Fire

by C. C. Humphreys

  ‘Very good, Captain – William. Then I shall.’

  The two friends sat silent for a while, listening to the high, beautiful notes sounding nearby.

  —

  The youth did not need to cease his tune to smile. But he did to speak.

  ‘Hello again,’ he said, lowering his flute.

  ‘Keep playing,’ replied Rebekah bat Judah.

  He did, just as beautifully. Several people paused to listen, to tap a foot. Some dropped a coin into the cap on the cobbles before moving on. Rebekah did not move, or sway, just stood regarding him, her dark eyes wide.

  The tune ended on a single high note, wonderfully sustained, clinging in the air a long moment after he lowered the flute. A passer-by threw in a last groat. The player knelt, running his fingers over the coins, then looked up at her, his blue eyes dancing under his shank of golden hair. ‘A goodly haul,’ he said. ‘May I spend a portion on you, Rebekah? Buy you a drink?’

  Her face stayed grave. ‘You know that is not possible. I do not go anywhere, with anyone. Especially –’ She gestured at him. ‘I do not even know your name, though you stole mine.’

  ‘Stole? Nay,’ he laughed, ‘I took it in exchange for my heart!’

  ‘Tut!’ she scoffed, though she was pleased. ‘Your name, sir?’

  He rose, his face serious now. Pouring the coins into a pocket of his coat, he clutched the hat before him. ‘Daniel,’ he said, and gave a formal bow.

  ‘Daniel?’ she echoed. ‘ ’Tis a name…a name of my people.’

  ‘I know. My parents honoured them. As do I. I wish –’ he hesitated, ‘I wish I could be one of them – of you. Especially now.’

  ‘Why now?’

  The smile returned, the face lit. ‘Because then maybe you’d let me buy you that drink.’

  ‘Tut,’ she said again. ‘Are girls of your people allowed to do such things with a stranger?’

  ‘No. Though I would not truly know. I have had little to do with girls. I haven’t wanted to until –’ He broke off, his shy smile returning. ‘I have brought you something. A token.’

  ‘What?’

  He looked around. People were staring at this young couple, both handsome, so different. The Gentile and the Jew. The light and the dark. ‘I think some of your tribe are disapproving that we talk so long. Come.’

  He stepped away. She did not move. ‘Where?’

  ‘Just a few paces.’ He pointed to an alley’s narrow entrance. ‘There.’ When she still did not move, he smiled. ‘Come. Do not fear. We will stay near the entrance, in the light.’

  ‘Tut,’ she said, for the third time, though there was little disapproval in it now.

  He led her two paces into the alley, halted, delved into his coat and pulled out an object.

  ‘A banana?’ she exclaimed, then laughed. ‘It is not even heart-shaped, sir!’

  ‘Have you tried one? The queen eats little else, they say, since they came to the realm but recently.’

  ‘I have not.’ She reached, drawing her hand back. ‘We are not allowed to eat many things.’

  ‘But this is a fruit, not – not a pig! Here,’ he broke the skin, peeling it in four sections, broke off a nub and offered it to her. When she shook her head, he ate it himself. ‘Hmm! Delicious. Are you sure?’

  He tore off a much smaller piece, held it out. She shook her head again, so he ate her piece, folded up the rest of the banana in its skin and put it away.

  ‘Well, sir,’ she said, taking a step, ‘if that is all –’

  ‘Nay. That was just…lunch.’ He reached again into his coat. ‘This is dessert.’ He held out a paper-wrapped package. After a moment she took it and held it.

  ‘Open it,’ he said.

  She unwrapped it and gave a little cry – of delight. In her hand, was a tortoiseshell object the size of her palm. Delicate teeth curved down; while above, on the main body, a pattern of flowers, iris and bluebell, had been inlaid in some shining shell.

  ‘It is to hold the hair in place. The seller named it a barrette and told me that this,’ Daniel ran his finger across the blue-green shimmer, ‘is “abalone”, a sea creature from across the globe, from the land of Mexico.’ He took her hand, tilting the shell to the light. ‘Can you see those southern seas, its blues and greens, in its sheen?’

  ‘Oh, I can. I can.’ She tilted it herself, delighting in it, then stopped as she became aware of his touch. Withdrawing her hand, she continued, ‘I may get a chance to see them by candlelight and in their proper place when my father has gone to sleep. I – I thank you. But I should –’ She took a step back. His cry halted her.

  ‘By candlelight? Hidden in a room for only yourself to see? Nay, I beg you. Let me see it.’

  ‘Now? It is not possible. I must keep my head covered.’ She touched her shrouding headdress. ‘I cannot –’

  ‘One glimpse?’ His blue eyes beseeched. ‘A small enough return for my heart, surely?’

  She went to say ‘tut’ but could not. Instead, and after a long moment, she looked around, then passed him the barrette and reached up to her scarf. When she had taken it off, she hesitated again. But his eyes were wide as he stared up, and she reached again, releasing the tight ball of hair allowing the thick coils to burst upon her shoulders like waves on a midnight shore. She shook the tresses, smoothed them down and looked up. Wordless, he handed her back the barrette.

  She placed it in her hair, taming one small part of the wild. She swept it around, turning for him to see, one eye upon him. ‘Well, sir?’ she said. ‘Well – Daniel?’

  He did not reply – only raised his hand. When his fingers were a palm’s breadth away, she moved her head back slightly. ‘You should not do that,’ she whispered.

  ‘Then tell me to stop.’

  Their gazes held. She did not speak again. He moved the little distance and ran his fingertips beneath the barrette and up into her hair. She closed her eyes to his touch.

  7

  SUBTERFUGES

  The Merry Monarch was anything but. ‘No, Sir Joseph.’ The king slapped the table. ‘I tell you, no. I cannot make myself plainer. I will not cower. I never have and I never will. By God, ’tis not the Stuart way.’

  ‘I only suggest it for a time, Majesty.’ The Under-Secretary of State took off his spectacles to pinch the deep red grooves at the bridge of his nose. ‘Just until these flames,’ he gestured to the papers spread on the table before him, ‘are snuffed out.’

  ‘Flames? These are sparks alone, man, nothing more. If I was to take to my bed each time some bedlamite threatened me in misspelled prose or execrable verse, marry, I’d never leave its confines.’ He sniffed. ‘Now while that might please my Lady Castlemaine or my sweet Winifred, it would not me, especially when my inaction would be construed as cowardice.’ Charles turned, fixing the thief-taker with his unnerving stare, the one eye bright, the other dulled with a cast. ‘Do you not agree with me, Mr Pitman?’

  It did not seem the right time to remind His Majesty that he went by ‘Pitman’ alone, he thought. Nor was it in his own interests to agree with the king and contradict the minister – who, he reminded himself again, was his current paymaster. Neutrality seemed appropriate. ‘I believe Sir Joseph refers not to the broadsides but to other information he has there.’

  ‘Oh yes, the letters from his informers – paid rogues who puff up their roguery to be better rewarded.’ Charles dug in his pocket and pulled out an ornate ivory box. ‘How much silver would they receive if they sent word: “No threats. All is peaceful in the realm.” Hmm? Snuff,’ he added, flicking open the box lid, offering it first to Sir Joseph, who declined, then to Pitman, who accepted. Monarch and subject snorted in each nostril, then sneezed simultaneously into mouchoirs. Pitman was surprised to note that his was far cleaner than His Majesty’s. But that’s my Bettina for you, he thought.

  ‘It is true, sir,’ Sir Joseph continued when the echoes had faded, ‘that some agents might exaggerate. But rarely all, and at the sa
me time.’ He riffled some of the papers before him. ‘These speak to a pattern of violence building. This is a special time, after all. This year –’

  ‘Yes, Williamson. Yes. I know. But I do not suppose either Pitman – ha, yes, sir, you see I remembered! – either my good Pitman here nor I need a sermon on 666 and the year of the Beast.’ Charles mimed a yawn. ‘Really, they have been spouting similar nonsense for years, with every comet foretelling the doom of kings, and Christ’s return in the flesh. And here I am…and Christ is not.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I mean no sacrilege in that remark. Only that I am certain in my belief that, with God’s good grace, I will see my saviour in heaven after my death and not here before it.’

  ‘It is the possibility of your death that concerns us, Majesty. If you would but –’

  ‘Truly!’ exclaimed Charles. ‘I do not understand why these fanatics mean me such harm. All know how I wanted toleration for every man’s belief on my restoration. It was not my fault that forces, especially in parliament, overruled me.’ He reached to scratch under his luxuriant, curled wig. ‘I will try again, when the time is right for it. I believe every man and woman should be allowed to peaceably – peaceably, mark you! – worship God in his own way. Why, my brother is a Catholic, as is our mother, and I would have him and her as free as any.’

  The royal family’s Catholicism, as well as the suspicion that Charles himself harboured desires that way, was a reason so many feared and hated him. Pitman wondered how the minister would handle the subject, now it had been raised.

  By ignoring it. ‘Sire,’ Sir Joseph’s voice was quiet, but firm. ‘These people do not want universal tolerance. They hate it as much as they hate restriction – nay, they hate it more. They do not care for freedom of worship. They want only one way of worship – theirs. They are fundamental in their beliefs and they will kill any who oppose them, especially –’

  ‘Try to kill. They have failed utterly, and will fail again. Men like you and our Pitman here have seen to that, and will each time.’ Charles stood, so both the others did too. ‘No, sir. I will not be hidden away in a box. Marry, I’d die of boredom and do their job for ’em.’ He pulled out a pocket watch. ‘I am late for…something. I will leave you to discuss how best to counter these threats.’

  Both men bowed. ‘Majesty.’

  Charles walked to the door and opened it. In the corridor, two of his guards immediately stood to attention. He paused, his hand on the door edge, and looked back. ‘Let me leave you with a story, gentlemen. ’Tis of my father.’ He swallowed. ‘The morning of his execution was bitter cold. So he asked his groom to lay out two thick wool shirts. He was not afraid, knowing as he did that heaven awaited him above. But he did not wish those who watched to mistake any shivering for fear.’ He nodded. ‘That’s how we do it in our family. So I will not cower.’ He smiled. ‘But I may, upon occasion, wear an extra shirt.’

  He was gone, leaving the door ajar. Sir Joseph crossed to it, held it a moment, then closed it softly. Without turning, he spoke. ‘You see with what I must contend.’

  Even with the king no longer in the room, Pitman still did not see why he must take sides. He was not there to ingratiate himself. He was there, in the end, for gold. ‘How may I be of service, Sir Joseph?’

  The Cumbrian turned and peered over his spectacles, looking even more like a heron about to stoop for a fish. ‘I wish you to help protect His Majesty, Mr Pitman.’

  ‘Just Pitman, begging your favour. And both my partner Captain Coke and I have been offered such positions before. They are not –’

  He paused. He was about to say ‘lucrative enough’ and go on to explain that with his family of five and one more on the way, with Coke becoming a father and buying a house, that they had to return to their primary business of taking highwaymen…when, fortunately, he was forestalled.

  ‘I do not mean as guards for his person. He has many as capable as you for that pass. No, I want you to exert your special skills – to sniff out these rogues and apprehend them far from His Majesty.’ Sir Joseph came back to his desk, sat behind it, ordered the jumble of pamphlets and papers before him and drew one out. ‘I have word of a gathering. It is of the group known as the Council of the Six, also sometimes called the Council of the Great Ones.’ He snorted. ‘How they puff themselves up, these builders and brewers and tanners. Have you heard of them?’

  ‘Yes. They are the leaders of the Fifth Monarchists.’

  ‘Five of them are. One of them is my agent. A somewhat reluctant one and so not always reliable but –’ He pulled out another paper. ‘This meeting will take place in three days’ time somewhere in the city. I do not know where yet and may not discover it as my informant writes but sporadically. So I am hoping you would exert your special skills, sniff out the place – and arrest them all.’

  Were you indeed, thought Pitman, but said, ‘The report you have of this clandestine meeting. Does it not give a more accurate account as to numbers?’

  Sir Joseph shifted a few papers on his desk, jabbing his finger at one. ‘The Council, so there’s six. There will no doubt be a few other conspirators. So six – five, if you take away my man – and a few.’ He peered over his spectacles again. ‘Shall we say ten?’ he added, taking out and glancing at his pocket watch.

  We can say hens make holy water, thought Pitman, but it wouldn’t make it true. Instead, he replied, ‘I’ll only have my six constables from the parish –’

  ‘And the troop of His Majesty’s Life Guards which I will assign.’

  ‘That, sir, is a problem. You know that the City aldermen are prickly about soldiers within the walls, ever since the late king’s wars. And twenty cavalrymen would be hard to conceal. They may frighten off the very pigeons we seek to trap.’

  The Under-Secretary put away his watch and took off his glasses. ‘Then what is it you suggest?’

  ‘Leave off the soldiers. Let me recruit discreetly among local parishes. I warrant I can raise a force that will suffice.’

  ‘In three days?’

  ‘Aye, the shorter amount of time the better. For you, sir, are not the only one with informants. But they’ll want paying.’ He nodded. ‘As will I.’

  ‘I wondered when money might arise.’ Sir Joseph sat back. ‘How much?’

  It didn’t take excessive haggling. Figures were written down, scratched out, revised. In the end, Pitman got rather more than he’d first hoped for. There would be thirty guineas apiece for him and the captain and ten for each of the men he’d hire – if all the pigeons were caught.

  The deal was concluded with a nod. Pitman didn’t think to offer his hand – the Under-Secretary did not look like someone who spat and shook. Dismissed, the thief-taker tucked the paper into his doublet, rose – then paused. For he’d remembered something else. Someone else.

  ‘Sir Joseph?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘In our discussion with His Majesty of the events at the theatre, you did not mention the man you believed behind them.’

  The Under-Secretary looked up. Lamplight reflected in his lenses. ‘I did not. I do not believe the king should be burdened with everything.’ He sniffed. ‘Besides, word has it that “Homo Sanguineus” is gone. Indeed, many say he was never here at all.’

  ‘I have a feeling that he was.’

  ‘A feeling?’

  ‘Call it a sixth sense.’

  ‘Really, sir! We deal in facts in this room.’

  Pitman continued, unruffled. ‘And if he still is? If indeed he attends this meeting of the Six –?’

  He left the sentence unfinished. It was the way to draw certain men out, he’d always found. And it drew Sir Joseph, who squinted up at him. ‘If he does, and you take him, you would find me most generous, Mr, er…no, just Pitman, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is indeed, sir,’ Pitman smiled and took out the paper again. ‘And I wonder if you’d just add to the bottom there how generous?’

  —

  ‘Where are you taking me?’
Sarah said, stopping to lean against a door post. ‘Really, William, I do not need this exercise.’

  Coke looked back. He wished she felt better. He wished the rain had not begun so suddenly and continued so hard. He wished he’d conceived a different plan than the one he was executing now. But he hadn’t, and time was now against them. Though he’d vowed to give up all gambling, and had succeeded in forsaking cocks and dice, he was still throwing for the hazard here, the stake higher than it had ever been.

  He moved back to her, unclasped his cloak at the neck, reaching half of it around and over her. ‘There’s something I must show you, love. Come, it is but a little further.’

  He knew that after a performance, if she was not rehearsing for the next day, all she wanted was to go back to their lodgings in Sheere Lane and sleep. His urgency moved her, though. She sighed, but set off.

  Coke glanced back. Trailing them by twenty yards, as wet as a dog on a chase, was Dickon. Yet no weather concerned the boy as long as he was near his captain. Especially now, as he had shared what he planned to do with the lad, who loved Sarah near as much as he. Dickon stuck both thumbs up and grinned. Even in the rain, something sparkled on one digit’s end.

  They turned, stepping out of the slight shelter of Cursitor’s Alley, and onto the more open Fetter Lane. The rain grew heavier, thudding into his cloak in damp explosions. He felt her pace falter again. ‘Close, love,’ he whispered. ‘Very close.’

  They turned into West Harding Street. There, to the distance of some hundred yards, the old houses had been cleared away on both sides and new ones begun. Scaffolding was everywhere, several derricks swung around. Coke led the way to the tallest structure – a brick chimney, smoke curling up from it, black against the grey sky.

  They halted beside it, and before a site that looked as if it had been recently forsaken. Trowels and hammers lay about, alongside a mound of mortar with a shovel shoved in it. Bricks rose to the height of a tall man, a first level attained. To the side, Coke saw a great beam of oak resting on trestles: the house’s hearth joist, ready to be raised.