The Ashes of London

by Andrew Taylor

  The path she was following levelled out and came to a stile beside a field gate. She was here at last, at the highest point of Primrose Hill, or very close to it. She had been here last in the spring. There had been flowers growing, thousands of primroses especially, among the fresh green grass. All gone now. The grass was coarse, sodden and tussocky. The gorse was blackening as winter approached.

  A skylark wheeled above her head, climbing sharply. She walked along the brow of the hill. The din of London had dropped away, and she felt a stab of nostalgia, not for Primrose Hill but for the huge, silent skies of Coldridge.

  Automatically she turned to her left. Spread out before her was the great, green sweep that led the eye down to the roofs of London, over the silver ribbon of the Thames and towards the blue Surrey hills on the horizon.

  The wind was from the north-east, and the smog that usually cloaked the city had cleared. From afar, London looked almost unchanged: the towers and steeples rose in their accustomed pattern above the streets, and in the middle of them all, towering over the City as it had for centuries, was the dark ridge of St Paul’s. She wondered what the view would look like in ten, twenty or thirty years if Dr Wren and Master Hakesby had their way and built a new cathedral, surrounded by a city of such classical elegance that it would rival Rome itself.

  Cat’s eyes drifted closer, up the slope of the hill. No sign of Cousin Edward or the dogs. He might have changed his routine. But it was relatively early, and he had never been an early riser.

  If it hadn’t been for the servant yesterday, the man who had jostled her at the oyster stall, she might not have come here. But she was sure she had not imagined that spark of recognition in his eyes, and equally sure that she had known his voice. It made her realize how vulnerable she was, even with her altered appearance. If the servant told Edward, if Edward knew she was still in London, and dressed as a serving maid …

  She walked further round the hill to a point were the path skirted a ragged copse. She slipped among the trees and crouched in the shelter of a yew tree. She laid the knife on the ground beside her and pulled the grey cloak around her shoulders. She waited.

  The sun had climbed higher.

  Hooves clattered in the distance. Harnesses jingled.

  The sounds grew nearer. Cat glimpsed a plumed hat on the path beyond the gate. Then another. Two riders came into view. Even in the distance, it was clear that they were gentlemen – the periwigs beneath the hats told her that, and the fashionable cut of their cloaks. The taller of the two was in the lead. He was riding a black horse. His cloak was flung back over his shoulders, and there was the line of a baldric across his chest.

  An invisible dog barked, a deep, full-bellied sound. Then another dog, and a third and a fourth. She would have known the sound of them anywhere. Here were the great mastiffs of Barnabas Place: Thunder, Lion, Greedy and Bare-Arse, with a manservant to hold them. They were never muzzled when Edward rode out with them. He liked to show his power over them.

  Two riders? She had not bargained for that.

  They were now near enough for her to make out their faces. The servant and the dogs were still out of sight.

  Edward had a black smudge on his face. Not a smudge: an eye patch. She had left her mark on him, just as he had left his mark on her.

  Cat was trembling now. She did not know whether it was from fear or rage.

  Behind her cousin rode Sir Denzil Croughton, plump as a partridge on a brown mare. Did they still believe that she was betrothed to him? She had hardly thought of him for weeks.

  While these thoughts flickered through her mind, she heard the men’s voices by the gate, and Sir Denzil’s high-pitched laughter, almost a titter. Another sort of panic took her by the throat at the thought of being married to that man-doll.

  At this point, her nerve failed her. She had come here in the hope that God would deliver her cousin into her hands, so that she might accomplish what she had begun in Barnabas Place all those weeks ago. She had hoped vaguely that Edward might step aside, perhaps to relieve himself, and that this would give her the chance she needed. Now, seeing him in person on his black horse, with Sir Denzil riding behind him as well as the servant on foot, she saw only the impossibility of achieving anything.

  The party from Barnabas Place drew slowly closer. Sir Denzil paused and pointed with his whip at something in the city below. Edward dismounted and unstrapped a saddlebag.

  At the sight of him, Cat’s hatred welled up, but so did her fear. She could not bear to be so close to him. And it wasn’t safe, either.

  She stood up and edged behind the trunk of the yew. She retreated through the trees towards the far side of the copse. She could no longer see the dogs but they were giving tongue. They must have seen something or caught a scent, perhaps hers.

  The trees gave way to hummocky turf and bramble bushes. The ground sloped toward an ill-kempt hedge that straggled along the line of the hill on its northern slope. She ran towards it.

  The barking of the dogs became suddenly louder and more frantic. The men were shouting, even Sir Denzil.

  ‘Bare-Arse!’ Edward bellowed. ‘Come here, damn ye. Bare-Arse!’

  Surely they would not have loosed the mastiffs?

  The hedge loomed in front of her. Covering her head with her cloak, Cat dropped down to her hands and knees. She burrowed among the roots and branches of the hedge, struggling to find a way through. Thorns tore her skin.

  The barking was louder still. One of them sounded much nearer than before. Bare-Arse, she thought, he’s found my scent and broken free. Dear Bare-Arse, go away.

  Cat wriggled deeper into the hedgerow, which was several feet wide at this point. The ground was muddy and streaked with narrow puddles. Damp seeped through her dress and her shift to her bare skin. Her hands were smeared with dirt. She nosed towards the other side of the hedge. A bramble sucker wrapped itself around her shoulder where it met her neck, trapping her as securely as if it were a loop of rope. She wriggled more violently but it held firm.

  The dogs were closer. So were the men. Hooves drummed on the turf.

  She pulled out her knife, ripped it from its sheath, and attacked the sucker. Behind her there was a snapping of branches and a panting sound as a heavy body crashed into the other side of the hedge. Cat sawed with redoubled force. The blade nicked the skin of her neck. The sucker broke in two, and she was almost free. The cloak had caught on something in the hedge. She wrenched herself away, breaking the clasp that held it around her shoulders, leaving the cloak behind.

  She crawled into the field beyond. There was a frenzied scrabbling behind her. Bare-Arse blundered after her, following the hole her body had made. It was a wonder and a misfortune that the leash did not snag on the hedge. He nudged and licked her, dribbling over her arm and her dress. Cat pushed him away but still he fawned around her, his leash trailing behind him.

  The hooves were closer now.

  She seized the leash.

  Then it was too late. A horse and rider cleared the hedge a few yards from where she stood: the brown mare with Sir Denzil, pink-faced and open-mouthed, on its back. He caught sight of Cat and rode towards her, shouting at her to stop.

  Bare-Arse tore the leash from her hand and launched himself, snarling, at Sir Denzil. The horse took fright and reared. Sir Denzil toppled from the saddle. The mastiff was upon him at once.

  Cat snatched at the dog’s spiked collar. Bare-Arse reluctantly allowed her to haul him away from his victim. She looped the end of the leash around a sturdy ash sapling that had sprouted from the hedge. The riderless horse stood watching.

  Sir Denzil lay motionless on the rough turf. His wig and hat had fallen off. Someone had lit a fire up here. His shaved head rested on a bed of damp ashes.

  She bent down to Bare-Arse and hissed ‘Sit!’ in his ear. To her surprise, the dog licked her face and obeyed.

  ‘Good dog. Stay.’

  The brown mare sidled down the slope of the hill, dipped her head and
cropped the grass. Cat was aware on the edge of her mind that there were more drumming hooves, more baying mastiffs, more shouting men. But, just for a moment, nothing counted but herself and the man on the ground.

  She stepped closer. His eyes were open, looking up at her. His expression changed. There was confusion in his face, chased away by dawning recognition. His right hand shot out and wrapped itself around her left wrist.

  ‘You,’ he said. ‘Catherine … But you’re in the – it can’t be.’ He dragged her down towards him. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

  ‘Let go, sir,’ she hissed.

  She tried to wrench herself away but he was too strong, stronger than she would have thought possible. In a moment, Edward would be here.

  Bare-Arse growled, showing his teeth. He tried to spring to her aid. The sapling bent but held firm.

  She was still holding the knife. She jabbed it at Sir Denzil’s cheek. He reared towards her. The tip missed the face and snagged on the side of the neck. His mouth fell open. His eyes widened. Blue and startled, they stared up at her.

  Panic filled her. Edward was coming, Edward would take her—

  ‘Let go,’ she whispered. ‘Pray, sir—’

  Instead, the fingers tightened on her wrist. She dug the blade into Sir Denzil’s neck and twisted it. He fell back, shrieking, his grip loosening at last. She tore her wrist away.

  A shining ball of blood appeared on his neck. It grew larger and burst, spurting into the ashes, pooling around his head in a red halo so bright it hurt the eyes.

  ‘Good God, there’s someone there,’ Cousin Edward was shouting. ‘Croughton! Croughton!’

  Cat turned and ran, her wet skirts flapping about her.

  The ground was broken here, a sloping tangle of grass, dying weeds, saplings and bushes. Behind her, the other dogs bayed, catching Bare-Arse’s excitement and spurred on by the shouts of Edward and the servant.

  Her feet found their way to a winding path, sunken below the level of the ground on either side, and criss-crossed with the roots of stunted trees. The path plunged downwards, and the lower she went, the more the sounds dropped away, the shouting and the barking.

  But there were no sounds of pursuit.

  She ran on until, panting, she reached a stile to a lane. Judging by the sun, it ran more or less from east to west. To turn right would take her east towards Haverstock Hill and the way she had come from London. But that was the route Cousin Edward must have taken. She turned west, into a desolate and unknown country somewhere north of St Marylebone.

  Better the dangers you didn’t know than those you did.

  It was only then that she realized that she had left behind the grey cloak in the hedge.

  By the time Cat reached the coffee house, the light had almost gone from the day. Her clothes were filthy and her dress was torn. She was also soaking wet, because on her way back the fine weather had given way to rain and she lacked even the protection of a thin cloak. Since leaving Primrose Hill she must have walked seven or eight miles. She wasn’t sure which had been worse – the wild and inhospitable country she had passed through, or the streets on the outskirts of London, with their roaming population of predatory poor.

  Her mind was full of a shifting fog that poisoned thought. Underneath it, she glimpsed from time to time the outlines of a terrible knowledge: the red halo – she had killed the wrong man. She had wanted Cousin Edward dead, not Sir Denzil.

  But he should not have kept her from fleeing. He should not have handled her so roughly, as Edward had done.

  The front window of the coffee house gave a glimpse of the long room beyond. The candles were lit, and the fire burned brightly in the hearth. Even at this hour, it was full of customers, all men of course, talking, drinking and reading newspapers. The proprietor, his hands folded over his fat belly, was talking with one of his customers. The servants moved up and down the long tables with their trays.

  Trembling, she went down the passage at the side of the coffee house to the back door in the yard. The mistress of the house was in the kitchen. She was giving directions to the boy who ran messages and summoned hackney coaches and chairs for the gentlemen. Her eyes widened when she saw Cat.

  ‘Where in God’s name have you been? Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘I’m sorry, mistress. I was lost.’

  ‘You can’t see him in that state. Go and make yourself decent. Hurry.’

  Fear seized her by the throat and she gasped for breath. Cousin Edward? She forced the words out: ‘See who?’

  ‘Master Hakesby, of course. He’s been waiting for you nigh on an hour.’

  Relief ran through her like wine. She curtsied and went upstairs to the little room she shared with the maids. She tried to brush at least some of the filth from her damp dress, washed her hands and face, tidied her hair, and exchanged her collar for a new one. When she went downstairs, the mistress told her that she would find Master Hakesby in the booth at the back of the coffee house.

  ‘See if he needs anything more,’ she said. ‘You might as well make yourself useful.’

  Her head lowered, she went into the long room and made her way through the crowd. The air was thick with tobacco smoke and the fumes of coffee. As she passed one table, she heard a man say, ‘It is difficult to comprehend, is it not? All that blood.’ She hugged herself and walked more quickly.

  Master Hakesby was alone at his table, tucked away from the noise and the crush. He was reading a newspaper, huddled in his cloak, his wide-brimmed hat low over his face.

  She stood beside him and curtsied. ‘I ask your pardon for keeping you waiting, sir.’

  ‘Granted.’

  Master Hakesby looked up at her. For the first time she saw his face. But it wasn’t Master Hakesby. It was her father.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I HESITATED ON the threshold, wondering for a moment if I had been shown into a different apartment from the one I had seen before. Behind me, the servant coughed, as if to nudge me forward. It was the man I had seen on my previous visit, with the soldierly bearing and the face blighted by the pox.

  The curtains were already drawn across the windows. The withdrawing room of the house in Cradle Alley had been transformed into a luxurious cave. A large coal fire burned in the grate. Candles added their heat to the fire’s – there must have been two or three score of them burning, standing on tables and fixed to wall brackets. The extravagance took my breath away.

  Mistress Alderley sat beside the fireplace, with her face shielded from the warmth. The light was kind to her, returning youth to her face. Once again, she seemed alone, without even her maid in attendance.

  The heavy leather screen still hid the corner of the drawing room. I could not help glancing at it as I stood in the doorway.

  When the servant had retired, closing the door behind him, she looked up at me, and away, as if she needed to be sure of my identity but had no desire to linger on my face for its own sake. ‘For God’s sake,’ she said. ‘We are quite alone. You may look, if you want to make sure.’

  I took her at her word. There was a door behind the screen, but nothing else apart from a spider’s web across the top right-hand corner of the doorway.

  ‘You don’t trust me,’ she said in a softer voice. I began to protest but she cut me off with a wave of her hand. ‘You’re wise, Master Marwood. Take nothing for granted in this world. If I’ve learned nothing else, I’ve learned that.’

  ‘Madam, I did not mean to doubt you. But—’

  ‘The last time we met here,’ she interrupted, ‘I was not entirely my own mistress. Pray be seated.’

  I took the settle again, which was placed at some distance from that roaring fire. We sat in silence for a moment. The casements rattled in their frames. Mingling with the smell of the fire and candlewax was a hint of the perfume she had worn in the coach on Thursday. She had offered me a seat, so she did not see me as a servant. But she had not offered me refreshment, so she did not count
me even approximately as an equal. I was something uncertain in her scale of things. An anomaly.

  A clock chimed three o’clock. Silk rustled as she stirred in her chair.

  ‘Have you heard the news?’ she said.

  ‘The whole town has heard it, madam. Sir Denzil Croughton murdered.’

  ‘Yesterday morning, in broad daylight on Primrose Hill – and practically in front of my stepson and his servant, and our mastiffs as well. Poor Sir Denzil bled to death in Edward’s arms. But no one saw the murderer. Not even a glimpse.’

  ‘Did he speak before he died?’

  She shook her head. ‘He tried, but the words were unintelligible. He was taken quite by surprise – his sword was still in its sheath, and his pistols in their holsters.’

  ‘Had he enemies?’

  ‘Perhaps. But who would have known to find him there? My husband has offered a reward for the arrest and conviction of the murderer.’ Her lips twisted into a smile. ‘My maid says the servants think our family is cursed. That death stalks us.’

  ‘It’s hard not to suspect a pattern, madam.’

  ‘Behind all these deaths? Yes.’ She lowered her voice: ‘I know the King has spoken to you about this. He believes Thomas Lovett must be at the heart of it. And my poor niece has been dragged into it. I suspect she knew that he had returned to England. I think she ran away from Barnabas Place to join him, rather than marry Sir Denzil.’

  The settle creaked beneath my weight as I shifted my position. This was frankness indeed.

  ‘I hoped you would find a trace of her in Suffolk,’ she went on.

  ‘I found nothing certain, madam.’

  She looked up sharply, as if catching at a hope. ‘But you found something? About Catherine?’