Fire Catcher (18 page)

Chapter 49

‘You took this from Barbara Castlemaine’s apartments?’ Lucy Walter was turning the dun-coloured ball in her hand. ‘You’re sure?’

Monmouth nodded. He was taking in his mother’s appearance in shame. Lucy was tricked out in garish jewels, badly matched horsehair curls fixed to her head. Her wobbling bust was erupting from a tight-fitting magenta dress.

‘Lady Castlemaine keeps fireballs,’ added Monmouth. ‘For what purpose I know not.’

Lucy laughed delightedly. ‘Don’t you know what this is?’ She was pointing to a symbol stamped on the ball. It was a crown looped with knots.

Monmouth shook his head. ‘Amesbury showed me that symbol,’ he said, toying with his lacy cuffs. ‘He asked me to look for it. To report if I saw it. He told me it was the mark of a rebel faction.’

Monmouth curled his lip.

‘Can’t you find a proper hairdresser?’ he demanded. ‘Your false curls look ridiculous. I will be a laughing stock if you appear in court.’

Lucy’s eyes flashed hurt.

‘And your dress,’ he continued, gesturing at the low-cut neckline, ‘your jewels. They are not fitting. You are mother to a great man,’ he added, straightening his lace cuffs self-importantly. ‘You dress like a harlot.’

Lucy’s hand winged out and slapped his face. Monmouth reeled back in shock, touching his cheek. His eyes flashed fury and he raised his hand to retaliate. Then he noticed servants in the distance and pretended to be smoothing his hair.

‘How dare you!’ he hissed, his eyes sliding to the servants. ‘I am the son of a King.’

‘I am your mother,’ said Lucy, the fire in her countenance ebbing a little. ‘You must be careful how important you make yourself,’ she added. ‘Barbara has spies everywhere. She wants her children to be royal. Any excuse and she’ll have you tried as a traitor.’

‘You don’t know anything about Lady Castlemaine,’ said Monmouth. ‘We have a better understanding nowadays. She thinks me a force to be reckoned with,’ he added, smirking at the memory. Lady Castlemaine was in no doubt of Monmouth’s virility.

‘That’s what she wants you to think,’ sighed Lucy. She held the ball up.

‘What do you think the symbol means?’ asked Monmouth, looking at the crown and knots.

‘That is the sign of the Sealed Knot,’ said Lucy, furrowing her little brow. ‘They were brutish men who fought for the King.’ She gave a little shudder at the memory of heavyset, stinking soldiers arriving in Holland.

‘They hated me,’ Lucy added, in her usual habit of bringing the subject back to herself. ‘The Sealed Knot wanted to plan war with your father. In Holland. But he preferred me to their battle-talk.’ She smiled. ‘Charles courted me like a true lady.’

‘You were pregnant with me in Holland,’ said Monmouth, who often grew exasperated by his mother’s flagrant lies. ‘And you had other men.’

‘Oh well,’ Lucy gave a vague wave of her hand. ‘You know how things are. And Charles acknowledges you as his son. That’s the important thing.’

Her dark eyes were considering the symbol again.

‘You’ve not told Amesbury of this?’

‘Not yet, but . . .’

‘I’ll take this to him myself,’ said Lucy. ‘And you mustn’t talk of it. Amesbury has no business setting my son to spy.’

Chapter 50

Charlie and Lily stared. The corner of The Oracle’s cave was completely covered in tiny pictures of ships. There were hundreds and hundreds, sketched small and detailing the contents of the hulls.

They were far more comprehensible than the elaborate symbols which spidered over the rest of the cave. At least ten years of London’s shipping was detailed in miniature.

Charlie whistled. ‘I’ll wager even the Naval Office doesn’t keep such comprehensive records,’ he said.

‘From long ago,’ said The Oracle. ‘I would have scrubbed them out,’ he added, ‘but Wilkes says “no” and I must heed him.’

Charlie knelt by the pictures. The rough-drawn shapes made more sense to him than The Oracle’s crazed hatchings. There were signs he took to be emblematic of goods.

‘Barrels for brandy?’ suggested Lily, squatting down beside him.

‘Or port,’ said Charlie, looking at the shape. ‘They’re wide. Those are brandy,’ he added, pointing to some smaller-drawn kegs. ‘And those black powder.’

Charlie scanned down the column of symbols.

‘Pipes for tobacco,’ he decided, ‘feathers might be birds.’

‘There’s no sign to say which boat,’ said Lily. ‘No numbers. No letters.’

‘Nothing of which passengers might have sailed either,’ noted Charlie. ‘I suppose that’s a lesser concern to a smuggler.’

The Oracle gave an angry hiss.

‘Wilkes doesn’t like that word,’ he muttered.

‘How might we know which was the Mermaid?’ Lily asked, scanning the drawings.

‘I’ve no idea how a mind like that works,’ said The Oracle. He’d moved to the wall of the cave and began patting his symbols in a distracted rhythm. ‘There’s no order at all to the thinking. No order.’ He worried at the cut on his face, picked up a piece of chalk and made a flurry of new neat symbols on the wall.

Lily looked nervously at Charlie. They needed to work quickly.

‘Likely the ships are drawn in order of when they set sail,’ decided Charlie. He examined the sketches, letting his finger trace the outlines.

‘I think these ships sailed during the Civil War,’ he said. ‘Less goods, you see?’

Lily nodded.

The Oracle was crouched low now, the chalk poised in his hand. He stood, drew some more shapes, tapped the chalk and stood back. ‘Low tide,’ he muttered, his eyes twitching over the chalk markings. ‘Fingers. Cut.’

‘We should make haste,’ whispered Charlie to Lily, recognising the signs. ‘He’s becoming agitated. Things could get dangerous.’

‘These ships came afterwards,’ replied Lily, tracking down. ‘When trading was restored with Holland.’ Her slim fingers rested on a column of ten boats.

‘Here,’ said Charlie, moving forward. ‘That one.’

His hand rested on one of the larger ships.

‘This could be a mermaid.’

‘Strange kind of mermaid,’ said Lily peering at the picture. ‘Looks more like a sea monster.’

‘But see there and there?’ Charlie pointed to the other ships. ‘An eagle, a lady. They’re mastheads. None are well drawn.’

‘Your sea-monster ship carried few goods,’ admitted Lily, scrutinising the deck plan. ‘That would fit if it was a passenger ship. But it tells us nothing of who sailed in it.’

Charlie let out a little sigh of frustration. He had been hoping for some better clue.

The Oracle gave a sudden shout of frustration.

Lily looked up, startled, but he returned to muttering to himself.

Charlie shot him a quick glance. He didn’t know how long they had until Wilkes made an appearance.

‘Wool was shipped,’ he muttered, reassessing the image, ‘this looks to be a little gold.’

He stopped. There was a picture of a chest. It was drawn much larger than the other symbols and in more detail. Charlie recognised it instantly. An intricate banded locking mechanism had been sketched across the sides and top.

‘A chest . . .’ began Lily. Charlie caught her wrist to stop her speaking. But the Oracle’s sharp little blue eyes were already staring.

‘Some cargo trunk,’ said Charlie trying to sound nonchalant. ‘Could be anything.’

‘That is a trousseau,’ said the Oracle, beside them again now. ‘A locked wedding trunk.’

Chapter 51

The Oracle was looking at Charlie’s key. He licked his black lips. Charlie eyed him. The signs of Wilkes were more evident now. There was a cruel twist to the mouth.

‘Many valuable things in a wedding trunk,’ The Oracle was saying, twitching a strand of dark hair between pale fingers. ‘If there is one aboard a ship we try to record anything which would make it stand out. Even my foolish predecessor knew that.’

‘What are those?’ asked Lily. ‘She was pointing to a number of arrows which had been drawn under the deck of the ship.

Charlie switched his gaze across.

‘That is the sign of the broad arrow,’ he said, tapping the shapes thoughtfully.

Something odd struck him about it.

‘The broad arrow?’ asked Lily.

‘The broad arrow marks purchases for the country in the King’s money,’ supplied The Oracle. ‘Military goods, things of that nature. Likely there were weapons on the ship.’ His pale fingers had begun clenching and unclenching again.

‘But why would the broad arrow be drawn among the barrels and bales?’ Charlie puzzled out loud. ‘This was the year the King was beheaded,’ continued Charlie slowly. ‘There was no military property to be shipped.’

They were all silent contemplating this.

‘What property did the King still have, when his head rolled from the scaffold?’ said Charlie eventually.

‘Everything he had belonged to Parliament,’ said Lily. ‘Everything worth owning.’

Everything worth owning.

Charlie turned the problem over in his mind. What wasn’t worth owning at the end of the Civil War?

Suddenly he knew the answer.

‘Convicts.’ Charlie slapped the wall with his palm, sure now of the answer. ‘There were convicts on this ship.’

He turned to Lily.

‘Convicts are military property. Even after the war was won. Some were kept in ships because the prisons were overflowing.’

‘But this was a passenger ship,’ said Lily. ‘They would not have housed them there.’

‘Passenger ships took prisoners who weren’t dangerous,’ interjected The Oracle. ‘They kept them for a few voyages. Then returned and docked them in a London prison.’

Charlie looked at The Oracle’s clouded eyes uneasily. He was showing too much interest.

Lily looked at Charlie. ‘What does that tell us?’

He counted the arrows.

‘It tells us there were fifteen men who travelled on The Mermaid, who might still languish in a London dungeon,’ said Charlie.

‘It was seventeen years ago. They’ll be long dead.’

‘Likely most of them,’ admitted Charlie. ‘But a few might live still. Poor men imprisoned do not get out alive. They are taxed for the cost of their cells and food, and then held for their debt to the prison.’

‘We don’t know which prison holds them,’ said Lily.

Charlie chewed a finger. There were seven prisons in London, each with their own distinct character of felons.

‘There’s something different about these prisoners,’ he decided. ‘Some reason they were held at sea. They can’t have been very dangerous. A ship is not particularly secure. Why would you choose some men over others, for a watery gaol?’

‘Someone wanted them out of the way?’ said Lily. For the smallest of moments Charlie thought he saw something flash in her face. Did she know something she wasn’t telling?

‘Perhaps,’ said Charlie, hesitating. He blew out his cheeks in thought. ‘New Gate prison wasn’t built then,’ he began slowly. ‘The Clink is local. For those who commit crimes south of the river. Bridewell and Lud Gate are for debtors.’

He rubbed his forehead.

‘That leaves the Fleet and Marshalsea on Borough.’

‘And the Tower,’ suggested Lily.

‘That’s for prisoners of great importance,’ said Charlie. ‘Not those who have been stowed on a ship for want of a place.’

His finger traced the shape of the arrows. Fifteen men, at the end of the war. Which small groups were captured at such a time?

‘They are almost certainly all dead,’ Lily was muttering.

‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. In any case it is all we have,’ said Charlie. He straightened thoughtfully. ‘The Fleet’s nearer the Thames,’ he said. ‘That’s the most likely. And you have friends there,’ he added meaningfully.

‘It’s already burned,’ said Lily. ‘You heard what the guards said.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Charlie. ‘There’s a chance.’

‘Even if it still stands, it would be right in the heart of the blaze,’ protested Lily.

‘You can’t get to the Fleet,’ said the Oracle.

‘I can get us through fire,’ said Charlie. ‘So long as the wind stays to the north.’

‘Oh, I speak nothing of the fire,’ said the Oracle.

His dry voice had deepened. The cloudy eyes had a hard brightness in their depths now, like flinty diamonds.

Charlie’s stomach twisted. They’d left it too late.

‘Wilkes is here now,’ said The Oracle. ‘You can’t tell an old smuggler of treasure and expect to leave with your throat uncut.’

Chapter 52

The King was drunk. He called for more wine.

At the head of the barge three women in petticoats wrestled. The shortest, a dark-haired actress, faked a magnificent fall, rolling full across the little stage with her naked legs flying.

Charles sat up a little at the tantalising flashes between plump white thighs.

Barbara Castlemaine raised an eyebrow. ‘I think she’s cut her hair,’ she observed gaily.

The King leaned back in his chair and raised a ringed finger. Instantly a servant appeared with a jewelled decanter of wine. He filled the King’s goblet then turned to pour for Barbara, who shook her head.

‘Sweetmeats?’ suggested the servant. ‘There are fresh candied nuts, marchpane fruits . . .’

Barbara gave him a dazzling smile. The servant caught her meaning immediately and retreated.

Smoke could be seen high above London in the distance. They were gliding past the large granaries at Scotland Yard.

‘Why don’t they use carts?’ asked Barbara as stoic-faced men shovelled grain and shouldered sacks away.

‘No carts left in the city,’ said Amesbury. ‘Not unless you’ve gold to transport.’

The dark-haired actress had come to sitting at an impressively dexterous angle, her legs splayed in front, body folded forward to conceal her upper thighs.

‘I think her name is Nell Gwynn,’ said Barbara, resting a hand on Charles’s thigh. ‘I could send for her to join us in the back of the barge.’

She gestured to where a little private tent had been constructed.

‘Is she new to the company?’ asked Charles.

Barbara considered. ‘I’m not certain. Perhaps I remember her from some comedy or other.’

Noticing the attention she was attracting, Nell stood and bowed.

‘We heard Your Majesty had his long hair shaved,’ she announced. ‘And so in His honour, I did the same.’ She made a swooping gesture across her groin. ‘God’s truth I like it better,’ she continued in a theatrical voice. ‘For with this Great Fire I enjoy the extra breeze.’

Charles’s smile fell away a little. The smoke on the horizon seemed to glower at him. He finished his wine in one draft.

The granary workers had seen the Royal Barge and they stopped to watch. A sound came, but whether a cheer or a jeer Charles couldn’t be certain. He stood and waved.

A cheer, he was sure of it. Instantly Barbara was at his side.

‘See how they love their King?’ she said. ‘It does them good to see England’s Majesty.’

They passed the curve in the river and a horrified hush fell over the barge.

‘The riverfront . . .’ Charles couldn’t believe it. ‘It’s completely destroyed.’

‘No colours but black,’ agreed Amesbury grimly. He eyed the single shade, stretching on and on up the river.

‘Here were the fine wharfs full of trading stock,’ said the King, his voice cracking. ‘And here was once a church. Many churches. I never . . .’ He stopped to rest his forehead in his hands. ‘I had it from the Mayor that the fire would be under control. That buildings would be pulled down,’ he managed. There were tears in his eyes.

‘They do now pull them down, Your Majesty, but they cannot do it fast enough,’ supplied Amesbury. ‘And now the great masses flee for their lives and think no longer to save their city.’