by C. S. Quinn
Malvern’s plans were due to be enacted. But far worse was what he might do with Maria.
Charlie stamped his foot helplessly into the dusty road. Then for want of a better plan he set off walking.
The Thames was still nearby, and he veered towards it.
Something like white wings flapped in the distance beyond the roadside foliage.
Ship sails. Some boats were on the river.
Probably these were the private boats of Londoners who had travelled up river to avoid plague. He remembered Marc-Anthony telling him, as they locked up the sedan-chair, that this was a strategy he would adopt if the plague in London reached a height.
Charlie let his eye roll over the sails, imagining his friend on one of the boats. And then the realisation hit.
Marc-Anthony was likely on one of those boats.
As a possibility clarified Charlie broke into a run.
Travelling by river he might yet be able to outrun Malvern. Water was slower than wagon. But the route was more direct. The river cut straight into London with no impediment.
Charlie made a rough calculation.
If he could find Marc-Anthony and persuade him to the cause he had a chance, a small chance, of saving Maria from whatever Malvern had planned for her.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Charlie stared out onto the Thames. The river was wide near Wapping, and the breadth of water had attracted a large cluster of ships, taking shelter from the plague. They bobbed on the water like a disparate citadel, at a wary distance from one another.
Charlie could make out makeshift munitions and rudimentary defences. Some ships had watchmen pointing rifles out to sea. Others defended more accessible parts of the hull by painting it in thick tar and pressing in broken bottle ends.
There were at least forty ships, and though Marc-Anthony talked of his smuggling vessel with pride, Charlie had never seen it in reality.
He squinted out into the collection of boats, trying to deduce which might be his friend’s. Certainly, he could rule out all the small skiffs. They weren’t large enough to carry the volume of cargo a smuggler required.
The two very large ships also, he decided, would draw too much attention at customs. That left around twenty tall ships, all of which, so far as he could see, would be adequate for smuggling.
Charlie plumbed his knowledge of seafaring. Like most riverside-dwelling Londoners he took regular ferry boats. But he wasn’t familiar with seafaring.
He tried to think what he knew of Marc-Anthony’s trade.
Marc-Anthony only sails to France. He says the colonies are too great a risk.
Charlie looked back out onto the water and ruled out a couple more ships whose weather-beaten hulls attested to transatlantic journeys.
What else would single out Marc-Anthony’s craft?
His eyes roved the ships anew. They all looked very similar to him. The sails hung limply in the breeze, against slack cobwebs of rigging.
Charlie tried to relax his mind against the throbbing panic of Maria’s kidnap and let his talent for observation get to work.
There!
His gaze seized upon a strangeness in one ship. The two anchor ropes were secured with a slip-knot, halfway down. Charlie thought on this.
A slip-knot meant a quick getaway. In an emergency the ship could simply abandon its anchors rather than pull them in.
He noticed something else about the ship, obvious now he was looking for it. The prow of this particular ship faced into the current, when all others looked downstream.
Charlie knew enough about currents to know this to be a bad practice. Facing the current meant the swell of water hit the blunt back of the boat, jolting the craft uncomfortably.
But he would bet money the slip-knot anchors and current-facing were for the same reason.
Old habits die hard.
Marc-Anthony had not masterminded a smuggling business for fifteen years without a supernatural talent for caution. The smuggler hadn’t been able to help himself from positioning his ship for a fast escape.
That is Marc-Anthony’s ship. I am sure of it.
And without further hesitation, Charlie dove into the water.
Marc-Anthony’s ship was not one of those staffed by armed guards. But as Charlie neared the vessel, crew members leapt into action, shouting and threatening.
‘Get Marc-Anthony!’ called Charlie, reaching the first anchor rope. ‘He’s a friend.’
But instead of calling the captain, the sailor nearest to Charlie stuck a knife between his teeth and began shaking the rope.
‘Call for Marc-Anthony!’ shouted Charlie desperately. ‘He knows me well! I help carry his sedan-chair.’ He fought to keep his slippery hold on the rope as it swung, forcing him to clutch it with both arms.
Having failed to dislodge the intruder, the sailor dropped himself down towards the rope like a monkey, the knife clenched between his bared teeth.
‘I mean no harm!’ shouted Charlie, as the filthy Thames water splashed his face. ‘Only to get to the City.’
‘Let go!’ The sailor had removed the knife from his mouth to issue the warning. It was a practised gesture and his lithe feet held him simian-style and single-handed. ‘Get off the anchor!’
‘Please! If Marc-Anthony is aboard call for him.’
The sailor replaced the blade between his calloused lips and began to move down the rope.
‘Wait!’ called Charlie. ‘Hold!’ But it looked as though his choice was to abandon ship or lose his fingers.
He tried for one last plea. ‘I know he must be on this ship! He told me this is where he would wait out the plague!’
The expression on his assailant’s face said it all. He wanted Charlie off the hull at any cost.
‘Wait!’ a familiar voice sounded from the deck above, and the sailor turned his head up in confusion.
‘Let him aboard!’ said the voice. ‘I know him. He is a friend.’
The sailor’s eyes narrowed. He seemed unwilling to take the new instructions with an interloper still hanging on the anchor.
A curly mop of hair appeared over the side of the ship.
To his great joy Charlie saw the familiar face of Marc-Anthony.
‘Hello Charlie!’ shouted Marc-Anthony. ‘He will let you up presently. Let him up Davie! All is well.’ And to Charlie’s great relief the sailor began to retreat back up the rope.
When Charlie had finished explaining the events leading to Maria’s capture Marc-Anthony looked at him solemnly. ‘There are no officials who stay still in London,’ he said. ‘Even if you find this villain out you cannot enact his arrest. Parts are deserted entirely.’
‘But I was in the City less than a week ago,’ said Charlie, ‘and there was plenty of life in the west. Sure that cannot have changed so sudden in that short time.’
‘We may only dock in the east Charlie. The King deserted the city. And when he did all law was forgotten. Only a few brave gravediggers and aldermen remain.’
‘I must find her Marcus. I must get back into London.’ Charlie looked at his friend. ‘If you can persuade your crew to sail back towards the City I might outrun him still. It is a small chance but it is possible.’
‘What mean you to do in the City?’
‘I will go to the Alders Gate. That is where wagons would come in from the east. I will ask there after Malvern. If I have got back to the City faster than he then I have some hope of following where he goes and finding Maria.’
Marc-Anthony was shaking his head. ‘There will be no one on the gatehouse,’ he said patiently. ‘I tell you I have seen it, and there is nothing left in the East. In that part of the City all are dead or fled. All.’
‘I must find her! Do you not see? He has her. He has taken her for God knows what reason. I do not have time to wait and discover what he wants with her. If I can get to the gatehouse maybe there will be some tracks. Or . . . or something else . . . some other way to find him.’
‘You love this g
irl don’t you?’
‘I . . . I need to get back to London, that is all.’
‘You value her enough to risk your life in any case.’ Marc-Anthony rolled his eyes to Heaven. ‘I always said it, that the most foolish acts in the world are done for love. But where should we be without them Charlie?’
‘Please Marcus. I am begging you. Can you get me into the City?’
‘We can get you as west as the Tower,’ said Marc-Anthony. ‘I could not risk the men onboard to go further than that. But the tide is slow. We are not likely to outrun him. And what is your plan if he has already arrived? You have no idea where this Malvern is headed.’
It was true, Charlie realised, with a sinking heart. If the tides were too slow to outrun the wagon then he had no chance. Malvern would disappear into the city with Maria and might never be found.
The thought brought a fresh wave of despair.
‘Charlie Tuesday!’ said a sudden voice behind him, ‘I owe you my life.’
Charlie swung around to see a vaguely familiar face. Recognition set in. It was the old fisherman he’d sold a certificate to, in the Bucket of Blood.
‘Your certificate got me and my daughter both safe to the docks,’ continued the man. ‘I am in your debt.’
Charlie smiled vaguely, knowing the fisherman’s promise was worthless to him now.
‘I am glad you left London, but I must go back there,’ replied Charlie distractedly.
‘You must not!’ replied the man, aghast. ‘All is death.’
‘I seek a man,’ explained Charlie. ‘Malvern. He has made a kidnap on . . . On a person I hold dear.’
Something strange flickered in the fisherman’s features. It was gone in a flash, but Charlie’s thief taker experience seized on it instantly. He could spot recognition, in even the best poker-face.
‘You have heard the name?’ he asked, ‘Malvern?’
The fisherman’s face had blanched. He shook his head slowly.
Charlie grabbed his shoulders.
‘This is life or death,’ he urged, ‘if you know something, please. You must tell me.’
The man seemed to be fighting some internal battle.
‘I gave you my word,’ he said finally, ‘that I’d repay your kindness and now, by God’s grace, my time has come. I only pray I don’t do wrong.’
Charlie blinked at him, wondering what on earth the man had in mind. Certainly a fisherman from Billingsgate had no obvious powers to find Maria.
‘My daughter,’ continued the man. ‘My daughter was near caught by your Malvern. But she got free and hid on this boat. I’ve told none since that she hides here. But I tell you true Charlie Tuesday. Because I gave you my word.’
Marc-Anthony looked as though he might have something to say about the bad luck of a woman aboard during plague times. But he caught Charlie’s face and thought better of it.
‘Take us to her then,’ he said.
The man’s daughter was blonde, and pretty. Despite having been stowed beneath a hessian sack for the last few days. In contrast to her accent the clothes she wore were expensive, suggesting she sold her body, at least some of the time.
‘Go on Jenny,’ said her father. ‘Tell them what you know of Malvern.’
Jenny looked at Charlie uncertainly.
‘He is an evil man,’ she said, with a terrified stare. Clearly her status as stowaway was making her reluctant.
Her father nodded encouragingly. ‘Go on.’
‘I . . . I know not much else about him,’ Jenny admitted. ‘Only he looked familiar, like someone I have seen before.’
‘But you do not know who?’ urged Charlie.
She looked to her father. He nodded she should continue, and she shook her head sadly.
‘Tell the Thief Taker everything you know,’ pressed her father. ‘We both owe him a debt. For it was his certificate which got us safe to the docks.’
‘I know Malvern gambles,’ said Jenny uncertainly, looking from Charlie to her father.
‘Know you where?’ asked Charlie, trying to drill down to a possible location as fast as he could.
Jenny nodded. ‘In Smith and Widdles. On Botolph Lane. I saw him sign his name in the gambling books. He placed a very large bet,’ she added, ‘that plague would spread to the west of the City. Where the rich people are.’
‘Plague has not yet passed badly that way,’ said Marc-Anthony uncertainly. ‘So he looks to lose if that is what he gambles on.’
Charlie let this fact settle uncomfortably in his mind. Perhaps Malvern was planning on winning a great deal of money to finance an uprising. But if that was the case he would have to somehow control the spread of plague. Such a thing couldn’t be done.
He turned the possibility over and over, but couldn’t make it fit with what he knew of Malvern’s plans.
‘Did he sign an address in the betting book?’ asked Charlie hopefully. ‘Some place I might track him?’
But Jenny shook her head. ‘If he did, I did not see it.’
‘Did you go to his home?’ pressed Charlie. ‘Perhaps you remember the street?’
‘He took me to a church,’ said Jenny, her face stricken. ‘Full of mouldering food.’
She shuddered and went on. ‘I only made my escape by hiding in a priest hole. But he had a brute load of bloodied tools. God forbid what he might have done to me.’
Charlie tried to quell the agonised thought that Maria could be encountering those same tools.
‘Where was the church?’ he said, fighting to keep his tone even.
‘I do not know,’ admitted Jenny. ‘Only that we wandered for a while through backstreets. Girls such as I are not welcome in churches,’ she added apologetically.
Charlie felt a terrible paralysing feeling sweep over him. That he would not find her. He thought back to Malvern’s map, but it was no help to him. No churches had been marked, and there was no pattern to the crosses to suggest a headquarters.
‘What size was the church?’ he tried. ‘Was there anything to mark it out?’
Jenny shook her head slowly. ‘I think you would call it large,’ she said slowly, ‘Or so it seemed to me. And it stank inside,’ she added wrinkling her nose.
Charlie let out a breath.
‘Did it have a graveyard?’ he tried, panning through ways to narrow things down.
Jenny nodded. ‘I think so. Yes. It did. We walked through it. I remember, I tried to make a joke about walking over graves.’
Charlie let his mental map of London range around Botolph Lane. There were seven churches within walking distance. Only three had a graveyard.
Fen Church, St Clements and All Hallows.
What could distinguish those churches?
‘You said it had a priest hole?’ Charlie said, taking Jenny’s arm urgently. ‘You hid inside?’
Jenny nodded. ‘Hid inside, shaking for my very life,’ she affirmed.
‘That could only be St Clements or Fen Church,’ decided Charlie. ‘All Hallows never hid priests.’
He toyed with the facts for a moment. But they brought him no closer. Time was too short. He would have to take a guess.
Of the two, Fen Church was nearest to the river. It was nothing better than an educated guess, but if Malvern planned an uprising, proximity to the Thames might be tactical.
‘Can you take me to the Tower of London docks?’ Charlie asked, turning urgently to Marc-Anthony.
‘We can sail you to St Katherine’s docks,’ said Marc-Anthony. ‘But that part of London is deadly dangerous Charlie. Plague has made it a no man’s land. You should be prepared for the worst.’
‘What worst is that?’
‘I think you may be horrified Charlie. To see what has become of your City.’
‘Yet I must go, and quickly,’ said Charlie.
Marc-Anthony signalled to his men, who loosed the anchors and set about manoeuvring the sails.
The ship heaved off into the swelling current, and Charlie felt relief to be taking
action.
Marc-Anthony disappeared momentarily and returned with a long rifle.
‘You should take this,’ he said, handing the gun to Charlie. ‘It is only a rabbit gun, but it is the sturdiest weapon on board.’
Charlie took the gun. ‘Are you sure you can spare it?’
Marc-Anthony waved the comment aside. ‘It shoots out a spray of shot which could slow a man down perhaps,’ he said. ‘If the angle were right.’ He considered for a moment. ‘If you got a good shot right in the face it may do some greater damage.’
‘Thank you Marcus.’
‘I am sorry I cannot arm you properly,’ said Marc-Anthony sadly. ‘But you know how it is Charlie. All the good pistols belong to rich folk. This is the best we have, but better than nothing eh? When terrible men abound.’
Chapter Seventy
Maria felt the hard stone floor beneath her and a tomb propping her upright. Her wrists were still bound tightly with rope, and a gag of rough cloth cut into her cheeks. She was in a church. But the building had been repurposed.
A terrible smell hung in the air. Like the butchers at Smithfield on a hot day. As though meat had been piled up to rot.
Maria twisted her head for a better look at her surroundings.
The church had been filled with piles and piles of weapons. There were stacks of swords and pikestaffs lining hundreds back against the wall. From the look of the cache they had all been purchased second-hand. Most bore the chips and scratches of battle with regimental marks from the Civil War. The occasional bulk was newer, presumably bought up from some rich householder who held a larger private supply. Malvern must have been buying up stocks for some time.
In a neat stack in the corner was what looked to be the contents of a fine domestic house.
Perhaps Malvern, like other better-off householders, had removed his possessions to secure storage against plague looters. There were chairs and tables. Rolled rugs and tapestries and chests. A familiar symbol caught her eye. The crown with its array of looping knots.
