Fire Catcher

by C. S. Quinn

  ‘Are you a gaoler?’ he said, peering closer. ‘I’ve seen you before.’

  Charlie shook his head. ‘We haven’t met.’

  The prisoner scratched the sores at his manacle in a habitual way.

  ‘I must be mistaken,’ he muttered. ‘You’re a minister then? Come to save my soul?’ he growled. ‘I have already told the other Protestants, I live as a Baptist and will meet my Maker the same way.’

  Wordlessly Lily drew out her rosary.

  The prisoner grunted and scratched his armpit.

  ‘Then to what do I owe the pleasure?’ he asked.

  ‘You sailed on the Mermaid,’ said Charlie.

  The prisoner looked surprised.

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ he said eventually. He gave an involuntary shiver that he hardly seemed to notice. Then he seemed to suddenly notice Charlie’s coat and pulled it tighter around his scrawny body.

  ‘I did,’ he said after a moment. ‘Forty days and nights. In the stinking depths of the hull. It still haunts my sleep at times. Makes me glad to wake up in this palace that you see.’

  He waved a hand to indicate the dank cell.

  ‘We are hunting one of the passengers,’ said Charlie. ‘A Catholic named Blackstone.’

  ‘You want information? What can you give me in return?’ The prisoner eyed them craftily.

  Charlie’s pulse quickened. He couldn’t tell if the man knew something or was working them.

  Charlie pointed to the manacles. ‘Your freedom.’

  Again, the blue eyes shifted in surprise.

  ‘And who are you to offer such a thing?’ he whispered.

  In answer Charlie held out the bunch of keys. The prisoner’s gaze riveted to them. He moved a scrawny leg out from under him with effort.

  ‘Then unlock me,’ he breathed. ‘And I will tell you what I know.’

  Charlie shook his head. ‘We do not know yet if you know anything.’

  The prisoner ran a tongue over his dry lips, his eyes assessing them.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said slowly, ‘freedom does not mean so much to me as you think.’ He shot a glance up at the narrow window. ‘From what I hear, things are not so good out there for Baptists. The new King has betrayed us, is that not right? Like his father before him.’ He addressed this last remark to Lily. ‘No freedom of worship?’

  Lily gave the slightest nod of her head.

  ‘God’s appointee on earth,’ spat the prisoner. ‘I fought for him. The old King. Until I found God’s truth in the Baptists.’

  He shook his head angrily.

  ‘His Royal Majesty betrayed all his soldiers. Not that it did him any good in the end.’ He scratched at his leg thoughtfully.

  ‘The Mermaid,’ he said, seeming to have reached a conclusion. ‘She was filled with those seeking the young exiled heir in Holland. Not that us prisoners saw a great deal of them, down in the hull.’

  ‘Blackstone would have been around twenty-five years old,’ said Charlie. ‘Dressed for the Royalist cause. Noble clothes. Can you tell us anything of him?’

  The prisoner’s blue eyes met with Charlie’s. ‘I did not see a man named Blackstone,’ he said.

  Charlie sighed out in disappointment. ‘You are quite sure?’

  The prisoner nodded, his eyes drifting again to the window.

  ‘It seems tender-heartedness was in short supply after the war,’ he said. ‘So you may leave me here to rot, for I have nothing to tell you.’

  The prisoner watched them, waiting for them to leave.

  Charlie moved towards him and he twitched.

  ‘Do what you will,’ he said. ‘You’ll do nothing the good-hearted physicians have not already done and worse.’

  Charlie had the prisoner’s filthy leg in his hands.

  ‘Keep still,’ he muttered. ‘Keep still while I unlock the manacle.’

  The prisoner’s eyes widened. Mutely he stilled his thin leg. His hands were shaking.

  ‘He could be dangerous,’ hissed Lily, eyeing the dirty prisoner.

  ‘More dangerous than you?’ replied Charlie, as he knelt on the wet straw and selected the right key.

  The manacle fell away revealing a band of stinking red flesh. The prisoner’s hands rubbed at the wound. He looked up wonderingly.

  ‘Come,’ said Charlie, taking his ice-cold arm and helping him to his uncertain feet. ‘I will guide you out. Once you are in the city you never saw us.’

  The prisoner nodded, his hands already combing at his beard.

  ‘Fire is to the west,’ added Charlie. ‘Soon it will be inside the walls.’ They staggered out, with Charlie supporting the prisoner on his shoulder. Bloody screams were curdling the asylum air. Charlie picked up the hemp hammer where he’d left it. There were four more cells to unlock and he worked quickly, hefting the hammer and shattering the locks. The whole corridor was a thick wall of smoke now. It was hard to see around the corner to the main entrance.

  The prisoner was looking on in mute wonderment. ‘They won’t run,’ he said. ‘They’re too scared of the physicians. Best look to yourself.’

  ‘People sometimes surprise you,’ said Charlie, ‘when fire comes.’

  Suddenly a gunshot sounded in the far gloom, back towards the main entrance.

  Charlie froze. Musket fire. A soldier’s weapon. Then came screams and hooting. Fists on flesh.

  Smoke had thickened in the air now. Charlie risked a glance around the corner. He darted back, breathing hard. A little pack of armed men were being set on by the lunatics.

  ‘Soldiers,’ he said grimly. ‘Seems as though they didn’t expect the lunatics to be out of their cells.’

  ‘Why are they here?’ asked Lily.

  Charlie glanced round again then flattened himself back out of view.

  ‘My supposing?’ he said. ‘They’ve come to do for the lunatics. Kinder than letting them burn.’

  The prisoner gave a black-toothed smile. ‘Better than letting them loose,’ he corrected. ‘Half the men in here are religious dissenters.’

  ‘What about us?’ cried Lily in horror.

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ said Charlie, ‘they’ll believe us sane citizens who’ve broken in.’

  Chapter 97

  Enoch was laid out on the wood floor of Blackstone’s house. He’d been prepared for burial with an improvised winding sheet. His eyes were closed with coins.

  ‘He was burned,’ said Jacob, looking sadly at his friend. ‘The barrel slipped.’

  ‘He was dead when I found him,’ explained Abraham. As an initiate of the highest level, he’d been permitted to retrieve the body from Blackstone’s cellar. Abraham wore second-hand military breeches and a hair shirt that rubbed open sores on his chest. He’d been charged with clearing Blackstone’s house after Jacob reported fire.

  They were both looking at the corpse. Behind them was the heaving and dragging of furniture being lifted and packed. Blackstone’s boys were packing up at speed. Fire was coming.

  ‘Where did you find the coins?’ asked Jacob.

  Abraham looked at him in surprise. ‘This is how I found him.’

  A chill rippled through Jacob. He was seeing something else now. There were deep scratches on the face.

  ‘There’s a raven loose down there,’ said Abraham, following his gaze. ‘It probably had a peck at him, after he died.’ The long marks were curved, as though made by a beak.

  ‘The winding sheet,’ said Jacob. ‘It’s a woman’s dress.’ His eyes lifted to Abraham’s. Then he tugged away the fabric.

  They both recoiled. Marked on Enoch’s burned chest were circles and mysterious symbols. They formed a rudimentary tree shape.

  ‘He looks more like a sacrifice than a burial,’ said Jacob, staring. He drew back from the body and looked at Abraham accusingly.

  ‘Who did this to him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Abraham spoke with the firmness of a boy who didn’t ask questions.

  ‘There’s something down there, isn�
��t there?’ said Jacob. ‘Enoch heard it at night.’

  Abraham hesitated. ‘I’m not permitted to take a candle into the cellar,’ he admitted in a tight whisper. ‘Your friend was directly under the trapdoor. All else was darkness. But one time . . . I thought I heard breathing,’ he admitted.

  ‘His rosary’s gone,’ said Jacob sharply. ‘Where is his rosary?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Abraham. He took the other boy by the shoulders. ‘Fire comes,’ he said. ‘Sooner than expected. We must prepare Master Blackstone’s things for the cart.’ He pointed to the other boys sweating and loading.

  ‘Now,’ he instructed. ‘Or there’ll be consequences.’

  Numbly Jacob allowed himself to be led.

  He joined the sweating boys, arranging trunks, heaving rugs and candlesticks.

  ‘Fire will be here within the hour,’ said Abraham. ‘Master Blackstone needs his things packed up and packed well.’

  ‘Where does he take them?’ asked Jacob.

  ‘Guildhall,’ said Abraham. ‘If we can get a cart.’ He paused to scratch under his hair shirt. A louse was dislodged and fell wriggling to the ground. ‘Did you clear upstairs?’ he asked the boys.

  ‘All but a big sea chest,’ said one. ‘It was too heavy to move.’

  Abraham cast his gaze around. It rested on Jacob. ‘You and me then,’ he decided. ‘We’ll get it down.’

  The boys moved into the landing. There were five doors leading off, all open and empty but one.

  ‘His sister’s room,’ explained Abraham as they approached.

  ‘I didn’t know he had a sister,’ said Jacob.

  ‘She died during the war.’

  Abraham opened the door. A gentle female face smiled out from behind a shroud of incense. Both boys drew back in amazement.

  Chapter 98

  The screams of the lunatics were blood-curdling and musket fire crashed around Bedlam.

  ‘Stay back,’ said Charlie. ‘There has to be another way out.’ He turned to the prisoner. ‘You escaped before,’ he said. ‘Can we get out from here?’

  ‘I got out into the Fleet River,’ said the prisoner. ‘Dropped out through the privy holes. But they’ve bricked them up smaller since.’

  He was pointing inside a cell, where a fist-sized hole winked daylight from the outside.

  ‘There might still be a way,’ decided Charlie. He was looking at the brazier with the cauldron of pitch. ‘Those men have guns,’ he said. ‘So they’ll have black powder. We put a powder flask in that hole. Blow a big enough opening to escape.’

  ‘Even if you could get black powder we’d need a fuse,’ protested Lily. ‘Unless you want to lose a hand lighting it.’

  ‘The pitch could work,’ said Charlie, eyeing the smoking tar used for treating lunatics. More shots fired and he made his decision. ‘It’s all we have,’ he said. ‘Take the pitch. Make the best fuse you can and wait for me there.’

  Lily hesitated and then nodded. She eyed the aged prisoner and then put out an arm for him to lean on. Charlie stepped into the fray.

  The soldiers had been caught off guard. But now they were winning the battle. Two lunatics had been shot dead. A third lay dying. A few lunged and hung off the soldiers. Others cowered in their cells.

  The door to Bedlam was wide open and a few inmates were moving tentatively towards daylight. But most were docile as the soldiers rounded them up for execution.

  Charlie ducked low and made for a soldier grappling with a scrawny inmate. The two swung wildly, fists flying. A powder flask hung low on the soldier’s hip and Charlie’s fingers closed around it. Sensing the theft the soldier tore away. But not before Charlie had ripped free the flask.

  ‘The lunatic has black powder!’ shouted the soldier as Charlie raced towards the cell where Lily and the prisoner waited.

  And as Charlie made for the open door a stampede of soldiers followed behind.

  Chapter 99

  Blackstone’s sister’s room held a simple altar, with a picture of a woman. Fresh candles and incense burned.

  Abraham spoke first.

  ‘It’s a shrine,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders to rearrange the hair shirt. ‘To his sister.’

  He was eyeing a large portrait of a gentle-faced girl with pale eyes and soft flowing hair.

  ‘She was lovely,’ said Jacob, staring. ‘Must have been young when she died.’ He took in the rest of the shrine. It was carved wood, depicting St Benedict holding a poisoned chalice.

  ‘I’ve seen this before,’ said Jacob. ‘When I was part of the Carpenters’ Guild.’ He turned uneasily to Abraham. ‘They do it when a person has been cursed. To ward off evil.’

  Abraham stepped back as though the floor were red hot.

  He took in the rest of the plain chamber. The only other object in the room was the large sea chest.

  ‘Leave the shrine,’ he said, crossing himself. ‘Come help me with the chest.’

  ‘I think we should leave the chest too,’ said Jacob, looking at the shrine. ‘I don’t think Master Blackstone should know we’ve been in this room.’

  Abraham thought. ‘If the chest is worth something,’ he said, ‘Master Blackstone will be very angry we let it burn.’

  They eyed it appraisingly.

  ‘Looks like it’s worth a bit,’ Jacob conceded, with a sideways glance at Abraham. Jacob ran bitten-down fingernails across an intricate locking mechanism.

  ‘It’s a wedding chest,’ said Abraham. ‘Dutch or Frenchie.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I unload at the wharves,’ said Abraham. ‘Seen things like this before.’ He winked. ‘Smugglers pay a song to know when things like this arrive in port,’ he boasted.

  ‘It’s locked.’ Jacob was pulling at the lid. He gave the lock an experimental prod with a calloused finger. ‘What do you think’s inside?’

  Abraham slapped his hand away. Jacob was making him uneasy. By his reckoning the newest recruit was not nearly frightened enough of the Grand Master. Because Abraham had seen things. Seen what Blackstone could do. And worse. How readily he did them. Hardly any excuse was necessary. The new boy needed learning before it was too late. Abraham was true to the cause. He believed in the power of the initiation. But he wanted no more hanging boys in the cellar.

  ‘What’s inside will be your guts if you go sneaking,’ replied Abraham. He drew back, considering. ‘See the initials? I think this is the wife’s wedding trunk,’ he said.

  ‘Blackstone’s wife?’

  Abraham nodded. ‘The suicide,’ he said meaningfully. He scratched a sore on his shoulder. ‘Talk is,’ Abraham said, his eyes sliding back to the shrine, ‘the wife killed the sister. With black magic.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Talks in his sleep doesn’t he? You must have heard it.’

  Both boys looked uneasily at the gentle face glimmering behind the candles.

  ‘Why would he leave his wife’s wedding trunk here?’ asked Jacob. ‘Her things are down in the cellar.’

  There was another uneasy silence. They’d all walked through Teresa Blackstone’s strange possessions during their initiation rite.

  ‘The chest is too heavy, even for Blackstone,’ said Abraham, assessing the solid shape. ‘You’d need two men. Maybe he didn’t want anyone else in here.’

  ‘We should leave,’ said Jacob.

  ‘No.’ Abraham reached a decision. ‘My orders were to clear the house. A good son does not question.’

  He bent, fitted his hands and puffed out his cheeks with effort. ‘Help me,’ he grunted.

  Reluctantly Jacob grasped one end of the chest.

  ‘Where’d he learn the alchemy then?’ panted Jacob as they heaved out the chest.

  ‘Holland,’ said Abraham, with a gasp as they made it to the stair. ‘I heard he sailed there . . .’ he puffed air, ‘learned it from the source. The mystics.’

  They dropped the chest with a heavy thud.

  Abraham wiped h
is brow and looked down the street. Flames were coming. He turned to Jacob in alarm.

  ‘There should be a cart here,’ he said. ‘A cart to take Master Blackstone’s things.’

  The colour had drained from his cheeks.

  Jacob watched the flames in the distance.

  ‘Fire’ll be here soon,’ Jacob guessed. ‘What will Master Blackstone do if his things burn?’ He was looking at the piles of possessions. Clothes, plate and furniture.

  ‘Help the other boys. Start moving everything to the street,’ said Abraham. ‘I’ll keep a watch for the cart.’

  Jacob nodded and headed deeper into the house. But as he reached the trapdoor to the cellar he hesitated. Enoch’s death taunted him. Something was down there, he knew it. Something dangerous.

  Curiosity burned at him. He was gripped with a strange compulsion to open the trapdoor. It was so strong. As though forces beyond his control drew him closer.

  And before Jacob could help himself, he was prising open the trapdoor.

  As it opened his arm flew to cover his mouth. The smell. It was incredible.

  Then he saw it. Enoch’s rosary. It had been hung on a rung of the rope ladder down. The rosary glimmered in the semi-darkness. Like bait.

  Jacob thought of his friend. He couldn’t let Enoch be buried without his rosary.

  Throwing a leg over the trapdoor entrance, Jacob began descending the rope ladder. Deep in the dark a candle flame twinkled. He made towards it like a sleepwalker and a rush of terrible stench rolled up to meet him.

  At first Jacob attributed it to the piles of mouldering food. He’d never seen anything like it. There was enough to feed an army here. But rotting away. Stinking. A nest of rats writhed over what might have been a side of beef, now liquefied and reeking. Sugar loaves were spotted with mould and spoiled. Sacks of grain and flour ran with weevils. Pitchers of fetid green water might have once held milk.

  Then Jacob saw her. Blackstone’s wife. He wanted to look away but his eyes were riveted. Was that . . . skin? Or something else?

  The sound of the cellar door jolted him from his torpor. And there, enormous in the entrance, was Blackstone.

  His icy eyes rested silently on Jacob. An ocean of silence seemed to pass.