Fire Catcher (13 page)

Chapter 32

‘I thought Blackstone was a noble,’ said Lily as Charlie looked at the marriage register. ‘Why not marry properly in a church?’

‘Three kinds of people make a Fleet Wedding,’ said Charlie. ‘Sailors, paupers, and people with something to hide. We already know Blackstone killed to conceal those papers.’

Lily was staring over Charlie’s shoulder at the record-book. His finger hovered over the first marriage in the book. He made out the familiar names.

‘There,’ he said, mouthing the words with difficulty. ‘Torr married Teresa and Thomas Blackstone. In 1647.’

He looked up at Lily. ‘That’s not right.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The marriage certificate my mother hid,’ said Charlie, ‘showed Blackstone married later.’

‘The dates are different?’

Charlie nodded. ‘According to this book, Blackstone married in 1647. The papers I saw had him married in 1649.’

‘You’re sure of that?’ asked Lily.

‘I’ve got a good memory,’ said Charlie. ‘For numbers and things I’ve seen. Not writing.’

Lily accepted this without question.

‘So Blackstone married twice?’ she suggested.

‘To a woman of the same name,’ said Charlie.

‘A different wife then? The same name. Teresa is common enough.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Charlie was struggling for memories. ‘If
Blackstone married legitimately, then why hide the second wedding
papers?’

‘The book says they married on a ship,’ said Lily, showing herself a better reader than Charlie. ‘See? “At sea” is the place.’

She looked at Charlie.

‘I thought a Fleet Wedding must take place on Fleet Street?’

Charlie shook his head. ‘A minister can make a wedding wherever he wishes.’

His eyes scanned down the register.

There was an answer here. He could feel it. A rush of excitement blazed through him. This book would lead them to Blackstone. But the writing was making his head hurt. And some other intuition was shouting at him to pay attention. Cool air was pouring down from the cellar opening, blowing over them in an insistent breeze.

Charlie suddenly realised what the sound of breathing was. The cinder thief in him matched it instinctively to the disturbed air flow. Suddenly everything made sense. The powder barrels. The badly hidden book.

Charlie moved quickly to the cellar wall and pressed his palms against the plaster. The wall was warm. It wasn’t breathing he could hear. It was distant fire.

‘Torr didn’t hide his register,’ he said grimly. ‘Someone else stuffed it in the rafters. To be sure the book would burn. They’ve fired the cellar next to this one to cover their tracks.’ Charlie surveyed the barrels of gunpowder. ‘This cellar has been mined for destruction.’

Chapter 33

Charlie turned to Lily. ‘We need to get out,’ he said, tucking the marriage papers in his leather coat. ‘Now.’

But as they made to leave a leather bottle dropped down from the open cellar door. Lily and Charlie looked at one another. The bottle bounced, rolled and began hissing furiously. Then the cellar entrance slammed shut.

‘What is it?’ asked Lily, staring at the bottle.

‘Some kind of firebomb,’ guessed Charlie, shrugging off his leather coat to smother it. ‘Designed to light the powder kegs.’

He was halfway to the bottle when it exploded in blue fire. A spray of flame arced towards the gunpowder.

Charlie twisted, throwing his coat towards the barrels. The leather fell heavily across them, shielding the contents. Liquid trails of blue fire danced across the battered coat then died.

Lily cautiously lowered her arms and surveyed the cellar. The
spray of fire had pooled and extinguished harmlessly on the earth
floor.

‘It’s not real fire,’ she said, eyeing the dark room in puzzlement. ‘It didn’t last.’

‘I think it would have been real enough to light gunpowder,’ said Charlie. He brushed down his coat and heaved it back on. The fire in the adjoining cellar had increased to a roaring sound now. It seemed to come from all around.

‘We need to get out.’

Lily was already halfway up the ladder.

‘We’re shut in!’ she cried, slamming her fist hopelessly against the door. ‘There’s something heavy blocking it.’

‘Whoever planned this is taking no chances,’ said Charlie. He moved to the edge of the cellar and began feeling the walls.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Lily, watching him.

‘These cellars join up,’ said Charlie, making an exploratory test with his knuckles. ‘There’s often not much between them. It’s a common robbery,’ he added, pressing his cheek to the wall. ‘Break into a goodwife’s cellar to get to a goldsmith.’

Charlie moved back and tapped. As he’d hoped it was a thin stud wall, with the thinnest smear of horsehair plaster separating the two cellars.

‘The cellar on this side is cool,’ he said. ‘We can break through . . .’

His words were drowned out by the sound of falling rubble. Plaster on the adjoining wall had crumbled away. A red tongue of flame leered from the next cellar.

Charlie knelt, raised his elbow and knocked a small hole clean through the wall at knee height. ‘We need to keep the marriage register safe,’ he called. ‘Whoever burns this place wants to be sure it flames.’

Lily dropped from the ladder, retrieved the register and ran to kneel beside him. Charlie reached a fist through and tugged away at the crumbling plaster. Lily watched for a second, looked back at the powder barrels then removed a knife from her skirts and began plunging it into the plaster.

‘Keep it low,’ he said. ‘Easier to crawl.’

The dull roar was now a menacing crackle, lighting them both in an orange glow.

‘You go through first,’ said Charlie, pushing Lily towards the gap. ‘You’re smaller and you can light the way.’

Lily crawled through, shedding plaster as she went.

The fire was growing up the inside cellar wall now. One spitting beam was all that was needed to blow the whole cellar sky-high. Quickly he tunnelled through after Lily.

The tinder-dry air was replaced with a rich salty smell. Someone had used the adjoining cellar to protect their valuable foods from fire. There were shelves and shelves of cheese and cured sausage wrapped in cloths.

Charlie stood to see Lily’s waving tinderbox was already halfway up the ladder. She was balancing precariously, holding her flame to see the opening with an outstretched hand. As she shifted to push the cellar door open the marriage register tumbled from underneath her arm.

‘Get the book!’ she shouted, moving her flame down to illuminate it. Charlie scooped it up as Lily shoved the door with the flat of her hand. A shaft of sunlight blasted through the dark. Charlie reached the bottom of the ladder as Lily’s skirts disappeared out of the top. He raced up the first two rungs, his eyes fixed firmly on the welcome daylight. Then the explosion hit.

It blew the bottom of the ladder clean away and jerked free Charlie’s grip. He swung wildly, one hand clinging on. The marriage register tumbled headlong into the flames. Kicking his legs back Charlie grabbed hold of the broken ladder with his other hand. Man and ladder hung precariously for a moment. Charlie’s knuckles were white. He pulled with all his strength and made it up another rung.

A second blast ricocheted through the cellar and a wave of heat scorched his legs. Charlie knew in that moment he wasn’t going to make it. He couldn’t get himself out of the cellar. Then Lily’s two small hands seized his forearms and wrenched him upwards.

Charlie fell out of the top of the cellar on to welcome cool earth. He rolled, righted himself and looked to where Lily was standing waiting for him.

‘I thought you didn’t need my help?’ she said.

‘I didn’t,’ said Charlie, feeling for his key. ‘I was testing your loyalty. Come,’ he added, moving them both away from the cellar. ‘There are more powder kegs to blow.’

He assessed their new location. Better to go back up Shoe Lane, he decided.

‘Where’s the marriage register?’ asked Lily.

Charlie pointed back to the blazing cellar.

‘It might have led us to the chest,’ said Lily disappointedly. ‘The book had names of a dozen other people who knew Torr. Now we have nothing.’

Charlie studied his leather coat.

‘The blue flame wasn’t like normal fire,’ he said, looking at the row of small buttons along the front. ‘No scorch on the leather. No tarnish to the buttons. We should go to Nile Street,’ he decided. ‘An alchemist might tell us much.’

They turned out on to Shoe Lane to discover a clutch of Londoners had gathered. The flames of the Cheshire Cheese had quickly caught the row of tall houses and now three roared with fire. Charlie realised too late how they must look, emerging from a cellar covered in smoke and cinder smuts.

A brown-toothed merchant was already pointing a finger at Lily.

‘Foreigners!’ he shouted, eyeing her toffee-coloured skin. ‘Here are the villains who fired Fleet Street.’

People began to join the shout and Charlie’s stomach rolled icy with dread. Behind them on Fleet Street, heads had turned and people were drifting towards them.

It didn’t take much to start a mob attack in London.

‘She burned the cellar!’ the man continued, turning to the people around him. ‘She comes from the Pope to destroy London!’

Lily opened her mouth to protest but Charlie pressed her arm.

‘Don’t say anything,’ he hissed. ‘Protest and you’ll make it worse faster.’

‘Then what should I do?’ whispered Lily helplessly, looking at the assembling crowd.

Charlie’s face twisted in terror and his finger shot high to the heavens.

‘By God!’ he shouted. ‘A fiery comet! It’s God’s judgement on us all!’

The crowd’s gaze swung upwards as one and Charlie grabbed Lily’s arm.

‘Run,’ he said.

Chapter 34

Jacob was shaking his head in denial. He fingered the crown and knot wound on his forearm. The boys were making fireballs in Master Blackstone’s house. And his fellow initiate Enoch, blind in one eye from an accident as apothecaries’ apprentice, was telling him tall tales.

‘Rats only,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing in Master Blackstone’s cellar.’

‘I tell you I hear things,’ whispered Enoch. ‘There is something down there. I hear him talking to it. Late at night when everyone sleeps.’

Enoch swivelled his one good eye to the cellar trapdoor. Since his first visit, he never wanted to go through it ever again. But he knew what he’d heard.

‘Fine houses like Master Blackstone’s,’ suggested Jacob uneasily, gesturing to their comfortable dwelling, ‘make noises.’

Enoch didn’t answer. He rolled the fireball from the fat and stashed it in a neat pile with its fellows.

‘You’re imagining things,’ said Jacob, sounding firmer than he felt. ‘Master Blackstone never goes into the cellar, ’cept for initiations.’

‘He does,’ insisted Enoch. He looked up at Jacob and his vacant red-white blind eye shifted too. ‘I’ve heard him. He takes food down for it too.’

‘There’s nothing in the cellar,’ muttered Jacob. ‘Keep working.’

‘You think you’ll be initiated to the higher level,’ said Enoch, catching on. ‘If you work hard and obey. Don’t ask no questions.’

‘Good sons obey the father,’ said Jacob, parroting their brotherhood vows. ‘They do not question.’

Enoch had the ghost of a smile on his starved features.

‘You really want to take the second initiation?’ He was looking at Jacob’s still-livid forearm burn. ‘Think you’ll survive it? Go a level higher? Become a Steward?’

‘I want to learn truth,’ said Jacob.

‘But you don’t know what you’ll have to endure,’ said Enoch, rolling another fireball.

‘Do you?’ Jacob was curious, despite his vow not to question the rites of passage.

Enoch scanned Jacob’s face with his good eye. ‘Starvation,’ he said darkly. ‘Locked in the cellar ’til your belly bloats and you see things.’

Jacob blanched. There was no worse pain than hunger.

‘And you’re not told nothing good at the end of it,’ continued Enoch, knowledgably. ‘I heard one of the higher initiates talking.’ He gestured towards the handful of better-dressed recruits known as Stewards. They’d been tasked with arranging lead cauldrons over various points of the city and were examining a rudimentary map.

‘Papers,’ concluded Enoch. ‘That’s all they get told. There’s papers with legendary powers, lost, somewhere in the city.’ He squinted his bad eye. ‘Not worth knowing,’ he said. ‘And,’ he waved a finger, ‘I don’t think Master Blackstone wants any of us low boys as his higher folk. Have you noticed? All the higher initiates are finer than us.’ Enoch tapped his head. ‘I think,’ he concluded, ‘all the Steward places are filled.’

‘Master Blackstone is an honourable man,’ said Jacob uncomfortably. ‘He looks after us. Protects us. He found the gaoler who hurt my brother,’ he added, loyalty brimming up. ‘Paid him vengeance.’

‘He’s good at that, vengeance,’ agreed Enoch. ‘But he doesn’t like questions.’

‘Good sons . . .’ began Jacob.

Enoch waved him down. ‘Good sons, good sons,’ he said. ‘But a good father. Does he make his sons traitors, without their say so?’

‘He wants to bring down the King who betrayed us.’

‘Never asked us though, did he?’ said Enoch, drawing a hand over his stomach. ‘Your guts ripped out and shown to you,’ he added, making a ghoulish mime. ‘If they find you.’

Enoch looked at Jacob.

‘When he recruited me,’ said Enoch, ‘from the St Giles slums, Blackstone told me we’d be working to follow our Catholic faith freely. I thought him a dark angel. He never mentioned no firing of the city.’

‘It’s the bigger plan,’ said Jacob uncertainly. Though he had to admit his experience had been the same.

‘You’re from St Giles too?’ added Jacob with interest.

‘Most of us are,’ said Enoch. ‘The Sealed Knot looks right nice to boys like us don’t it? Pledges and mottos. Best mottos you make in St Giles is “every man for himself”.’

Jacob smiled. ‘Or, don’t sacrifice yourself for others,’ he grinned, thinking of the cut-throat slums. ‘Stop talking,’ he added, flicking a nervous glance at the Stewards.

But Enoch was insistent. ‘Don’t you ever question why we’re never allowed in the cellar? It’d be a right enough place to store fireballs wouldn’t it? In case anyone ever came looking.’ He scratched the back of his neck, where lice nested deep in his snarled hair.

‘’S a cellar, nothing more,’ grunted the other boy. But there was something in his voice now which suggested doubt. ‘We’ve all been down there anyways,’ he added uncertainly.

‘For initiation,’ said Enoch, his bad eye twitching. ‘In the dark. With barely candle flame to see by. And a lot of screaming.’

They were both silent at this. What Master Blackstone did to boys who failed the initiation was something none forgot.

‘He keeps us afraid,’ said Enoch. ‘That’s his thing isn’t it? Fear. He thinks it keeps us predictable. But what if there’s something truly bad down there. Some demon?’ He crossed himself. ‘Some sulphur-reeking monster,’ he concluded, ‘ready to drag us all down to hell?’

‘There’s nothing down there,’ said the other boy. But he didn’t meet Enoch’s good eye. He was making fireballs at double the speed.

‘Have you ever thought about it?’ asked Enoch quietly.

‘Can’t say as I have,’ replied Jacob, affecting nonchalance. ‘I’m a heavy sleeper.’

‘Not the cellar,’ said Enoch. ‘Leaving. Have you ever thought about leaving?’

Jacob looked automatically to the Stewards.

‘Shut
up
, Enoch,’ he said, giving him a shove. ‘I mean it. I don’t want to end up down in that cellar. You neither,’ he added.

‘You have thought about it,’ said Enoch. ‘Of course you have.’ He turned back to making the fireballs. ‘We all have,’ he concluded. And his gaze drifted back to the locked cellar door.