Fire Catcher

by C. S. Quinn

  ‘It comes in time’ said James. ‘Thank God. Then we still have a chance.’ He ran to help the men.

  With no horses to draw the engine it had been a task of inhuman strength to drag the deadweight of copper and brass along the uneven cobbles of Bishops Gate and through the cloying mud of Snow Lane.

  ‘The tide is not yet high enough for pressure in the pipes,’ explained James. ‘We must take it nearer the Fleet.’

  The exhausted men looked uncertainly at the muddy trickle of river. Then they began to manoeuvre the deadweight, inch by painful inch, towards the stinking Fleet.

  ‘It will come down Lud Gate Hill,’ said James, returning to his post and looking to where the flames had now grown larger. ‘We’ve made a large firebreak. We now have an engine. I only hope there are troops enough to beat it back.’

  James eyed his men. They were the best naval recruits he could find at such short notice. He trusted them all with his life. Together they’d fared high seas and cannon fire worse than this.

  ‘The fury is upon us,’ announced James, looking to the flames. ‘Into battle then.’

  He turned to ready the men, when a shout went up.

  ‘The fire! It comes from behind!’

  The Duke of York wheeled. The flames had launched a surprise attack from the Post Office. Instead of coming down Lud Gate Hill it had sailed high in the wind, falling on Salisbury House behind them. James’s mouth dropped open in horror.

  ‘Monmouth said he kept fire back,’ he whispered. ‘He lied.’

  ‘It’s breached our strongest defence!’ shouted James.

  Their careful battle plan fell to instant chaos.

  ‘Turn the engine!’ bellowed James. ‘You men turn it to Salisbury House.’ The group of men halted, some pulling one way, some another.

  On the soft earth of the riverbank, the huge engine unbalanced then teetered. Several men leapt aside as a ton of shining metal careered towards them. Then slowly, the fire engine toppled sideways and fell with a heavy splash into the Fleet. A wave of reeking low-tide water soaked the men. Then a hideous sucking sound went up.

  They watched in silent horror as the equipment sank in a slow stream of bubbles like some mythological creature returning to the deep.

  Behind them the fire gave a great roar as if proclaiming its triumph over the ineffectiveness of its would-be vanquishers.

  Salisbury House was full ablaze, trapping their escape. And now the fire launched its frontal assault, tunnelling down Lud Gate Hill.

  They were trapped in the stifling blaze.

  ‘We’ve no choice,’ said the Duke of York, his face blistering in the heat. One of his heavily dressed men was swooning. ‘Retreat!’ he bellowed.

  Stumbling and sweating the Duke of York’s regiment ran for their lives.

  Chapter 125

  The cloud of ash had cleared now and a shaft of daylight shone down into the cellar. It took Charlie a moment. Then he made the connection.

  ‘You are Torr?’ guessed Charlie. ‘Blackstone’s been holding you here?’

  Torr nodded. He had the air of a soldier about him, battle-worn and dangerous.

  Charlie and Lily glanced at one another. He was muscular beyond his years, with a large tattoo of an elaborate Tree of Life showing at his neck.

  ‘He’s dying,’ whispered Lily. ‘Look.’

  In the dim light Torr’s hands appeared black. Then Charlie saw they were drenched with blood. A deep bloom of red was at his stomach.

  ‘A scratch,’ said Torr, but his teeth were gritted.

  ‘Come up out of the cellar,’ said Charlie.

  Torr shook his head, looking at the ladder. ‘I couldn’t make the first rung,’ he said. ‘This is where it ends.’

  He glanced at the light from the trapdoor.

  ‘Blackstone’s boys thought me a creature, roaming in the dark,’ said Torr. ‘I was down here so long in the dark I began to believe it myself. But I always thought my moment would come. I would find the right tool. Escape.’

  Torr’s eyes settled back on Charlie and Lily.

  ‘Were it not for my meditations,’ he said, ‘I should have gone mad down here.’ He glanced at the Tree of Life, scraped into the ground. ‘The human mind is the greatest power. If only the church could understand.’

  ‘You knew my father?’ asked Charlie, taking Torr in.

  ‘Tobias died at sea,’ said Torr. He smiled faintly. ‘He was a hard man, your father. Full of duty and family. A good fighter. Sally brought out something soft in him.’

  ‘Where’s Blackstone?’ asked Lily, as Charlie turned this over.

  But Torr only shook his head. He leaned back against the cellar wall, the last fight gone out of him now. They didn’t have long, Charlie realised.

  ‘You performed his marriage, didn’t you?’ asked Charlie. ‘You were the minister.’

  Torr’s eyes widened a little and his lips moved as if working something out. He was looking at Charlie’s key.

  ‘Your mother?’ he managed. ‘Hid his papers?’

  ‘She was Blackstone’s maid,’ said Charlie. ‘He killed her for it.’

  Torr frowned slightly. ‘Not Blackstone’s maid,’ he mumbled. ‘Sally Oakley was maid to . . . Lucy Walter.’

  Charlie hesitated.

  ‘I can’t tell you about the marriage papers,’ Torr added. ‘Blackstone confessed to me. I’m his priest. To tell you his crime would have me burn in hell.’

  He was looking at Charlie’s key again.

  ‘I made your key,’ said Torr. ‘Lead into gold, hidden within the Sealed Knot. Your mother hid the papers in Teresa’s trunk.’ He was nodding to himself.

  ‘If you find the papers,’ said Torr, ‘you must destroy them.’ His face was earnest. ‘They must be destroyed.’

  ‘The secrets of lead to gold,’ said Lily, confused. ‘They should be shared.’

  ‘Lead to gold.’ Torr chuckled quietly and then winced. ‘That was my story.’ He looked at Lily. ‘I studied with mystics and alchemists in Holland,’ he said carefully. ‘A story with a grain of truth, will conceal a thing better than a lie. That’s what I learned.’ He reached out a pale hand and touched the key. Charlie felt the coldness of his fingers.

  Torr nodded. ‘A clever woman, Sally Oakley. ‘She knew the old ways.’ He smiled to himself.

  ‘Can you tell us where Blackstone went?’ pressed Charlie.

  Torr shook his head. ‘Blackstone makes a funeral pyre for Teresa. He means to send his last signal as she burns. He makes her the highest and most holy fire,’ added Torr, making the words carefully.

  ‘If we found the papers,’ said Charlie, ‘could we force Blackstone to halt his firing of the city?’

  Torr smiled a little. ‘Stories twist and turn over the telling,’ he said. ‘There is nothing good in those papers. They are a power which no man should hold.’

  He laid back slightly against the damp wall.

  ‘But I should think,’ added Torr, ‘that the man who has those papers would have power over England herself.’

  They were silent for a moment. Torr gasped in pain.

  ‘Your father,’ Torr said, looking at Charlie. Torr seemed to be drifting further away from them now. His voice was growing quiet. ‘Tobias was a good man,’ he managed. ‘He should never have trusted Blackstone.’

  Torr’s eyes were clouding. He lifted his gaze to the cellar ceiling.

  ‘Thomas and Teresa made the most powerful marriage,’ he said. ‘The marriage at the heart of it all.’ Torr’s eyelids were drooping. ‘It was my greatest regret,’ he managed. ‘God forgive me.’

  Torr’s hands lost their grip on his rosary. His fingers fumbled, pushing something into Charlie’s unresisting hand.

  ‘Perhaps you are like your mother,’ he said. ‘You see things others do not.’

  He tapped Charlie’s hand.

  ‘A good alchemist,’ he said, ‘questions his known truths. He looks at the big picture.’

  Then Torr’s
body slumped and his eyes closed for the last time.

  Chapter 126

  King Charles’s large wig had been tossed aside. He worked with his shaven head sweating, tossing muddy water on to the blaze.

  They saw the flames and Charles knew they were done for.

  ‘James hasn’t held it back,’ said the King. ‘Fire comes to Temple Bar.’

  There was no stopping the blaze now. The King’s soldiers were working a firehook. Commoners were shovelling soil on demolished houses. It wasn’t enough.

  ‘Back!’ called Charles. ‘Back! Regroup!’

  The men retreated, the heat beating them back.

  Everything had failed. The pipes still ran dry. Low tide kept supplies of water inaccessible. Shovels of dry earth weren’t working. They’d realised too late that suffocating the flames was hopeless. The winds relit the fire as soon as it was doused. Firebreaks were the only effective thing.

  Charles looked behind him. His heart sank. A warren of wooden buildings as far as the eye could see. Then he had a sudden memory.

  ‘What road runs behind those buildings?’ asked Charles.

  ‘Bell Yard,’ said Amesbury. ‘It goes to Temple Bar. Where the lawyers are.’

  ‘Is Lincoln’s Inn Fields still there?’ asked Charles.

  Amesbury nodded, wiping sweat from his brow. Charles considered.

  ‘That bank of buildings,’ he said. ‘If we can pull those down we’d make a large break.’ His jaw set. ‘If we work quickly and break through to Lincoln’s Inn Fields it might be enough.’

  A swirl of heat began to ripple in the air.

  Amesbury looked at the clouds above. ‘There aren’t enough firehooks to do it,’ he said. ‘We have only three. The rest were abandoned when we fled the Fleet.’

  Dust and debris were picking up on the breeze again.

  ‘We need to retreat, Your Majesty,’ said Amesbury. ‘Leave this work to the firefighters. It’s a firestorm. You risk being killed.’

  Charles shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I ran from plague and I always regretted it. England has survived horrors far worse than fire. I won’t abandon her again.’

  Charles turned to the assembled men. Three firehooks only.

  ‘Send to Holborn and Fetter Lane,’ he said. ‘Get their firehooks. Get their men. Have all pitch on to this bank of buildings.’

  Chapter 127

  Charlie watched as Torr’s eyes closed. He opened his hand.

  Torr had given him a leather pouch. It was decorated in coloured glass.

  Lily picked it up and unstoppered the top.

  ‘It’s just a bottle of vinegar,’ she said, passing it to Charlie. He tasted it. She was right.

  ‘Vinegar neutralises lye,’ said Charlie, sitting back on his haunches. ‘Maybe Torr hopes we can stop Blackstone’s signal with it.’

  ‘There’s not nearly enough,’ said Lily. ‘Those blue flames would need a bucket of vinegar.’

  Charlie examined the decorations on the pouch.

  ‘Letters and numbers. I can’t make out any words,’ he added.

  ‘It’s in Latin,’ said Lily, reading the writing. ‘Johannes is John. It’s a bible reference. John 2:1-11.’

  ‘Do you know it?’

  Lily thought. ‘I think that one is the Marriage at Cana,’ she said. ‘When Jesus turned water to wine.’

  They looked at one another. Nothing unusual or mystical about it.

  ‘You could buy pouches like this at the leather market,’ said Charlie. ‘Along with tankards referencing when Jesus walked over water.’

  Charlie housed it in his coat with a shrug. ‘Could come in useful,’ he decided.

  He thought of Torr’s last words.

  ‘He means us to question what we know,’ he said. ‘To look at the big picture. The papers are not what we think.’ He thought for a moment. ‘A story with a grain of truth,’ he said. ‘An allegory. The papers don’t turn lead into gold. They’re not a formula or a recipe for an alchemist.’ Charlie was picturing what he remembered of the papers. Blackstone and Teresa’s looping signatures.

  He frowned in concentration. A kind of theory was settling into place.

  ‘A commoner to royalty,’ he said. ‘That’s a kind of lead to gold is it not?’

  ‘Blackstone’s marriage made him royal?’ said Lily.

  ‘Perhaps.’ Charlie was working through the theory. ‘Blackstone marries into royalty,’ he said, sounding it out, ‘he betrays his Brotherhood, who are now against the King. Perhaps the marriage is disputed. Denied, but the papers prove it.’

  But even as he said it Charlie knew this didn’t quite fit.

  ‘There were female relatives on the King’s side, after the Civil War,’ said Lily. ‘Placeless. Open to a marriage they would have previously shunned. Perhaps Blackstone married some distant cousin of the King.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘But I can hardly imagine a lady marrying Blackstone for love.’

  ‘Better we find the papers,’ decided Charlie. ‘And solve the riddle that way. Nothing of Teresa’s was in Guildhall,’ he added. ‘I think Blackstone means to burn Teresa’s things along with her body. We must discover where he makes his pyre.’

  ‘You’re a thief taker,’ said Lily. ‘You must be able to figure it.’

  ‘To be a thief taker you must walk in another man’s shoes,’ said Charlie. ‘Imagine how he sees the world and from that deduce his next move.’ He drummed fingers on his scarred lip. ‘Blackstone is difficult,’ he added. ‘Most men are motivated by money or love. He seeks only revenge.’

  Charlie considered.

  ‘Blackstone loved his wife,’ he said. ‘Whoever she was. If he has a weakness, that will be it.’

  He replayed the conversation with Torr back in his mind. Something struck him.

  ‘Torr said “the highest and most holy”,’ he said. ‘Blackstone makes his wife’s pyre the highest and most holy.’

  He thought for a moment.

  ‘I think Torr was leaving us a clue,’ said Charlie. ‘Most holy. Where’s the holiest place for a Catholic?’

  Lily spread her hands. ‘Rome.’

  ‘In London?’

  ‘There are churches with Catholic history,’ said Lily doubtfully, ‘St Dunstan in the West, St Mary Moorfields.’

  Charlie was deep in thought, his mind working. ‘Highest,’ he muttered. ‘Perhaps he didn’t mean high flames. The highest point in London is Lud Gate Hill.’

  ‘No Catholic churches there,’ said Lily. ‘Nothing but the Old Bailey.’

  ‘No Catholic churches,’ said Charlie. ‘But a cathedral. St Paul’s Cathedral is at the highest point in the city.’ He looked at Lily. ‘And it’s the holiest place in London.’

  ‘The highest and most holy,’ Lily was turning the words around. ‘It fits, I suppose.’

  ‘I think that’s what Torr was trying to tell us,’ said Charlie, growing more certain with every passing moment. ‘Blackstone loved his wife. He wants to take revenge on the King. It’s fitting, is it not? Burn her remains in the holiest place in the city. Send a message to the King by burning London’s best-loved landmark.’

  Lily was nodding.

  ‘If we can get there in time,’ continued Charlie, ‘we might find the papers before they burn. And stop Blackstone from sending his last signal.’

  ‘St Paul’s Cathedral,’ murmured Lily. ‘That is the very heart of the fire.’

  Chapter 128

  Blackstone was taking in the vaulted ceilings.

  Cromwell had used this holy place as stables. He had no respect for godly grandeur.

  Blackstone gave a cold smile. ‘But then again,’ he muttered to himself, ‘neither does fire.’

  He was looking at the mounds of possessions. Valuables and domestic goods lay in disordered piles. Ahead was a wide set of stone steps leading to the roof.

  Blackstone began heaving the great barrel up.

  Teresa was in her circle. Gunpowder had been laid around her. As her soul was clea
nsed, London’s holiest building would be shaken to its foundations.

  A fitting sacrifice.

  Blackstone paused. He could see the door to the rooftop now. His boys were in place at the Carpenters’ Guild. When Blackstone signalled with blue fire, the Tower could not be defended.

  His skin prickled in the dry air. Fire came.

  Blackstone thought of Teresa on her holy pyre. All her worldly goods around her. Her cursed wedding trunk. The black dress she’d worn for the ceremony.

  His thoughts went to his long-dead sister. Then to the day he’d found Teresa dead, her own knife deep in her belly. The images seemed to flash over one another.

  Teresa with the knife. His sister. Blood.

  I killed your sister.

  He’d never blamed Teresa. Blackstone had secured her dowry for the Sealed Knot. But it was her he’d wanted.

  Blessed blood.

  That’s what Blackstone’s father had said of his bride, before the soldiers came.

  Teresa had blessed blood.

  She wasn’t royal, or highborn. She was far more special than that. They’d made the ultimate marriage. Blackstone still remembered their wedding night. The revulsion on Teresa’s face as she’d regarded his large body.

  If you must do it, husband, I will bear it.

  Thoughts were coming thick and fast now. Teresa, burning on a wheel in hell. Blackstone began pushing the barrel again, mapping through his strategy.

  First, send the signal. The Carpenters’ Guild would burn and the Tower would be impossible to defend. Then he would descend to Teresa. Once he’d lit the gunpowder, London’s greatest landmark would be obliterated. His wife would be cleansed as the traitor King lost his Kingdom.

  All sin would be purged.

  Blackstone was nearly on the roof now. The end of his great plan was in sight.

  Chapter 129

  Charlie and Lily were running across the hot soot of Foster Lane. Above them thunder swirled.

  They made it on to Watling Street which stood eerily empty, lead-windowed fabric shops cleared of stock.

  Charlie looked up at the sky. It was deep night-time. But fire lit the city bright as day.