The Ashes of London (33 page)

The crowd groaned. A man near me held up his hands, which were smeared with ash. He rubbed the ash in his greasy hair. Weeping, he rocked to and fro.

I cried as well.

Blood and ashes. Ashes and blood.

A
T THE COFFEE
house, all the talk was of the fire at Whitehall.

The long room was thronged, with customers constantly coming and going. Charing Cross was too close to the Horse Guards for comfort – only a few hundred yards down the road. There were rumours of yet another Catholic plot, of other fires and of armed Papists on the brink of a series of co-ordinated risings.

The mistress kept all the servants too busy to think of very much. Fire or no fire, there was money to be made from so many people, and what better than an endless flow of coffee to keep them alert and stimulate their mental faculties in such an anxious time?

Gradually the atmosphere changed as the news from Whitehall improved. Anxiety gave way to hope, and hope gave way to relief. By the end of the evening the fire was said to be quite extinguished. The mood in the coffee house became one of celebration, which proved equally profitable to the proprietors.

‘Good girl,’ the mistress said to Cat when she dismissed her for the night. ‘You’ve made yourself useful today. You shall have a holiday tomorrow.’

In Cat’s memory, the sun was always shining on Primrose Hill.

She had gone there with her father at least half a dozen times when she was a child. Master Lovett had been friendly with several gentlemen who had owned houses in this direction, particularly in the village of Hampstead to the north of Primrose Hill, where the air was reputed to be especially pure. One summer – 1656 or 1657? – when the plague had been particularly bad in the City, she had stayed with her mother at the Hampstead house of one of these gentlemen, a merchant who had shared her father’s religious principles.

Master Lovett had walked up to see them on Sundays, and sometimes in fine weather they would walk or ride through the countryside with him. Primrose Hill lay west of the road to London, near the tavern at Chalcot Farm. It was a wild and lonely place, for all it was so near to the high road and to London itself. It was used mainly for grazing cattle and pigs. There were few lanes, apart from muddy tracks used for driving livestock.

In the summer, Cat remembered, the pasture had been speckled with the bright yellow flowers of gorse, and there had been dense beds of bracken in which adders lurked. It had been, in its way, a sort of paradise, where she could run freely, without the constrictions and prohibitions that hedged her life in Bow Lane or in the houses of her father’s friends. It was also one of the few places where her father had briefly put aside his religion, his business and his politics.

As a child she had feared and respected him, more often than she loved him. But on Primrose Hill, at least, she remembered enjoying his company. He had become almost a child again, playing hide and seek in the bracken and telling her stories of his own childhood. She clung to the memory. It wasn’t much but it was something.

Primrose Hill was two or three miles out of town. On Saturday morning, Cat walked through familiar streets, following a zigzag course that took her north, away from the river. In Tottenham Court Road, she fell in with a family that were going in the same direction as she was. She was glad of the company. It was not safe for a woman to go alone, for the road was often lonely, even by day.

They parted company in the neighbourhood of Chalcot Farm. She watched them go with a pang of regret. The hill was such a desolate spot that an entire regiment of robbers could lurk there unseen. She found a stick in the hedgerow that would serve her as a staff and set out towards the summit.

The roofs of the farm retreated into the distance. Cattle stared incuriously at her. Four pigs, bent on destroying a field, ignored her altogether. There were no houses up here, only dilapidated shelters for livestock, built of wood and usually squeezed into the corners of the enclosures in which they stood.

Cat did not have a precise idea of the way. She followed whatever path or lane seemed most likely to bring her to higher ground. She met no one. Few people came here in the summer, and fewer still when the days shortened. Once she saw a man several hundred yards away, a farm labourer probably, in a field with cattle huddled against one of its boundaries. She kept her head down and hurried away.

The path she was following levelled out and came to a stile beside a field gate. She was here at last, at the highest point of Primrose Hill, or very close to it. She had been here last in the spring. There had been flowers growing, thousands of primroses especially, among the fresh green grass. All gone now. The grass was coarse, sodden and tussocky. The gorse was blackening as winter approached.

A skylark wheeled above her head, climbing sharply. She walked along the brow of the hill. The din of London had dropped away, and she felt a stab of nostalgia, not for Primrose Hill but for the huge, silent skies of Coldridge.

Automatically she turned to her left. Spread out before her was the great, green sweep that led the eye down to the roofs of London, over the silver ribbon of the Thames and towards the blue Surrey hills on the horizon.

The wind was from the north-east, and the smog that usually cloaked the city had cleared. From afar, London looked almost unchanged: the towers and steeples rose in their accustomed pattern above the streets, and in the middle of them all, towering over the City as it had for centuries, was the dark ridge of St Paul’s. She wondered what the view would look like in ten, twenty or thirty years if Dr Wren and Master Hakesby had their way and built a new cathedral, surrounded by a city of such classical elegance that it would rival Rome itself.

Cat’s eyes drifted closer, up the slope of the hill. No sign of Cousin Edward or the dogs. He might have changed his routine. But it was relatively early, and he had never been an early riser.

If it hadn’t been for the servant yesterday, the man who had jostled her at the oyster stall, she might not have come here. But she was sure she had not imagined that spark of recognition in his eyes, and equally sure that she had known his voice. It made her realize how vulnerable she was, even with her altered appearance. If the servant told Edward, if Edward knew she was still in London, and dressed as a serving maid …

She walked further round the hill to a point were the path skirted a ragged copse. She slipped among the trees and crouched in the shelter of a yew tree. She laid the knife on the ground beside her and pulled the grey cloak around her shoulders. She waited.

The sun had climbed higher.

Hooves clattered in the distance. Harnesses jingled.

The sounds grew nearer. Cat glimpsed a plumed hat on the path beyond the gate. Then another. Two riders came into view. Even in the distance, it was clear that they were gentlemen – the periwigs beneath the hats told her that, and the fashionable cut of their cloaks. The taller of the two was in the lead. He was riding a black horse. His cloak was flung back over his shoulders, and there was the line of a baldric across his chest.

An invisible dog barked, a deep, full-bellied sound. Then another dog, and a third and a fourth. She would have known the sound of them anywhere. Here were the great mastiffs of Barnabas Place: Thunder, Lion, Greedy and Bare-Arse, with a manservant to hold them. They were never muzzled when Edward rode out with them. He liked to show his power over them.

Two riders? She had not bargained for that.

They were now near enough for her to make out their faces. The servant and the dogs were still out of sight.

Edward had a black smudge on his face. Not a smudge: an eye patch. She had left her mark on him, just as he had left his mark on her.

Cat was trembling now. She did not know whether it was from fear or rage.

Behind her cousin rode Sir Denzil Croughton, plump as a partridge on a brown mare. Did they still believe that she was betrothed to him? She had hardly thought of him for weeks.

While these thoughts flickered through her mind, she heard the men’s voices by the gate, and Sir Denzil’s high-pitched laughter, almost a titter. Another sort of panic took her by the throat at the thought of being married to that man-doll.

At this point, her nerve failed her. She had come here in the hope that God would deliver her cousin into her hands, so that she might accomplish what she had begun in Barnabas Place all those weeks ago. She had hoped vaguely that Edward might step aside, perhaps to relieve himself, and that this would give her the chance she needed. Now, seeing him in person on his black horse, with Sir Denzil riding behind him as well as the servant on foot, she saw only the impossibility of achieving anything.

The party from Barnabas Place drew slowly closer. Sir Denzil paused and pointed with his whip at something in the city below. Edward dismounted and unstrapped a saddlebag.

At the sight of him, Cat’s hatred welled up, but so did her fear. She could not bear to be so close to him. And it wasn’t safe, either.

She stood up and edged behind the trunk of the yew. She retreated through the trees towards the far side of the copse. She could no longer see the dogs but they were giving tongue. They must have seen something or caught a scent, perhaps hers.

The trees gave way to hummocky turf and bramble bushes. The ground sloped toward an ill-kempt hedge that straggled along the line of the hill on its northern slope. She ran towards it.

The barking of the dogs became suddenly louder and more frantic. The men were shouting, even Sir Denzil.

‘Bare-Arse!’ Edward bellowed. ‘Come here, damn ye. Bare-Arse!’

Surely they would not have loosed the mastiffs?

The hedge loomed in front of her. Covering her head with her cloak, Cat dropped down to her hands and knees. She burrowed among the roots and branches of the hedge, struggling to find a way through. Thorns tore her skin.

The barking was louder still. One of them sounded much nearer than before. Bare-Arse, she thought, he’s found my scent and broken free. Dear Bare-Arse, go away.

Cat wriggled deeper into the hedgerow, which was several feet wide at this point. The ground was muddy and streaked with narrow puddles. Damp seeped through her dress and her shift to her bare skin. Her hands were smeared with dirt. She nosed towards the other side of the hedge. A bramble sucker wrapped itself around her shoulder where it met her neck, trapping her as securely as if it were a loop of rope. She wriggled more violently but it held firm.

The dogs were closer. So were the men. Hooves drummed on the turf.

She pulled out her knife, ripped it from its sheath, and attacked the sucker. Behind her there was a snapping of branches and a panting sound as a heavy body crashed into the other side of the hedge. Cat sawed with redoubled force. The blade nicked the skin of her neck. The sucker broke in two, and she was almost free. The cloak had caught on something in the hedge. She wrenched herself away, breaking the clasp that held it around her shoulders, leaving the cloak behind.

She crawled into the field beyond. There was a frenzied scrabbling behind her. Bare-Arse blundered after her, following the hole her body had made. It was a wonder and a misfortune that the leash did not snag on the hedge. He nudged and licked her, dribbling over her arm and her dress. Cat pushed him away but still he fawned around her, his leash trailing behind him.

The hooves were closer now.

She seized the leash.

Then it was too late. A horse and rider cleared the hedge a few yards from where she stood: the brown mare with Sir Denzil, pink-faced and open-mouthed, on its back. He caught sight of Cat and rode towards her, shouting at her to stop.

Bare-Arse tore the leash from her hand and launched himself, snarling, at Sir Denzil. The horse took fright and reared. Sir Denzil toppled from the saddle. The mastiff was upon him at once.

Cat snatched at the dog’s spiked collar. Bare-Arse reluctantly allowed her to haul him away from his victim. She looped the end of the leash around a sturdy ash sapling that had sprouted from the hedge. The riderless horse stood watching.

Sir Denzil lay motionless on the rough turf. His wig and hat had fallen off. Someone had lit a fire up here. His shaved head rested on a bed of damp ashes.

She bent down to Bare-Arse and hissed ‘Sit!’ in his ear. To her surprise, the dog licked her face and obeyed.

‘Good dog. Stay.’

The brown mare sidled down the slope of the hill, dipped her head and cropped the grass. Cat was aware on the edge of her mind that there were more drumming hooves, more baying mastiffs, more shouting men. But, just for a moment, nothing counted but herself and the man on the ground.

She stepped closer. His eyes were open, looking up at her. His expression changed. There was confusion in his face, chased away by dawning recognition. His right hand shot out and wrapped itself around her left wrist.

‘You,’ he said. ‘Catherine … But you’re in the – it can’t be.’ He dragged her down towards him. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

‘Let go, sir,’ she hissed.

She tried to wrench herself away but he was too strong, stronger than she would have thought possible. In a moment, Edward would be here.

Bare-Arse growled, showing his teeth. He tried to spring to her aid. The sapling bent but held firm.

She was still holding the knife. She jabbed it at Sir Denzil’s cheek. He reared towards her. The tip missed the face and snagged on the side of the neck. His mouth fell open. His eyes widened. Blue and startled, they stared up at her.

Panic filled her. Edward was coming, Edward would take her—

‘Let go,’ she whispered. ‘Pray, sir—’

Instead, the fingers tightened on her wrist. She dug the blade into Sir Denzil’s neck and twisted it. He fell back, shrieking, his grip loosening at last. She tore her wrist away.

A shining ball of blood appeared on his neck. It grew larger and burst, spurting into the ashes, pooling around his head in a red halo so bright it hurt the eyes.