Fire Catcher (14 page)

Chapter 35

Charlie and Lily raced over Lud Gate Hill in the direction of the Great Fire. Behind them an angry mob surged.

‘You’ve made them angrier by tricking them,’ panted Lily as they sprinted towards the burning shell of Cheapside. ‘They’ll tear us limb from limb when they catch us.’

‘They’ll have to catch us first,’ said Charlie, weaving north on to Fleet Lane. ‘This way.’

The crowd was swelling behind them, attracting angry Londoners drawn by their shouts.

‘We’re heading towards the Fleet Prison,’ protested Lily. ‘They’ll corner me and throw me straight in gaol.’

‘Not if we get there first,’ said Charlie as the Fleet loomed into view. ‘We can hide in the gatehouse. It’s the last place they’ll look.’

He slowed his pace as they approached the entrance and took her hand. Lily glanced helplessly over her shoulder. The thick of the charging crowd had not yet appeared.

‘Walk normally,’ Charlie said as they approached the portcullis of the gatehouse. ‘We don’t want to seem to have arrived in haste.’

They slipped past the open portcullis as the first pitch of the crowd lurched past the Old Bailey. A gaoler stood up, squinting at the shouts of the mob in the distance.

‘No visitors,’ he said, pointing back towards Cheapside. ‘The fire will be here by nightfall. We’ve already freed fifty people. Be on your way.’

Charlie glanced back down Fleet Lane. He could see the brown-toothed merchant at the head of the charge. Lily didn’t stand a chance if they stepped out of the gatehouse now.

‘You remember me?’ Lily said to the gaoler.

Charlie swung round in shock.

‘Lily Boswell,’ she added. ‘I sat for my portrait with you before I was imprisoned here.’

The gaoler scrutinised her and then sucked his mottled teeth.

‘Hundreds of felons I commit to memory,’ he said, eyeing her. ‘But I remember you right enough. We played at cards.’

‘I beat you at cards,’ she corrected him.

His eyes narrowed.

‘What do you come for?’ he said testily. ‘You were set free. I owe you nothing.’

‘Only news of the fire,’ said Lily. ‘And I won’t tell your wife of the prisoner with the dark hair,’ she added meaningfully as the gaoler opened his mouth to suggest payment.

‘We had word from the watch that the fire goes north,’ said the gaoler. ‘No one does a thing about it. Only looks to their own goods and caterwauls. We got a few extra felons I suppose,’ he conceded begrudgingly. ‘Looks like we may have another,’ he added, pointing to the approaching crowd.

A few other gaolers were gathering at the gatehouse now, drawn to the noise. They always enjoyed theatre of this kind. And often they got a prisoner to keep.

The crowd was barrelling towards the prison, attracting angry Londoners as it went.

‘Anyone caught?’ asked the gaoler, looking at his ragged companions.

A gaoler with a peg leg was peering out into the crowd.

‘Hard to see,’ he said squinting. ‘Certainly they are blood-thirsty enough.’

‘To what purpose?’ said Lily’s gaoler disgustedly. ‘When the King orders the release of felons.’ He wrinkled his nose without waiting for a reply.

‘Ninety felons’ faces,’ he complained tapping the side of his head. ‘Ninety. Then there’s visitors besides. It’s not easy work making sure the wrong people don’t wander out. Them in the Clink have it easy,’ he added. ‘Closed cells. A bunch of keys.’

‘How far north is the fire?’ interrupted Charlie, mapping Nile Street where the alchemists practised.

‘Right up to the London Wall,’ said the gaoler. ‘And now they think it might go further west. Talk of it crossing the Fleet. And if the London Stone should burn . . .’

Charlie and Lily exchanged glances.

‘Nile Street is gone then?’ said Lily. ‘The alchemists have fled?’

‘Nile Street, Whitehorse Yard,’ said the gaoler listing them off. ‘Alchemists are long gone and good riddance. God’s mysteries are not for men to unravel,’ he added.

The mob had arrived outside the prison now and the guards milled hopefully by the door. Charlie saw Lily was holding her breath. Then the people streamed past without stopping.

‘Looks like whoever they had in mind has escaped,’ said the gaoler disappointedly. ‘Already they break away.’

Lily let out a perceptible sigh of relief.

The gaoler spat in the dust.

‘I suppose it’s for the best,’ he decided. ‘If we’re not allowed to keep men here. Bridewell Prison guards will be making a pretty penny,’ he added wistfully. ‘The crowd has already turned over three Catholics and a Frenchman who were throwing fireballs,’ he explained. ‘And we get an extra penny for gaoling a treason.’

‘Can we go out through the prison?’ asked Charlie. ‘The crowd is thick on Lud Gate. It would do us a service to use the Snow Hill entrance.’

The gaoler straightened, scratching his groin.

‘I suppose there’s no harm in it,’ he said. ‘This prison will be empty by tomorrow, if the King gets his way.’

He laughed mirthlessly.

‘That’s what we get for bringing the monarch back,’ he said. ‘We were better under Cromwell.’

Chapter 36

‘Tell me again, James,’ said Arabella, closing her brown eyes tight. Her long limbs were ranged languidly across the sheets.

‘I love you,’ said the Duke of York smiling down at her. He wore a long white shirt, carelessly untied at the neck and nothing else. His rosary half concealed a deep scar from his latest seafaring battle.

James had the same large rounded nose and hooded eyes as his brother the King. His hair was brown and waving, in contrast to Charles’s black curling locks. And it never ceased to amaze James how his indifferent looks drew women, now he was royal. But to the surprise of everyone at court, he’d chosen plain Arabella above far more beautiful girls.

Arabella opened her eyes again. ‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘There’s no conviction in your voice.’ She gave a theatrical sigh. Her smooth features puckered. ‘You won’t do, James,’ she told him. ‘You’d best go back to your wife.’

James fell back on the bed laughing. ‘What if she won’t have me?’

‘She will.’ Arabella stretched out her legs on the white sheets. ‘You’re heir to the throne.’

James smiled at his mistress. Arabella’s royal connections were low. She had a knightly father and a duke for a brother-in-law. But the moment they’d first met, he knew. She had an angular body and a face that was handsome rather than pretty. But this had never stopped her popularity with men. She was the most entertaining woman he’d ever met.

Arabella thought for a moment, turning a twist of fine brown hair. ‘Was your wife with you and Charles in Holland?’

James shook his head. ‘She was the only person who wasn’t,’ he said. ‘Shiploads of people arrived to pay their respects. If it hadn’t been for father’s beheading, it could have been the greatest time of our lives,’ he added, looking wistful.

Arabella looked at him with interest. She reached to the side of the bed and poured wine into a goblet.

‘Better than being brother to a King?’ she asked, passing it to him.

James took a sip, then ran a hand down her long body.

‘We had no royal obligations,’ he said. ‘Plenty of people to buy us drinks and food. And boatloads of pretty women desperate to bed the heir and his brother. We spent four years drunk.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘Then the Sealed Knot came,’ he added, his face falling. ‘They were a Royalist faction sworn to return Charles as King.’

‘They wanted you to invade England,’ suggested Arabella, ‘instead of pretty girls? What monsters.’

James laughed a little, but a ghost of unease was in his eyes.

‘One was an alchemist,’ he said, remembering. ‘A good one. Man named Torr. Charles has an interest in such things and visited his experiments. Then something happened. The Sealed Knot unleashed something. Something powerful. Afterwards, no one would speak of it.’

‘They conjured a demon?’ suggested Arabella.

‘Perhaps,’ said James. ‘Charles only told me of a room with smoking crucibles and liquid metal. But I heard whispers. Lost treasure. Wealth beyond a man’s wildest dreams.’

‘Then what happened?’ asked Arabella, enjoying the story.

‘Nothing.’ James shrugged. ‘It all seemed to be forgotten. Charles was bedding Lucy Walter and that took all his interest. The Sealed Knot grew tired of waiting for their future King to involve himself in plans to reclaim his country.’

James frowned in thought. ‘I mentioned it to Charles years later,’ he added. ‘He said the Sealed Knot secrets had been destroyed.’

‘If I’d been Charles,’ observed Arabella, ‘I should have busied myself with the soldiers, rather than a silly girl.’

‘But you’re a clever woman,’ grinned James. ‘Charles was an eighteen-year-old man. And Lucy was very pretty back then. Extraordinary chest.’ He mimed two domes. ‘Charles thought himself very fortunate. Until he found out about Lucy’s other men,’ added James, grinning.

‘But by then Lucy had birthed him a son,’ murmured Arabella, pulling the sheet higher to cover her small breasts. ‘It is a clever thing, to win the favour of a future King when he is low,’ she concluded, taking back the goblet and drinking wine. ‘I would have done the same.’

‘You were barely born,’ said James, folding her naked body in the crook of his arm, and tugging the sheet down again. ‘Does that make me a dirty old man?’

‘Yes,’ said Arabella unhesitatingly. ‘It does.’ She touched her stomach and something shifted in her face. ‘A dirty
Catholic
old man,’ she added pointedly.

‘I would never have converted,’ said James. ‘But I wasn’t expected to be King at the time. Charles had just married. We didn’t know then that Catherine of Braganza couldn’t . . .’

Arabella sat up a little. ‘So the problem is with her then?’

James looked shocked. ‘Of course. Charles has five children.’

‘I don’t mean that,’ said Arabella. ‘I thought . . . Talk at court is that Charles doesn’t like his Queen. That he can’t bear to bed her. She
is
strange.’ Arabella was picturing the pint-sized Queen. ‘She looks like she’s in mourning. She
stinks
of incense and garlic. You can smell it a mile away. And that
hair
. I can’t see how a man would get close.’

‘Charles likes her well enough,’ said James, settling back. ‘Well enough for that anyway,’ he said.

Arabella laughed. ‘Men amaze me,’ she said. ‘Could you do it? With the Queen?’

James thought about it. ‘If I were King,’ he said. ‘And it was my duty.’

‘You wouldn’t struggle to perform? Garlic breath?’ prompted Arabella.

‘I’d turn her the other way,’ said James. ‘The Queen is such an innocent she wouldn’t know any better. But I’d need a drink inside me.’

Arabella tipped back her head and laughed.

‘What of the King’s other women?’ she asked, her eyes sliding to his. ‘Which of those . . . ?’

‘Barbara,’ said James unhesitatingly.

‘I heard you had an eye for false hair and cleavage,’ suggested Arabella archly.

‘Lucy Walter?’ said James. ‘Everyone has had Lucy. I was lucky to escape with my life.’ He shook his head.

‘Every dress she wears is a present from the King of Spain,’ said Arabella. ‘Surely such regal connections must appeal?’

James laughed, then his face turned serious. ‘Lucy’s lies are a joke,’ he said. ‘But Monmouth is beginning to take after her. He’s spoiled.’

‘He’s ambitious and arrogant,’ said Arabella. ‘Protestant too.’

She tapped James’s rosary meaningfully.

‘English people might prefer a bastard to a Catholic,’ Arabella observed.

‘Monmouth knows his place,’ said James uneasily.

‘Is he really Charles’s son? There is talk.’

‘He might be. Charles thinks he is. But Charles is a romantic. Lucy was open to most comers at that time.’

‘You are no gentleman,’ smiled Arabella, ‘to talk of your lover so.’

James leaned closer, running a hand along her slim body. ‘I’m not,’ he admitted moving closer. ‘And that’s the way you like me.’

Chapter 37

‘What should we do now?’ asked Lily as they made into the wide courtyard of the Fleet Prison. ‘Nile Street is all burned. And we don’t have the marriage register.’

‘You never told me you were in prison,’ said Charlie. ‘What was your crime?’

‘Trusting the wrong person,’ said Lily, in a tone which made it clear she’d answer no more questions.

Charlie picked at a patch of his dusty-blond hair which had been scorched in Torr’s cellar.

‘We know that Blackstone made two weddings,’ he said.

‘Fleet Weddings,’ added Lily. ‘Not proper church ones.’

‘And perhaps to the same woman,’ continued Charlie. ‘One during the Civil War and one after. Why?’

‘Dowry?’ suggested Lily. ‘Amesbury said that Blackstone spent his wife’s dowry on the royal cause.’

‘You can’t claim a dowry twice,’ said Charlie. ‘No matter how many times you marry a woman. Once it’s spent it’s spent.’

He tapped the scar on his lip. ‘You said they married at sea.’ Charlie thought for a moment. ‘Aboard ship and free of port. No noble marriage is made that way.’ Something else occurred to him.

‘Blackstone’s marriage was the same year as the date on your handkerchief. And Blackstone’s chest is a Dutch sea chest.’

Lily shrugged, taking the handkerchief out of her dress. ‘So the mermaid signifies his marriage?’ Her face suggested the improbability of this.

‘Not a marriage,’ Charlie said slowly, touching the image. ‘I think this mermaid could be a ship’s figurehead. Women embroider them for good luck, before a ship sets sail.’

Lily looked again at the handkerchief.

‘So she commemorates some ship’s voyage?’ said Lily, tapping the mermaid.

‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘And the bearer sailed on the ship.’

‘So Blackstone’s ship was called the Mermaid?’ Lily sounded intrigued. ‘But what can that tell us?’

Charlie shrugged. ‘It could tell us nothing. Or it could tell us a great deal. If we can find the ship’s captain, or a fellow passenger, perhaps they will remember Blackstone.’

Lily looked disappointed. ‘How could we know that? The ship sailed seventeen years ago.’

Charlie rubbed the kink in his nose.

‘We can find out about the ship. If we go to the most dangerous man in London.’

Lily smiled at the description. ‘What does he sell? Black powder?’

‘Information. The Oracle,’ said Charlie, ‘is a legend in the shadow trade.’

‘The shadow trade?’ asked Lily.

‘Smuggling, piracy,’ said Charlie, waving an airy hand. ‘High-
profit trades and a risk of a painful death. The Oracle keeps infor
mation on every ship and cargo to leave and enter London. He is famed for it. It is said his records are better than the papers made by Customs House.’

‘Why does he keep records of ships?’

‘He sells information,’ explained Charlie, ‘and makes predictions which he sells for profit.’

‘What kind of predictions?’

‘Whether the price of lace or brandy will rise or fall,’ said Charlie. ‘Which goods will be the most profitably smuggled. Smugglers visit The Oracle before planning their time on the tides.’

‘Won’t he have fled London from the fire?’

Charlie shook his head.

‘The Oracle is in the Shadow Market. The entrance is under Pickled Herring steps.’

‘The south side of the river?’

Charlie nodded. ‘The bad part of town. No fire there. The Shadow
Market is in the tunnels beneath. You can only get in by river.’

‘Do you know him? This Oracle?’

‘I had some dealings with him a few years ago,’ said Charlie. ‘I think he’ll remember me. But he’s . . .’ Charlie tapped at the side of his head.

‘Insane?’ suggested Lily.

‘Not Bedlam insane. But prone to visions. And bad fits of temper.’

‘You say he’s dangerous?’

‘He’s powerful and unpredictable. Which makes him the most dangerous man I know.’

‘You’re sure he’ll remember you?’ said Lily uneasily.

‘He’s still got the scar.’

Lily adjusted the knives under her skirts.

‘Wonderful,’ she said sourly.

‘First we need to get to him,’ said Charlie. ‘The only way is by river. Every man jack in London will be trying to get a boat.’ He thought for a moment.

‘We should walk to Charing Cross steps. They’re the furthest public wharf up river. More likelihood of a boat.’