Fire Catcher (24 page)

Chapter 73

Blackstone woke in a cold sweat. It was night. But fire lit the city, casting an eerie red glow through the window.

Thin boys were ranged around him on the kitchen floor. For a moment he thought they were all dead. He was back there. Waking in the dark. Burning in the pit of his belly.

Slowly Blackstone heaved his great weight to standing. The boys slept heavily. They’d been bred to bed down on the floor. Not one stirred as he made his way down the cellar steps.

Blackstone drew a key from his pocket and unlocked the cellar door. A shuffling sound greeted him. He held up his candle. There she was. Teresa.

His wife was sat upright, surrounded by her magical things. As Blackstone drew nearer a rat darted across her face and disappeared into the black depths of the cellar.

Blackstone watched it go. He thought the cellar felt cooler today.

He seated himself opposite his wife. Mounded up by Teresa’s dead things and bloodied talismans was Blackstone’s food. He liked to keep it safe. Close by. Food didn’t keep so well in the damp cellar, but war had removed Blackstone’s discrimination.

The dream was still troubling him. He reached for a large half-eaten leg of mutton. It had already fed the boys below for weeks. Blackstone himself had fasted.

He took a knife and began carving meat. The slice through soft flesh. The pink layers mounding up. It soothed him. Blackstone took a slice of meat in bloated fingers and pushed it past his lips. He chewed mechanically.

Once, a long time ago, Blackstone had promised his men they’d eat like this. He thought his exact words had been: ‘when it’s over we’ll eat like kings.’

He mentally probed. The cold terror that had woken him wasn’t gone. But it had . . . rearranged itself. The food had numbed him. He cut more meat. Rolled it. Fed it into his mouth.

Then he took a breath.

‘I dreamt of you,’ he said.

Teresa didn’t reply.

‘I think,’ he continued slowly, ‘the devil puts you in my mind.’

Still no response.

‘We have a priest,’ continued Blackstone. ‘I think he’ll put these dreams aside.’

He paused, shaved more meat then stood to examine the hoard of food. The bread had been eaten. But there was flour. He peered closer into the sack. Black dents pocked the snowy surface. Weavils. He licked a finger, dipped and tested. The flour was gluey on his tongue but not unpleasant.

He turned back to Teresa. She looked cold, he thought. Blackstone selected a cloak for her, from the piles of clothes. A moth fluttered free. He draped the cloak carefully over her shoulders.

Teresa was angry with him, Blackstone could tell. Some days he brushed her hair and sang to her. But this was not one of those days. Revenge was not coming fast enough.

‘God fans our flames,’ he assured her. ‘London will burn.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps the marriage papers too.’

Something tugged at the edge of Blackstone’s memory. A flicker, no more. He suddenly had a feeling that his missing marriage papers were close.

Was it possible?

After all this time, could he retrieve the papers after all? The power of owning them again. It brought possibilities so rich he could taste them.

‘Did you do this?’ Blackstone asked Teresa. ‘Do you send me a sign?’

He stared for a long time in the dark. Nothing. Perhaps it had been his imagination after all. But something was nagging him now. That the papers were here. Under his own roof.

Blackstone’s mind travelled down to the kitchen, where the fireballs were stacked in neat, high piles. Did he have time to search the house? The wind had fuelled the flames better than he’d dared hope. But Blackstone was no fool. He no longer relied on God. Every detail had been taken care of. Every contingency thought through.

Blackstone looked down at the table. The jar of flour was empty. In his hand he held the stripped bone of the mutton joint. Even the cartilage had been gnawed to a nub. He regarded it for a minute, took out his sword and cracked the bone with the heavy handle. Then he began to suck out the marrow.

His wife stared back at him. Blank. Unseeing.

And deep in the dark another pair of eyes blinked out.

Chapter 74

Charlie awoke to the dark waters lapping at his feet. His head was sunk two inches into soft wet mud, and his face felt like scorched leather.

There was a moment of uncertainty and then Charlie knew. He was in hell.

Staring down at him from the jet-black sky was a single blood-red eye. Satan was watching through an air filthy with smuts and cinders.

Charlie raised a hand to his head and then sat up clumsily. He groaned in pain. His shoulder. His shoulder hurt. Then he saw the flaming warehouses.

He was on Thames Street. Now he remembered. Just before the warehouses exploded.

The relief was tempered by his injured shoulder. Charlie muttered a little prayer. It was fifteen shillings to cauterise and amputate. He sat up clumsily and was relieved to find his shoulder supported his weight. His reflection in the water showed new injuries. Burns peppered his face, neck and legs. The trusty leather coat bore a few extra scars but had protected him from chest to mid thigh.

Charlie winced, feeling a thick bruise under his hair and a painful stiffness in his neck. Falling unconscious in the river must have saved most of him from burning. The flames had rolled over the top of him.

How long had he been unconscious? He couldn’t tell. It felt like a long time.

The city was burning much higher now. The fire had a fiendish quality. From the placement of the sun in the sky, it was mid-morning. He’d lost a night and half a day.

Charlie sat more upright, wrenching his legs from the mud. Then he remembered. Lily. He couldn’t see her on the shoreline. Swallowing, Charlie moved his eyes out to the river. No floating red dress there either.

He sat for a moment turning the possibilities over in his mind. Perhaps she had floated back out and been drowned by the river. Or maybe she’d regained consciousness and crept away.

Whilst thinking it over Charlie made a reflexive check of his possessions. He had after all, fallen unconscious in London. His purse and eating knife were still where they should be. A few coins, the tankard. All in order. His fingers reached up to his neck. They paused in disbelief then scrabbled frantically.

His key was gone. At once he knew.

Lily.

‘No!’ shouted Charlie, striking up a column of water with his clenched fist. ‘No!’

He sat for a moment in blank angry despair.

‘I knew it,’ he muttered. ‘I knew I couldn’t trust that woman.’

It felt as though she’d taken a part of him.

Charlie punched the wet mud of the low tide again, but less forcefully. The paralysing feeling of desolation was easing now and something of his more usual sanguinity was inching back. He was a thief taker. There wasn’t a corner of this city where she could expect to hide.

‘And send her to the hangman as a thief besides,’ Charlie thought grimly, picking himself up out of the mud.

He noticed for the first time that his shoulder had been tightly bound in red silk. Charlie moved it experimentally. It felt solid. Lily must have torn off part of her dress to bind it. She’d probably saved his arm before robbing him of his most treasured item.

Carefully Charlie pieced over what he knew.

Blackstone was leading the fire to Whitehall. The blue fire worked like a signal, Charlie was sure of it. A signal to fire a guild. Blackstone was using guildhalls and livery houses to tactically advance the flame. He must have guild contacts then. Only guildsmen were allowed in Livery Halls.

But he didn’t think Lily knew that. All Lily knew was some convicts who’d sailed on the Mermaid might be in the Fleet. And the Fleet was burned. Where might she go next? Perhaps back to Amesbury, he decided. Try for access to official naval papers. Discover something more of the Mermaid.

Charlie raised a hand to his head, feeling out a bruise with a groan. If Blackstone was advancing the fire to Whitehall, he should try to get a warning to the King. Charlie rejected the idea as soon as it arose. His Majesty was plagued by commoners claiming plots and intrigues. Charlie would be dismissed as a scaremonger and possibly be given a beating into the bargain.

Shouts interrupted his thoughts. Heaving himself up, Charlie staggered to a slippery standing position and surveyed the fiery distance. A gang of men were emerging from the burning wharves. They were armed with cheap swords and cudgels. Charlie sensed their mood from yards away and instinct told him to run. But they were too close and he was trapped between the precipitous muddy shore and the burning city beyond.

‘Hold!’ shouted a gruff voice.

They were upon him in moments, splashing through the mud. A man with close-cropped hair and bad breath grabbed Charlie by the throat.

‘Hold him!’ shouted his companion, pulling up the rear. ‘Looks like we might have another traitor to hang from the lamppost.’

Chapter 75

Barbara looked up in surprise. She had been in the midst of organising her children to leave the Palace when Lucy Walter had entered unannounced.

The King’s first lover had aged, Barbara noticed. The stress of clutching her tenuous claim to courtly favour must be getting to Lucy.

‘How did you get in?’ Barbara asked, not bothering to disguise
her contempt. Relations between the King’s first lover and his longest-serving mistress had always been strained.

‘My son, Monmouth.’ Lucy Walter allowed herself a smile. ‘Charles’s
first
son,’ she stressed the word smugly, ‘he still has some loyalty to his mother.’ She picked at the glue on a dark horsehair curl.

Barbara raised her eyebrows. ‘Even though you deserted him in Holland?’

Lucy ignored the slight and knelt by Barbara’s oldest child, who was shepherding the younger three to dress.

‘You must be little Anne,’ said Lucy, her dimpled face smiling. ‘Are you four now?’

‘Five,’ said Anne. She was staring at Lucy’s deeply lined cleavage. Barbara moved forward and took her hand.

Lucy rose, surveying the other children. She adjusted her deep-pink dress. The chaos of flowers and ribbons rippled.

‘What little darlings,’ she said. ‘They take after you.’

‘How kind of you to say it,’ said Barbara evenly, running an unconscious hand over her own tasteful chemise-dress. ‘Charles thinks they look like him.’

The smile dropped from Lucy’s face. ‘Charles provides well for you,’ she said. ‘These handsome apartments.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Leave my son alone. He’s barely a man.’

Barbara managed a smile.

‘Is that all? It was a fleeting thing. Only a little game I played with Clarence. I’ve no interest in Monmouth.’

‘I know what you do,’ replied Lucy. ‘You hope to blacken Monmouth. That your boy will be King.’ Her eyes dropped to Barbara’s four-year-old son, Charles.

Barbara folded him in her skirts. ‘Such is talk,’ she said, sounding tired. ‘Is this all you come for?’

Lucy bit her lip.

‘I need carts,’ she admitted. ‘My fine dresses, jewels . . . Everything I own will burn.’

Barbara suddenly noticed Lucy was wearing an entire jewellery collection, heavy at her throat, wrists and fingers.

‘And you come to me?’ said Barbara.

‘Charles won’t hear me,’ admitted Lucy, not meeting her eye. ‘And I thought . . . you might feel you owed me a kindness. Because of these.’

She opened a pouch at her hip. Inside was a squat, fat ball stamped with a crown and knots.

Barbara was very still.

‘What is that?’ she asked. ‘A fireball?’

‘You should know very well,’ said Lucy, ‘since it was in your apartments. Monmouth,’ she added, as Barbara opened her mouth to deny it, ‘is not so foolish as you think.’

‘How dare he,’ muttered Barbara. ‘What could a boy like Monmouth know of anything?’

‘I’ll write to the King,’ threatened Lucy. ‘Tell him of your deception.’

Barbara shook her head. ‘No one would believe you,’ she said. ‘Your lies are the talk of Westminster.’ She began to list them on her fingers. ‘You are related to Henry Tudor on your mother’s side and have a claim to Hampton Court Palace.’ Barbara drew a second finger, ‘You and Charles secretly married and Monmouth is the heir to all England.’ Barbara shook her head as Lucy reddened.

‘And we mustn’t forget,’ added Barbara, ‘that the King of France himself wanted you for his Queen, but you rejected his advances.’

Barbara shook her head. ‘You have no talent for lying,’ she said gently. ‘You’ve made yourself ridiculous.’

Lucy’s face fell.

The youngest child, Charlotte, was tugging at Barbara’s skirts now. Unthinkingly she heaved the little girl up on to her hip. Charlotte’s tiny hand began reaching for her necklace.

‘When fire comes, we discover what we truly hold dear,’ said Barbara. She seemed to be arranging her thoughts, angling her neck away from the grasping fingers. ‘You come to me for a cart? To keep your dresses from fire?’ She kissed her daughter and set her down. ‘I am more concerned with my children.’

Lucy reddened under the implication. ‘I knew Monmouth would be safe,’ she said. ‘He’s been under Charles’s care since he was seven. I must look to my goods, or have nothing.’

‘Charles will be sure Monmouth is protected,’ said Barbara. ‘He loves his children. Even yours.’ She sighed. ‘Talk to the footman,’ she said. ‘Once the children are safely taken there should be room in the last cart. You may store some dresses and trunks there.’

Lucy sagged in relief. She nodded, then began fiddling with a bracelet.

‘I loved Charles,’ she blurted. ‘No matter what he told you. About the other men. I truly did love him, in my way. And Monmouth is his, I’m sure of it.’ Her eyes were on Barbara’s. ‘Then you came to Holland and it was too late to make amends.’ Lucy gave a little laugh. ‘But I always thought I might. I didn’t think you would stay so long, Lady Castlemaine.’

Lucy’s dark eyes narrowed. ‘Do you know what the people call you?’

Barbara shrugged. ‘Whore?’ she suggested, ‘Harlot? Strumpet? I think Clarence calls me “England’s ruin”.’

But Lucy was shaking her head.

‘No,’ she said. ‘They call you the uncrowned Queen.’