A sign, he thought, a sign from God. He has parted this river of traffic for me just as it had pleased Him to part the Red Sea before Moses and the Chosen People.
He walked across the street, his eyes fixed on Rachels cloak. She turned to the left in the shadow of the square tower of St Dunstan-in-the-West.
Why was she leading him such a merry dance? Suspicion writhed within him. Had the serpent tempted her? Had she succumbed to the devils wiles?
An alley ran past the west side of the church to a line of iron railings with a gateway in the middle. Beside it, a porters lodge guarded the entrance to a cramped court. Men were milling around the doorway of a stone-faced building with high, pointed windows.
Rachel was there too, looking once again at the paper in her hand. She passed through the doorway. He followed, but the crowd held him back.
By your leave, sirs, by your leave, he cried. Pray, sirs, by your leave.
Hush, moderate your voice, hissed a plump clerk dressed in black. Stand back, the judges are coming through.
He stared stupidly at the clerk. The judges?
The Fire Court, of course. The judges are sitting this afternoon.
Three gentlemen came in procession, attended by their clerks and servants. They were conducted through the archway.
He pressed after them. The doorway led to a passage. At the other end of it a second doorway gave on to a larger courtyard, irregular in shape. Beyond it was a garden, a green square among the soot-stained buildings.
Was that Rachel over there by the garden?
He called her name. His voice was thin and reedy, as it was in dreams. She did not hear him, though two men in black gowns stared curiously at him.
How dared she ignore him? What was this place full of men? Why had she not told him she was coming here? Surely, please God, she did not intend to betray him?
On the first floor of the building to the right of the garden, a tall man stood at one of the nearer windows, looking down on the court below. The panes of glass reduced him to little more than a shadow. Rachel turned into a doorway at the nearer end of a building to the right of the garden, next to a fire-damaged ruin.
His breath heaved in his chest. He had the strangest feeling that the man had seen Rachel, and perhaps himself as well.
The man had gone. This was Rachels lover. He had been watching for her, and now she was come.
His own duty was plain. He crossed the court to the doorway. The door was ajar. On the wall to one side, sheltered by the overhang of the porch, was a painted board. White letters marched, or rather staggered, across a black background:
XIV
6 Mr Harrison
5 Mr Moran
4 Mr Gorvin
3 Mr Gromwell
2 Mr Drury
1 Mr Bews
Distracted, he frowned. Taken as a whole, the board was an offence to a mans finer feelings and displeasing to God. The letters varied in size, and their spacing was irregular. In particular, the lettering of Mr Gromwells name had been quite barbarously executed. It was clearly a later addition, obliterating the original name that had been there. A trickle of paint trailed from the final l of Gromwell. The sign-painter had tried ineffectually to brush it away, probably with his finger, and had succeeded only in leaving the corpse of a small insect attached to it.
Perhaps, he thought, fumbling in his pocket, temporarily diverted from Rachel, a man might scrape away the worst of the drip with the blade of a pocket knife. If only
He heard sounds within. And a mans voice. Then a second voice a womans.
Oh, Rachel, how could you?
He pushed the door wide and crossed the threshold. Two doors faced each other across a small lobby. At the back, a staircase rose into the shadows.
He listened, but heard only silence. He caught sight of something gleaming on the second step of the stairs. He stepped closer and peered at it.
A speck of damp mud. The moisture caught the light from the open door behind him.
Rachel? he called.
There was no reply. His mind conjured up a vision of her in a mans chamber, her skirts thrown up, making the two-backed beast with him. He shook his head violently, trying to shake the foul images out of it.
He climbed the stairs. On the next landing, two more doors faced each other, number three on the right and number four on the left. Another, smaller door had been squeezed into the space between the staircase and the back of the landing.
Number three. Three was a number of great importance. There were three doors and three Christian virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity. Man has three enemies, the world, the flesh and the devil. Mr Gromwells number was three, whoever Gromwell was.
In Gods creation, everything had meaning, nothing was by chance, all was pre-ordained, even the insect trapped in the paint, placed there to show him the way.
He raised the latch. The door swung slowly backwards, revealing a square sitting room. Late afternoon sunshine filled the chamber, and for a moment he was transfixed by the loveliness of the light.
A window to God
He blinked, and loveliness became mere sunshine. The light caught on a picture in a carved gilt frame, which hung over the mantelpiece. He stared at it, at the women it portrayed, who were engaged in a scene of such wickedness that it took his breath away. He forced himself to look away and the rest of the room came slowly to his attention: a press of blackened oak; chair and stools; a richly coloured carpet; a table on which were papers, wine, sweetmeats and two glasses; and a couch strewn with velvet cushions the colour of leaves in spring.
And on the couch
Inside his belly, the serpent twisted and sunk its teeth.
Something did not fit, something was wrong
The woman lay sleeping on the couch, her head turned away from him. Her hair was loose dark ringlets draped over white skin. Her silk gown was designed to reveal her breasts rather than conceal them. The gown was yellow, and also red in places.
She had kicked off her shoes before falling asleep, and they lay beside the couch. They were silly, feminine things with high heels and silver buckles. The hem of the gown had risen almost to the knees, revealing a froth of lace beneath. One hand lay carelessly on her bosom. She wore a ring with a sapphire.
But she wasnt Rachel. She didnt resemble Rachel in the slightest. She was older, for a start, thinner, smaller, and less well-favoured.
His mind whirred, useless as a childs spinning top. He had a sudden, shameful urge to touch the womans breast.
Mistress, he said. Mistress? Are you unwell?
She did not reply.
Mistress, he said sharply, angry with himself as well as with her for leading him into temptation. Are you drunk? Wake up.
He drew closer, and stooped over her. Such a wanton, sinful display of flesh. The devils work to lead mankind astray. He stared at the breasts, unable to look away. They were quite still. The woman might have been a painted statue in a Popish church.
She had a foolish face, of course. Her mouth was open, which showed her teeth; some were missing, and the rest were stained. Dull, sad eyes stared at him.
Oh God, he thought, and for a moment the fog in his mind cleared and he saw the wretch for what she truly was.
Merciful father, here are the wages of sin, for me as well as for her. God had punished his lust, and this poor womans. God be blessed in his infinite wisdom.
And yet what if there were still life in this fallen woman? Would not God wish him to urge her to repent?
Her complexion was unnaturally white. There was a velvet beauty patch at the corner of her left eye in the shape of a coach and horses, and another on her cheek in the form of a heart. The poor vain woman, tricking herself out with her powders and patches, and for what? To entice men into her sinful embrace.
He knelt beside her and rested his ear against the left side of her breast, hoping to hear or feel through the thickness of the gown and the shift beneath the beating of a heart. Nothing. He shifted his fingers to one side. He could not find a heartbeat.
His fingertips touched something damp, a stickiness. He smelled iron. He was reminded of the butchers shop beside his old premises in Pater Noster Row.
Was that another sound? On the landing? On the stairs.
He withdrew his hand. The fingers were red with blood. Like the butchers fingers when he had killed a pig on the step, and the blood drained down to the gutter, a feast for flies. Why was there so much blood? It was blood on the yellow gown: that was why some of it was red.
Thank God it was not Rachel. He sighed and drew down the lids over the sightless eyes. He knew what was due to death. When Rachel had drawn her last labouring breath
The cuff of his shirt had trailed across the blood. He blinked, his train of thought broken. There was blood on his sleeve. They would be angry with him for fouling his linen.
He took a paper from the table and wiped his hand and the cuff as best he could. He stuffed the paper in his pocket to tidy it away and rose slowly to his feet.
Rachel how in Gods name could he have forgotten her? Perhaps she had gone outside while he was distracted.
In his haste, he collided with a chair and knocked it over. On the landing, he closed the door behind him. He went downstairs. As he came out into the sunshine, something shifted in his memory and suddenly he knew this place for what it was: one of those nests of lawyers that had grown up outside the old city walls, as nests of rooks cluster in garden trees about a house.
Lawyers. The devils spawn. They argued white into black with their lies and their Latin, and they sent innocent, God-fearing men to prison, as he knew to his cost.
Birds sang in the garden. The courtyard was full of people, mainly men, mainly dressed in lawyers black which reminded him again of rooks, talking among themselves. Caw, caw, he murmured to himself, caw, caw.
He walked stiffly towards the hall with its high, pointed windows. At the door, he paused, and looked back. His eyes travelled up the building he had just left. The shadowy man was back at the first-floor window. He raised his arm at the shadow, partly in accusation and partly in triumph: there, see the rewards of sin. Fall on your knees and repent.
Suddenly, there was Rachel herself. She was coming out of the doorway of the blackened ruin next to Staircase XIV. She had pulled her cloak over her face to cover her shame. She was trying to hide from him. She was trying to hide from God.
Caw, caw, said the rooks.
Rachel, he said, or perhaps he only thought it. Rachel.
A lawyer passed her, jostling her shoulder, and for a moment the cloak slipped. To his astonishment, he saw that the woman was not Rachel, after all. This woman wore the mark of Cain on her face. Cain was jealous of his brother Abel, so he slew him.
Not Rachel. His wife was dead, rotting in her grave, waiting among the worms for the Second Coming of the Lord and the everlasting reign of King Jesus. Nor had Rachel borne the mark of Cain.
Sinner! he cried, shaking his fist. Sinner!
The bite of the serpent endured beyond death. Perhaps he had been wrong about Rachel. Had she been a whore too, like Eve a temptress of men, destined to writhe for all eternity in the flames of hell?
Caw, caw, said the rooks. Caw, caw.
CHAPTER TWO
It is marvellous what money in your pocket and a toehold in the world will do for a mans self-esteem.
There I was, James Marwood. Sleeker of face and more prosperous of purse than I had been six months earlier. Clerk to Mr Williamson, the Under-Secretary of State to my Lord Arlington himself. Clerk to the Board of Red Cloth, which was attached to the Groom of the Stools department. James Marwood altogether a rising man, if only in my own estimation.
That evening, Thursday, 2 May, I set out by water from the Tower, where I had been a witness on Mr Williamsons behalf at the interrogation of certain prisoners. The tide was with us, though only recently on the turn. The ruins of the city lay on my right the roofless churches, the tottering chimney stacks, the gutted warehouses, the heaps of ash but distance and sunlight lent them a strange beauty, touching with the colours of paradise. On my left, on the Surrey side, Southwark lay undamaged, and before me the lofty buildings on London Bridge towered across the river with the traffic passing to and fro between them.
The waterman judged it safe for us to pass beneath the bridge. A few hours later, when the tide would be running faster, the currents would be too turbulent for safety. Even so, he took us through Chapel Lock, one of the wider arches. It was a relief to reach open water at the cost of only a little spray on my cloak.
London opened up before me again, still dominated by the blackened hulk of St Pauls on its hill. It was eight months since the Great Fire. Though the streets had been cleared and the ruins surveyed, the reconstruction had barely begun.
My mind was full of the evening that lay ahead the agreeable prospect of a supper with two fellow clerks in a Westminster tavern where there would be music, and where there was a pretty barmaid who would be obliging if you promised her a scrap of lace or some other trifle. Before that, however, I needed to return to my house to change my clothes and make my notes for Mr Williamson.
I had the waterman set me down at the Savoy Stairs. My new lodgings were nearby in the old palace. I had moved there less than three weeks ago from the house of Mr Newcomb, the Kings Printer. Since my good fortune, I deserved better and I could afford to pay for it.
In the later wars, the Savoy had been used to house the wounded. Now its rambling premises near the river were used mainly for ageing soldiers and sailors, and also for private lodgings. The latter were much sought after since the Fire accommodation of all sorts was still in short supply. It was crown property and Mr Williamson had dropped a word on my behalf into the right ear.
Infirmary Close, my new house, was one of four that had been created by subdividing a much larger building. I had the smallest and cheapest of them. At the back it overlooked the graveyard attached to the Savoy chapel. It was an inconvenience which was likely to grow worse as the weather became warmer, but it was also the reason why the rent was low.
My cheerfulness dropped away from me in a moment when Margaret opened the door to me. I knew something was amiss as soon as I saw her face.
I passed her my damp cloak. What is it?
Im sorry, master your father went wandering today. I was only gone for a while the night-soil man came to the door, and he does talk, sir, a perfect downpour of words, you cannot
Is he safe?
Safe? Yes, sir. She draped the cloak over the chest, her hands smoothing its folds automatically. Hes by the parlour fire. Id left him in the courtyard on his usual bench. The sun was out, and he was asleep. And I thought, if I was only gone a moment, he