Fire (27 page)

Simeon stood back, listening to the mob's growing fury. After just a few minutes, Tremlett came back and nodded. He was still carrying the lantern – but its flame no longer burned. The puppeteer pulled Hopkinson's arm, and the big man leaned down to listen. Nodding, he stood straight and lifted his musket – many there carried them – above his head.

‘Loyal countrymen,' the brewer bellowed, his deep voice quieting the crowd, ‘one of them poxy foreigners is outside, e'en now. Worked 'is evil, 'e 'as, and is trying to make 'is escape. Out upon 'im, I say!'

‘Out upon 'im!' cried the crowd in one voice. They streamed from the ravaged alehouse and the Saints followed.

The mob easily spotted Simeon's next target. ‘Tinder,' he said, as they caught up.

‘You think this is tinder?' laughed Samuel Tremlett. ‘You should see what he had stacked up in the back of his shop.'

The wine merchant stood on the box of his wagon, trying to steady the two horses in the traces, who fussed and jerked as the crowd swarmed around them.

Moll mounted a crate. ‘Where you from, sweetheart?' she called to the man with the reins.

‘I am from 'ere. You know me. I work 'ere all my life.'

From the moment he opened his mouth, and foreign sounds came out, people were growling. ‘ 'E's fucking Dutch,' someone cried, others immediately echoing. ‘Dutch!'

‘
Non!
No, I am French. French!' he shouted.

‘Also our enemy!' screamed Moll. ‘ 'E's going to burn the town down.'

Simeon tapped Tremlett's arm. The builder stepped forward. ‘Moll's right,' he shouted. ‘Look at his store. Look what he's left us.'

All looked – at the smoke seeping from gaps in the windows. One man ran forward and opened the door – and more smoke gushed out.

‘ 'E's fired it! Frenchie's fired 'is house!'

‘No, I did not do this. I save my wine –'

He got no further. ‘Wine!' yelled most there, swarming the wagon, its body stuffed with casks. The Frenchman was knocked down and pinioned in a rush of bodies.

‘ 'Ang 'im!' Moll screeched above the roar and some heeded her, dragging him off the wagon, while others rolled barrels off it and stoved in their lids, dipping tankards borne from the inn.

‘Hey! Hey! There's sugar over 'ere,' a woman shouted from an open door opposite. Immediately, others broke those doors down too, rolling out sugar casks and smashing them open. Men and women seized great handfuls, dropping it into their wine. If they never had the coin to drink the sweet sack beloved of the wealthy, today they tasted something near the same.

Someone had found rope. One man used some to bind the Frenchman, another to plait him a noose. Moll, swaying upon her perch, her lips rimed in sugar, yelled, ‘ 'Ang 'im! ‘Ang 'im.'

‘ 'Ang 'im! 'Ang 'im! 'Ang 'im,' screamed the mob. The rope was thrown over a crane spar in front of the Frenchman's warehouse. He was hoisted back onto the wagon, the noose placed around his neck.

‘ 'Ang 'im! 'Ang 'im! 'Ang 'im!'

The explosion made everyone duck, cry out. Simeon recognised the savour that had filled his nostrils on a dozen battlefields. And he saw, through the smoke, the men who had discharged the volley. They wore the red coats of the King's Life Guards. Mounted on a horse behind the double rank of twenty was the Duke of York.

‘What mischief make you here?' James cried into the shocked silence. ‘Who is the man you assault? Seize him.'

A sergeant and two of his men pushed roughly through the crowd, mounted the wagon and grabbed the wine merchant. As they pulled the noose from his neck and turned to take him back, the mob found its voice again.

‘ 'E's a Frenchie!'

‘They've invaded,' others cried. ‘They've burned London.' They began to jostle the soldiers, impeding them as they descended and tried to return to their ranks.

‘ 'Ang 'im,' Moll screeched again.

‘ 'Ang 'im! 'Ang 'im! 'Ang 'im!'

Another shot sounded now – but from a single gun, a pistol which the duke lowered as he shouted, ‘The fire is an accident. No Frenchman, nor Dutchman is involved.' Under the cover of
the shot, the soldiers forced their way back to their comrades. ‘Help defend your homes from the real enemy – the fire. There's a post set up on Ludgate Hill. Report there. Aid your king. Your country. Your city.' He shoved his pistol back into its saddle holster. ‘And let us pass.'

The soldiers began to march, the mob giving way before them, many jeering, some spitting on the weeping Frenchman. Behind him in the doorway, Simeon heard a stirring. He turned. ‘Open the back door so we can escape,' whispered Hopkinson, pulling back his hammer to full cock, shouldering his musket, taking his stance, ‘for I'm going to kill me a duke.'

‘No.' Simeon placed a forearm underneath the barrel and lifted it up. ‘He is a capon. We want the cockerel.' With a grunt, the man uncocked and lowered his musket. Simeon continued, ‘This is our time, comrades. As the fire spreads – as we aid in its spreading – the king cannot help but return to try and save his capital. We will be waiting. We will have both Stuarts at our barrels' end – and end the Fourth Monarchy with two righteous shots.'

He looked out – James was passing, so close he could have prodded him with a stick. ‘And for that glorious moment I would we had Captain Blood.' He turned to the Saints beside him. ‘Separate and seek again at his haunts – those that have not burned. Tell him if you find him, to meet –' He tipped back his head. A great bell was tolling nearby, and though its peal was rung backwards, like all in the city during the conflagration, its tone was one every Londoner knew well. ‘Tell him to meet tomorrow between six and eight bells in the churchyard of St Paul's.'

The Guildhall crypt. 4th September, 10 a.m.

‘I cannot.'

‘You must.' Jenny bent again, placing a hand under Sarah's elbow. ‘One, two –'

She tried, as she had a half dozen times before. As with each previous attempt, her knees locked for a moment and she thought that she could do it. Again, though, when she tried a step, her legs failed and she sank down, only Jenny's strength preventing her from tumbling onto the crypt floor. ‘It is no good,' she said, flopping back. ‘I used all my strength getting here. I am not leaving this place.'

‘Then we're not, neither,' said Jenny. ‘Come, Mary.' She reached to her daughter waiting near the stairs that led up to the main hall. ‘We'll bide a while yet till Sar's strong again.'

‘You will not!' Though she had no strength in her legs, she had some still in her voice. ‘We talked of this. How the fire comes ever closer. How we must leave.'

‘Yes,
we
must.'

‘I cannot,' Sarah said again. ‘Look,' she gestured about her. ‘Almost everyone has already gone.'

‘Not all. Some still think these stones might resist it.'

‘Only those who have no choice.' Sarah nodded at those around them. The crypt had been jammed with hundreds not an hour since. Now there were scarce a dozen souls remaining – and all those were old or crippled. ‘Yet the Guildhall stones might hold,' she continued, letting her voice brighten. ‘So I am better off here than falling down a hundred yards away in the open.' She reached out, took her friend's hand and squeezed it. ‘You have to take the chance. And before the chance is gone.'

Jenny looked down to the box beside Sarah. It was lined with the books, the parchment rolls and the sheaves of paper for which the crypt was a repository. They had made a suitable bed for the babe who slept soundly amongst them. ‘And you still think to –?' she said, her lower lip trembling.

‘Yes.' Sarah kept her voice steady. You are an actress, she thought, bloody well act. ‘I cannot let him take his mother's risk. Not when he has a godmother willing to carry him.'

Still Jenny did not move. ‘But you promise me – you'll follow on?'

‘As soon as the fire passes by, and I am able.'

‘It's still madness outside.' Jenny tipped her head to the roar outside. ‘Moorfields is closest but there may be no space there. I've a sister in Hampstead. Lives with the landlord of the Spaniards Inn!'

So far! Sarah thought, the village in the country five miles away. But she did not say anything, only nodded.

‘Be safer there. Food too. But I'll not stop there long,' continued Jenny. ‘Don't like my sister, we always fall to quarrelling. Was a whore, found God, forever nagging me about the trade.' She sniffed. ‘I'll come back, soon as it is safe. But who will take the mite if'n –' She flushed, as red as her hair, ‘if'n you don't come for, ah, for a few days, like.'

If I don't come at all, is what she's saying, Sarah thought. Who indeed? She had no family by blood, beyond a few cousins in St Giles, and she would not send her son to that cesspit nor into their care. Yet she did have another family, one she'd chosen. ‘Take him to the playhouse. Ask for Mary Sanderson – no, Mary Betterton now. If it's burnt out, they will return – and it is where the captain will seek me, I suspect, if…
when
he returns.' Sarah
reached and lifted the baby from his cot. He felt so heavy, though she knew that he was not. ‘Please. Take him now.'

Jenny did not reply. And in her silence the noises came loud from outside – the crazily pealing bells, the distant cries of ‘Hi! Hi! Hi!' that showed that someone at least was still trying to fight the inferno. Above them all they heard the beast-like roar that had filled every citizen's ear since dawn two days before. Flames devouring a city. Getting closer. ‘I beg you, Jenny, before I –' She broke off.

‘Very well,' her friend said, stooping to snatch up the child, so firmly that he woke. Immediately he began to wail.

‘Hush now,' said Sarah, taking the little waving hand in hers. ‘Hush.'

Jenny pulled him free, her mouth set in a line, and began to gather what they'd taken from the Compter and the shops near it, and what they'd picked up along the way. It took but moments and too soon she was finished. She turned back, and Sarah could see her tears. She knew she must not yield and join her in them. Not yet. ‘Here,' she said, reaching up, and Jenny stooped, bringing the baby's face level with hers. ‘Fare thee well,' Sarah whispered, running her fingers down the silken skin of his forehead. ‘Remember me.' Then she shoved the child away. ‘Go. May God keep you. May God keep you all.'

‘Amen.' Jenny crossed herself fervently. Then, slipping the baby into the sling that Sarah had fashioned, setting it upon her back, seizing her one bag and her daughter's hand, she strode to the stairs.

A moment more, Sarah thought, watching her child wriggling in his cloth prison. One moment more.

Yet they did not disappear. Jenny stopped halfway up the stair. ‘Have you a name for the mite yet?' she called.

She hadn't, for she'd believed the parting she feared must come would be harder if she had to say his name. Now she knew she was wrong – for nothing could be harder than this. ‘William,' she replied, her voice still strong. ‘His name is William Coke.'

‘William,' echoed Jenny. She nodded and left, leaving Sarah at last able to sink down and weep her fill.

Moorfields. 10.30 a.m.

William Coke woke from a dream of fire, to fire. He jerked suddenly – no gentle waking for him – reaching all around, for whatever was lost to the dream. His hands hit Dickon, with whom he'd been entwined, but the boy just grunted, turned his back and slept on, leaving Coke to rub his eyes clear, allowing him to see – at first not the terrible scene spread out before him upon Moorfields, but the one beyond it, over the city wall.

‘Holy Christ, does the whole of London burn now?' he gasped.

‘Nearly all. But that occasions no need to take the Lord's name in vain.'

Coke took his gaze from the fire that appeared to reach right up and unite with the smoke clouds it formed across the width of London, and looked on the man who'd spoken – a portly, dog-collared rector, his back against a cart, his arms wrapped about a woman and a girl who slept.

Coke came up onto his knees, his head still wrapped in dream and exhaustion. ‘What time is it?' he muttered.

The man pulled out a watch. ‘Half past ten o'clock.'

‘Ten?' How had he slept? He'd not got through the Moorgate until at least three of the morning, so jammed was its narrow entrance with those that had fled, and what they brought. And he'd not got far into Moorfields before he was overwhelmed by the sight – a sight lit like the middle of the day by the thousand fires that had become one. The area beyond the wall was jammed with refugees, and what little they'd saved. Thousands upon thousands beyond the count, cramming each space, trampling the greensward, heaped up on the paths, crouched under hedges. Animals, from pigs to cats, ran everywhere. He could not remember how he'd found a piece of earth to stand upon, let alone lie on. And then, looking down, he did. For the earth he knelt on was mounded, dry, and the little grass that had grown upon it was torn and scattered.

He was kneeling on a plague pit. Probably not much more than an arm's push through the crumbly earth, hordes of his fellow Londoners lay dead. He could see white traces in the soil of the lime used to dissolve the flesh more quickly. And he remembered coming to the only piece of land near the gate that had not already been colonised. The earliest comers had feared to rest on their relatives. Those who followed had not been so particular; every space was swallowed up now. Besides, thought Coke, perhaps it was easier for me. I lay
in
a plague pit before, after all.

He shook his head hard and stood. How had he allowed himself to sleep when he'd come in search of Sarah? How had he given up on that? Then he remembered – for now, as during the night, hundreds of voices called for their missing ones. His voice had added to the chorus of the lost for just a while, until he was overwhelmed.
Dickon had dropped down, curled up, too exhausted to move further. They had not slept two hours in their ride from Dover. They had not slept at all since reaching the devastated city the previous dawn. Ah, now he remembered. He'd thought he could lie down for a minute, ten perhaps, no more. And he'd woken five hours later.