The Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor

Author:Andrew Taylor [Taylor, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2016-04-06T16:00:00+00:00

The clocks were striking nine, a conversation of bells that lasted for several minutes.

The three servants walked down to the Strand. John carried a lantern and a stick tipped with iron. There was rowdiness on public holidays, as well as the usual perils of the night. Margery was next to him, and Cat between Margery and the wall.

‘It’s not very busy,’ Margery said when they reached the Strand.

No one replied. But she was right, Cat thought. The street was scarcely empty – the usual pleasure-seekers were about, and some shops had not put up their shutters yet. Coaches and carts passed to and fro, as well as the occasional horseman. But there was no sign of the crowds she had expected, and no sense of that heaving, restless excitement that the mob brought to the streets on public holidays.

The three of them walked under Temple Bar and into Fleet Street. The desolation of the City lay in front of them, with the hulking shadow of St Paul’s just visible against the sky. The ruins were in almost complete darkness. Few ventured there by night.

‘Where’s this bonfire then?’ Margery demanded.

‘I told you – Harp Lane,’ John said with a hint of anxiety in his voice. The outing had been his idea, and its success or failure was his responsibility. ‘You’ll see in a moment.’

But they didn’t see. Beyond Fetter Lane, the ruins stretched down to the Fleet Ditch and then up the slope to the City wall. No torches milled about them, no hubbub rose into the air, and above all no bonfire burned the triple-crowned Anti-Christ of Rome into a heap of ash.

Cat had not wanted to come on this outing. But now it had lost its purpose, she felt disappointed.

‘They said it’d be here,’ John said; he sounded sulky, a boy deprived of a treat and made to look foolish into the bargain. ‘They must have moved it.’

Margery stopped a maidservant coming out of a pastrycook’s with a covered basket on one arm. ‘Where’s the bonfire then?’

The girl shrugged. ‘No one came.’ She waved her free arm in a gesture that embraced the City and its environs. ‘There’s no bonfires this year. No one wants another fire, do they? We’ve had enough of that.’

John bent his head towards Cat. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘Go home,’ Cat said. ‘I’ve got a headache.’

Simultaneously, Margery said, ‘Let’s have some oysters first. It’s only a step to Fleet Bridge.’

‘We’ve not got long,’ John said. ‘Jane, what do you—’

‘Come, you will not deny us this? We deserve a treat. And I know a short cut.’ Margery snatched the lantern from him. ‘Follow me. I’ll show you.’

‘There’s not time,’ he said. ‘And Mistress Noxon—’

‘There’s always time for oysters.’ Margery marched into the lane running parallel to Fleet Street, taking the light with her. She called back over her shoulder. ‘Or what do you say to gingerbread?’

Automatically the others followed. The lane had been cleared since the destruction of the Fire. Cat stumbled on the uneven cobbles, and John took her arm to steady her.

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