Fire Catcher

by C. S. Quinn

  ‘She is disgusting,’ said Louise. ‘Barbara catches Charles with . . . with whore tricks. Offering herself however he wants.’ Louise lowered her voice conspiratorially. ‘Barbara boasts about the filthy things she does with him. She laughs about it.’

  ‘She has no decency,’ agreed Clarence carefully, ‘but sadly men are weak. Even Kings.’ He moved a little closer to her. ‘Perhaps I could discover some of Barbara’s tricks. Tell them to you, so you might use them.’

  ‘What would an old man know of such things?’ retorted Louise rudely. ‘No trick would best Barbara in any case. She is without shame. Last summer,’ she added, ‘she spread a letter around court. Saying that I made love to my own brother, George. He had to leave England,’ she continued furiously. ‘I am sure it was her. Barbara. Trying to weaken me. To lessen my friends.’

  Louise shook her head so vigorously that her shining brown curls made a flurry around her face. ‘She wants to push me out,’ she concluded. ‘But I’ll not go. Not because of her. But people still say,’ she concluded in an outraged whisper, ‘that George ’ad me from beehind,’ her pronunciation grew more French in her fury, ‘there,’ she pointed to Clarence’s desk, ‘on that table.’

  ‘It sounds like the kind of lewd falsehood Barbara would say,’ agreed Clarence. Although in reality, he had to admit it wasn’t. Barbara was ruthless, but she liked people to know who had beaten them. Secret rumours weren’t her style.

  ‘Barbara hates me too,’ said Clarence. ‘Because I see her true motives. She wants to go out on the Royal Barge so people will love her. So her illegitimates might fare a better chance for the Crown.’

  ‘Charles said that would never be,’ said Louise. ‘England won’t crown a bastard.’

  ‘We executed a King,’ said Clarence. ‘England does as she sees fit.’

  Louise’s soft forehead rippled.

  ‘You love the King?’ Clarence asked soothingly.

  Louise nodded, her curls bouncing.

  ‘Yes, I love him.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘I have loved him since I arrived in court.’

  ‘Barbara Castlemaine has come between you?’ Clarence’s expression was sympathetic.

  ‘Yes.’ Louise sniffed, and she turned to Clarence with outrage in her face. ‘She struck me! Here.’ Louise tapped the side of her face.

  Clarence nodded.

  ‘She is hated in Parliament,’ he soothed. ‘It is well known Barbara’s only pleasure is spending the King’s money and gaining advancement for her children.’

  ‘They are not his children,’ spat Louise. ‘I hear the stories. She opens her legs for all the court.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Clarence.

  ‘Four children the old sow has birthed,’ continued Louise, her voice rising. ‘She must hang so low between her legs, a man need not raise her skirts.’

  ‘Quite . . .’ began Clarence, his face colouring.

  ‘And she is old,’ fumed Louise. ‘She has a whisker on her chin, like a witch. I have seen it!’

  ‘I’m sure she has many such . . .’

  ‘And she does secret things,’ continued Louise, her tone dropping. ‘Things she hides from Charles.’

  Clarence’s jowls wobbled in interest. He’d heard rumours that Barbara plotted against the crown, but had never believed it.

  ‘Secret things?’ he inquired, trying to keep his tone neutral.

  ‘Yes,’ breathed Louise, excited to have captured her audience. ‘Dog’s piss, she uses, on her face.’ Her eyes were narrowed in spite. ‘For wrinkles,’ Louise concluded, her expression making clear the scandalous nature of such behaviour. ‘Barbara works all kinds of disgusting potions and balms into her old face,’ she added. ‘Lady Castlemaine doesn’t dare tell Charles the expense.’

  Clarence tried not to let his disappointment show. The depths of female vanity never shocked him.

  ‘The question is,’ interrupted Clarence, ‘how can we help the King to see reason?’

  Louise calmed slightly at this. ‘Reason?’ She pronounced the word in such a way that Clarence wondered if her English was failing her.

  ‘How can we help His Majesty see that Barbara is bad for the country?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Louise was crying again. ‘I have tried. Charles is kind. But I see in his eyes he thinks only of her. I hate her.’ Louise’s face had turned beet red.

  ‘Do you know the King’s eldest son? Monmouth?’

  Louise nodded, her face twisting. ‘He’s horrid,’ she said. ‘Monmouth lies about everything.’

  ‘He takes after his mother,’ said Clarence. ‘You’ve met Lucy Walter? Middle-aged woman. Dresses like a French harlot?’

  Louise gave a little laugh. ‘No French harlot would clothe herself so vulgarly.’

  ‘Perhaps you could talk with Monmouth,’ said Clarence, encouraged. ‘He keeps the Royal Barge. Barbara wishes it readied for the King to view the fire.’

  ‘So if the Royal Barge weren’t available . . .’ suggested Louise, catching on.

  ‘Precisely,’ agreed Clarence.

  Louise toyed with a bouncy curl. ‘Barbara would be humiliated,’ she said, taking obvious pleasure from the thought, ‘in front of Charles.’

  Clarence smiled at her encouragingly.

  ‘Why can’t you speak with Monmouth?’ she said eventually, frowning at the thought of speaking to him.

  Clarence coughed.

  ‘I’m a boring old man,’ he said. ‘Monmouth is a boy. News from a pretty girl is much more interesting for him.’

  ‘So this is politics,’ said Louise. ‘Charles said I should learn it. I suppose if I want to stay, I should.’

  Clarence said nothing.

  ‘Where would I find Monmouth?’ said Louise.

  Chapter 29

  As Charlie and Lily arrived at the head of Fleet Street their route was blocked. Refugees from Cheapside and Poultry intermingled with crazed Fleet Streeters trying to remove their possessions. The tall black-and-white buildings were crawling with ropes, bundles and intrepid householders. Each diamond-paned window had clusters of desperate Londoners, fighting to lower valuables. The small doorways were crammed with smartly dressed servants hauling out furniture. Shopkeepers were removing stock. Tavern owners were rolling away barrels of ale. Coffee houses threw sacks of beans from upper windows.

  ‘It seems no one told Fleet Street residents,’ said Lily, ‘that their street won’t burn.’

  Charlie looked east where the bloody maw of the fire towered. The sound of the distant flames was deafening. He’d never seen flames so tall.

  ‘Perhaps it will burn,’ he said, eyeing a man inching along the half-timbered exterior of a five-storey Fleet Street house. ‘We should hurry. If we could get to Shoe Lane there are gardens behind. We could get into the Cheshire Cheese that way.’

  ‘How do we get to Shoe Lane?’ said Lily. ‘The crowds are too thick.’

  ‘Behind the Fleet Prison,’ said Charlie, ‘the Fleet River narrows to a ditch. Timbers run across to brace the buildings either side. We can cross that way.’

  He was eyeing Lily’s skirts.

  ‘I can climb as well as you,’ she said shortly. ‘And I know the way to the Fleet Prison.’

  They cut back up into Fleet Lane, behind the sturdy walls of Fleet Prison. From the barred windows came wails of prisoners petitioning to be freed. Gaolers guarding the entrance had already begun releasing a steady stream of debtors. No one expected the fire to stop at Cheapside.

  ‘This way,’ said Charlie, beckoning Lily over a stone wall bordering the Fleet River. Though the flames looked half a mile away, he could feel the heat of the fire. The air was warm and still.

  Lily was covering her mouth.

  ‘This isn’t a river,’ she accused, glaring at the stinking slurry. ‘A river moves.’

  Charlie glanced up river.

  ‘It looks like a cart and horses pitched in upstream,’ he said. ‘They block the flow. People are too busy getting their goods out to clea
r it.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain the stink.’

  ‘The prisoners make their waste here,’ said Charlie, his eyes watering from the smell. ‘And the households. The hot summer has dried it out.’

  ‘And the heat of the fire,’ said Lily, wiping sweat from her forehead. ‘I feel it even here.’

  Banked by brick houses and high prison walls the Fleet was barely more than a reeking ditch. Thick timber beams braced the buildings all the way along. Each was slimed over and slippery. Filth streaked downwards from toilet holes on either side.

  Charlie judged the best crossing point and dropped down. His toes slid in the ooze and then held firm.

  ‘Be careful here,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s as slick as ice.’

  He balanced and then walked quickly along, holding out an arm for ballast. Behind him Lily’s face was scrunched up in disgust. She took out her knives, then made across on all fours, using the blades for traction.

  ‘Two knives,’ observed Charlie as she righted herself, holstered the knives at her hip and scaled across the adjoining wall.

  ‘Four,’ she said. ‘You’ll never see the other two.’

  ‘Remind me never to cross you.’

  ‘Or put a hand up my skirts. Which way now?’

  ‘This way,’ he said, pointing west. ‘To Shoe Lane.’

  As Charlie suspected, the cobblers had long ago deserted with what meagre possessions they had. The street was almost empty and it was easy to cross the gardens to the alleyway leading to the Cheshire Cheese.

  From the back of the tavern they could see the commotion inside. There were four floors, and a jettied fifth which Lily pointed to.

  ‘The top floor,’ she said. ‘That’s what Amesbury’s contact said.’

  Charlie’s gaze ranged the building, searching for a way in. Near where they stood were two small doors leading to a wood store. Opening one door could lend them a little height to climb on to the half timber.

  He stared back up at the leaded window of the top storey. A gaggle of women were in a flurry behind it. Charlie recognised their black-and-white clothes. They were Quakers.

  Charlie took them in. ‘I don’t think Torr is here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Those women are Quakers,’ he said.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Quakers are against churches and kings,’ said Charlie. ‘Can you imagine a Catholic Royalist in their midst?’

  Lily took the point.

  ‘So Amesbury’s contact was wrong?’ she said. ‘I don’t see it.’

  Charlie eyed the top floor which jettied out over the road.

  ‘Amesbury’s contact was a Catholic boy,’ he said. ‘So I assume he didn’t write this address?’

  ‘No,’ said Lily. ‘It was a picture.’

  A new possibility dawned on Charlie.

  ‘A picture of the different floors?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lily. ‘There was no misunderstanding,’ she added, sounding insulted. ‘A cross for the floor where Torr was. And a sign for the Cheshire Cheese.’

  ‘But a cross can be any way up,’ said Charlie. ‘What if you read the plan upside down?’

  ‘Then Torr would be in the main tavern,’ said Lily, pointing to the ground level window. ‘That couldn’t be.’

  Charlie shook his head.

  ‘What if, instead of a top floor, Torr had a cellar?’

  Lily’s gaze dropped down.

  ‘Fleet Street is a merchant and tavern place,’ said Charlie. ‘Most buildings have big cellars for stock. Which would mean,’ he added, pointing to the wood-store doors. ‘Those doors could be the way in.’

  Lily was there before him easing open the doors. A wooden ladder led downwards. Below was dank, empty and deserted. Charlie hesitated as Lily beckoned him over.

  ‘You’re afraid of cellars?’ she asked.

  ‘Strange memories of them is all.’

  Lily blinked her dark eyes and lowered herself on to the ladder. He saw her vanish into the gloom.

  Charlie pushed away an image of Blackstone’s wife Teresa, in her cellar of ribbons and poppets. He was never quite sure if it was a memory or a dream. Charlie knew he must have lived in Blackstone’s house, whilst his mother worked as his maid. But he had no clear pictures of that time. Only frightening flashes.

  He flipped a leg over the edge and climbed down the ladder. The bottom rung was broken and a stale chemical aroma greeted him. By the slim shaft of daylight Charlie made out a large table on its side. Signs of a struggle perhaps.

  He could just make out the centre of the cellar. There were a few barrels there. But all beyond was black.

  Charlie listened carefully. He could hear Lily’s light breath and the faint rustle of her skirts. But every now and then he thought he caught something else. Like the faintest inhale and exhale. As though a monster slept deep beneath them.

  ‘Where are you?’ he hissed, moving reluctantly away from the sunlight.

  There was only silence in reply. Charlie felt his heartbeat quicken. Then a tinderbox flared.

  ‘There’s no one down here,’ said Lily, appearing at the other end of the cellar. ‘But you’d better come and look.’

  Chapter 30

  Charlie moved past the barrels in the centre of the cellar. Lily was standing by a wide stone hearth peppered in burn marks. A collection of dusty rings on the floor suggested a number of flasks had been cleared out.

  The glow of Lily’s tinderbox was in no way reassuring. Dark corners loomed. Weak lines of sunlight shone down from the tavern floorboards above.

  Not quite regular, thought Charlie, noticing a broken pattern in the lines of light. There were marks too, on the far wall. Four points where a cross might have hung.

  ‘What do you make of this?’ asked Lily, prodding at the stone hearth. ‘Alchemy?’

  Charlie switched his attention to the hearth. It looked to him like an alchemical set-up. Colourful burns pock-marked the stone. A crucible for heating metal was lain on its side. But there was another smell on the air besides chemicals. Incense.

  ‘Maybe alchemy,’ he said. ‘But I think this place is a secret church.’

  Lily turned to him, raising her tinderbox. Charlie was pointing to a pitted area of ground.

  ‘I can smell incense on the air,’ he said. ‘And see there.’

  She raised the flame.

  ‘Four points where a cross was nailed,’ he said. ‘And the ground is more worn here as though a body of people shuffled. Less at the back where the priest stood. Incense smoke marks on the ceiling.’

  ‘Then what of that?’ asked Lily, waving her tinderbox towards the hearth.

  Charlie approached it and saw symbols carved carefully into the stone.

  There were circles arranged in a pattern. But they didn’t have the look of witchcraft. The arrangement looked older somehow. It was surrounded by crystallised marks.

  ‘Runes?’ suggested Charlie, running his hand over them. Each circle had a strange symbol in the centre of it.

  Lily shook her head. ‘The circles mark the Tree of Life,’ she said. ‘I recognise it. Gypsies sometimes use it,’ she added. ‘With tarot cards.’

  ‘You think they were telling fortunes here?’ asked Charlie. It seemed unlikely. Fortune-tellers in London clustered by the Sign of the Merlin’s Head and conned silly maids out of pennies.

  ‘Tarot is about contemplation.’ Her hands plotted the circles. ‘This is Kaballah. The soul’s path. It’s an ancient way of understanding God.’

  Charlie studied it.

  ‘A sect then?’ he said uncertainly. ‘A mystic sect?’ Sects were common in London since Cromwell. Mystics believed God could be experienced with no church or priest.

  Charlie was looking back at where he imagined the altar to be.

  ‘They experimented with fire,’ observed Lily, touching the scorched hearth with her toe.

  Charlie’s gaze switched to the stout barrels in the centre of the cellar. He moved to i
nvestigate.

  ‘Bring the flame over here,’ he called.

  The barrels flared into soft light. Charlie took out his eating knife and levered off a lid. Inside was a dark black powder with a very familiar smell.

  ‘Gunpowder,’ he said, leaning closer to confirm the odour.

  He waved Lily back with her flame and resealed the lid.

  Charlie shook away the feeling that sorcery was afoot. It was time to view things practically.

  ‘Gunpowder,’ he said. ‘In a secret church or sect. So perhaps Torr plotted. There was a struggle down here,’ he continued, approaching the upended table. ‘And the bottom rung of the ladder is broken. Something removed by force. Or someone.’

  He dropped to his haunches, considering.

  The circles on the hearth. Incense. Alchemy.

  Charlie moved back to the alchemy hearth, certain there was more to be gleaned from it. Then he stopped short, listening.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Lily.

  ‘Shhh,’ he held up a hand. There was that noise again. Like tense breathing. ‘You hear that?’

  Lily listened. ‘I hear the wind,’ she said. ‘The gale is up.’

  ‘That’s not it.’ Charlie turned back to Lily. ‘Something’s not right.’

  Charlie scanned the dark cellar. The floor was packed earth. The walls damp-slicked brick. His eyes looked up to the ceiling seeking out the anomaly he’d noticed earlier. The pattern of light was wrong. Straight line, straight line. Then an interruption. As though something were blocking the light.

  Charlie walked to the central point of the cellar. His hands began gently probing the beams. Dust and cobwebs dropped free.

  Lily moved towards him with the tinderbox but Charlie had stopped. His fingers were working something free.

  ‘You’ve found something?’ Lily’s flame lurched in surprise. ‘A book?’

  ‘I think it’s a register,’ said Charlie, pulling it down. ‘Not well hidden,’ he added with a sense of growing unease. ‘Not well hidden enough.’

  He opened it and a clutch of papers fluttered free. Lily stooped and picked one up.

  ‘Empty marriage certificates,’ she said. ‘For Fleet Weddings. This must be how Torr was making his money. A few pence for sailors and silly women to marry.’