The Ashes of London (30 page)

‘Could Samuel describe him further?’ I asked.

‘No meat on him.’ She spoke in short, jerky sentences, as if words were rationed, were precious in themselves. ‘Forty-five, maybe, fifty? Plainly dressed, and wore a sword. People left him alone.’

‘Why was he there? Did Samuel say?’

‘You don’t ask people that in Alsatia,’ she said, with a note of scorn in her voice. ‘Not unless they want to tell you. Samuel thought he’d fallen on hard times – that he’d known better things. Plenty of men like that in the Blood-Bowl, of course, but he wasn’t like them, Sam said – this one knew what he was about. Didn’t seem short of money, though. No one troubled him.’

‘Where can I find him exactly? Which house?’

‘I don’t know. He’s not there any more. Sam talked to the man who keeps the house.’ She paused and sniffed, lifting her chin at me as if to emphasize that Samuel had discovered all this, despite his shortcomings in the matter of legs. ‘He left last night. No warning.’ She snorted with what sounded like genuine amusement. ‘He left money with the servant to cover what he owed. Paid up to the last farthing. No more, no less. He’d been keeping his own reckoning. Not many do that, especially in Alsatia. Not many pay up unless they have to, either.’

I said, ‘He must have had a name.’

‘It wasn’t Lovett. He called himself Master Coldridge.’

I let out the air from my lungs in a rush.

‘One other thing, sir.’ Her voice became a whisper. ‘Sam heard he’d killed a man near Bridewell.’

I felt a prickle of excitement, or perhaps fear. The footbridge over the Fleet was beside Bridewell. The place where Jeremiah Sneyd’s body had been found.

At that moment the kitchen door opened, and Mistress Newcomb appeared on the step. Behind her was one of the apprentices, with a staff in one hand and a lantern in the other. ‘Who’s there?’ she demanded. ‘Show yourself.’

‘It’s nothing, mistress,’ I said. ‘Only Margaret – there was a difficulty with tomorrow’s deliveries, but we’ve dealt with it now.’

I unbolted the yard gate for Margaret to leave.

‘That’s why they left him alone,’ she whispered as she passed me. ‘Even Rock and Captain Boyd in Ram Alley.’

O
N FRIDAY MORNING
I had business for Master Williamson in the City. On my way back I passed along Cheapside. Behind me, the bells of the City’s surviving churches were chiming their many versions of eleven o’clock.

Cheapside, once the finest street in London, had been reduced to rubble and ash. A path just wide enough for a wagon to pass had been cleared in the roadway. On either side, labourers were working among ruins. They were not trying to rebuild houses yet, rather to bring some sort of order to the chaos of destruction. Booths selling beer had sprung up at street corners, to slake the thirst of workers and passers-by. When the debris was disturbed, the ashes rose into the air and clung to the back of throats and coated the nostrils.

In a strange fashion, however, Cheapside was busy enough, though not in the way it had been before the Fire. Surveyors were at work, measuring the ground. The task of rebuilding the City was fraught with legal problems, not least that of establishing the precise boundaries of thousands of freeholds which had developed over centuries; and many of the title deeds had been inaccurate, or lost, or destroyed in the Fire.

A few former residents inhabited what had once been their cellars, and troops of scavengers were still picking over what was left. Saddest of all were the men and women who wandered the ruins with dazed expressions on their faces. I supposed that they were searching for their homes or their loved ones, or perhaps for both. Scraps of paper had been nailed to the remains of doorposts or weighted down with stones in the shelter of brick hearths. Messages for lost children, lost parents and lost friends were scrawled on them, some of which were still legible after weeks of exposure to the autumn weather.

On the south side of the street a small crowd clustered around the booth that had been set up among the graves in front of the ruins of Bow Church. I stopped to buy some beer. While I was waiting to be served, there was a stir along Cheapside, caused by three gentlemen walking abreast along the street, with a servant ahead of them to clear the way. All at once I forgot my thirst. The servant was in livery, with broad, vertical stripes of black and yellow on his coat and breeches.

Alderley’s colours.

The man himself was behind, striding along as if the street were empty. Mundy, the steward, was on his right. On his left was a younger man, heavy featured and richly dressed, with a sword swinging at his side. He glanced at the beer booth as they passed with a single, baleful eye. He wore a black patch over the other eye.

It could only be Edward Alderley, the son whom Jem had stabbed, set on fire and left for dead.

The party turned into the lane running south beside the church. All at once the coincidence struck me. This was Bow Lane: where Lovett had had his house and yard before it was confiscated; and it wasn’t far from the bridge by Bridewell, where they had found Jeremiah Sneyd’s body in the Fleet Ditch, and only a little further away from Alsatia, where Master Coldridge had lodged in Hanging Sword Alley until Wednesday evening.

After a moment or two, I followed Henry Alderley and his party. Bow Lane was still a ravine strewn with ashes and rubbish, with charred ruins rising on either side of it. I picked my way slowly, making a detour to avoid a party of labourers who were making safe the frontage of an inn. Wisps of smoke curled into the air, rising from something still smouldering deep in the ruins. On the corner of Watling Street, a surveyor and his men were measuring the dimensions of a building that had once stood there.

I was in time to see the four men turning right into an alley before the corner. I asked one of the labourers who had lived there before the Fire.

‘Don’t know, master.’ He wiped the dust from his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘There’s a mason’s yard down there. What’s left of it.’

I walked down the lane. The alley was partly blocked by a fallen chimney. As for Lovett’s house, it no longer existed in any form that resembled a dwelling.

The building had been constructed mainly of wood over a low brick base, an irony for a mason’s house. The chimneystacks had fallen. In the yard behind the house had been a row of wooden sheds and open shelters, whose outlines could be traced by the blackened stumps of the surviving posts that had supported their roofs. There were still stacks of stone within, them. Much of it had been neatly dressed, but the heat of the Fire had cracked and calcined it.

The Alderleys, their steward and their servant were in the yard. Alderley must have heard my footsteps, for he turned and stared at me. Then, to my surprise, he raised his hand and beckoned me over. I had not seen him since that chance meeting in the Matted Gallery at Whitehall.

‘I know you, don’t I?’ He frowned at me across a heap of broken tiles. ‘Master Williamson’s clerk? Wait – the name’s on the tip of my tongue. Marpool – Mardy – no, I have it: Marwood. What are you doing here, Marwood? Have you a message from your master?’

I bowed to him. ‘No, sir. I’m on my way to the Savoy.’

The frown deepened. This was not the most direct route to the Savoy. But I did not want to admit my interest in the Lovetts to Master Alderley. As far as I knew, he still believed that the disappearance of his niece was a secret confined within the walls of Barnabas Place. On the other hand, I did want to know what he and his son were doing here. A gull from the river swooped low over Watling Street and gave me inspiration.

‘Master Williamson has a share in a warehouse in Thames Street, sir,’ I said. ‘I had a mind to walk down and see how the work is going on with the clearance.’

Alderley shrugged. ‘At a snail’s pace no doubt. As it is everywhere.’

Edward Alderley turned and stared at me with his single, baleful eye. ‘Not just a snail, sir,’ he said, still looking at me, though the words were intended for his father. ‘A damned, snivelling, sleeping snail.’

‘Very droll, sir,’ said the third man, the Alderleys’ steward.

‘Nothing droll about it in the world,’ Edward snapped, rounding on him. ‘You should know that as well as anyone, Mundy.’

The steward flushed and turned away, his assurance cracking like an eggshell.

‘Does Williamson have a share in the freehold of this warehouse?’ Edward asked.

‘I believe not, sir,’ I said. ‘Only the lease.’

‘Then he’s fortunate indeed.’ He swung back to his father. ‘I cannot believe those rascally judges should have made such an unjust decision, sir. Everyone knows that that damned Frenchman no more lit the fire than I did.’

I knew then what was on their minds. Parliament had asked the judges to advise on a point of law: whether the landlords or the tenants should be responsible for rebuilding property destroyed by Fire. On Monday it had become known that the judges had decided that tenants should only be responsible if they or their neighbours had started the Fire. But since a Frenchman had admitted the crime and been executed for it last week, it followed that the Fire was due to the action of an enemy. In that case, they ruled, Parliament should ensure that landlords bore the expense. It was openly said at Whitehall and Westminster, and even in the City, that the Frenchman, one Hulbert, was mad and his testimony against himself could not be trusted. But he made a convenient culprit.

Mundy gave a discreet cough and turned to Master Alderley. ‘Would you like me to arrange for this site to be measured and cleared as well, sir? It may take a little time – there is so much to be done.’

Before I could stop myself, I let out my breath sharply. Edward glanced at me with his single eye, registering my surprise. I cleared my throat, hoping he would assume that this was the reason for my behaviour.

‘It would be wise to do as much as we can before the onset of winter,’ Mundy was saying in his droning voice. ‘Snow and frost will make the job twice as hard and twice as expensive.’

‘Very well,’ Master Alderley said. ‘Add it to the list.’

I dug the toe of my shoe into a heap of ash beside me, struggling to work out the implications of what I had learned. Little was recognizable among the rubbish. Among the ash were fragments of iron, distorted into fantastical shapes. Once perhaps they had been chisels and axe-heads before the alchemy of fire had robbed them of form and purpose. Here and there were drops of lead, molten then resolidified. I even glimpsed a fragment of china, perhaps from a cup, a sign that the last mistress of the house had had luxurious tastes.

Edward Alderley spat, his spittle just missing my shoe. ‘The expense doesn’t bear thinking of, sir.’

His father stared at the ruins. ‘There’s no help for it.’ He scratched his forehead, reaching up under his wig with long fingers. ‘But there may be a silver lining. Others will be in our position, but less capable of managing the matter.’ His lips twisted into a half-smile. ‘In which case, they may wish to dispose of some of their freeholds, along with the responsibilities that go with them, at a reasonable price. We must enquire into that.’

I bowed and asked permission to leave them, knowing that I had no excuse to linger.

But Edward put a hand on my sleeve. ‘Stay. Where’s the nearest tavern?’

‘I can’t say, sir. There are booths selling beer in Cheapside. But for a tavern you may have to go up to Smithfield or towards Moorgate.’

‘God’s teeth.’

‘There’s no need for a tavern, Edward,’ his father said, in a voice that did not invite discussion. ‘We shall dine at home. Come – we shall hire a hackney by Ludgate, if you wish, but it will be quicker to walk.’

I bowed. Master Alderley gave me a nod as they left. His son and his steward gave me nothing.

At the Savoy, I glimpsed something red, the colour as vivid as blood against the sooty stone, at the corner of the passage to the Newcombs’ lodgings. I walked quickly towards it, my mind full of what I had learned in Bow Lane, and my belly rumbling with hunger.

As I approached the corner, the sound of my footsteps bouncing like balls between the high walls on either side, a soldier in the uniform of the King’s Guards appeared. I forgot my hunger for a moment and felt a lurch of fear instead.

They had come for my father.

I broke into a run. ‘What is it?’ I said, my voice rising. ‘What’s happening?’

The soldier held up his hand to make me stop.

‘My father’s ill,’ I said. ‘He’s done nothing wrong, I swear it. If you ask for Master Williamson, at my Lord Arlington’s lodging, he will—’

I broke off as a second soldier appeared. It was Lieutenant Thurloe.

‘Master Marwood?’ he said in a formal, interrogatory voice as if he didn’t know me from Adam, though we had parted on reasonably cordial terms at our previous meeting three weeks before, when we had brought the body of Jeremiah Sneyd upriver to Scotland Yard by barge.

‘Sir,’ I said, ‘are you here for my father? His health is not good, and I beg you to—’

‘No, sir.’ Thurloe beckoned his men. ‘I’m looking for you. I’m commanded to convey you under escort to Whitehall. Without delay.’

‘A
M I UNDER
arrest?’ I said again.

Thurloe didn’t turn his head. But this time he spoke to me at least. ‘That’s not for me to say.’

‘If I’m not, sir, then why are these men behind us? Why you?’

He gave no sign that he had heard me. But still he wouldn’t look at me.

He had a barge waiting at the Somerset Stairs. He and I sat under the awning at the stern, with the soldiers on either side. I had left my father in tears. He was convinced that I was to be conveyed to the Tower, and that he would never see me again on this side of the grave.

The tide was with us and we were at Whitehall in ten minutes. I expected us to put in at the common stairs beside the palace, but we went further upstream to the Privy Stairs. A crowd of boats was waiting there already, landing and receiving passengers. Instead of having to wait our turn, however, we were waved directly to the upstream side of the steps, where we disembarked at once.