kept up, though his walk was more of a lurch, propelled by swung foot and stick. ‘Can you not tell me now, man, the reason for your burns?'

‘Later,' replied Coke, striding on.

Dickon told a little, though his tale emphasised monkeys and leaping about rigging more than burning decks and broadsides.

Pitman learned enough to whistle and shake his head. ‘You are a fortunate man, Captain,' he said.

‘That we shall see. Which way?'

‘Straight.' He chewed his lip. ‘I did not think it would have reached so far so quickly.'

Just past the ruins of the Masons' Hall, Cheapside gave onto Poultry. All the destroyed buildings still smoked, and little fires burned in every one. But the devastation had passed over and most that flame could consume it already had. The monster had moved north, seeking better food.

‘Here.' Pitman halted before the tumbled-down spars and charred remnants of a tavern. Part of King Charles's face peered up from the ruin, the eyes and crown alone, the rest of the sign burned away.

‘Where?' Coke let his arms rise and fall.

‘This is – was – the alley that led to the Compter.' Pitman pointed along a tangle of devastation. ‘At the top there lay the prison. Come,' he put a restraining hand on Coke who had placed a foot on a blackened joist, ‘there may be an easier way around.'

They walked back to Old Jewry, the wider avenue affording slightly easier passage. All the wooden-framed houses between them and the alley had been levelled – if such a rough sea of burnt wood could be called level. Only one structure, made of stone, stood proud of the carnage. ‘That's the Compter's storeroom,' Pitman said. ‘I conversed with Sarah in it not a month since.'

They picked their way across, their feet burning on the heated wood. The room was only a shell, its walls standing but its roof fallen in and windows melted.

Coke sank down. There'd been some crazy hope in him that Sarah might be where last she was seen. Now, in the ruins of a prison, he began to weep. ‘What did she do here, Sarah? How did she live?'

Dickon stepped close, hovering a hand over his guardian's shoulder, finally letting it drop. Pitman looked where the Knight's side had stood. Where he had come into a room and seen Sarah lying on a table between two men. It was nothing a husband ever need have in his mind's eye. ‘She
lived
,' he said fiercely, ‘for herself and for the soul she carried. I warrant she lives still. Look, Captain, there are no bodies here. We'd see what's left of 'em, if there were. Trust me, for I've seen plenty. They got out before this place went up.'

‘But where to?' Coke wiped his nose. ‘Would they have been moved to another prison?'

‘Mayhap. But the rats who ran this place would have put their own safety before their wards. She may be both safe and free.'

‘And with child? How close was she to her time?'

Pitman sucked in air. ‘Bettina says as close as she herself.'

‘So she could be fleeing with a babe in arms?' He rose. ‘I will seek until I find them.'

‘Captain,' Pitman stepped nearer, ‘I would help but I fear the flames will overtake even my home soon and I must get my flock to safer ground.'

‘Is there any?'

‘Aye. The first place you should look: Moorfields. It's open ground, where nothing can burn. Most of the city has fled there.'

‘Moorfields? Where we lay in a plague pit, you and I?'

‘Yes.' A vision of their escape from Newgate prison the year before disguised as plague victims, of lying among the truly dead and rotting, made him shudder again. ‘Yet if we can be resurrected, so can your loves. Good fortune.'

‘And you.' Coke took a step away, Dickon following, then
halted. ‘I have survived so much to get here. I will find her.' He nodded. ‘But if I do, that does not stop the evil that may be abroad in the town. I made a promise to the king to return to fight it. Shall we join again in partnership, Pitman? Thief-taker and thief united to the thwarting of our old foes, the Fifth Monarchy men?'

‘We shall. So we will need a rendezvous.' Pitman narrowed his eyes. ‘I cannot think that any fire will reach as far as St Paul's and even if it does, God and man will work its utmost to halt it there. Let us meet in its churchyard, if we are able, on the morrow at this same time.'

Coke stretched out a hand. ‘A deal made.'

Pitman took his hand and held it. Dickon stepped back and laid one of his on top of those joined. Then, with a nod, they parted.

Blackfriars. Midnight

As he pushed his way back into the city across the Fleet Bridge, through the fleeing hordes, Simeon Critchollow was smiling. ‘It is all according to your plan, Lord,' he murmured, feeling the heat as if he was before a bonfire on a Sabbath night. London is the bonfire, he thought, and the Sabbath gives way to Christ's imminent return.

Beside him, Daniel was silent. He'd complained when his master had ordered him to leave their good work in the parishes – rousing the godly, spreading word and flame – for the cause of worldly
goods. ‘What will puppets matter in the New Jerusalem?' he'd muttered, even as he lifted the bulky wooden boxes and carried them down the stairs.

Simeon had no need to answer: his word was law. But as the fire had drawn ever nearer their lodgings in Carter Lane, the thought of Punchinello and his crew turned to ashes irked him. Though the Saints foresaw a world of the righteous, they could only see some of what that world would contain. King Jesus, returned in the flesh to judge them, would resolve it all. Was it not possible that he would decree a place for every man's skills? For the shepherd, the smith, the tanner? The puppeteer?

His companions were safe now, at a brother's house beyond the Fleet – and he was free to continue the good work. Across the narrow bridge, they entered straight into the narrow wynds of the liberty of Blackfriars, making their way through the ever-present smoke to the Devil's Tavern, rendezvous for more mischief. It was full – from the squalid tenements the populace had come to ransack the inn's cellars. As venial a mob as ever came out of those sinful streets, they were fuel for the Saints' fire.

A renowned liberty slattern was up on a table haranguing the crowd. ‘It's the fucking Dutch what done it!' Mad Moll yelled. ‘Fifty thousand Hogens landed at Tilbury yester'morn and they fired the Tower.' A great yell rose at this, so she screamed louder. ‘They've come to take our freedom. And they're being helped by all those they sent afore, who've taken all our jobs. The weavers, the brewers –'

‘The whores!' someone shouted, to huge laughter.

‘Aye, the whores too!' rejoined Moll. ‘All poxed, they infect our brave boys.'

‘Aye,' cried many there, the signs of their own poxing clear in rotted noses and scragged lips.

Many voices rose. Simeon spotted Brothers Tremlett and the huge brewer, Hopkinson, across the room and weaved his way through to join them. ‘We needed to do little,' the builder said, inverting his tankard from which only drops ran. ‘They've drunk all the beer.'

‘This heat will only add to their thirst. And I saw something outside to slake it.' Simeon leaned into Tremlett and whispered. The builder nodded, picked up a lit lantern and went out of the tavern's rear door.