Angel of Ruin (39 page)

“No, ’Tis no longer possible. Simmons has deposited it somewhere for safekeeping until the fire is out, and I shall never tell you where. So you may forget whatever wicked plans you had, for I have won this battle.”

Mary stomped and let out a shriek. “I
hate
you.”

“I care not,” Deborah said.

“But the angel —”

“I care not a speck for Lazodeus,” Deborah cut in. “So save your tantrums.”

She swept past and went up to her closet, heard Mary and Anne arguing quietly on the stairs. The window was open and she went to it to take some deep breaths of air. All she could smell was smoke.

“It
is
up to you, Annie. I’ve not slept for thinking about it, and I’ve decided it is the only way we can find out where it is.”

Anne grimaced against the suggestion. “But I am so very bad at deception. Father will see right through me, and then he’ll be alert to us. Better if you do it.”

“No, Anne. I cannot impersonate Deborah. My voice is too loud and clipped. You sound much more like her, if you just spoke confidently. He is not used to your voice, for you hardly ever speak. But our secret weapon is your walk, for Father does not know that your limp is vanished. If you walk into his study confidently and speak to him, he will never suspect it is you. I know he won’t.”

Anne regarded her sister. Mary sounded desperate, and certainly desperation was weighing upon them
both heavily. Monday had passed by them with a solution still not apparent, and now scarce twelve hours remained for them to save Lazodeus from imprisonment. The city was in such chaos that all Mary’s attempts to glean information about possible places the manuscript could be were foiled. Much time had been wasted in trying to contact Mary’s rich suitors, who had all wisely vacated the city. “I want very much to believe that I can do this,” Anne said.

“You can. You
can.
For Lazodeus.”

For Lazodeus. For a chance to see him again. Anne nodded. “Yes, I will. Where is Deborah?”

“In the kitchen. We will be eating nothing but her mutton soup until Liza comes home.” Mary grasped Anne’s fingers. “Now, be careful not to touch him, not to take his hand.”

Anne shuddered. “I wouldn’t.”

“And be careful how you word your questions. You are not to ask outright, for then he will suspect. For Deborah would not ask, as she already knows.”

Anne felt her confidence waver. “I really don’t —”

“You can do it, and I trust you. Lazodeus’s hopes of being freed from prison rest upon it.”

Anne smiled bitterly. Neither of them were desperate for Lazodeus’s sake. An eternal being such as the angel probably felt the passing of a century in an eyeblink. It was for their own sakes, for the possibility of continuing to see him. But neither of them discussed what may happen when he returned, their rivalry for his attention. “I shall do my best, sister.”

“Remember the pretence I suggested.”

“I will. You go to the kitchen and make sure Deborah is occupied.”

They descended the staircase together, branching off at the bottom. Anne stood for a moment near the entry to Father’s study, then took a deep breath and strode
in. He looked up, and she could see the puzzled expression on his face. He could not tell which of his daughters stood before him, as Mary had suggested.

“It is Deborah, Father,” she said, all the while hearing her voice and knowing she sounded nothing like Deborah.

“Deborah? You sound strange.”

Anne’s heart froze. What to do? What would Mary do? “Yes, Father, for I am most upset and it is hard for me to keep my voice steady.”

“About what are you upset?”

“I dozed just now, and had a most upsetting dream.”

“Ah. One should not doze in the day, for the dreams are too close to the surface and may cling to one for the rest of the afternoon.” He nodded, and Anne was almost overwhelmed at the affectionate voice he used. Was this how Deborah perceived Father? A man who listened and offered advice? “Still, it was only a dream.”

“But, Father, it was awful. The fire had wings and it burned your poem. All that work we did —”

“A dream, Deborah,” he said more firmly.

Anne wanted to run out. She had no idea how to draw him further, to get him to mention the manuscript’s hiding place. “You do believe, then, that it will be safe where it is stored?”

“Of course. For what can burn through stone?”

Stone. It was in a building made of stone. Her mind raced through the possibilities. A church? A public building? Too many options. “Are you sure that it is all made of stone, Father?” she ventured.

“You speak as though you never set eyes on St Paul’s, Deborah. You know it is.”

St Paul’s. The warm relief was like thick liquid in her limbs. The manuscript was at St Paul’s.

“Yes, Father,” she said, almost forgetting to check her voice.

“So you are not to be concerned.”

“Yes, of course. Forget that I came to speak with you, for now I am embarrassed for my feebleness.” There, that sounded like something Deborah would say, and Father seemed to be convinced. “I shall see you at dinner,” she said, backing out of the room.

Father did not reply. She raced to the kitchen. Mary had her back to the door, was trying to talk to a scowling Deborah as she chopped vegetables at the table. They both looked up as Anne came in, and she realised she was too excited. Deborah would deduce something was going on.

“Annie?” Mary asked.

“What’s all this about?” Deborah said.

Anne smiled, and it was a smile of triumph. She could not remember ever having smiled like that before. “Nothing,” she said. “Absolutely nothing.”

A
nne and Mary fought their way down towards Cripplegate, through a steady stream of people. Some had carts laden with expensive furniture, and some carried overstuffed trunks between them, clothes trailing out behind. Some, the poorest, carried what they could: a child under one arm and a cast-iron pot under the other, or a yowling cat in a box, or a bundle of rags which may have been a collection of favourite dresses. All of them were exhausted and harried. They were smudged with soot and running with perspiration, and three of them individually yelled out to the girls that they were going in the wrong direction.

“Idiots,” Mary said, “what do they know about what we’re doing?”

Anne still wasn’t sure what they were doing. It was one thing to find out that the manuscript was in St Paul’s, but another altogether to go running down there while a fire raged inside the city walls. The wind had picked up: mighty gusts snapped twigs from trees and threatened branches. Just before sunset they had heard word that the fire had spread along the river all the way to the Temple, that Fleet Street had been
gutted and the fire had broken through the wall at Ludgate. But Paul’s, the pedlar had told them, had held up.

“’Tis a miracle,” he had said, much to Mary’s irritation.

“But Mary,” Anne had said when her sister had come to drag her out just after twilight, “is it safe to go so close to the fire?”

“We have no choice. What if we wait until it is safe and midnight has passed?”

What if, indeed? Anne clutched Mary’s hand now as they fought against the tide. It was an incredible thing to learn about herself, that she would risk her life for love. She tried to savour the pride, but the press of the crowd and the growing heat were of more immediate concern.

“There!” Mary called over the voices, the hooves, the rattling wheels and the ever-present background noise of the crashing, popping fire. “I can see the gate.” She pulled Anne’s hand and they dived through the crowd, only to be pulled up short by an armed foot soldier.

“Where are you going, ladies?”

Mary, always ready to lie, grabbed his wrist. “Our mother is in there, sir. We must get to her.”

He shook his head firmly. “I’m sorry, I cannot let you enter. It is a furnace in there. Neither of you would survive.”

“Is Paul’s all burned?” Anne asked, wondering if she sounded hopeful.

“Not yet, though the scaffold on the front caught fire this afternoon. Provided the wind becomes no stronger, it should be safe.”

Mary yanked Anne’s hand and they were moving once again, but this time along the outside of the wall. Mary’s hair was uncharacteristically loose, wild and
long about her shoulders. She looked the part of Mad Mary this evening.

“Where are we going?”

“To Mooregate. There’s no firepost there.”

“But didn’t you hear him? We’ll be burned alive.”

“We’ll follow the fire, where it has already burned, where there is no more fuel to feed its flames. Paul’s is out in the open, we can still get to it.”

“Mary —”

“Stop whining and stay by me.”

Anne put her head down and followed. Risking her life for love.

Father was anxious. He hadn’t said so, of course, but his body betrayed his feelings. His fingers tapped. His jaw was tight. He was pale around the eyes. Deborah doubted he was concerned about Mary and Anne, who had disappeared around sunset. He assumed, like her, that they had gone up to the top of the hill to watch the fire. No, his concern was for the proximity of the flames.

The bells of alarm had grown nearer and nearer all day, and since the fire had burst through the wall at Ludgate, there was no guarantee that it would not also burn through Cripplegate and roar up Grub Street towards the Artillery grounds. Already, the park at the bottom of the Walk was filled with newly homeless people, their fancy furniture set up around them. Smoke gusted occasionally up the Walk outside, dark flakes of ash scattering ahead of it. Deborah had been to the top of the hill to look down over the city, and all she had seen was a pall of orange smoke. The heat was growing unbearable, and the crashing, banging clatter of the buildings succumbing to the fire, just a few miles south, had exposed her nerves. Still, she sat with Father, reading to him to keep him calm, and wondering how
soon the bells at St Giles would ring, telling them it was time to pack up their possessions and flee.

“Enough!” Father said, as Deborah struggled to read on in the dim candlelight. “We shall wait for your sisters to return, then sup, and then sleep. By morning, we shall know if we are safe.”

Deborah closed the book. “Can I get you anything, Father? Ale? Bread?”

“I shall be well enough until supper. I do not need to be watched like a child, Deborah. Have you no chores to do?”

Deborah stood. “Yes, Father, of course.” She knew his anxiety was making him irritable, that he was embarrassed for his neediness, for his cursed blindness which meant that he could not fend for himself when fire threatened his life, and she didn’t take his gruffness personally. Instead, she went up to the withdrawing room to light a candle and find some sewing to occupy her until Mary and Anne returned.

She had just turned her back on the candle and reached for Betty’s sewing box when she felt that she was no longer in the room alone. The light had changed subtly, and she was not surprised to find the angel there when she turned around.

“What do you want?” she asked, placing her palm gently across her forehead.

“To earn your trust.”

She shook her head. “My trust? Are you in jest?”

“What you heard and saw in the mirror is not the whole story. You cannot know my motives.”

“Your motives have always been clear: you intend to lead the three of us into sin and you have done well so far with two of us. You shall not win me over, Lazodeus.”

“I shall, for I know how important your Father’s poem is to you.”

Her interest was aroused. What did he know about Father’s poem?

“What about it?”

“He has worked on it for decades. It is his crowning achievement, and only a single copy remains.”

She steeled herself. “What about it?” she said again.

“Your sisters want to destroy it because you made changes to my story.”

“That’s right, because you had no right to interfere with my father’s imagination.”

He shook his head. “That feud is behind us. This is far more important. They know that the manuscript is at St Paul’s. They are at this moment on their way to burn it.”

Deborah felt the overwhelming burden of responsibility drop once more upon her shoulders. “No, they cannot be. It is too dangerous to go to the city.”

“They are determined. I tried to convince them not to, but …”

Deborah narrowed her eyes at him. “How can I trust you?”

“Because I am telling you this, and not keeping it from you. I have nothing to benefit from saving the manuscript.”

“Perhaps your benefit is to see me burned to death in the city.”

“Your sisters have been gone for an hour. Do you really believe they are still watching the fire from the hill?”

Deborah groaned. “This is all too much. Why have you come between us?”

“I have been allowed by the three of you to come between you. I have done nothing.”

“You are not blameless, Lazodeus.”

He raised his hands in the air. “I came to win your trust. If you do not listen to me and your sisters ensure
the manuscript is burned, then perhaps you will realise how prejudiced you have become.”

Deborah’s mind ticked over the problem. “Give me something to trust you with.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want a talisman to protect me from the fire.”

He smiled. “Clever girl.”

“Can you do it?”

He rubbed his hands together and then opened them. “Here, nothing may burn you while you wear this.” He offered her a gold chain, with a fine gold circle on the end.

She took it from him with her free hand. “I shall test it ere I trust you.”

He nodded. “As you wish.”

She strode to the candle, gingerly reached out to the wick. She felt no bite of heat. With a quick movement, she passed her fingers through the flame. Nothing. She almost laughed.

“Are you satisfied?”

“I would be more satisfied if you had given these to every poor citizen of London who has so far perished in this blaze.”

His smile faded. “Must you always be so pious, Deborah? Am I not serving you with a great favour?”

“That I still do not know,” she replied. “But nevertheless, it appears I am to go to St Paul’s this evening.”

“And when you see, Deborah, that I mean you no harm, will you perhaps reconsider your feelings for me?”

She met his gaze evenly. He was so very beautiful that she found it difficult not to like him, merely for the magnetism of his face. “I shall consider that, angel, when I return whole and with Father’s manuscript in my arms.”

“If you see your sisters, do not mention that I sent you,” he said urgently. “I am avoiding them at the moment, trying to wean them from their devotion to me.”

“I doubt my sisters would believe a word I said on any topic related to you, Lazodeus. They know we are enemies.”

He smiled. “Prejudice is unbecoming in one so young, but you shall learn to trust me. You shall.” He vanished and Deborah stood for a moment in the sitting room, planning her lie to Father.

She was at the threshold of the front door before she said a word to him. With a light, “I’m going to find Mary and Anne,” she stepped out into the street.

“Be careful,” he called and she noticed his voice trembled a little. How could she leave him alone on such a night? She paused. He had to have some small comfort. She remembered Max cowering under the kitchen table and went to fetch him. “Come, little fellow,” she said, grabbing him and delivering him to Father’s lap. Father frowned.

“What is this?”

“Max is frightened, Father, and Mary is not home. Would you be kind to him?”

Father stroked the little dog’s ears, and Max licked his fingers gratefully. “I suppose I can comfort him if he’s frightened.”

Deborah touched Max’s head lightly then turned to go. “I won’t be gone long, Father,” she said. “I promise you.”

It was all a great adventure. Anne, of course, looked like she would be sick from fright at any moment, but Mary was enjoying every second.

First they’d had to fight their way down to Mooregate. Moore Fields was packed with people and
their possessions, and a steady stream of sooty faces emerged from the gate. Mary had dragged Anne down through the crowd and into the burning city.

They were hours behind the fire. Mary had never seen such a mess, never smelled such a burning, choking smell. They tied their kerchiefs around their faces, but Anne coughed like she might swoon from it. If the wind had not been driving the smoke so hard up into the sky, she may very well have choked to death. The heat of the smouldering buildings was enough to singe their hair, and even the soles of Mary’s shoes began to grow tacky. Some buildings were still on fire, but most were blackened heaps of rubbish. Here and there, they saw a man or a woman squatting near one of the heaps, moaning or crying in distress. It was a scene from a nightmare. The wind gusted up periodically, swirling great funnels of ash and embers around them. One spark had caught on Anne’s skirt and burned the hem, but it was soon put out. The wind drove it all in front of them, leading their way down to Cornhill, or what was left of it. They stuck to the middle of the cobbled street. Unidentifiable heaps of burning wood clustered around the sides of the road. The blackened shell of a church sheltered a crying child from the wind. Everywhere there were people, running in all directions, pressing their possessions to their bodies. There was no longer a cart or carriage to be had anywhere within the walls. Night had set in more than an hour ago, but all was lit up in a hellish light. The glow grew stronger the further they advanced down Cornhill, towards the epicentre of the fire.

“I shall choke to death,” Anne said.

“Nonsense. The fire is blown all the way to the Temple by now.”

“It seems we draw closer.”

“Can you not see? This is where the fire has been. The wind drives strongly to the west and north. We are
behind the fire front. The foot soldier at Cripplegate said the fire has already been to Paul’s.”

Anne blinked back at her in the firelight. Her dark eyes were round and glistening. “I am so frightened,” she breathed.

Her sincerity bit through Mary’s impatience. Mary pulled her sister to her and hugged her tight. “We are nearly there. We are almost on Cheapside.”

“You are enjoying this,” Anne said, bewildered.

Mary closed her eyes and listened. The crackling of the fire everywhere, the far away sounds of cracking timber and collapsing rooves, the endless cries of the people who ran past them. “’Tis an adventure, Annie. Do you not think it a thrilling adventure?” she said, opening her eyes.

“We started this fire. People have surely perished.”

Mary tried to brush a piece of soot from Anne’s cheek, but only succeeded in smudging it further. She noticed her own hands were black. “An accident, Anne.”

“We started it on purpose.”

“But its spread was accidental. We are not responsible for the wind, or the inefficiencies of the mayor who might have saved all if he had acted sooner down near Pudding Lane, or the stupidity of those who do not get out of the way of the fire ere it bears down upon them.”

Anne shook her head. “When I see Lazodeus again —”

“Yes, yes, now stop whining and come on. Paul’s still stands, and we must find this wretched manuscript.” She was moving through the crowd again, dragging Anne behind her. “Oh, I shall relish feeding the damned thing to the flames.”

Within minutes they had rounded on St Paul’s. They stopped, gasping for breath, to consider it in the firelight.

The huge, grey gloomy building stood firm in the centre of an open area, across which the flames could not jump. Sparks had scorched the stone but not caught it. Fire had few places to cling on such a building, the scaffold on the north transept had burned incompletely, and blackened boards heaved precariously in the gusting wind.