Fire (12 page)

Again Coke tried to get his foot into his breeches; again he failed. He had no time for a third attempt because three large men rushed into the room.

‘I am –' Coke began but got no further. The first man had placed a hand against his chest and pushed him hard. His legs were shaky enough and could not hold him. He crashed back onto a small table there. It collapsed under him and he fell to the floor.

‘Stay there, ye bastard. I am a constable of this parish and I
order you to do so,' his assailant shouted, hefting a large cudgel before turning to another man who'd gone to the weeping girl on the bed. ‘Is it her?'

‘Dunno,' the man replied, bending till his head was level with hers. ‘Is it you, sweetheart? Are you the Jew's missing daughter?'

She lowered her hand from her face. ‘I am!' she cried. ‘I am Rebekah bat Judah.' She raised a hand, pointing at Coke. ‘And this man…this man!' She sobbed and buried her face again.

The first constable turned to the third man there. ‘ 'E's three doors along. Fetch 'im! And you,' he whipped back to Coke who'd been trying to rise, ‘just give me a reason to beat ya. Though I don't need much – rapist!'

‘No!' Despite the raised cudgel, Coke rose to his knees. ‘I am her father's friend –'

‘Some friend,' the man spat. ‘Now you just bide.'

He had no choice. The second man had come closer, also with a club, and looked as keen to strike as the first. Moving slowly so as not to provoke them, he managed to disentangle his stockings from his breeches. The men glared but did not forbid it and he began to slide them on. ‘That's right,' said the second constable. ‘Put it away, ye swine. Now you've 'ad your fun.'

Everything was wrong. But Isaac would speak for him. Isaac would come and tell them.

Except the next footsteps up the stairs were not Isaac's. Another Jew entered the room. He was a little younger than the goldsmith, though his hair was as grey under his skullcap.

‘Uncle!' cried Rebekah, rising up off the bed, then realising her nakedness and falling back to cover herself up.

‘Child!' the man strode across. ‘What has happened here?'

‘He –' She pointed her finger at Coke, then screamed the next words. ‘He kidnapped me. He…ravished me.'

She dissolved again into sobs. Her uncle lent to her, taking the blanket up, covering her. Then, bending, he lifted her off the bed. She drove her head into his chest. ‘I will take her to her father – though I fear this news will hasten his death, sick as he is.' He looked for the first time at Coke. ‘Constables, I beseech you, do your duty.'

‘We shall.'

‘This is wrong.' Coke stood up now, despite the clubs raised menacingly again. ‘I came to help her. Her father sent me. She's lying. I did not touch her.'

‘You did not touch whom?'

The voice came soft from the doorway. But an actress did not need to speak loudly for her voice to carry.

‘Sarah!'

Like any piece of theatre – a puppet show or anything put on at the playhouse – it is always a matter of timing, he thought. Every performer got it wrong sometimes. But when God orchestrated the piece…

In the shadows of the doorway opposite, Simeon heard Coke's impassioned cry of his bride's name. Getting her there had been difficult, a message sent from ‘a concerned party', arriving only an hour previously at the wedding feast, when the drug looked like it was wearing off. He'd been worried that Sarah Chalker – Sarah Coke – would not make it in time. It wasn't vital – but it would be an extra delight.

The Lord hastened her. That and the wild-eyed boy she leaned
upon guiding her there. ‘Just in time,' he whispered. A thought he never shared with his ever-sombre, most literal brothers was that God was a puppet-master just like him. Why, did he not set fire to a bush, trap a ram in a thicket, part the flood? So why wouldn't the Almighty relish a moment as perfect as this?

He wished he could have witnessed the newlyweds' reunion. But Coke knew him now, from the building site, and he did not wish to confuse the constables. Still, he thought, I never see the faces of my puppets below me on the stage; yet I can hear the effect they have. Like the woman's sobbing.

You'll cry more tears, Mrs Coke, ere God and I are done.

‘No, you don't!'

As two of the constables began to drag his cap'n from the room, he ran at them. One raised an arm to fend him off, but he dodged it easily, then grabbed the man's hand and wrenched it back against its inclination as his cap'n had showed him when they wrestled for sport. The man didn't think it sport and gave a great cry as he fell back.

Maybe I twists it too hard, Dickon thought. But no one 'rests my captain.

The second man swung a fist at him but he was old and fat and slow and Dickon ducked and put his own fist in the man's ribs, just a jab, sharp though, and the man wheezed and let go of his prisoner, which was the point.

‘Run, Cap'n,' Dickon shouted, but his guardian just sagged and almost fell. Something was wrong with him and when Dickon reached to hold him up, the third constable who'd gone to the door crossed back and fetched him a great buffet across his head, knocking him onto the jumbled bed, making his ear ring. Still, he'd have been up in a moment, bells or not, to fight 'em, if'n
the cap'n hadn't cried, ‘No, Dickon! Sarah!' and pointed, and he'd turned back and seen Sarah sagging almost like the cap'n, like they were both drunk, which he'd never seen, though he'd seen plenty of others so, including those who'd left him in the doorway two years before all cold for the cap'n to find.

He could only choose one, for now. And Coke had always taught him to look to ladies first. Being ‘gallant' is what he called it. So Dickon was gallant and went to catch Sarah just before she fell and had to hold her up and get her to the bed, even though his head still rung, even though the three officers were running his cap'n out the door now, though the one was not helping much but holding his hurt hand.

Sarah sagged onto the bed. He helped her as best he could. ‘Look up!' he called, alarmed at the fluttering of her eyes.

These steadied for a moment at his voice, and she stared up at him. ‘William?' she whispered.

He had been gallant. Now he had to go. He ran for the stairs.

She tried to rise. She wanted to follow, but her legs would not answer her will.

I am not a woman who faints, she thought, grinding her teeth, taking a deep breath and placing her hands beneath her. I am not.

She pushed. For a moment she hovered at the balance, neither up nor down. Then with an effort she stood. She was up, but she could not move, not yet. It took more breaths, more steeling, and when she walked it was more a lurch and she had to catch herself at the door. The stairs required still more time, more effort. It took too long for her to reach the street. Coke, the constables, Dickon, the Jew and the girl – all were gone. A man was staring
at her from the doorway opposite. ‘Did you see? A man? A prisoner? Which way?'

Her words came out jerky, on heaved breaths. But the man only shrugged before walking away, a smile on his broken face.

She did not know where to go. She did not have the strength to go if she did. She would need to rest and then set out. Sinking down onto the doorstep, she tried to steady her breathing, though that was so hard with her jerking thoughts.

What had just happened? Her husband of only a few hours, her lover. The man who had given her the child that so weakened her legs now. With another? His friend's young daughter? And she had screamed of ravishment. Sarah had heard her as she'd slowly climbed the stairs to a room that stank of fornication. With William and the girl half dressed within it.

None of it was possible. And yet?

Someone thought him guilty, else why were constables there? No. She would not, could not believe. Not until she looked him in the eyes. If she knew little enough about this man she'd married, at least she would know if he lied to her.

Determination steadied her. There was only one place a rapist would be taken in the city. Rising, she took the first shaky steps towards Newgate prison.

There was no purpose in attacking again. Dickon wasn't afeard; but even if he managed to free the cap'n from the constables, twist the other two's wrists as well, it didn't look like his guardian could run away fast enough, to escape the halloo that would follow. He was still sagging in the men's grip. Maybe they'd hit him before he'd been able to catch up. He'd pay 'em if they had.

At least they'd allowed him to put his clothes on. It was sad to see them, his wedding garb, new doublet and lawn shirt all askew, his fine brown breeches stained with something, his rich cloak showing the street filth it must have fallen into. At one point his silk scarf fell, unnoticed by any of the men. Dickon just beat an urchin to it and tucked it away into his own bright new breeches.

He followed, taking care that he was not seen. Along Watling Street, a roadway so old and narrow the houses' eaves appeared woven together and no daylight fell onto the dank cobbles, the party met another group of men coming the opposite way – eight men with cudgels who had others in their midst. Prisoners, Dickon thought, though these men were also dressed in Sunday finery as if they'd come straight from church.

Dickon slipped into a doorway to watch. All this ballyhoo, he might have a chance to cut his cap'n free of the mob. Truth to tell, Coke looked as if he was recovering, just a little. As the two groups met and overlapped, he stood a little straighter. And when Dickon gave a whistle, the same alert that they would use when they were about their work on the king's highway, he saw Coke turn his head.

Through the fog that still shrouded his mind, something pierced – a whistle he knew, alerting him to danger on the road. But of all the robberies he and Dickon had undertaken, he did not think they'd encountered any danger as great as this. For if he'd thought that being dragged to Newgate prison for a crime he knew he had not committed, while still trying to shake the last effects of the damnable drug they'd slipped into his wine, would be the ultimate horror, he was now learning that he was wrong.

For the leader of the group they'd merged with was passing the constable a flagon of rum to sip, while making a proposition. ‘Rape? What punishment is he going to get for that?' The man had skin that looked like it had come from a tannery, dark-hued by all weathers. Such teeth as he had flashed bright against it when he smiled. ‘Was she a looker at least?'

‘A peach,' replied one of the parish constables. ‘Jew's daughter, dark as sin.'

The other man laughed. ‘A Jewish peach? Now there's a fruit I wouldn't mind
pluc
king.' More men laughed too and his deep voice rose above it. ‘But there's yet another reason to listen to my offer,' he continued, waving the flagon back as the constable tried to return it. ‘We all know the Jews are still barely protected at law. This 'ere ravisher? A gentleman. They'll probably congratulate him on his fortune, pat his back, send him home.' He shook his head. ‘Don't seem right. So should we not show that all peoples get justice here in our realm? Sometimes we citizens have to see right done, right? Like we did for the good old cause.'

There were grunts of assent at this, as the rum flagon went around again, for they were all Parliament's men in the late wars. When it reached the leader of the constables once more, he swigged and said, ‘What is it you propose?'

The dark-faced man put his shoulders back. ‘See here. I am recruiting for His Majesty's Navy. These men –' he gestured at the four dressed as they would be for church, but who were shackled at wrist and whose faces bore the signs of both tears and ill usage, ‘are eager volunteers to fight against the Hogen Mogens, those dastardly Dutch what threaten our liberties. Yeah, even the liberties of the Jews in our midst.' He sucked his lips between his
ramshackle teeth. ‘Now I've a bet on with another petty officer that in one night of pressing I could bring back more than he to St Katharine's Dock. I know for a fact he only brung back four. So I am still one short.' He grinned. ‘So how's about you sell me you'rn, give the Jew justice, and the Hogens one more reason to fear.'

One of his subordinates pointed at Coke. ‘Bit old, ain't 'e?'

‘Wonder if the Jewess thought so?' The petty officer bent and shoved a coiled whip under the captain's chin, forcing his head up. ‘Nah. In his prime, I'd say.'

Coke had been slowly gathering himself. Whatever the drug had been that they'd given him a few hours before – five, he realised as a church bell tolled eight nearby now – still had a grip on him. He knew he could not fight even one of these men. He could not run. But at last his tongue was free again for him to talk. ‘Friends,' he said, straightening, ‘I am a victim of a foul plot. I am not –'

He got no further before hoots drowned him out. ‘Oh, I am sure that Delilah plotted your fall,' the petty officer said, then looked around. ‘Yes, “Delilah”. I am a Bible-read man. And I also remember this.' He cleared his throat, spat on the cobbles, stood straight. ‘ “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” Well, I am his weapon. His will be done,' he bent his face closer. Coke smelled rum, tobacco, foul teeth, ‘and you are coming with us.' He looked at the constable. ‘Subject to suitable recompense, of course.'

Coke thought of his father, dead these several decades. The last of a long speech of advice the old man had given him when he set out for war was this: ‘Be wary of drinking with strangers – and always keep a dagger in your boot.'

If I failed to heed you in the first, Father, he thought, I did not in the second. He bent, gripped and as he pulled the dagger clear gave the same whistle Dickon had given him: Be ready. Then he straightened and placed the blade against the nearest constable's throat. ‘You will all –'

It was as far as he got. The swarthy man hit him across the face with his whip, the coiled and tarred cords as solid as any wood. White exploded in Coke's eyes and he fell sideways, dropping the dagger, plunging back into the darkness he'd only just risen from. Words faded to mumbles above him. He was lifted and shackles were placed on his wrists. Then he was shoved into a stumbling walk. He was aware that they were moving back the way they had come. Aware of the river drawing nearer. Aware of a bird's whistle nearby that a bird did not make.

When he was thrown into a wherry, his face landed in a pool of stagnant water. He turned his head and gasped a breath; struggled to open his eyes, managed it only for a brief moment. But long enough to see a face he knew, wild-eyed beneath a thatch of corn-coloured hair. A cheer came, as someone slipped onto the bench above him and laid a hand upon his shoulder.

‘ 'S'aright, Cap'n,' Dickon whispered, as the boat moved out onto the choppy waters of the Thames, ‘I'm 'ere.'