Fire Catcher (29 page)

Chapter 91

Something was happening with the weather. Blackstone could sense it. The boy, Jacob, had told him of the approaching fire. Plans to clear the house had been brought forward. In the meantime he was securing a cart.

Fire was coming sooner than he’d thought. He felt a sudden flash of . . . Was it fear? It was unthinkable Teresa be burned in the ignominy of a house fire. Blackstone needed a cart.

Blackstone had chosen where he would surrender his wife forever. High and glorious, the fire would be Teresa’s holy revenge.

Fire will purge all.

His wife’s soul would be cleansed as London fell. It was perfect.

The crush of carts at Ald Gate was perilous. Blackstone drew his sword and a document bearing the Royal Seal. He approached the owner of a large cart entering the city. It was already beset by well-dressed servants trying to secure it for their various households.

‘Palace authority,’ said Blackstone grandly, holding up the paper. ‘Whatever your highest offer, I will double it.’

The driver looked down at him. He was a country farmer still wearing his battered straw hat and working breeches.

‘Thirty pounds,’ he said slowly, ‘is the highest.’

‘Sixty then,’ said Blackstone quickly, brandishing the Royal Seal again. The cart owner spurred his horse and the servants fell back, looking murderously to Blackstone.

‘What goods do you take?’ asked the driver.

‘My household,’ said Blackstone. ‘Private things. Some are already safe in Guildhall. But some must be kept away from prying eyes.’

The country cart driver gave a humourless laugh.

‘That’s London ways,’ he said. ‘Many thieves.’

Blackstone was mentally mapping his house. Important furnishings had been cleared in preparation. But he had a sudden powerful instinct that Teresa’s wedding trunk should be kept safe. He thought it had been left empty in an upstairs bedroom. Ready to be taken with his other household goods to Guildhall.

The feeling spiralled away, replaced by a memory. A different trunk. Another time.

Hidden papers.

Blackstone never meant to steal the papers. He’d only meant to look at them. To imagine owning the secret. Perhaps fantasise of buying back his family’s estate. Living in plenty again.

He’d been surprised at how badly they’d been hidden. Not even under lock and key. Concealed in a trunk of silly women’s things. Poppets and ribbons. Luck charms and love talismans.

Then he’d seen a flash of pewter. Tobias and Sally Oakley, etched inexpertly in a heart. A wedding tankard.

Black rage had tunnelled through him. Teresa’s dowry funded the war. But it seemed Tobias had married secretly, forgetting his obligations to fund the cause with an heiress. A love match with Lucy Walter’s humble maid. No one had suspected. What man looked at Sally, when Lucy was near?

Realisation of the betrayal had destroyed Blackstone’s last loyalty to the Brotherhood. Tobias hadn’t fulfilled his duties. Blackstone had been starved, tortured and impoverished, whilst Tobias married for love. He imagined Tobias and Sally laughing at him. Mocking his life of poverty and miscarriage with a madwoman, whilst they bore healthy sons.

Even Torr had broken their vow of loyalty, keeping secrets with mystics and deriding the true faith. The Brotherhood of the Sealed Knot had all been a lie.

Blackstone had snatched up the papers, determined never again to believe in friendship.

None of them knew what Blackstone was truly capable of. What he’d been before the war. He and Teresa had made the marriage. The papers should belong to him. It was his time now. He’d finally find out what true power really meant. And take revenge on all those who’d been disloyal.

The cart was veering left now, keeping to the wider streets.

‘This way,’ said Blackstone, leading him through the smaller winding alleys of Ald Gate. They turned deeper into the backstreets, until the horse began to refuse.

‘I won’t get through,’ protested the cart owner, as his vehicle began dragging at the sides of timber buildings. ‘My horse is old. She’ll bolt.’

But before he could utter another protest, Blackstone had driven a sword into his chest. The country man choked, staring down in utter shock before pitching forward. Blackstone dragged his body inside a deserted house and took possession of the cart.

It was such a shame, he thought, looking at the Royal Seal, that it had come to this. He’d been brought up loyal to the Crown.

As part of the Sealed Knot, he’d helped Charles escape England to the Continent whilst his father the King was beheaded. Hiding in cellars and priest-holes the young Charles had been exceptionally brave. But when the Brotherhood met him again in Holland. What a difference. The boy-Prince had become an adolescent debauchee, concerned only with girls and wine. They’d tried to talk war, whilst Charles’s eye roved to pretty girls.

Then quite unexpectedly, Charles had approached Blackstone privately. He’d asked him to do the unthinkable. And Blackstone, blinded by the possibility of a future King’s gratitude, had betrayed his Brotherhood. But now Blackstone knew. He knew what the word of Charles Stuart was worth.

Chapter 92

Bedlam was like stepping into a portal of hell.

‘They’ve got out,’ breathed Lily. ‘They’re out of their cells.’

The wide corridor of the asylum bore seven large doors. One was wide open. Scrawny ulcerated men loped on the straw-strewn floor, some on all fours, others dragging stumps of legs. They were shaven-headed, their scalps covered in welts and sores. Their clothing bore decades of soiling.

Other doors were still bolted. Behind the nearest, champing at the bars, was a wild-eyed woman. She was banging her shaven head and paused every few seconds before issuing a banshee shriek. Behind her was a man with a grossly swollen neck, his eyes almost bursting from the sockets. He was counting frantically, slapping a beat to the floor.

Charlie surveyed the asylum, urging his breathing to calm. The lunatics, though wild, didn’t seem aggressive. They’d cowered and cringed away when the door opened.

He made an assessment of the seven doors. They were looking for a lunatic who’d been here a long time. Charlie’s eyes roved the escaped maniacs, then the nearest cell. None in the first two cells seemed particularly old, but it was difficult to see from the corridor. Perhaps further back into the madhouse. His gaze switched to the other rooms. Closed doors. Inhuman cries and guttural grunts. Smoke was filling the back of the prison.

‘We should find a Bedlam physician,’ said Charlie, thinking they needed to move fast.

‘They’ve long gone,’ said Lily. ‘Maybe one of these cells is for religious types,’ she added. She was looking warily at the madmen. But after an initial surge of interest in the newcomers, Bedlam’s escaped occupants seemed to be amusing themselves.

‘Dissenters,’ she added, ‘Baptists, Quakers, Ranters, Levellers. Perhaps they were put in a secret cell?’ Lily was pointing to the back, where some smaller dark doors were ranged.

‘Those rooms are treatment cells,’ said Charlie. ‘All the maniacs are housed here.’ He considered. ‘We’ll take a good look in each cell,’ he decided. ‘Move through systematically. Perhaps there’s even someone sane enough to talk to us.’

They approached the first door. The sewage stink of the Fleet mingled with the oncoming smoke.

‘You said the fire goes to Whitehall?’ asked Charlie as they stepped towards the first cell grating.

Lily nodded.

‘I think so too,’ said Charlie. ‘Blackstone moves the flames by firing guilds. Fire shouldn’t be moving west so quickly,’ he added. ‘Even with the high wind.’

He moved forward to peer through the grating of the cell door. A ghostly face with livid bloody lips appeared suddenly at the bars. Charlie moved back, pushing Lily behind him. The face at the cell gave a ghoulish smile and fell away. Charlie approached the grating again, his heart pounding.

The red-lipped ghost had retreated to a corner. He knelt and began smearing himself with matter from a dark pile. Another man crawled to join him.

‘Too recent,’ Charlie decided, surveying the occupants. A man who moaned and scratched himself looked directly at them. ‘These are too young,’ said Charlie.

‘They don’t look young,’ whispered Lily, her face haunted.

‘Many start life in the Foundling Home,’ said Charlie grimly. ‘That place makes boys old or dead quickly. Mostly dead,’ he added.

‘You were a Foundling,’ said Lily, staring at the raving men. ‘You lived.’

‘I had someone to survive for,’ said Charlie. ‘My brother Rowan. I had to keep him fed.’

‘You said he was your older brother,’ said Lily, confused.

‘Age doesn’t matter. It’s who gives up first,’ said Charlie. He had a sudden memory of Rowan, pale and starving, asking if the game was over yet.

Lily was staring at an assortment of gruesome-looking tools.

‘What do they do to them?’ she asked, appalled.

‘Each cell is owned by a different physician,’ said Charlie. ‘They try different things. Most believe that whips and chains help. Some think worse is needed.’

Charlie was eyeing a bubbling barrel of pitch next to the wicked-looking tools.

He moved back from the door, raised his hammer and shattered the bolt.

‘What are you doing!’ cried Lily as the sounds inside rose in terrible chorus.

‘They’ll not harm us,’ said Charlie, throwing back the door. ‘At least I hope not,’ he added. Several of the lunatics had thrown themselves to the ground, gibbering. He left the door wide and moved to the second of the seven cells.

They could hear the roar of the flames now. Bedlam was catching alight.

Women populated the second cell. Old whores by the look of them. Some toothless and prattling, others shouting. One had her skirts raised and was chasing a mangy chicken.

Charlie raised the hammer and smashed it down. When he turned back to Lily she had frozen to the spot. Then he saw she was pointing at a pool of blood.

It was enormous, fanning out wide along the passage. He drew back his bare feet.

‘Looks like we’ve found our man,’ Charlie murmured, looking at the bleeding figure before them.

Chapter 93

Jacob and Enoch made it to within a quarter of a mile of Blackstone’s house. It was obvious to both that Enoch was dying.

Then they saw the flames.

‘It’s come faster than Blackstone planned,’ said Jacob, shifting the weight of his half-conscious friend.

Enoch’s eyes fluttered. ‘Leave me,’ he said.

‘No.’

‘Master Blackstone goes to the Palace,’ gasped Enoch. ‘Go to him. Tell him his house is in the path of the fire.’

Jacob hesitated.

‘If you don’t,’ managed Enoch, ‘Blackstone will find you and gut you.’

Jacob was biting his lip.

‘Don’t sacrifice yourself for me,’ urged Enoch. ‘Isn’t that our creed? In St Giles? I can get to the cellar without you.’ Enoch breathed hard and righted himself. Jacob could see how much it pained him to do it.

‘I’ll get the Elixir,’ said Enoch. ‘Go to Blackstone.’ He managed a crooked smile. ‘Save both our skins.’

Jacob let out a breath. ‘Breed not birth right,’ he said, sounding the guildhall motto they’d learned as apprentice boys. ‘I’ll be back for you.’

‘Work with honour,’ said Enoch, through gritted teeth, ‘and keep our word.’

Jacob nodded and sprinted off, leaving Enoch to make the distance alone. The pain was bad enough to make him crawl. But he dragged himself over the threshold of Blackstone’s large half-timbered house.

The entrance to the cellar was ahead. A trapdoor. He crawled to the opening knowing he didn’t have the strength to break a lock. But he found it opened easily.

A terrible smell wafted up. Enoch felt his mind swim with the pain. He manoeuvred his body on to the ladder. Partway on, he realised he couldn’t do it. His injuries were too great. Then something lunged into the ladder. His grip jerked free and he pitched down into the dark.

Enoch lay sweating on the floor of Blackstone’s cellar. The pain had been too much. He’d fainted. There was a noise he couldn’t understand. Loud and terrible. Something brushed past his face and he recoiled.

His chest had settled to a heavy heat now. It blazed. But the worst had abated. Deep down Enoch thought he knew why. There was nothing left to burn.

Something flapped against him and he started. A harsh screech sounded.

Then Enoch realised.

A bird. He keeps a bird down here.

He wanted to laugh at his own foolishness. So Blackstone kept a rook or a raven. Squawking and large, but not ghostly or ghoulish. Enoch heard the bird hop away. He groped a hand weakly in the dark. His fingers touched a cold dirt floor.

Suddenly he was wracked with an agonising surge of heat. He gasped, contorting in pain. The Bringer of Death. It was still working on his body.

In the light of the open trapdoor his eyes were adjusting. Enoch was seeing things. Feverish horrors. An old woman in a green dress. A crown of leaves on her head. She was propped in a seated position, her head slumped. There was a dark space where her heart should have been.

He was cold now. A fierce prickling kind of cold. Enoch lay shivering. Parts of his body were numb, floating away.

Then he heard it. The unmistakable sound of a person breathing in the dark.

Enoch managed to twist his head and saw her. Blackstone’s wife. Her long hair was white. And her eyes . . . She had eyes that rotted the soul.

The breathing was faster now, as though she were excited.

Enoch’s chest contracted for the last time. And a chill moan of horror was the last sound he ever made.