Fire Catcher (35 page)

Chapter 110

Amesbury’s face was wracked with confusion.

‘So lead into gold. It isn’t real?’

‘Not in the way it’s commonly understood,’ replied the alchemist. ‘There are men who spend their lives trying to make gold. But they’re not true alchemists.’

‘But the Philosopher’s Stone . . .’

‘Is a story,’ said the alchemist. ‘A story to separate the unworthy from true alchemists. Alchemists don’t grub for treasure,’ he added. ‘We seek to change the leaden mortal mind to the gold of enlightenment.’

‘This is your lead into gold? The Magnus Opus?’ said Amesbury. ‘Your great work?’

The alchemist nodded. ‘Enlightenment is the work of a lifetime. The path is different for everyone. Kaballah shows us steps to meditate upon. Tarot maps the journey. I believe some guilds have their own practices. The masons meditate upon death.’

Amesbury was nodding slowly.

‘Torr’s lead into gold,’ he said, ‘was a means to acquire riches.’

‘Torr is a master of allegory,’ said the alchemist. ‘Spinning stories to hide truths. I think his lead to gold tells a different story. A power more . . . earthly.’

‘The universal marriage,’ said Amesbury. ‘That’s part of the story. The most sacred and powerful marriage.’

‘That suggests more practical alchemy,’ said the alchemist. ‘The masculine and feminine. A marriage of the elements.’

Amesbury’s brow furrowed in thought. ‘Blackstone married a madwoman,’ he said. ‘She couldn’t bear him children. No one knows why. There was some fine horrors which happened because of civil war. Royalists married to secure money for war. There were precious few love matches.’ Amesbury seemed to be turning this around in his mind.

‘For alchemists gold is metaphorical,’ said the alchemist.

Amesbury felt there was some very obvious answer, but it kept sliding around at the edge of his thoughts.

‘The only person who can answer your questions is Torr,’ said the alchemist. ‘He made the story. He knows the truth at the heart of the allegory.’

‘I fear Torr,’ said Amesbury, ‘is long gone.’

‘What of the other plot you spoke of?’ asked the alchemist. ‘You found fireballs in the royal apartments. Stamped with the sign of the Sealed Knot.’

Amesbury waved his hand distractedly.

‘I was mistaken,’ he said. ‘An old member of the Sealed Knot joined a guild and had a fancy to use the symbol on his soap.’ He mimed with his hands. ‘Soap-balls, fireballs,’ he shrugged. ‘They can look almost identical.’

Amesbury gave a little smile. ‘The courtly women were sneaking Blackstone into the Palace, trying to keep their soap purchases secret,’ he said, conspiratorially. ‘They were ashamed the King would learn of their measures to look youthful.’

To Amesbury’s surprise the alchemist laughed.

‘Women will go to greater lengths for vanity than anything I have ever encountered,’ he said.

‘It caused a lot of confusion,’ said Amesbury. ‘Barbara Castlemaine I can understand,’ he added. ‘When her looks fade, she’ll have nothing. But I didn’t expect such behaviour from the Queen.’

The alchemist shrugged. ‘Women,’ he said simply, ‘will be all our undoing.’

Chapter 111

‘How did you know the Guildhall password?’ asked Charlie as they moved inside the cool interior of St Lawrence Jewry.

‘It was written on their painting,’ said Lily. ‘The one they were taking to safety. And I’ve seen it written before. Every guild has a tapestry or a wooden carving with those words.’

‘Not such a good secret,’ observed Charlie.

‘No,’ said Lily. ‘Perhaps they’re not so concerned with hiding away as people imagine.’

They were in the vast church now. It was stripped completely bare and deserted.

‘This way,’ said Charlie. ‘That door leads straight into Guildhall.’

They followed it through.

‘No one to guard,’ observed Lily.

‘Nothing to guard,’ corrected Charlie as they moved into the vast white stone interior of Guildhall. ‘It’s been cleared. Not even a tapestry or a candlestick left. All is in the vault.’

He pointed to the solid stone floor beneath their feet.

‘What should we do?’ asked Lily. ‘We wanted to be in the vaults. We’re only in the church. The entrance is outside and guarded.’

Charlie was looking around for a possible way down. There was none apparent.

‘Guildhall vaults are an old crypt,’ said Charlie, thinking aloud. ‘Those big giants. Gog and Magog. They are Roman leavings. This whole place is an old Roman church.’

He rubbed his forehead.

‘In old churches, there is always another route into the crypt. Under the altar.’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Lily.

‘I’ve chased a few tomb raiders in my time. They always break in through the altar.’

‘So how do we find the altar?’ Lily was looking into Guildhall’s grand vaulted ceiling. ‘This building hasn’t been a church for hundreds of years.’

Charlie was taking an angle of the sun.

‘Altars are east facing,’ he said, pointing to the back of the building. ‘We will try there.’

They moved to the back of the grand hall and Charlie studied the black mosaic floor carefully.

‘Here,’ he said finally. ‘And here. See it is brighter in colour. It makes a cross shape. If it was an altar, it was big,’ he added.

Lily nodded.

‘So where is the crypt entrance?’ she said, studying the floor. ‘There is nothing to mark it.’

Charlie scanned to where the centre of the altar would have been. He strode over and dropped to his knees.

‘See here?’ he said triumphantly. ‘This is newer and a little higher. This mosaic has been added. The tiles are not so worn at the edges.’

Glancing about he removed his knife and inserted it down the side of a tile. It lifted out easily. Underneath was wood and Charlie worked to remove three more tiles.

‘We can get in here,’ he said. ‘It is only planks over the old stone entrance.’

Using both arms he heaved and pulled back the wooden covering. A cloud of dusty smoke cleared to reveal a narrow set of steps.

‘There is a way down!’ he exclaimed, looking excitedly at Lily. She grinned and moved behind him as he lowered himself on to the stair.

The steps were steep and bowed into the middle from centuries of use. They turned in a sharp spiral downwards.

At the bottom of the steps Charlie stopped in wonder. The crypt was enormous, stretching the length of the entire Guildhall above. It was crested with a thick ceiling of vaulted stone, supported by heavy branching pillars. And it was stuffed to bursting point with merchants’ valuables.

Charlie breathed out. It was a thieves’ paradise.

‘Look at this,’ he whispered as Lily bumped into him in her haste to get off the dark stair. She gave a gratifying gasp at the sight of the booty.

‘Every rich merchant in London must hide his goods here,’ said Charlie.

‘So how might we find Blackstone’s valuables?’ asked Lily, scanning the gloom.

Charlie followed the direction of her gaze. The Guildhall crypt was like a stone forest of branching pillars. Some possessions seemed to obey a kind of order. But most seemed randomly flung.

‘Household things there,’ Charlie muttered. ‘Furniture and the like. That pile has many barrels, perhaps for vintners . . . It’s by guild,’ he decided eventually. ‘But we need to know what order they are arranged.’

‘By letter?’ suggested Lily, studying the piles. ‘Brewers, carpenters?’

Charlie shook his head.

‘Remember these are guilds. They all have their secret codes and systems. It would be nothing so simple.’

‘The Tree of Life?’ suggested Lily. ‘You saw it in the Cutlers’ Guild.’

‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘The cutlers are wealthy. Educated. They might teach these mystical practices. But a fishmonger or a barber?’ he shook his head. ‘Their initiation ceremonies will be a keg of beer and an argument.’

Lily scanned the piles, then marched towards a sturdy looking barrel and split open the top with a closed fist.

‘Do you discover something?’ asked Charlie, frowning at the ordinary looking barrel.

‘Wine,’ she said, leaning down and scooping several handfuls to her mouth. ‘Helps me to think.’

Lily sucked her teeth and wiped her mouth. Then she sat and looked out into the wide crypt.

‘It’s so still down here,’ she said. ‘Peaceful. Hard to imagine out there the world is ending.’

Charlie took out his tankard and scooped out some wine. He sat by her and offered her a sip. She took it and passed the tankard back.

‘Maybe it is,’ said Charlie, taking a long swig. The cool quiet of Guildhall was a sudden relief. ‘But I think this fire has been in the making a long time.’

He took another swig and passed the wine back to Lily.

‘Do you think to leave the city?’ she said. ‘Now so much is burned?’

Charlie shook his head. ‘What of you?’ he asked. ‘Do you miss your gypsy caravan?’ He couldn’t imagine being nostalgic for the dirty dangerous countryside.

‘I miss…’ she paused. ‘The fireside stories. The camaraderie of it. You don’t find that in the city.’

‘You do,’ said Charlie, thinking of the Bucket of Blood. ‘Sometimes country people don’t know where to look.’

‘Maybe,’ said Lily. ‘But it’s people that make home. When Blackstone killed my father, he took away my place in the world.’

Her eyes flashed pain. And for the first time Charlie had an understanding of how much sadness she’d carried.

‘You left everything you knew to avenge your father,’ he said. ‘Takes bravery, that. More than I can imagine.’

She didn’t answer, only took out her knife and scraped at the stone floor.

‘I don’t want vengeance,’ she said. ‘I want my father’s soul to be at peace.’

‘What makes you think it isn’t?’

Lily bit her lip. ‘There was a bird at his grave,’ she said. ‘A little blackbird. With a yellow beak.’

She glanced up at Charlie then down to the floor again.

‘I knew at once.’ She was twisting the blade now. ‘It was the soul of my father.’ Her dark eyes were on Charlie’s now. ‘City people don’t believe such things,’ she said. ‘But when a gypsy dies wrongly, they do not go to a better place. They stay in the mortal world, until they’re avenged.’

Lily looked back at the knife.

‘My father taught me everything,’ she said. ‘He made sure I would never be defenceless. I will not let his soul wander the earth.’

They sat in silence, contemplating Guildhall crypt.

‘We are alike in something then,’ said Charlie thoughtfully. ‘Blackstone took away my place in the world too. I might have family.’

‘You think you might have lands due? Titles?’

Charlie shook his head.

‘I’m not concerned for that. I live well enough. But sometimes I feel like . . . I don’t know who I am,’ he said. It was the first time he’d said it out loud, and the words felt strange. ‘I should like to know,’ he concluded.

‘You think knowing your family would tell you who you are?’

‘Maybe not.’

Charlie surveyed the crypt again, trying to make order from the chaos.

‘We should try and find Blackstone’s chest,’ Lily said. She took the tankard from him and drained it.

Charlie stood. He closed his eyes. There was an order. He was sure of it. His gaze settled on the nearest pile of goods in the crypt. Among the medley of general possessions was a disproportionate quantity of leather.

‘Skinners,’ he decided, looking to the next pile. ‘Next to the vintners.’

Something was tugging at his thief taker’s instinct. Here was London’s true heart, laid out in this crypt. Wealth. Commodities. Each guild had a separate huge jumbling pile. What distinguished where each stored their things?

Then the pattern settled into place. It was so simple. Charlie found himself smiling. He didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before.

Chapter 112

The Fleet waterfront was ablaze as Clarence slipped and slid through the stinking riverbed. The blockage was before him. An enormous cart had come off the bridge in the mayhem to leave the city. It lay splintered into three huge parts. Two shire horses were sprawled dead. Fire debris, ash and general detritus in the river had caught on the cart and horses, building a dam.

Clarence’s eyes rested on the gunpowder. Images of civil war veterans, hobbling on mangled limbs, flashed through his mind.

Two barrels, joined by the shortest of fuses. A beam of wood crashed down from a burning building, sending down a shower of sparks. He ducked clumsily as they hissed harmlessly on the wet mud.

Clarence was breathing heavily now. He took out his tinderbox, hands shaking. But as he approached the gunpowder, he knew he couldn’t do it.

The blocked Fleet was much more slippery and precipitous than he’d anticipated. He’d never make it out. It had been a fantasy to imagine that he, of all men, could escape exploding gunpowder on a slimy riverbed.

Clarence took a breath. He’d tell them the fuses were too damp, the tinder wouldn’t flare. They’d know him a cowardly old man who’d never been on a battlefield. But he’d escape with his life.

Then he heard a noise. A low whinny. One of the horses was still alive. A mare.

She rolled an eye towards him, bloodshot and terrified. At least two of her legs were broken. Clarence stamped towards her, sliding in the mud. He laid his hands soothingly on the mare’s neck. Her heartbeat fluttered fast under his fingers.

‘You’ve been lying here all alone,’ said Clarence, looking to her shattered body. ‘In pain and frightened.’

He realised he didn’t have a sword to put her out of her misery.

Clarence tightened his grip on the tinderbox. ‘I can end your suffering,’ he decided. The gunpowder would blow everything to dust.

He made to move away towards the powder kegs, but the horse snorted.

‘Easy girl,’ breathed Clarence. ‘Easy.’

Clarence looked to the fuses, then to the frightened animal.

The snaking flame would terrify her further. He should stay, to comfort her. Keeping a soothing hand on the horse, Clarence eased out a foot, and brought the short fuse line nearer.

The mare’s chest was moving rapidly, her eyes flicking in confusion.

Clarence sat against her huge body, feeling light-headed.

‘There’s nothing to fear,’ he said, patting the horse’s sweating neck. ‘I won’t leave you here alone to die.’ Clarence looked to the open kegs.

‘In a moment there will be a loud noise,’ he said. ‘Then all this pain and suffering will be over. It will be very quick, I promise you.’

Clarence rubbed the horse’s nose. He thought she understood him.

‘Very quick,’ he said. ‘And I’m here with you all the while.’

Then he sparked the flint. The horse started as the flame grew. He stroked her flank. Then the fuse hissed and snaked.

‘Nothing to fear,’ said Clarence, resting his head against the horse’s. He felt her breathing relax a little. He stroked her dusty mane. There were a few sad-looking flowers entwined in it, drooped and closed.

‘My daughter made me daisy chains,’ said Clarence, turning them in his chubby fingers. ‘Long ones. I wore them more proudly than any chain of office. I never told her that.’

There was a booming explosion. Clarence felt himself lifted up. He tightened his grip around the mare’s neck. Somewhere another barrel detonated. There was a sound of water rushing. Then nothing.