by C. S. Quinn
The officer’s face twisted at the memory. ‘A hellhole,’ he said. ‘The Spanish were there before us and the Dutch heavily armed.’
‘The injured dog failed to mark the time?’ said Amesbury. His eyes were resting on the deck, where a limping dog was being led down the gangplank.
‘The dog didn’t howl as planned,’ admitted the officer. ‘Though he became beloved of the crew. He’s a good-natured creature. Pirates drove us off the coastal route into open sea.’
His bloodshot eyes met Amesbury’s.
‘You couldn’t gauge your position?’ guessed the old general.
The officer nodded bitterly. ‘The days became weeks,’ he said. ‘The humidity got into all our equipment. Rotted and rusted. By the time we found Tobago, the men were starving.’
Amesbury patted his shoulder sympathetically, knowing all too well the horror of being lost in the open sea.
‘You are home now,’ he said. ‘Rest and restore your health.’ He pointed away from the docks.
‘There’s a flophouse,’ he said, ‘and a tavern. The King has seen to it you and your men will be well cared for. Enjoy some good food and women,’ he concluded. ‘In time you may tell His Majesty of your adventures.’
The officer smiled weakly, showing a few remaining teeth. His mouth was soft and dark, like a rotting plum.
‘I might not last long enough,’ he said, ‘to tell the King how we suffered.’
‘I’ve seen worse than you land at Deptford,’ lied Amesbury.
The rotting-fruit mouth wavered.
Amesbury helped the officer to his feet and on to the burly shoulder of a dock worker.
‘See this officer has a good hammock and plenty to eat and drink,’ Amesbury ordered.
The dock worker nodded, helping the officer on to a cart with the stumbling contingent of half-dead men.
Amesbury had a sudden memory. Another man staggering to an uncertain future twenty years ago.
Thorne was shaking, unable to hide his horror.
‘You mean to lead men to their deaths!’ he protested. ‘I gave you the Eye to heal England. To gift you the power of the old gods.’
The old King’s expression changed. He was a small man, and since he’d begun to lose the war, his bundle of nervous tics had flowered into unpredictable outbursts.
‘I am appointed by God!’ he barked. ‘I am a god on earth!’
Thorne shook his head. ‘I will not tell you,’ he said, ‘where the Eye is.’
‘I’ve heard enough treachery,’ said the old King. ‘Amesbury, take the astrologer away.’ His pale fingers began clenching and unclenching convulsively. ‘You will make him tell us, Amesbury,’ he concluded, ‘where this Eye is hidden. Use any means necessary.’
Amesbury had stepped forward and grasped Thorne roughly by the coat.
Torches on the docks were flickering. Amesbury realised men were still coming from the scurvy-struck ship. He shook himself back to attention. The men were pitiful, limping on ulcerated legs. Their faces bore a strange mixture of hope and resignation.
‘Journey’s end, lads!’ bellowed Amesbury. ‘The cart will take you to wine and women!’
The general’s rallying tone was something he’d perfected in war. His words brought a weak cheer from the sailors.
The little longitude dog lay breathing weakly on the dockyard floor, a snarl of furry ribs and bones. Amesbury eyed it sympathetically.
‘Find a meal for the dog,’ he said. ‘If he doesn’t upset my monkey, I shall give him a home.’ Amesbury sighed. ‘That ship was our last hope. Without Tobago the King is bankrupt. He must barter with Holland or be invaded.’
The dock worker watched the men being transported away. ‘The Crown paid for a flophouse and whores?’ he said.
‘A deal was struck,’ said Amesbury. ‘Let’s just say Scarlet Molly has a finer horse than she did this morning, and I will walk back to London.’
‘That was kind,’ said the dock worker.
‘It’s tactical,’ said Amesbury. ‘The King will need all the good feeling he can get if the Dutch try to invade.’
‘I doubt those men will last the week,’ opined the docker. ‘Dead men don’t tell tales.’
‘Dockside whores do,’ said Amesbury. ‘One thing I’ve learned from civil war’ – he patted the docker’s shoulder – ‘keep your men close and the women closer.’
Chapter 63
Charlie and Lily slept for a few hours on the edges of Hyde Woods before making their way to Custom House. They walked the few miles west to east in silence, Charlie still assailed by memories of vivid dreams. He’d seen Thorne, an eye daubed on his forehead, working on a small table with tiny tools. Rowan had been there, a warm comforting presence. Then his brother had been dragged away and the dark man had come. Janus. Unmask him, a voice whispered, and you discover his weakness.
‘I’ve been thinking about the goddess at Little Bear Steps,’ said Lily as they walked. ‘Diana is the Moon Goddess. Chaste and pure. She’s also the Bear Goddess,’ she added. ‘There’s a story that she put a bear in the stars.’
‘There’s bear legacies all over London,’ said Charlie. ‘Bear Lane, Bear Street. Perhaps that means something.’
The approach to Custom House was a riot of noise and colour as Charlie and Lily neared. The adjoining harbour was thick with all kinds of ships, laden with bounty from the New and Old Worlds.
They passed a clutch of almanac sellers, who made a particularly good trade from suspicious sailors.
‘The foul Dutch will lose their war on England’s seas!’ bellowed a scrawny man waving a clutch of pamphlets. ‘The stars tell it!’
‘If only we could find Ishmael Boney,’ said Lily as pamphlets from rival astrologers were waved at them. ‘He could interpret the Chart of All Hallows’ Eve for us.’
‘Not without the rings,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he added, ‘about the fact Ishmael Boney was never seen at Mother Mitchell’s house. The more I think on it, the more I find it strange. He wasn’t married, and he’d recently come into money. There aren’t many men who wouldn’t find their way to Mother Mitchell’s in those circumstances. There’s no taste her house doesn’t cater to. Apart from one.’
Lily regarded him with interest.
‘If Ishmael was a molly,’ he explained, ‘he’d have no interest in Mother Mitchell’s house. She only keeps women.’
‘You think Ishmael Boney likes men?’
‘The Cipher alluded that Thorne was that way inclined,’ said Charlie. ‘What if that’s how Ishmael learned his astrology? If they were both mollys, maybe they were lovers.’ He turned the possibility around in his mind. ‘Thorne dies and his lover takes his papers and workings,’ he suggested.
They could see the cluster of arriving ships now.
‘You’ve been to Custom House before?’ asked Charlie, noticing Lily’s face had adopted the considered blank expression she assumed when she was hiding her emotions.
‘I was here a long time ago,’ said Lily, looking at the sails. ‘I’ve never been back.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Too young.’ She was looking at the children, aged ten or eleven, making their way off the ship with frightened expressions. They were Northerners by their clothing – dark woollens, old-fashioned linen caps and makeshift shoes. Likely they’d worked for their passage and hoped to seek their fortune in the city.
‘London pounces the moment they land,’ added Lily sadly, scanning a collection of ill-intentioned-looking adults making their way to the youngsters.
Her gaze settled sadly on a pretty little girl. A fat woman dressed in silks was already waddling up to her, a false smile plastered on her chubby face.
‘Emily Green!’ Lily’s voice sailed over the dock.
The fat woman turned, confused.
‘Remember me?’ Lily gave her a dazzling smile, took a knife from her skirts and waved it in casual greeting.
The fat woman’s acted sm
ile faltered.
‘She’ll do better without your kind of help,’ said Lily, nodding to the small girl. ‘Leave her to find honest work.’
The woman was glowering now, torn between the temptation of the young prize and Lily’s threat. She hesitated, then spat in the dust and walked away.
Lily holstered her knife and turned to Charlie. ‘The Judge is behind this,’ she said. ‘He makes a business from slaves. Employs women like her.’ Lily’s eyes narrowed. ‘We need to find this ring.’
But as they neared the steps, a bloody roar could be heard. Charlie slowed, then stopped.
‘We can’t get to Little Bear Steps,’ he said. ‘Look.’
Lily’s face fell. ‘Who are they?’ she asked.
‘Sailors’ wives,’ said Charlie grimly. ‘And they want their husbands’ pay.’
A mob of scrawny women had the Custom House entrance and the nearby steps to the river surrounded. They were screeching at the top of their lungs, waving their fists and throwing rocks at the building. A handful of guards were keeping them back, but it looked as though the women could riot at any moment.
‘Give us what we’re owed!’ shouted one particularly loud woman. ‘Our children starve!’
‘The sailors haven’t been paid in months, maybe years,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s a national scandal.’
‘Why haven’t I heard of it?’
‘The King keeps it under wraps,’ said Charlie. ‘Would you want your city to know your navy was on the brink of collapse?’
‘So we can’t get in?’ asked Lily, angling for a better look at the steps.
‘Not that way,’ said Charlie. He rubbed the scar on his lip thoughtfully. ‘There’s another way around,’ he decided. ‘We’ll walk down by the river. But it’ll take longer.’ He looked up at the sun. ‘All Hallows’ Eve tonight,’ he said. ‘We’d best hurry.’
Chapter 64
It took Charlie and Lily several hours to get to Little Bear Steps along the Thames mudbank. The steps formed a thick wooden jetty jutting out into the river, with slippery stone stairs to the side leading down to the water.
The Thames was blocked with ships trying to complete their business before All Hallows’ Eve. The streets teemed with dispossessed sailors and frightened Londoners arming themselves with protectorates and charms.
‘We’ve lost almost half a day,’ said Lily.
She was looking at the sun, which now signalled noon.
‘Only six hours until dusk,’ noted Charlie, thinking of the approaching eclipse.
They moved back downriver, passing a clutch of sailors buying coins at a little minting house.
Charlie hesitated for a moment. Something was tugging at his intuition, like an itch in his brain. For some reason his memory kept drifting back to the bloated body of the dead girl, her poached-fish eyes, the silver coin in her mouth.
‘The coin,’ said Charlie, ‘in the dead girl’s mouth. It was minted near here.’
‘You said by St Ursula’s Church,’ said Lily, casting her mind back.
‘St Ursula’s Church,’ agreed Charlie. ‘Lily, give me your almanac.’
She passed it to him. Charlie flicked through the pages. Then he stopped at a familiar star constellation. The shape of two bears.
‘Here,’ he said, ‘read this part.’
Lily shot him a look of confusion, then settled her gaze down on the open almanac.
‘It’s the constellations,’ she said. ‘Great Bear and Little Bear.’
‘But how are they called? What is the astrologer’s name?’
‘Ursa Major,’ she read. ‘Ursa Minor. It’s Latin I think,’ she added. ‘Roman for “big bear” and “little bear”.’
Charlie nodded. ‘Ursa,’ he said. ‘St Ursula’s Church. I think there could be a connection. If Custom House was once a temple to Diana, the Bear Goddess, then perhaps St Ursula’s Church is some legacy.’
‘That doesn’t help us find the entrance the Cipher talked about,’ Lily pointed out.
‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘But there’s something else I remember about Little Bear Steps. Locals call it “Oyster Gate”, but now I think on it, no oysters are landed there.’ Charlie was calling to mind the trundling oyster carts with their large barrels, supplying cheap taverns in the east. ‘Oyster ropes are strung further upriver and landed at Barking. So,’ he continued, ‘what if oyster was once ostium?’
‘Ostium,’ said Lily slowly. ‘Your friend Bitey said that was the Roman word for mouth.’
‘An old translation,’ agreed Charlie. ‘I was thinking the same thing. If Little Bear Steps was once an ostium,’ said Charlie, ‘it’s most likely something to do with water supply or sewage, so it would be low. Under the steps. And there’s an old inlet,’ he continued, ‘set into the side of the river on Little Bear Quay. A few mudlarks live there, but no one assumed it leads anywhere.’ He laughed. ‘Sly little bastards have probably been raiding Custom House at night.’
Chapter 65
The King turned the gold door handle. His fingers shook a little. Behind him the Duke of York brought up the rear. A musty smell greeted them. Old paper and books.
‘I had the rest of the palace refitted,’ explained the King as they moved inside. ‘I left this until last. On my return I made a visit to the old library. I haven’t been back since. I couldn’t bear to see it . . . as it is now.’
They both stepped into the room. Carved wooden bookshelves covered one large wall. But they’d been mostly stripped bare, with only a few volumes and manuscripts remaining.
‘It was Father’s favourite room,’ explained Charles. ‘There was a large chair there.’ He pointed to where a plain wooden chair faced a functional desk. ‘A great table here,’ continued Charles, gesturing wide with his ringed fingers. ‘I remember he had lacquered cabinets, bright like butterflies. I hid in them as a boy.’
‘Father let you play in here?’ asked the Duke of York, surprised.
Charles smiled. ‘No. He didn’t let me play anywhere. I was the future King. But one of the nursemaids let me inside once.’
The Duke of York’s face darkened. He was growing a curling moustache, Charles noted, in the style of the late King.
‘I hardly knew our father,’ said the Duke of York. ‘He wasn’t as you are with your children.’
‘No,’ agreed Charles. He liked his small children to play at his feet in the royal bedchamber.
‘I always thought how ashamed Father would have been,’ said the Duke of York, ‘to see me as a grubby urchin running around Dutch taverns whilst Cromwell ruled.’
Charles put a hand on his brother’s sturdy shoulder. ‘We fled as boys,’ he said, ‘but we came back together.’
Charles examined his brother’s face, so like his own, but younger and less weighed with duty. The King felt a sudden flash of envy. What he would give to return to those carefree days in Holland. He was so tired of wars and plots. His mind turned to the fresh-faced Frances, so amenable, so simple. She was like a draught of cool water on a hot day.
‘You know the same thing is happening again at Deptford?’ said James quietly. ‘The dead girls? As in Thorne’s time.’
Charles nodded.
‘I stayed in Thorne’s workshop for a time,’ added the Duke of York. ‘They hid me away there in the dark, waiting for a time to safely escape to Holland. It gave me nightmares. Thorne gave me a ring,’ he added. ‘It was how I was able to buy passage to Holland.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the King. ‘We should have fled together. I had to try for one last battle.’
‘Have you ever wondered what the Eye could be?’ asked the Duke of York. ‘To allow Thorne to find that ship?’
The King pondered. ‘There are stories it is an emerald. Perhaps a jewel of great value. Something to bribe an informer for details of the enemy.’
‘Or a fearsome device to torture it out of them,’ said the Duke of York. ‘It could be a powerful spyglass,’ he suggested. ‘Thorne might have seen the ene
my from afar.’
The King shook his head. ‘Isaac Newton is working on such a thing now. If he succeeds, his invention will see all the way to the stars. But no spyglass can see through fog and storm or over the curve of the earth.’
There was a pause.
‘I still see our father,’ said the Duke of York, ‘walking up to the executioner’s block. I see myself charging out, freeing him before the sword falls. You should let me go to sea,’ he said, ‘and defend us from this Dutch threat.’
They were both silent for a moment.
‘It’s not as when we were young men,’ said Charles. ‘You cannot charge fearlessly into battle. I will have no sons with my Queen. You will inherit the throne.’
James made a strange shudder, as if physically shrugging off his stately restrictions.
‘You’re a fool to think it,’ he said. ‘Parliament thinks me too like our father. They will take off my head before the crown touches it.’
‘What if I were to remarry?’ suggested Charles. ‘Frances Stewart is young. Healthy.’
‘You’d start a war with Portugal,’ said James. ‘They’d never forgive the affront of your passing their barren princess over.’
The Duke of York gave a sad smile. ‘You’re as trapped as I, Brother,’ he said.
Chapter 66
Charlie and Lily dropped down into the thick mud at the base of Little Bear Steps. Ahead of them was the old inlet. It was circular. An old Roman bricked sewer that had disgorged refuse into the Thames.
‘Look at the construction,’ said Charlie. ‘The same style as the catacombs.’
Lily nodded.
They pulled themselves into the old entrance. The ground beneath their feet was intricate brickwork, working into the curve of the large old pipe, wide enough to walk through.
They passed a few sad dwellings. Bits of sacking and cloth that made shelters of sorts for mudlarks. But the occupants were absent – out on the river, trawling for whatever they could find.
Piled up in mounds were their findings. It was mostly detritus from the Great Fire. Melted tankards, half-burned household goods and scorched leather had been tossed into the giant waste disposal of the Thames. Luckier mudlarks had recovered water-damaged possessions accidentally pitched overboard as Londoners scrabbled to escape the flames by river. There were bundles of part-rotted cloth and furniture swollen and cracked by the waters.
