A Beggar’s Kingdom

“I think a better question, especially from you,” Julian says, “would be who is Lady Mary.”

“Okay, who?”

Julian smiles. “Take my hand,” he says. “When we get out of here, I will tell you everything.”

The dry east wind carries the smell of burnt dwellings, clothes, wicker, trees, wood. It’s already harder to breathe, and they’re still so far from the fire. In the distance beyond Temple Bar, beyond the Roman wall, black smoke swirls.

Behind them—though not far enough behind them—the horsemen and footmen give chase, forging a path through the panicked crowd.

It’s the stampede out of the fire that saves Julian and Mallory. Of all the people on the Strand, only they are headed inside the burning City. Everyone else hurries in the opposite direction. Barging past the fleeing crowd, the royal horses get spooked. The guards—in their heavy uniforms, big boots, big hats, and big swords—can run, but Julian and Mallory are faster. Hearing the fading equine cry, Julian glances behind him (or is he Orpheus and is not supposed to?). The cavalry and infantry have mercifully dropped back.

“We’re okay, we’ll make it,” Julian says to her, panting. “We’re almost at Temple Bar.”

But they can’t get through Temple Bar. The guard isn’t letting people in, only out. “Are you crazy?” the gatekeeper says to Julian, as frantic people shove past them. “Where do you think you’re going? To a river crossing? Impossible. The Thames inside the gates is cut off by the flames.”

People push past, adult daughters dragging their mothers, little children hanging onto their mothers’ skirts, mothers and children everywhere. As soon as the guard loses track of them, Julian pulls Mallory offside, and they inch through the gate unnoticed.

It’s another five long city blocks from Temple to Aldgate with the thick hot smoke blowing in their faces. They don’t run anymore, they walk, gasping to catch their breath. Julian wishes he could express to Mallory how much he doesn’t want to head inside the inferno. She must feel ambivalent herself because after a few blocks, she stops walking. Her hands fall, her head hangs. She slides down to the sidewalk near Primrose Hill. “Forget it,” she says dejectedly. “What’s the point? Where are we going to run with nothing?”

Julian crouches in front of her.

“The entire City’s on fire. Even if we make it out somehow, what then?”

He takes a hot gray breath. He doesn’t want to confess. But sometimes, you must trust the one you love. Sometimes, you must trust her even if she breaks your heart with murder.

And sometimes, you must trust her even after.

“Mallory, I have the gold,” Julian says. “Ilbert didn’t take it. Margrave didn’t take it. I took it. Now get up and let’s go find a place to hide.”

She stares at him for several fiery seconds. “You took my gold?”

“Well …” Julian draws out. “Yours, really?”

“It wasn’t yours!”

“I thought it was his.”

“It wasn’t his anymore. He was dead. The dead own nothing.”

“Semantics, I know,” Julian says, “but he was dead only after you killed him.”

Angrily, Mallory jumps to her feet.

“I took it for you, Mallory,” Julian says. “So you and I could run from here. You know, like together.”

“You stole my money to help me?”

“To help us, yes. I thought you and me … I thought there was a you and me,” he says. “That was before I knew you were planning to run off, ditching me to be boiled in oil for a murder I didn’t commit.”

“Don’t look all wounded, you thief! Why didn’t you just pay off Ilbert if you had the coin? You could’ve saved us a lot of trouble.”

“Because I don’t have it. I hid it.”

“Where, back at the house? Bloody hell! A lot of good that’ll do us now.”

“Not at the house.”

“Where, then?”

“Inside the London Wall,” Julian says. “Next to St. Giles Church by Cripplegate.”

“What do you mean, inside the wall?”

“I bought a chisel and a hammer,” Julian says, “popped out two Kentish ragstones, scraped out a hole in the interior bricks, hid the purse, replaced the boulders and spackled mortar around them to seal them. I’m not saying it was easy.” Gouging out a space in the interior stone with an inadequately short chisel, piece by piece, chunk by chunk, took hours. It was one of the more physically grueling things Julian has ever done.

“Oh, you’re a mason now, too.” Mallory’s anger dissipates. She eyes him with trepidation, a little amazement, a little hope.

“I’m not a mason,” he says, “but I became a mason. I did what I had to do.”

“O Lord, Julian! I suppose that’s quick thinking on your part, but why on earth would you hide it all the way up there?”

“As opposed to where, the Baroness’s bedchamber?”

“Why go all the way to Clerkenwell?”

“You’re from Clerkenwell,” Julian says. “Do you remember? You lived there once in a big gray mansion.”

“Must be another molly you were sweet on. That’s not where I lived. I lived in a ramshackle, falling-down, white-limed bordello where I slept on the floor while my mother entertained men in the bed, one of whom was my father.” Mallory flings her arm to point to the London Wall just up ahead near Aldgate. “The wall circles the City for a square mile! There’s the wall! There’s the wall! And there, too! You could’ve hidden the coin close by, and we wouldn’t have to cross a city on fire to get to it.”

“I didn’t know we’d need it so quickly,” Julian says. “I had no idea, did I, that you killed Fabian and Margrave, or that you’d hang murder over both our heads. I thought we had plenty of time to decide what to do. And I didn’t know there’d be a fire.” What garbage. What absolute tripe. Julian knew there’d be a fire. He just didn’t know when. He knew in part.

“Sounds to me like you knew nothing.” Mallory starts down Fleet Street. “Well, don’t just stand there like Lot,” she barks. “Are you coming or not?”

He catches up. “Where are we going?”

“Where are we going? Have you gone soft in the head? To Cripplegate, of course. To Clerkenwell. Just like you planned. We’re not leaving my gold in a fucking wall. What if the fire destroys it?”

Julian wants to tell her that the fractured Roman wall will be the only thing left standing of old London 400 years from now, that after the Great Fire, after industrialization, expansion, demolition, after the Blitz! a piece of the wall where he hid the gold will remain. He knows this because he’s seen it with his own eyes as he ambled past St. Giles through the maze of modern Barbican, searching for the café with the golden awning.

Julian points to the black plumes spreading north and west from the Thames, the vicious winds, the livid flame. “We can’t get to Cripplegate,” he says. “Between us and your gold is hellfire. But don’t worry. We just have to stay safe for a little while longer. Safe and hidden. We’ll get to it. Let’s wait it out. The wall’s not going anywhere, I promise you. Let’s find an abandoned shop, lie low. After the fire dies down, five days tops, then we’ll go get it.”

“This fire is going to rage for five days?”

A breath. “Yes.”

Mallory crows in disbelief. “What’s going to be left of this city after a fire that rages for five days?”

“Nothing.”