Death's Bright Angel

by Death's Bright Angel (retail) (epub)

  I looked to the east. The fire had already advanced since we had first seen it from the Milkmaid. It had crept down to Thames Street; the yard and outbuildings of the Star Inn, on Fish Street Hill, were catching light. It was clear to me, even if it was not clear to the Lord Mayor of London, that only pulling down as many buildings as possible between Fish Street and the seat of the fire could prevent a greater conflagration.

  ‘Sir Thomas!’ I cried, pushing my way through the mob, making directly for the Lord Mayor.

  He turned. We had met on several occasions; he was some sort of acquaintance of my uncle Tristram. But then, Tristram knew a significant number of the rich men of London, having attempted to persuade many of them to invest in one or other of his countless schemes and projects. I could not recall whether Bloodworth was one of those who had profited from my uncle’s inexhaustible optimism, or the rather greater number that had not.

  ‘Sir Matthew Quinton! By God, what brings you here?’

  I sensed that informing the Lord Mayor, in the hearing of several score of angry, frightened Londoners, that I had just come from a pitched battle with a murderous gang of would-be arsonists, would not necessarily be conducive to the maintenance of public order.

  ‘Late business at the Navy Office in Seething Lane,’ I lied. ‘But Sir Thomas, surely we should be forming a firebreak, by pulling down houses, ahead of the flames?’

  He scowled.

  ‘Oh, no need for that, Sir Matthew. No need for that at all. This is no great matter, this blaze. Why, sir, I can remember the great fire in Thirty-Three, that burned down all the houses on the northern half of London Bridge. This is nothing to that, sir. Nothing at all. Why, as I have said to many this night, a woman could piss this out. Fish Street is broad enough to stop it, if it gets this far. Which I very much doubt. I’m for my bed, Sir Matthew, and by the morning, this will be out.’

  ‘But the wind, Sir Thomas…’

  ‘It will be out, I say. With no need to pull down houses.’

  I stared at him, but he quickly looked away, averting his eyes from both the fire and my accusing gaze.

  And then I knew. If Bloodworth were to order the destruction of houses on his own authority, he would become personally responsible for the charge of rebuilding them. Sir Thomas was a very wealthy man, a stalwart of the Vintners’ livery and the East India Company, but he could see his fortune being burned to ashes by the flood of compensation claims that would assail him.

  ‘With respect, Sir Thomas,’ I said, ‘there is one circumstance in which you would be compelled to demolish buildings. Is that not so, my Lord Mayor?’

  He did not answer me. Instead, he turned and walked away, his shoulders slumped.

  ‘One circumstance, Matthew?’ said Francis.

  ‘Within the boundaries of this city, only one authority can override that of the Lord Mayor,’ I said. ‘Francis, to Whitehall – the King must know of Bloodworth’s craven pig-headedness. Musk, to Ravensden House. Prepare Lady Quinton. And make arrangements to move my brother, if necessary.’

  Musk looked at me as though I had just ordered him to charge an entire army of Janissaries.

  ‘Ravensden House? Begging pardon, Sir Matthew, but if you seriously think a fire all the way over here is going to get as far as all the way over there –’

  ‘Would you question such an order if it came from an Earl of Ravensden, Musk?’

  His expression provided an eloquent answer.

  ‘No, Sir Matthew. As you say, Sir Matthew.’

  They left me, walking north toward Cannon Street, disappearing into the mass of people trying to get away from the fire.

  Musk was right, I thought. Surely my concerns for Cornelia and my brother were baseless. No matter how bad this fire became, it would never threaten Ravensden House. No fire in this part of London would ever get remotely close; no fire in the City ever had. And yet…

  I suppressed the thought. For now, at least, my duty was here, where the fire was.

  The air was thick with smoke. The familiar smells of tar and pitch told their own story: the warehouses down on Thames Street must be well ablaze. I could tell, too, that the fire had now spread down to the river wharves, and they were stacked high with coal, hay and timber. Overhead, the wind was carrying sparks and fragments of blazing canvas, paper, hemp, and God knew what else. Some landed in the street, some on men’s hats and shoulders, but many – too many – now began to land on the roofs of the buildings in Fish Street itself.

  I heard the shattering of glass, and a great gasp went up from the crowd to the south of me, towards London Bridge. I pushed my way through, and saw flames spitting from the eastern windows of Saint Margaret’s Bridge Street. No hymns would be sung there, later that morning; no sermon expounded from the pulpit. A few yards further downhill, flames were already assailing the east wall of Saint Magnus Martyr. Neither of the two saints in question showed the slightest sign of intervening to save the churches dedicated to them.

  Still the breeze came from the east, strong, dry and relentless. Inn and shop signs swung manically in the gale, providing a constant counterpoint to the wind that roared through the narrow alleyways.

  ‘Damn you to hell, Bloodworth,’ I said to myself, turning on my heel and starting to run north-by-east, toward Eastcheap.

  The fire needed to be stopped. To do that, buildings needed to come down, so that firebreaks could be opened up in front of the flames. But even if the Lord Mayor – or the King, by overruling him – gave order for it to be done, the Londoners were in no state to do it. In theory, fires were fought by the men of each neighbourhood, working together for the common good. At the very least there should be chains of men bringing up water in buckets from the river. But fate – or the scheme of some ingenious arsonist – had dictated that this blaze should have begun during the early hours of a Sunday morning, when many fewer folk than usual were about. And those who were about hardly constituted a likely army of firefighters. As I ran uphill, I looked at the carts thronging Fish Street, and into countless pairs of frightened eyes, and saw nothing but selfishness. Every man was for himself alone, determined only to get far enough away from the fire to be safe, to keep on living.

  If there were to be any chance of stopping the fire, better men would have to fight it. And I knew exactly where to get them.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dawn had not long broken when I left the Navy Office in Seething Lane, somewhat to the north and east of the seat of the fire. The principal officers of His Majesty’s Navy had been nowhere to be found. I had just missed Mister Pepys, the Clerk of the Acts, who was gone to the Tower to watch the progress of the fire from its high walls. I took some breakfast ale and cheese at a tavern on Mark Lane, and when I next registered the existence of the world around me, my head was on the table, my opening eyes were blinking uncomprehendingly at a tankard of ale and a plate of cheese that were at the wrong angle, a serving wench was staring at me strangely, and it was the middle of the morning. But the memory of the crisis meant that I was properly awake within moments. I hurried back out, into the horror that was Sunday, the second day of September, 1666.

  I could see the great pall of smoke, blowing westerly, as I struggled along Eastcheap, forcing my way through the crowds trying to make their way to the east, toward the safety of Spitalfields and the open country between Whitechapel and Stepney. As I passed it, Saint Clement’s church was being besieged by two opposing armies: those who believed the ancient building would be beyond the reach of the fire, and were trying to cram their cartloads of goods into it for safety, against those who already had their goods inside, but were convinced the church was doomed and were endeavouring to get them out again. There were angry shouts, and fists were thrown. Of churchwardens or the aldermen of the Ward, who might have been able to keep some semblance of order, there was no sign at all.

  The fire was beyond Fish Street now, creeping westward into Cannon Street. And yet, London lived on. Although, in the wards ne
arest to the seat of the fire, the church bells were muffled as alarms, those further away were sounding as they always did, summoning the parishioners to services where they could pray for the safety of the City. Even the great bells of Saint Paul’s were ringing out confidently. Some makeshift fruit-and-vegetable stalls had been set up, the traders spotting the main chance presented by the unexpected and very large, if somewhat preoccupied, crowds. A few of the more respectable hawkers were out too, standing on street corners, selling copies of the latest Gazette. But there were rather more of the less respectable ones, selling the sort of crude woodcuts that featured rude verse about Lord Clarendon’s arse or Lady Castlemaine’s cunny. And, yes, there were the street prophets, too, their hands and eyes raised to heaven, proclaiming this fire to be God’s righteous judgement upon the sins of England. I saw one being pelted with shit by jeering urchins.

  I do not entirely recall what I proposed to do. I may have contemplated returning to Ravensden House, then dismissed the thought at once. The fire was no threat to it, no threat at all – and perhaps worrying about my safety might make Cornelia more tender toward me. I believe I next had some notion of making my way back down to the river, there to try and organise whatever watermen, scavelmen and the like that I could find into fire-fighting parties. I had turned into Martin Lane and was heading south, struggling through the press of carts and people heading in the opposite direction, when an aged, weeping, goodwife or widow, probably fifty or so, limped heavily from the door at my side, collided with me, and grabbed hold of my arm.

  ‘God save us, sir – please, in Christ’s name, help us – I know not what to do!’

  ‘Calm yourself, goodwife! What’s the matter here?’

  ‘The fire, sir! It’s already at the back end of Saint Martin Orgar – I have to get my family out, and no man here to help me! The apprentices all run off, an aged father to save! Pray help us, sir! Merciful God in heaven, please help us!’

  I went with her into her house. It was a typical, narrow, old affair, the dark ground floor clearly a printing business of some sort. She had evidently been throwing as many of her possessions as she could into the handcart and sacks on the floor.

  ‘Where are your children, goodwife? Why are they not here to help you?’

  ‘Dead of the plague, sir. A son and his wife, a daughter and her husband. The five children they had between them. All gone a twelvemonth ago. And I not a goodwife but a widow, my husband Newman having been taken by a bloody flux the year the king came back. Me a cripple from a fall, the last autumn, and the printing business gone to wrack. My father spared it all, though, and he past seventy. Where’s the justice in that, sir?’

  ‘God’s plan is ever a mystery, Widow Newman,’ I said, realising how feeble the words sounded. Francis would have made them sound convincing. Or, at any rate, less unconvincing.

  Up on the second floor of the house, a gaunt old man sat on the edge of a bed, incongruously dressed in a nightshirt covered by a buff jacket. A soldier’s buff jacket. He looked at me with undisguised contempt.

  ‘Ye’re one of them,’ he growled. ‘I can tell by the look of ye. By the smell of ye. A malignant. A cavalier.’

  ‘Now, father,’ said the widow, ‘this kindly gentleman will help us. Will lead us safe from the fire.’

  But the old man kept his eyes on me. Eyes that brimmed over with hatred.

  ‘Quartermaster I was, Orange Regiment of the London Trained Bands. Fought at Gloucester, and at Newbury too. Fought against the murdering tyrant Charles Stuart, that Englishmen might be free of kings and bishops. That’s who I was. That’s what I was. And I’ll not take the charity of an ungodly malignant! Psalm One Hundred and Forty-Four. Blessed be the Lord my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight: My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me.’

  ‘Forgive him, sir,’ said Widow Newman, no longer fearful only of the fire. ‘He’s old and confused. He knows not what he says.’

  I nodded, but we both knew she lied, and the old man knew best of all. He was not confused in the slightest; far from it. If he had been just a few years younger, he would have been out with Rathbone – or with the Horsemen, come to that. He was the sort of fanatic the Quintons despised. But this Quinton would do his utmost to save the old man’s life, regardless.

  ‘And the chattels, sir? Everything I have, it is.’

  ‘Carry what you can, if you must. But too much will slow you, and make it harder to get away.’

  I turned toward the window, and noticed a curious sight. There was an alley directly opposite, and that gave a view down to Saint Laurence Pountney, a fair way to the west. The church was a long way from the leading edge of the fire, which had not reached this side of Martin Lane. Yet Saint Laurence was on fire.

  I could hear screams in the street, and made out a few shouts:

  ‘Laurence Church is ablaze!’

  ‘How can it be?’

  ‘It’s the Papists! The French and Dutch are burning the whole city!’

  I went back down to the old man, leaving the goodwife to gather what she could. I took hold of his arm, and lifted him from the bed.

  ‘Reprobate!’ he shouted, and spat in my face. ‘Get your hands off me, cavalier pig!’

  I wiped the spittle from my cheek.

  ‘Your choice, quartermaster,’ I said. ‘You can let a cavalier pig help you to safety, or you can be burned to death by your own people.’

  ‘My own people? You lie. This fire’s the work of the Jesuits – I hear the cries in the street, and Molly spoke but an hour ago with a man who’d seen a mass-priest flinging a fireball into the Star Inn…’

  ‘Enough!’ I said, and pulled him to his feet, unwillingly and slow. ‘I’ll tell you the true tale of this fire, quartermaster, as we go along. And if you don’t believe me by the time we reach Cannon Street, I’ll bring you all the way back here again, and you can perish in Papist flames if you wish.’

  * * *

  It took an hour and more to get Widow Newman and her father to safety in the churchyard of Saint Mary Abchurch, just off the north side of Cannon Street. The streets were even more frantic than they had been, with frightened folk not knowing which way to flee before the sudden new conflagration at Pountney. And the old quartermaster, although little more than bones and shrivelled parchment-skin covering them, was a heavy weight to half-drag, half-carry even the relatively small distance to Abchurch. But I kept my promise. He joined the very small circle of those who knew the true story of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, although, of course, he chose not to believe a word of it. And even if in due course he did come to believe it, no man would believe him if he told them.

  ‘Lying malignant bastard,’ he said, as I sat him down finally upon an old tombstone. ‘’Tis the Papists, for certain.’

  ‘Ungrateful old fool,’ said Widow Newman, who proceeded to thank me effusively. ‘But forgive me, sir, I never asked your name.’

  I looked the old quartermaster in the eye.

  ‘Tell your friends,’ I said. ‘Tell all those who still think as you do that you were saved by Lord Percival.’

  The ancient’s eyes opened wide. It was as though he was looking upon a resurrected corpse. He knew the name Lord Percival, right enough. Perhaps it had been whispered fearfully in the conventicles he had attended, before infirmity had confined him to his room.

  I essayed the most extravagant Cavalier bow I could manage, and left the Newman family to fend for themselves.

  * * *

  I returned to Cannon Street by the London Stone, the strange lump of limestone said to have been set into the ground by the Romans. Others said the Druids had sacrificed virgins upon it, long ago. Perhaps London needs a sacrifice or two now to save it, if only it can find some virgins, I thought, irreverently.

  As I turned east, back towards the advancing fire, I heard a voice I knew.

  ‘My Lord Mayor
!’

  I pushed my way through the oncoming crowd in time to see Mister Samuel Pepys, Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board, approach Sir Thomas Bloodworth, who, sweating and dishevelled, a kerchief tied round his neck, no longer looked quite so confident that a woman could piss out the great fire.

  ‘Sir Thomas!’ cried Pepys. ‘I come directly from His Majesty, at the Palace of Whitehall, whither I went this very morning by boat. I have the King’s direct command to you, my Lord Mayor, to pull down houses! You are indemnified, Sir Thomas! You have royal authority!’

  ‘Lord, Mister Pepys,’ said Bloodworth, mopping his brow and shaking his head, ‘what can I do? I am spent. People will not obey me. I have been pulling down houses; but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it.’

  I was still some way away from the two men, and was thus unable to suggest to the Lord Mayor that if he had pulled down houses during the night, when the fire was still confined to Pudding Lane and the alleys immediately around it, it might have been extinguished already. But then, hindsight makes for poor readings of the past, and even worse ones of the future.

  Pepys whispered some words privately to Bloodworth. The Lord Mayor looked as though he had been struck by a musketball, shook his head vigorously, said something to Pepys, and then turned away.

  Pepys saw me, and raised a hand in greeting. He was not so many years older than myself, but with a long face that made him look infinitely older. He always had about him an air of attempting to be very serious, in the hope he would therefore be taken very seriously.

  ‘A terrible day, Sir Matthew.’

  ‘Terrible indeed, Mister Pepys. Did you say you have come from Whitehall?’

  ‘I have – I went there by boat, directly from the Tower, after I had satisfied myself of the fire’s rate of progress.’ Despite the circumstances, Samuel Pepys was evidently mightily pleased with himself; he liked nothing more than to be at the centre of affairs, conversing on equal terms with great men. ‘Your friend, the Reverend Gale, was there, and we both reported to His Majesty. The King is appalled by Bloodworth’s behaviour. As am I, in truth. This is no time for politics, Sir Matthew. No time at all.’