Fire (10 page)

Coke freed a leg, kicked the son hard in his chest, rolling to the side to dodge, yet again, the scarfed man's cutlass. As it smashed onto the tiles beside him, he swept his rapier across, forcing both the standing men back, kicking his legs hard, heels scrabbling on the roof, propelling him away from the men who looked as if they were going to come again…and then didn't.

‘Hold there!' yelled Pitman, his great boots reducing the window frame to further splinters. He pushed one leg and half his big body through, his pistol leading. With one glance at him and another to the rising captain, the three conspirators ran as one for the roof edge and hurled themselves over it.

Pitman was beside him in a moment. ‘Are you hurt?'

‘Only my pride.'

Pitman offered an arm and hauled Coke up. ‘An unusual guard, Captain, sitting on your arse,' he said. ‘Learn it in France?'

‘Are we after them?'

‘We are – for that's two-thirds of our bounty escaping.'

‘Fast then – I've house payments to make.'

The two men leapt the small parapet between roofs just as their quarry's coat-tails disappeared over the next one. Coke and Pitman followed fast, dropping to the cobbles. The pace of hunter and prey was evenly matched as they splashed through the garbage-choked kennels of the ill-lit alleys, weaving westwards.

Pitman began to labour. ‘ 'Tis my armour,' he gasped at Coke's querying glance. ‘Not meant for running.'

‘Can you slip it off?'

‘Too troublesome,' Pitman grunted. ‘Come! Last gasp or lose 'em.' And with that, the bigger man sped up.

They drew close enough to hear the heaving breaths of the men ahead. This alley was narrowing, darkening, the jutties overhead nearly joined into a single roof. But then, around another bend, the way ahead lightened, for the alley's end gave onto an open space, and a vast structure ahead.

‘The cathedral!' wheezed Coke. ‘Do they seek sanctuary?'

‘They'll find none,' came the grunted reply. Taking the lead,
for two men could not clear the entrance together, Pitman burst out into St Paul's churchyard, the captain a pace behind him.

There was enough of a moon to turn the biggest building in the city into a hulk of shadows and gloom. Scaffolding was everywhere, propping up walls that had long leaned precipitously outwards, allowing for sailcloth and wood tiles to block vast sections of the holed and sagging roof. While two of the pursued ran straight for the wooden struts at the church's eastern end, the third turned right, speeding up, heading north to Blow Bladder Street and the cramped alleys beyond.

‘Yours,' said Pitman, nodding after the man.

‘And leave you two? Nay!'

They'd paused. The men ahead had started to mount the scaffolding. ‘I'll have 'em,' said Pitman, patting his chest. ‘I've two primed pistols here, and I am certain they have discharged both theirs. Drag your man back here, if you can.'

In matters of pursuit, the highwayman had decided to defer to the thief-taker. With a nod, he obeyed.

Pitman reached the base of the eastern wall in a dozen strides, just as the men above him slipped through a gap of crumbled masonry. He grunted. A climb in armour did not appeal. He looked through the wooden poles, noted a small door like a sally port in the bastion of a castle. He slipped into the scaffolding, reached for the door's handle. It gave way easily to his twist and opened silently outwards. He stepped inside.

He stood just inside the doorway, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. There was some light within the great hall; lanterns burned at a few points, a little moonlight came through such of the stained-glass windows that had not been
shrouded in sailcloth for their protection. He did not know the cathedral well – he was a man of the dissident meeting house not the great churches of state. But he had been there during Cromwell's Commonwealth, when soldiers more radical than he had desecrated a building they saw as verging on popery. They'd stabled horses in the chapels and played ninepins in the nave.

From what he could see – and the view of most of the church was obscured by the great screen that separated this space behind the altar and the choir beyond – St Paul's was not in a much better state under the king than it had been in Cromwell's day. Wooden poles rose above him, with platforms at various levels, propping up walls that bowed out. The altar step was there, but the altar was not – as any services held within were now confined, he knew, to the chapel below, at the level of the crypt, St Faith's, a parish church within a cathedral.

He waited, mastering his breath. And then he heard a whisper, a young man's voice, and his older companion cutting him short with a harsh, ‘Shtt!' The scaffolding creaked above him. The men were descending. But unless they knew of the sally port, there was only one way for them to leave the church and that was at its western end, through its main doors.

Passing through the rood screen, into the choir, Pitman found a place for ambush: the tomb of some ancient prelate, his form atop it, stone hands clasped over his belly in piety. He slipped into its shadows, stumbling a little at the rear of the sarcophagus where his feet encountered some pieces of masonry fallen from it. Then he heard again the creak of wood, and boots dropping onto flagstones. He drew both his pistols and several deep breaths.

The men came into the choir. They hesitated for a moment at
the gap in the rood screen, then strode swiftly forward. A few moments would bring them level with the tomb. Regretting the necessity of the sound, Pitman full cocked both his guns.

A voice came hard upon the sound. ‘What make you here? Murder, what ho!'

Pitman swivelled around fast – to find a man, with the collar of a priest, rising from one of the choir stalls close by, where darkness had concealed him. ‘Quiet, sir –' Pitman began.

There was a rush of footsteps. ‘Hold!' Pitman cried, swinging back his guns.

Too late. They were close and had drawn their weapons. Pitman raised one pistol. But the youth knocked it aside, and the elder lunged.

The blade's thrust came low. The breastplate deflected the point from his guts – but guided it into Pitman's thigh.

He cried out, stumbled backwards, stepping onto the piles of broken stones. Wobbled upon them, trying to twist around and keep his pistols levelled at his enemies; he fell. There was a crack, bringing searing pain to his already wounded, twisted leg. Yet Pitman managed to raise one pistol and fire, aiming he knew not where.

He hit neither man – but the explosion echoed hugely in the vaulted chamber. Shouts came, and the man who'd startled him stepped up. As Pitman raised the second pistol, the priest grabbed his arm. ‘This is the house of God! Thieves! Murderers! Ho!' he roared. From further down the nave came more shouts, along with the sound of running feet. Pitman jerked his pistol free. ‘Stop,' he cried, trying to struggle up, causing agony by his movement. But if his quarry heard they did not heed him,
sprinting towards the approaching torches, crying out to make way.

Pitman fell back heavily, laid the pistols down beside him and reached to his leg. His fingers came away sticky. ‘Help me,' he whispered, holding the blood up to the priest who bent over him now, before the darkness came.

Coke walked back into the cathedral yard, shaking his head. He had lost his man in the twisting alleys. To some tavern perhaps, or the sanctuary of one of his fellow Saints. He could only hope that Pitman had done better, and that their purses would yet be filled.

He came in through the west doors, pausing to lean against them and take still more deep breaths. It's a younger man's game, he thought. Ten years ago I'd have caught the rogue.

There was only gloom around the entrance; but further down the great nave, near its eastern end, he saw a circle of lights. A murmuring came to him and he smiled. No doubt Pitman was there, standing over the shackled villains, holding forth on how God's providence had manifested in his life again, delivering the realm's enemies into his hands. He likes an audience, Coke thought, speeding up. Don't want to miss the sermon.

A crowd was gathered, but not around Pitman – at least that was Coke's first thought – his friend would tower over everyone there. But then, as he pushed through, he saw the thief-taker – propped up against a choir stall, his face in the lamplight chalky white.

Coke was at his side in a moment. ‘What is it, man? You are hurt?'

‘I am.' Pitman groaned.

Coke looked down. His friend had a grey rag shoved against his thigh. Even in the dim lamplight, the deeper stains were obvious. ‘Bullet or blade?' he asked.

‘Blade.'

‘May I see?'

A faint smile came to Pitman's lips. ‘I do not think your battlefield skills will serve me here, Captain. And do you not faint at the sight of blood?'

‘It's more guts I have a problem with. You are not –'

‘Bowel pierced? Nay. But there's a lot of blood and I do not dare remove the bandage for fear of issuing more.' A spasm of pain came and he gripped Coke's arm. ‘Get me home, for mercy's sake. Get me to Bettina.'

Three hundred paces away, three men sat in the ruins of a different church.

‘This was once the liberty of St Martin's Le Grand,' said Simeon Critchollow, patting a tumbled, ivy-covered stone. ‘If we'd fled here in the reign of Good Queen Bess, we might have cried sanctuary within its bounds and defied our enemies.'

‘I doubt that would have stopped the thief-taker,' muttered Captain Blood.

‘But a blade did, Father,' said his son. ‘You stabbed that bastard good.'

‘Good enough to kill him, think you?' asked Simeon.

‘Mayhap.'

‘If it is so, you have done our cause great service. This Pitman has been a mighty enemy of the Saints before this night and would be again.'

‘And who was the other? The one we fought on the roof and who pursued you?'

‘His name is Captain Coke. He was a knight of the road. Now he catches them. And he fornicates with –' He paused, licking his lips. This was not the time to discuss again how these three had thwarted the Lord's great work before. ‘– a veritable whore of Babylon. An actress, Sarah Chalker.'

‘Chalker. Coke. Pitman. All bear the mark of the Beast, that's for sure.' Blood tapped his hat. ‘And they are also marked in the book of my head. I will punish them if I can.'

‘Oh, do not fear for that.' Simeon put out a hand and the younger Blood pulled him up. ‘I have a plan afoot will bring these enemies low. Even as soon as tomorrow.'

‘Assassination?' asked the younger Blood.

Before his father could reply, Simeon did. ‘Nay, not killing,' he said, ‘not yet.' Then he smiled. ‘Something far better than that.'

There was a ghost in the church.

Sarah did not turn to seek it out. Felt it only, a presence behind her. It could be…anyone. Her mother, who'd had the second sight far stronger than she did, always said that marriages and funerals brought the spirits out – and not just the unquiet dead. Conjured from the graves beyond the church's doors or from the richer tombs within, some worthy burgher whose charity had so benefited the parish would return to gaze with satisfaction upon his works. Or his relic would sit again in her reserved pew to lady it over all others.

This feeling was not like that. She feared that she had brought this spirit with her. It nearly made her look, the thought of him – John Chalker. But the image that came was not as she'd last seen him – in a coffin, a barely recognisable mass of wounds and blood – but as she'd seen him when he'd been the man standing before her at the altar rail. He'd played so many ghosts in performances they'd done together, why would he not show up to be in this one?

Sarah closed her eyes, and swayed. Immediately she felt the
captain's hand upon her arm, steadying her, as he'd had to do all morning. She'd woken feeling nauseous again, the first time in a fortnight. She'd eaten nothing that she had not voided straightway. She looked up at William now, took more steadiness from his eyes, his grey eyes that oft held a remembered sadness, yet now were filled only with love. A love returned, so different from the one she'd had for John, whom she'd known from childhood, a brother from the foul streets of St Giles. They'd risen above them together, all the way to the playhouse, and married on a whim.

William's look, his arm, centred her. Face forward, she commanded herself. Listen to the words.

‘I require and charge you both,' continued the priest, ‘that as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it.'

Was a ghost an impediment? Should she declare him? Oh God, let me not laugh! The line between her laughter and her tears was as thin as a St Giles leper these days.

The priest spoke on. It was time for questions, for commitments, for words that she could speak, in reply to William's, delivered so fervently, when he took her as his wife.

‘I will,' he declared.

‘I will,' she replied.

Their love had banished all shades. She was ready now, feeling stronger by the moment.

Until the priest asked the next question, ‘Who giveth this Woman to be married to this Man?' and she remembered that it
was not only the dead that walked. Sometimes the living did too, away from their bodies.

It was meant to be Pitman who gave her away. But he was home and delirious with a fever from an infected wound and a badly broken leg. He could not come – and she did not want to see him there. For her mother had told her that the imminently dead would come to say goodbye to those they loved.

It was a relief then that it was Thomas Betterton who stepped up now – though his face showed that he knew, by the lateness of his casting, that he was undoubtedly an understudy. ‘
I
do,' he said, taking his place at Sarah's right. He put his hand under Sarah's other elbow, and made a small gesture of moving her towards the priest.

It was the time for lines again and her captain spoke boldly. ‘I, William Coke, take thee, Sarah Chalker, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.'

Sarah took his hand, said her not entirely similar words. Then the priest called for the ring.

It was brought on a yell. There was no question as to how alive the ring-bearer was. All attempts to smooth down Dickon's hair had failed and thick clumps of it stood up on his head like wheat sheaves in a field. They had purchased him new shirt, doublet, breeches and stockings. All had been in alignment when they'd entered St Clement's; all were now askew. Meanwhile the nuts that he consumed in quantities that would have fed herds were evident in the bits of shell on his lips. ‘Here it is, C-cap'n,' he cried,
brandishing the gold band aloft. ‘As shiny as that one we took off the Marchioness of Guildford –'

‘Thanks, boy,' interrupted Coke loudly, taking the ring, as sniggers came from the pews. He placed it on Sarah's finger, repeated the words. ‘With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy…
Ghost.
'

She could not help it. The word took her away from all the other words. She said her lines, though it was mainly the vicar now, intoning prayers, citing scripture, urging her to obedience, to the reverence of the man who gripped her again as she swayed.

She was certain who was behind her now. But she waited until the last pronouncements were made, until the chapel erupted in cheers, before she turned to confront him. She understood. She was to see him for this last time. And bid him farewell forever.

And yet it was not her murdered husband. Not the dead who walked there but the living. Dressed as he'd been when she'd seen him upon the stage three weeks before.

It was the man she'd just married. William Coke, who stood in finery beside her, shaking hands – who also stood in rags, dripping water, staring at her. He nodded once before turning and walking through the shut door.

Her eyes rolled. Darkness came.

‘I shall summon a chair.'

‘Nay.' She gripped his arm as he tried to rise from the bench outside the church. ‘I am quite recovered. It was only my…you know what it was.' She smiled. ‘Truly, I am well. And it is but a short walk to Covent Garden.'

‘Are you certain? Then we will take it slowly.' He stood, bending down for her. ‘Come…wife.'

They rose and she clutched him. Yet they'd gone but a half dozen paces when they were halted by a chair-man. Coke waved him away but the man did not move from the path. ‘ 'Tis not a fare I seek, sir,' he said. ‘My fare would speak with you.'

Coke bent to look – and the sight drew a cry from him. ‘Isaac? You came.'

Isaac ben Judah leant forward, though even the small movement caused a spasm of pain to possess his face. ‘Alas, I am not here for your nuptials, Captain Coke. Would that I were.' He leaned back, a small cry escaping as he did. ‘I have come to beg your help.'

Coke straightened. ‘Dickon,' he called. The boy was beside him immediately. ‘Take Sarah's arm,' he said. ‘Help her to the inn. I will follow fast.'

‘Follow? Nay, we'll wait.'

‘Sarah, you need to sit, to eat.' He reached up to touch her cheek. ‘I will talk with my friend here briefly and catch up with you before you even get to the Hare and Hound.'

‘What does this man want? Really, sir, this is not convenient.'

‘That I am to discover,' he said gently, lifting her hand and placing it on Dickon's arm. ‘Go. I will be but moments.'

Reluctantly, Sarah allowed Dickon to lead her away and Coke swung himself onto the bench opposite Isaac. It was one of the smaller chairs, and the tall captain was wedged into a corner, his knees shoved high near his chest. ‘You should not have come forth, my friend,' he said. ‘I would have come to you.'

‘I had to,' the Jew wheezed. ‘I could not be certain that any
messenger would move you from your wedding day. Besides, I could not write down my sorrow for others to see. I had to come.'

‘Tell me your sorrow then,' replied Coke, ‘and how I may allay it. Is it to do with your daughter?'

‘It is. It is!' A tear stole from the older man's eye. ‘Oh, William, I have been so sick and unable to keep my usual attention on her. And with my sister dead, and my family scattered –' He winced again, balling a fist into his stomach. ‘She has strayed, sir. Strayed from me and, I fear, our faith. There is a man –'

‘Not one of your tribe?'

‘No. I know little of him. She mentioned someone who was kind to her, who made her laugh. And then she started wearing a –' He gestured to his head. ‘I do not know what they are called. In her hair, hidden under her scarf, but I saw it and asked her. She said it was gift from a friend. I was angry, and my fear made me more so. I shouted that she was to take no gifts from anyone I did not know. She was dutiful for a few days, if sullen. And then,' he reached out to grip Coke's arm, ‘she was gone. A day, a night. I tried to rise but it hurt so. I sent out friends to seek her. They had no success.' He reached into his coat pocket. ‘This morning, there was a knock. No one was there. But this was.'

He pulled out a piece of grubby paper, handing it to Coke, who took it and spread it out. There was printing on one side, handwriting on the back.

Your daughter is saf. She is comin to no God. If ye wish to see her, come today, at the hour of three, to the Black
Cat Tavrn, Maiden Lane, hard by St Lennard's, Eastcheap.

Come yourself, or send someone with twenty gold guineas. One man alone or you shall never see her more.

Coke looked up. ‘Three o'clock? But that is less than two hours away.'

‘Aye, Captain. Do you know the tavern?'

‘I can find it. But is it not close to your lodgings?' Isaac nodded and Coke studied the paper again. ‘They ask that you send someone?'

‘Rebekah must have told them I cannot walk.'

Coke looked down again, frowned. ‘What is this about coming to “no” God?'

‘I think they mean “know”.' Isaac swallowed. ‘Turn the paper over.'

Coke did and drew in a harsh breath. The words at the top were in large font and in Hebrew of which he had no knowledge. But he knew these anyway, as many did.

‘Mene, Mene Tekel, Upharsin,' he read aloud.

‘It is from our Book of Daniel,' Isaac said. ‘The invisible angel's finger writing on plaster at Belshazzar's feast. “God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it.” '

Coke glanced at the rest of the words. He did not need to read them; he had seen many of their like before – in tracts and pamphlets proclaiming the approaching apocalypse, the death of King Charles, the return of King Jesus. He paused only at the numbers at the bottom of the paper. ‘Do you know what these are?'

‘They are also from Daniel – verses.' Isaac cleared his throat,
spoke softly. ‘ “The Saints of the most high shall take the kingdom forever, even for ever and ever.” '

Coke went cold. ‘The Saints?'

‘It is why I brought this to you. None of my tribe would be, er, capable. For you know them, do you not?'

Know them, he thought. Aye, as well as one can know men who have tried so hard to kill me. Not only last year, with the monster that was Lord Garnthorpe. Just the previous night, with the Bloods and a scarfed man, stabbing at him on a rooftop.

He didn't say any of that, only, ‘Aye. And the one thing you can be certain of, at least, is that they revere your people. I doubt they will have harmed your daughter.'

‘There are many ways to harm an innocent girl of our faith,' the Jew replied softly. ‘And they are asking money to have her returned, so –' He broke off. ‘Will you go and get her for me? It is much to ask on this of all your days, I know, but,' he sighed, ‘I do not know anyone else who has had dealings with…such dangerous men.'

He had met Isaac the goldsmith to their mutual profit in his days as a knight of the road. But he had liked the Jew from the off and had grown to like him more since he'd left that profession. There was also the small matter of the money Isaac was lending him for the house-building. Still, he would not undertake such a thing on his wedding day for money. Friendship, however?