Fire (21 page)

She'd shunned the midwife so far. As a child Sarah remembered seeing others like her come to their room in St Giles; watched their fumblings, listened to her mother's screams. Not one baby had survived more than a week, since Sarah had been born. But as another surge ripped through her, she moaned and managed a small nod. What choice did she have?

With much muttering, the rest of the women left, dragging
their complaining children. ‘ 'Ere, take little Mary,' said Jenny, handing her child to one woman who picked the infant up, grudgingly.

Even in the small moments the door was open, Sarah could smell the smoke on the wind. ‘Fire?' she croaked, and coughed.

Jenny knelt, helping her raise her head to drink from a flask of water. ‘Big one, they say. But she's right, it's down by the river. Never reach us 'ere. Stinks, though, eh?'

The door opened again, admitting more foul air – and an older woman. She had a shawl over her head, wisps of grey hair straying out from under it. Her face was pale, except for two reddened and pockmarked cheeks ‘Well, my dears,' she said, smiling, closing the door behind her, ‘and about time too.'

She came over to the corner of the room and its bed of heaped-up straw, then, with a little difficulty, knelt. Immediately, the smell of smoke was overwhelmed by the reek of whisky. She smiled, her mouth a wilderness of gum, one tooth on the bottom like a solitary gravestone. ‘Let's have a feel then,' she wheezed, as Sarah convulsed again.

Jenny pulled up the shift, and the midwife ran her hands over the distended belly, pressing hard. Then she reached between Sarah's legs. ‘Dry as a virgin's slit,' she laughed, then licked her fingers. Sarah winced as first one, then two of them entered her, probing.

‘Well,' the woman said, falling back to sit. ‘You're this close,' she said, holding up two glistening fingers, ‘so you're not that close. How often the pains coming?'

‘Near all the time,' Jenny said.

‘Truly? Hmm.' She scratched at a mole upon her face. ‘It's cos your waters haven't burst. But I can fix that.' She reached within her cloak, fumbled around, finally pulling out a slim, black stick about half a foot long. It had a hook on one end. ‘Usually I use this to grab the babe and 'ook 'im out.' She grinned, stabbing the probe down. ‘But I can use it to break your bag as well.' Sarah shivered and the woman shrugged. ‘If you don't like that, though, I've a coin with sharp edge. It's a milled sixpence from the reign of Good Queen Bess. Her virginity must bless it cos I've delivered ever so many with its aid.'

She laughed again. Sarah was about to protest, but then the woman sat back rather than reaching. ‘I'll do either,' she continued, ‘after we've discussed payment.'

‘You'll get paid,' Jenny said. ‘Just do it, will ya?'

‘Ahead of time,' the midwife replied. ‘Afterwards women tend to forget. If'n they're in a state to remember.' She held out a grimy hand. ‘One crown.'

‘So much?' Sarah said faintly.

‘Course! I've got some drugs for you too, ease the pain. They cost as well.'

‘I've only got a half-crown. More later.'

‘More now.' When Sarah shook her head, the midwife shrugged and began to rise.

‘Wait!' said Jenny. She went to the door, opened it, looked about. ‘Jenkins!' she called loudly. ‘Come 'ere, love. I want to talk to ya.'

‘No, Jenny–'

‘Hush now,' said her friend, turning back. ‘It's only Jenkins. Be over in a blink.'

The turnkey came over. Jenny closed the door on their hushed conversation and Sarah heard them walking away. The pain doubled again. ‘Can you –?'

‘Oh, I'll just bide if you don't mind.' The midwife chuckled, then reached again within her shawl, pulling out a flask. ‘Drink?' she said. At Sarah's shake of the head, she shrugged and drank deep.

Successive waves of pain took her, seeming to be getting ever closer together, until they merged into one constant agony. Her eyes were closed against it, her hands across her belly and the movement there. ‘Come.' She sent down the thought through her fingertips. ‘Pity me and come.'

She wasn't sure how long had passed before the door opened again. Not long, perhaps, for the woman still had the flask in her hand.

Jenny entered. ‘Told ya,' she said, smoothing down her dress as she crossed to the straw, ‘ 'Ere ya go.' She handed her coin to the midwife, reached into Sarah's discarded smock and matched silver to silver. ‘Now get on with it.'

‘All in good time,' replied the other, secreting the half-crowns within her clothes, then pulling out a little glass bottle. ‘Have a swig of this, sweetheart,' she said. ‘It'll take all your pains and troubles away.'

As agony surged through her again, Sarah took it, then hesitated. ‘What is it?'

‘Oh, a very special concoction of my own devising.'

Jenny bent to sniff, wrinkling her nose. ‘What's in it?'

‘This and that.' She gestured to the flask impatiently. ‘Just get it down, will ya?'

Again Sarah raised it to her lips. Again she hesitated. ‘What “this”? What “that”?' she said.

‘Oh, for Jesu's sake!' The woman raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘It's mainly, you know, the sleeping poppy.'

Sarah frowned, but it was Jenny who spoke. ‘Opium? But that'll make her drowsy. She needs to be awake to push. I remember with my Mary –'

‘She'll be awake,' interrupted the woman, tetchy now, ‘and she'll push. Enough for me to get a grip.' She raised her stick and tapped the little flask. ‘Get on, now. There's plenty of others out there who need my services.'

A sudden sharp agony came, greater than any before. Sarah screamed, dropped the flask, to the midwife's loud yelp – but Sarah barely heard her. Through the pain she suddenly remembered another birth she'd attended, one where she'd been the helper – Lucy Absolute's delivery the year before. Lucy had died soon after – not from the childbirth but from the plague that had ravaged the city and killed so many. But what she recalled clearly was her friend, not lying down but squatting with her back against the wall. ‘Help me up,' she yelled, and Jenny – big, strong Jenny – reached under her arms, hoisted her and held her against the wall.

‘But your waters haven't broken,' the midwife cried. ‘Let me –' She reached again with her hooked stick – and Sarah slapped it from her hands. ‘Get away,' she shrieked. ‘Keep her away from me, Jenny! I swear I'll…ahhh!'

Time dissolved, lost to torment. Sometimes she knew she was up and squatting, Jenny supporting her and yelling encouragement. At others she was on her back again, or her side, the pain excruciating and she was screaming to drown out anyone
else's counsel. It was half-dream, other women's faces coming, other voices shouting commands, whispering reassurance – her mother's, Lucy's. Then the men came too, where men should never be – Betterton, telling her she was too fat to perform; Pitman, driving off men who would harm her; her husband, her first husband, John Chalker, shaking his full and curly black locks in that way he did, laughing his great, deep laugh; lastly, longer, her captain was there – her William. Telling her to live for him, begging her to await his return, vowing he would be there soon.

A bell shook her, and she opened her eyes. It was the deep toll of nearby St Christopher le Stocks. That deeply religious harlot, Jenny Johnson, had told her all the tales of the nearby churches and the saints they were named for, crossing herself in true papist style as she gave thanks to each one. Christopher was the patron saint of many things, most notably of travellers – and of sailors. Was not her William a sailor now?

The ninth, the final stroke came, and almost upon it came the sailor's child, her child. The head appeared, or so Jenny said, shouting for more. With what she felt would be the last of her strength, she heaved again, felt a terrible burning down there, like the fire that raged on the riverside laid between her legs. Then that passed, and with a last mighty scream the babe passed, and Jenny let her go to catch it. Slipping down the wall, Sarah let more tears fall.

Somehow, through the sobs, she heard the voice. ‘Poor thing,' the midwife was saying. ‘Poor mite. It happens. But I told ya – if you'd only let me reach in with my little hook –'

Sarah opened her eyes. She'd fallen on her side but she sat up
now. Jenny was holding a red and wrinkled thing, slick with blood. It was not human, because it had no face, just skin where the face should be. ‘I'm sorry,' Jenny said. She was weeping too, holding the thing – her babe, a boy, she could see that on the instant – up to her.

As the pain in her body receded, her mind came suddenly, completely clear. ‘Oh no,' Sarah said, but not in distress as she sat up and peeled the skin from the baby's face.

There was a moment of complete silence within the cell, beyond it, as if all the world went still. And then the baby opened its mouth and yelled; and in that first cry, in that glorious first cry, Sarah heard, unmistakably, that most rare, most wonderful thing – William Coke's laugh. And she knew their child on the instant.

Coldharbour, near London Bridge. 9 a.m.

No toll called the hour from the tower of St Magnus the Martyr. The flames that had run parallel down Pudding Lane and Fish Street Hill had united to ravage the church. Plenty of other bells sounded nearby, though none counted the clock – for their peals were sounded backwards.

The inhabitants of the Coldharbour sanctuary poured towards the docks. From the cramped laneways – Red Cross Alley, Flower de Luce Alley, Ebgate – they came, drawn by the strange peal of those bells, driven by the smoke that was thickening every minute, choking them in their tenements, clutching the few things they were able to save.

A hefty porter came with a harpsichord on his back; a youth with a bookshelf hoisted, stuffed with thick leather volumes. Others brought lesser things, valuable to them – a crate with a single canary; hessian sacks that clanked with plate; an armchair with straw spilling from its split cushions, perched atop a head. Most just carried babes, or small children, or old men and women. Everyone shouted at the boatmen.

‘Take me!'

‘No, me. I saw him first.'

‘Take my daughter!'

‘Five shillings.'

‘But that's double the fare!'

‘I'll give you seven!'

Two more boats swept into the dock, the wherrymen grabbing wood and shouting, ‘Eight shillings to Southwark. Eight!'

‘Order here, good citizens! Order!'

Members of the watch cried out, trying to control the crowd with staves. They might as well have used them to keep off rain.

‘Look at the sinners scramble – as if they could escape judgment.' Simeon Critchollow turned. ‘Say it, Daniel. The words I had thee learn.'

The younger man took a deep breath. ‘ “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” '

‘The lake of fire.' As he repeated the words, Simeon looked again towards the columns of smoke spiralling up from the city and to the flames, a shimmering line now running from east of the bridge, one hundred yards to the west of it, and as far north.
‘But who is in the book of life? What of our brothers, soon to be resurrected?'

They turned to the bridge, the reason they'd come to this viewpoint. Another fire, decades before, had destroyed much of the northern end. There was still a gap and the flames, having nothing to feed on and fought by householders further along the structure, who beat them back with boot, broom and bucket, had been stayed. Southwark, a suburb even more sinful than Coldharbour, had been spared. For now.

Simeon's sight was ever keen and despite the smoke he could still see the gatehouse at the southern end. See the four heads among the many staked upon it. Two were skulls, long since picked clean by crows; the third, hoisted up six months before, had little flesh left about it either. But he, who had been to revere them several times, could tell each from each from their position among the dozens.

‘Pray with me, Daniel,' he said, keeping his eyes upon those three. ‘Pray for our martyrs impaled there. You know our rallying cry: “King Jesus and the heads upon the bridge.” Pray for their remains now. That they are not burned. That their skulls will be fleshed again, their mouths oped to greet their returning souls at the last trumpet, which soundeth soon.' He lifted his hands, palms up to the side, his eyes to the darkening sky. ‘Lord, we beseech you to hold close our brothers – Thomas Venner, General Harrison, Colonel Rathbone, sacrificed in your righteous cause,' he intoned.

‘Rise again! Amen!'

But it was the fourth skull that mattered to him most. ‘And I beseech you to remember most particularly your brightest
blade, Lord Garnthorpe. May he rise to wield it again in your cause.'

‘Amen.'

‘For are their names not written in the book of life? Proven so by this, their sacrifice? All for this time, now. For this day of judgment, come. Amen.'

This last was declaimed loudly, with finality. Daniel echoed it. ‘And what do we do now, Brother Simeon?'

The puppeteer smiled. ‘Do? We must be about it – fuel, guns, powder. Follow the example of these our martyrs who did not wait but forever strove.'

A surge of people jostled them, pushing and screaming for the few boats. Someone fell in the river to more screams. The watchmen yelled in vain and Simeon looked again at them. ‘Witness how all authority yields now to God's. And yet, man will always oppose His will.' He nodded. ‘You know who this will draw to the city? One who ever seeks to court the people's love?'

‘The king?'

‘Aye. Perhaps his brother too. They make such show of care. How could they resist this chance of proving it again?' He dropped his voice to an urgent whisper. ‘The Fourth Monarchy staggers to destruction. But it will need a final push. So we will need Captain Blood.'