The Ashes of London

‘It’s a certainty, sir.’ Mistress Alderley glanced at him. ‘Besides, if it had been a stranger, the mastiffs would have had him.’

It was not her words that gave me pause. It was something in her voice and in that swift, sideways glance at Williamson’s face.

She wants him to believe what she says, I thought. It’s important to her.

‘Why?’ Williamson said. ‘Why would he commit such a crime against man and God? Was the motive robbery?’

Mistress Alderley was staring out of the window again. ‘He’s an ill-conditioned, awkward fellow, sir, with a head full of wicked notions.’

‘Then why’s he in service here?’

‘He served a connection of my husband’s first wife, a man who took up arms against the King and committed all manner of evil in the late disturbances. Master Alderley only took him in for charity’s sake, for otherwise he would have starved.’ Again that sideways glance at Williamson’s face. ‘And look what his kindness has brought upon us.’

I flinched as the first blow of the whip landed on the old man. The victim screamed, and the sound penetrated the glass of the window. His body lifted and twisted. Spots of blood appeared across his back and side. They coalesced into streaks and then into broadening crimson lines.

Mundy glanced at his master, who nodded. I wished I could look away. But I could not.

The whip fell again, the steel tips of the thongs raking across the skin. It left the victim shuddering, gasping for breath.

A spot of blood touched the sleeve of Alderley’s coat. Mundy waited while his master took out a handkerchief and dabbed at it. Then Alderley stepped back and nodded again to the steward.

The whip fell for the third time.

‘It’s an example for the other servants, too,’ Mistress Alderley said, swallowing hard; perhaps she didn’t like this spectacle any more than I did. ‘Afterwards he will go before a magistrate, of course, but Master Alderley says that none is to be found at present, because of the Fire. They’ve all fled.’

The servant’s back had been reduced to a raw red mess, flecked with white where the bones beneath the skin had been exposed. Alderley held up his hand. Mundy backed away, the whip held over the crook of his arm. The semicircle of watching, murmuring servants retreated, moving away from the steward as if the thing he carried were infectious.

The flogged man was arching his back and gasping for breath. Alderley bent down and said something in his ear. If it earned a reply, it did not satisfy him, for once again he moved away and signalled to Mundy.

‘I wish to God this were not necessary,’ Mistress Alderley said, turning away from the window.

The whip fell for the fourth time.

The body bucked and slumped over the trestle, the head drooping down as if its own weight had become intolerable. The cobbles beneath the body glistened with blood.

It was a body now, I realized, not a man. I felt ashamed and soiled, as if by witnessing what had happened I had somehow condoned it.

Williamson shifted from one foot to the other. ‘It’s a bad business, madam.’

‘Indeed, sir,’ she said softly.

Mundy came forward and bent to examine the mess of blood, tendon and bone stretched across the trestle. He glanced up at his master and gave a tiny shake of the head. A shudder rippled through the watching servants.

Alderley gave the steward an order, dabbed his sleeve again and walked across the courtyard without another glance at the body. He paused beneath the oriel window, looked up and bowed. He passed inside, and a moment later his heavy footsteps sounded outside the door of the antechamber.

He bowed again, without servility, to Master Williamson, acknowledged his wife’s curtsy and, having glanced at me, ignored me altogether.

‘I’m grieved that you saw that,’ he said. ‘My apologies.’

‘My dear.’ Mistress Alderley did not look into his face. ‘Did the wretch confess at last?’

‘Yes,’ Alderley said loudly. ‘At the very end. The damned ingrate – he cheated the gallows. And left my poor son at death’s door.’

‘I must go to Edward,’ said Mistress Alderley. ‘Would you give me leave to withdraw, sir?’

‘Of course. I shall join you as soon as I may.’

I rushed to open the door for her. She fluttered from the room with a swift, assessing glance at me by way of thanks.

‘My wife has told you our troubles, sir?’ Alderley said to Williamson. ‘Dr Grout is with poor Edward now.’

Dr Grout could not say for sure whether or not Edward would recover. At all events he would lose the sight of his right eye. There was the risk of infection, too. His right arm was very badly burned. His pain and distress were terrible to witness. But for the grace of God, the fire in his chamber might have spread further and the entire house would have gone up in flames. They could all have been burned to cinders in their own beds.

Williamson presented his condolences as if they were as cumbersome as a box of stones. His Northern tongue did not slip easily into the flowery speech of the South.

‘Now, sir,’ Master Williamson said. ‘I must not delay you at such a time. But one thing cannot wait.’

I returned to the window, to avoid giving the impression that I was eavesdropping. Blood had pooled around the trestle. The servants had already dragged the old man’s body from the courtyard.

‘Is one of your manservants missing?’

The blood had dried to a rusty red on the cobbles. As I watched, a boy came into the yard with a broom and a bucket. He emptied a silver arc of water over the trestle and the cobbles around it.

‘What?’ Alderley said, frowning. ‘How in the world did you hear that, sir? I take it you mean Layne?’

Below me, a man appeared with four mastiffs on leashes, two to each hand. He paused to say something to the boy. Meanwhile, the dogs lowered their heavy heads and licked the bloody water with enthusiasm.

‘Layne?’ Master Williamson abandoned his attempt to approach the subject delicately. ‘I’ve no idea of his name, sir. All I know is that we have found a man wearing your livery in the ruins of St Paul’s. It pains me to tell you that he was murdered.’

CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_5803219e-c3ef-5822-bfc0-7f449b5e8f11)

ON MY SECOND visit to Barnabas Place, two days later, I went alone, trudging through warm ashes among the ruins. The heat was still intense.

There were many other people in this wasteland, some looking for their families or what was left of their homes; others scavenging for valuables. I had heard stories of men who had found artificial mines of metals in this lost city – pools of solidified lead, lumps of iron, even veins of silver and gold. Truly, this was another New World, where a man with few scruples might find riches as well as horrors, privations and sorrows.

‘Not here, sir,’ the porter said when he opened the wicket to me. ‘His worship went to Westminster two hours ago.’

‘Then Mistress Alderley?’ I said, and I felt a faint and foolish current of excitement pass through me. ‘Is she within?’

The porter went to enquire. After a few minutes he returned and showed me into the room with the oriel window through which I had seen a man flogged to death.

Time passed. I had no means of measuring it, but at least half an hour must have passed before I heard the Alderleys’ steward, Master Mundy, ordering that a horse be brought round. A small, richly dressed gentleman crossed the courtyard below, his face concealed by a hat in which were two ostrich feathers; they were dyed purple and bobbed up and down as their owner walked beneath them.

Shortly afterwards, a manservant appeared and conducted me into the body of the house.

‘Who was that below?’ I asked. ‘The gentleman who just left.’

‘Sir Denzil Croughton, sir.’ The man added, with a hint of vicarious pride, ‘His worship’s niece is betrothed to him.’