Fire

by C. C. Humphreys

  ‘I was. But I decided that Christ, in his wisdom, will choose the time of his return entirely without my intervention. So I will worship him – but I will save my love for my family. Ah,’ Pitman pointed with his chin, ‘he comes.’

  In the royal box, previously empty, a soldier in the scarlet coat of the King’s Life Guards now stood. For a long moment he surveyed the scene below. Then he turned to the back of the box and nodded. At the same moment, three musicians walked out upon the stage and began to play a royal air.

  The next moment Charles was there, standing at the very front of the box. Those who had sat in the auditorium, in the boxes, now rose and joined those still standing. Huzzahs came, shouts of ‘God save Your Majesty!’ and ‘Health to Your Majesty.’ The Duke of York joined Charles and the acclaim slackened a little – His Grace’s dull brown clothes made him a pigeon to his brother’s peacock, and he was an avowed Catholic to boot. A lady joined them, masked, and the house erupted in twittered speculation as to which royal mistress was present. All three waved, looked about them, bestowing nods on a favoured few. Then, suddenly, all sat. The musicians changed their tune as they marched off, moving from celebration to a softer, sadder air. An actor, carrying a spear, walked to the centre of the stage, to applause. But he did not, to Coke’s relief, start making an over-solicitous speech of welcome as was customary. As the music ended with a flourish, there was a last rush of play-goers past them, forcing themselves onto the pit’s benches, to cries of outrage and much jostling. The actor waited, allowing all to settle. Then he bowed briefly to the royal box, turned to the right and hissed, ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Do we sit, Pitman?’

  ‘Let’s keep afoot and light upon ’em, too. Something’s amiss, I can sense it.’ He looked up, to the box next to the king’s. ‘And why is that the only damned seat not taken in the house?’

  Coke peered. ‘Nay, but it is. There’s someone there, sitting a little back in the gloom. Can’t quite see him –’ He leaned closer. ‘Ha! Did you observe our man smoke a pipe in the tavern?’

  ‘He was one of very few who did not.’

  ‘And I smelled no smoke upon his clothes.’ He started, clutching the other’s arm. ‘So answer me this: why did he just ungate a lantern?’

  Pitman did not reply. He just set out at a run for the front of the playhouse.

  Upon the stage, and to many gasps, a ghost appeared.

  —

  ‘I’ll make a ghost of him – of all the Stuarts. Ha ha! And the Whore of Babylon beside.’

  Simon Peckworth giggled as he fumbled open the gate of the lantern. But he did not grab the candle straightway. His hand was shaking so much he feared he would snuff it out. Flame was so fragile – this one anyway. But this little spark would soon conjure a greater one that would send Charles to the flames of Hell.

  ‘The Lord is my shepherd,’ he breathed, ‘I shall not want.’

  The psalm soothed, as it always did. He’d been frightened when the king’s guard had thrust into the box, demanding to know who he was. The attendant had saved him, vouching for him as Sir Walter Peckworth’s brother. Sir Walter was one of the king’s staunchest supporters in Parliament. The guard had withdrawn and never noticed what the cushion concealed.

  He reached for the grenado now. It was lighter than he remembered, but solid. Better to put it to the flame than the flame to it.

  As he reached to the lantern, words came as if from far away.

  ‘But soft, behold, lo, where it comes again!

  I’ll cross it though it blast me.’

  He smiled. The words were appropriate for what he was about. But he had even better ones by heart. ‘Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’

  He felt comforted. He stopped shaking and pushed the fuse into the flame.

  —

  A guard was at the top of the stairs. ‘Stop!’ he shouted, reaching for his sword, as Pitman and Coke charged up.

  They could not. ‘The king!’ Pitman cried and hurled himself at the man, pushing his sword back into its sheath, grappling him. But the guard was of a size with the thief-taker and had his duty. Both men went down.

  Coke vaulted them and ran on down the corridor. As he neared its end, another guard emerged from the royal box, sword drawn. ‘Hold there!’ he cried, levelling. But Coke did not halt, nor explain. Slapping aside the rapier’s blade, he threw back the curtains of the last but one box and stepped inside.

  A man stood there. He stank. He had fire in his eyes, fire in his hand and it was that fire that Coke looked at, for it spluttered. ‘One chicken,’ the man said, and giggled. ‘Two chicken.’

  He was just beginning to turn away when Coke reached and wrapped his hand around the flame. It burned him but he did not let go, not until he’d jerked the steel ball clear of the other’s grip. Then he dropped it.

  The man punched him, but on the top of the head, enough to make him stagger. Coke bent, hands raised against further blows – and saw that the fuse to what he knew now to be a grenado was not entirely out, a red glow near its base. He shot his hand down, snatched the weapon up and, just as the guard disentangled himself from the curtains and thrust in, stepped under the guard’s raised sword arm and hurled the ball at the window opposite.

  Glass shattered. The grenado dropped just below the sill – and exploded.

  The window frame and a huge chunk of the lath and plaster wall burst in, knocking both Coke and the guard to the floor, covering them with choking dust and horsehair. The explosion had near-deafened him and the shouts that were now coming from box and auditorium seemed very far away; he could barely see, through the white clouds, shapes moving. He glimpsed what he thought was Pitman, still locked on the floor in the guard’s embrace. He looked the other way – to the king emerging from his box, mouthing words.

  It appeared that the only sense that was fully functioning was in his nose. He felt, rather than saw, a shape pass above him. But he certainly smelled him, as Simon Peckworth leapt over him, over Pitman, and ran down the stairs.

  —

  The explosion was loud. Too loud, he thought. If it had happened within the building, the noise of the grenado would have come to him muffled, a dull crump, and screams hard upon it. This had been a sharp crack following the smash of breaking glass.

  Had he lost his nerve? It was likely. The man had reeked of fear. Though it was odd that he would have gone as far as the lighting of the fuse which, surely, was the most terrifying thing? To have changed his mind at the last moment? To decide that even though it was this spawn of the Antichrist that he was to kill, he had not the nerve to be a killer? Many had not. He had not, once.

  Now I will know, he thought. The doors are opening, the sinners are flooding out of their place of sin; there is lamentation. But it is made of fright, not horror. No one has died this day. Not yet.

  Among the very first to appear was Jeremiah. The man of blood shifted slightly and prepared to meet him.

  The youth staggered across, collapsed onto him. He was weeping, snot running from his nose, snail trails glistening on the white powder of plaster that covered him head to toe. ‘Help me!’ he cried. ‘They will come. We must flee.’

  The man prevented him easily with one hand. ‘You failed.’

  ‘I was thwarted!’ Peckworth wailed. ‘Those men. The ones in the tavern. They –’ He used the other’s arms to drag himself upright, until their faces nearly touched. ‘Help me!’ he beseeched.

  ‘I will.’

  There wasn’t a question. Once more, Jesus had been failed by a man who had not the will to succeed, to do what must be done. A man who, even if he managed to get away now, would be taken soon. It was clear in his voice, his eyes – his stench. Broken easily, he would betray them all.

  It was harder than it appeared, to kill a man with a knife. At least he had found it so, once. The weapon was important, a thin, well-tempered stee
l blade the best – a stiletto, where the edges were naught, the point everything. It was this he drove up, once he’d discovered with a fingertip the right spot between the ribs. Then it was easy. He burst the heart, red surged from the mouth and drowned the ‘why’ the young man would have spoken.

  ‘Peace be with you,’ the man of blood murmured, holding the other until the fire in his eyes went out. As he lowered the martyr to the ground, as he sheathed his knife, he felt that peace descend on him.

  ‘Next time, Lord,’ he said as he walked away from the screams and the shouting, ‘next time.’

  4

  THE TRACT OF TEARS

  Pitman had always believed that ghosts were nothing but Catholic superstition; that none would rise from their graves to walk again until the last trump sounded and Christ returned to judge both the quick and the dead.

  Well, bugger I, he thought, I’ve turned Papist. For there are ghosts before me now.

  He watched them from where he lay in the playhouse corridor, each figure shimmering white and moving as slowly as if underwater, their every sound half-drowned, barely piercing the sharp whine that had taken near all his hearing. Yet this was not unfamiliar, this scene, this sound, and he suddenly recalled the cannon that had exploded next to him on the ramparts at Brentford. It had made ghosts of all its crew and nearly him as well though he didn’t see them.

  And the king hadn’t been there. This king, indeed, would have been a child then and so unable to stride down the corridor, bend and shake him, mouthing words that slowly, slowly began to penetrate the whine.

  ‘Pitman? Pitman? Are you hurt? Pitman?’

  He swung onto his knees, bent his head, and thought he was going to puke. But the king’s hand was now upon his back, and the king’s voice was becoming clearer. ‘Rest easy, man.’

  Instead of vomit he managed spit. His mouth was filled with plaster and he voided it onto the floor. ‘Your pardon, Majesty,’ he managed to croak.

  ‘Take your time.’ Charles turned. ‘You there! Bring wine.’

  Pitman rolled and placed his back against the wall. One of the king’s guards approached flask in hand and he gulped the canary gratefully, swilling his mouth clean. His senses were clearing, he could smell the wine now, and the king’s cologne, even through the sulphurous reek that dominated the air; he could hear other voices down the corridor and even a greater murmur from beyond it, from the auditorium. With returning senses came memory. ‘Captain Coke?’ he gasped and tried to rise.

  ‘I am here.’

  His partner knelt beside the king, who said, ‘Do you have him, sir? I should show myself or the crowd may panic.’

  ‘I have him.’ Coke smiled. ‘And we have Your Majesty’s canary, so we will be fine.’

  ‘Keep it,’ said Charles, rising. ‘Recover – and remain, if you please. There are matters here I do not understand, such as your presence – again – when me and mine are under threat. I would discuss it.’

  With that he was gone, into the enfolding arms of his guards, several engaged in brushing the plaster from their scarlet coats. He swept into his box, and they heard the upsurge of voices that greeted his reappearance and then his reassuring tone. ‘Calm, ladies, gentlemen, I pray you, calm. I am quite well.’

  Someone pulled the thick box curtains closed, and Charles’s voice came to Pitman muffled through them. It let him concentrate on the man before him. ‘You do not look like a ghost, Captain,’ he croaked, coughed and drank.

  ‘Ghost?’ He looked down. ‘Oh, the powder. Nay, once I’d flung the bomb through the window, I retired swiftly into the shelter of the box.’

  He reached down and began to dust Pitman’s shoulder, but the larger man took and held his hand. ‘And the bomber?’

  ‘Fled. Out the front.’

  ‘It was our pigeon from the tavern?’

  ‘It was, aye. But I have his face fixed. We’ll find the rogue again.’

  ‘Indeed. I would ask him some questions.’ Pitman drank, shaking his head hard. ‘Captain, my hearing is still a little affected. But is that…screaming I hear?’

  Coke stood, stepped towards the large hole that the grenado had torn in the wall. ‘ ’Tis. A woman’s and in front of the theatre. She…she’s screaming blue murder and –’ he turned, ‘and real murder too. Someone’s dead out there.’

  ‘Help me up.’

  Pitman thrust out a hand and Coke pulled him to his feet. ‘Are you sure you are able?’ he asked.

  ‘My body feels like a thousand horses have trampled upon’t. But I’ll manage, on your arm. If there’s murder outside the theatre, it must be connected with the attempted murder within it. Let us see it before some fool interferes with all the evidence.’

  They were halfway down the stairs, moving slowly, when the voice halted them. ‘Is all this mayhem to do with the pair of you?’

  They looked down. Sarah was at the bottom of the stairs. But she was up them in a moment and her arms around each of them. ‘What happened? What was the explosion? Are you hurt?’

  The story, what they knew, was swiftly told as they descended and then stood before the theatre and the mob that milled there. Relief shaded quickly into anger. ‘And you, sir,’ she said, striking Coke on the arm. ‘You try to fob me off with reassurances that your work is none so dangerous?’

  ‘Most is not, Sarah. Besides, we need –’ He broke off.

  ‘The money. I know.’ She touched her belly. ‘But our child would rather have a father than a full purse.’

  He laid his hand on hers. ‘He shall have both, love.’

  ‘Oh? You are certain that I carry your son? Marry, sir, it is far –’

  ‘Peace, both!’ Pitman interrupted. ‘Delighted as I am to witness that you love each other enough to bicker so, we have work here to do.’

  He said this as he began to move through the mob across the cobbled lane that separated playhouse and park. But the mob was thickest before one tree – the tree, he now remembered, behind which he’d seen that cloaked and muffled figure before the play. ‘Make way, there,’ he called and, when the backs did not shift, added on a bass bellow, ‘Headborough of the parish! Make way!’

  Most parted then, enough to reveal the body on the ground – and a man crouched over it, who looked up now. ‘Not this parish, Mr Pitman. I’m headborough around here.’

  He looked down at the man he’d known a little when they were both constables in adjoining parishes in the city. The fellow who’d been plump then was huge now, though his formerly ramshackle beard had lately been trimmed to a regal moustache. ‘Congratulations on your promotion, Mr Deakins. Oh, and it’s Pitman, as you’ll remember no doubt. Plain Pitman, without the “Mr”.’

  ‘Ah, yes. “Plain Pitman” indeed.’ He extended a hand which Pitman shook. ‘How’s the watch in St Leonard’s?’ He looked at the other’s clothes. ‘Or have you given up crime for plastering?’

  ‘Nay, still in the field. But at St Mary-le-Bow now.’

  Deakins whistled. ‘Now there’s an elevation, sure. Richest parish in the city? Headborough?’ The other nodded. ‘How d’you swing that?’

  ‘I did the state some service. My reputation –’ He shrugged.

  ‘Oh yes. I heard something ’bout that. Saved…’ – he looked around at the jostling, whispering crowd – ‘someone’s life, eh?’ He sucked air between his lips. ‘Well, you always had an eye.’ He jerked his head. ‘Care to cast it over this here?’

  Pitman nodded, and the two men knelt. ‘Stabbed,’ Deakins said. ‘Right in the heart. Killed him straight. A lucky jab for both, for sure.’

  Pitman stared at the man he’d last seen alive in the Seven Stars tavern. Death had smoothed his features, stilled his wild eyes – though it had done nothing to lessen the stench Coke had talked of. Rather the opposite. ‘May I?’ He gestured at the blood-soaked clothes.

  ‘What you will.’

  He felt the wetness. Yet warm, not surprising since he’d fled less than ten minutes before. Th
ere was a lot of it too, and its source was confirmed as he pulled open the slick buttons of the doublet and reached inside the lawn shirt. Deakins was right, the heart had been directly punctured. But he was also wrong. The wound was neat, minuscule. No luck was involved here. Not for the victim – nor for his killer.

  ‘Rest in peace,’ he murmured, reaching up to close the youth’s eyes. Yet as he did he glanced down, and noticed it: the corner of paper sticking out of a pocket in the doublet he’d folded aside; he’d nearly missed it because it had soaked up the blood and so was blended into the cloth. He did not reach for it, though, not yet. Some things needed to be kept to oneself. Instead he turned. ‘Have you constables to take him to the mortuary?’

  ‘Aye,’ Deakins replied, rose and called out, ‘Egbert! Fleetwood! Here!’

  As soon as the man turned, Pitman reached both hands to the corpse – one to prise open the pocket, one to withdraw the paper. A little split off but he got the bulk out and swiftly tucked it away inside his coat.

  The watchmen arrived. Sharp orders overcame their reluctance and the wet body was soon slung between them, the crowd parting to let them through. ‘Anything to identify him, Pitman?’ Deakins asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Ach, we’ll find that soon enough. He’s well dressed, so someone will be missing him. Probably a jealous lover, eh? He must have been pretty enough once to woo the ladies – or the boys,’ he added with a wink. ‘Yes, I’ll be studying the mourners careful. Good fortune, man.’

  He left, following his constables, the small crowd moving away to reveal Coke, Sarah and others. Standing with them were two men: one, tall and hefty with the same hard look as one of the king’s guards, who was looking around as one of the guards would do, searching for threats; the other Pitman had met for the first time only the day before. He was, Pitman supposed, their current employer. Under-Secretary for State, he was also the nation’s spymaster. ‘Sir Joseph,’ he said, coming to them. ‘I did not know you liked the theatre.’