A Crowning Mercy (21 page)

A voice startled him, making him crouch and turn, but it was only the watch in Thames Street. 'Eleven of the clock, and all's well!'

He moved slowly, holding his scabbard in his left hand so it should not knock against the stacks of timber which lay between wharf and yard. The shadows were deep here, disguising the yard's contents, but as he waited, looking and listening for any guard who might be left there at night, his eyes adjusted to the gloom. To his right was the house, brick built, with just one small lit window facing the yard. The large window, seen from the river, was invisible from where he waited. To his left were two tall sheds, one apparently stacked with uncut timber, the other filled with the mysterious shapes of half-built boats, racks of strakes and ribs, the everyday impedimenta of Scammell's business. Against the far wall, next to the wide gates that led into Thames Street, there was a strange, small hutch. It had an opening, facing Toby, and in the opening he could see the deep glow of fire. For a moment he had thought that the fire belonged to a night watchman, yet there was no movement, and then a smell registered. Pitch. Of course!

He smiled, the vestige of a plan coming to his mind. The boat-yard must consume quantities of pitch, the thick, evil-smelling substance being used to caulk the finished boats, and Scammell would not let the fire die overnight. The vat of pitch would take too long to heat each morning, and so, overnight, it was placed on a great fire of sea coal, the source of the light on the far wall.

He moved again, this time towards the lit window, and for a few seconds he almost let his anger take over. He could see Campion, grotesquely held in the grip of a huge, leather-jerkined man. There was a second man, dressed in Puritan black, to Campion's right, and a woman to her left. A third man, elderly and clothed shabbily in old vestments, faced Campion and the black-dressed man. A wedding.

Toby could see the book, he could see the priest's mouth moving, and for a second or two the urge was on him to smash the window, climb through, draw the sword at his side and hack blindly at Campion's captors.

Church bells struck in the city, the bells of Southwark answering with their hourly chimes, and the sudden cacophony distracted Toby and calmed his anger. He would gain nothing by blind fury. He would be cut down before he was halfway through the window, and he remembered the idea suggested to him by the pitch fire.

Two things, even more than war, gave fear to London. Fire and the plague. Plague was the worse of the two killers, but fire the more frequent. Much of London was still built of timber, the houses crowded together with thatched outhouses crammed into small yards. Fire often threatened the destruction of London, the sudden flames and smoke billowing above the rooftops. The citizens were practised in their response. Nearly every street corner was decorated with long hooks to haul down burning thatch or timbers and with axes to break into houses so that gunpowder charges could be laid. The powder would flatten a ring of houses about the fire, making a cordon over which the flames could not pass. Despite the new hand-driven pump that had just been invented, which could force water a full thirty feet into the air from its canvas hose, a fire was usually well alight before the parish could deploy it. London's gravest enemy was fire, yet tonight it would be Toby's ally.

Fire would bring the watch running. It would bring men with axes against the gates of Scammell's yard. It would fill the yard, the street outside, even the river, with people and confusion, and in that confusion Toby reckoned lay his best chance of rescuing Campion.

It was a terrible thing he planned, and he knew it, but he worked with a blind disregard of the damage he might do to the city. He was in love, and the distorting glass of love saw only one thing; that his loved one was in danger and he must split his enemy's forces and take her from them.

Toby moved between the two sheds, working quickly, though taking care to make little noise as he thrust bundles of unravelled rope and wood shavings into the space beneath the great timber stack. The space had been made by putting the bottom layer of timber on blocks to keep the wood from dampness, and it was there he planned his major fire. The rope strands, used for caulking, were dry. He glanced constantly at the small, lit window, but no one looked out.

When he was satisfied with the preparation, he picked up two long strakes, ready curved to become the ribs of a boat, and took them to the stone hutch that kept the pitch fire safe at night. He thrust them into the coals, feeling the wood grate on the lumps. An immense heat radiated from the glowing coals. The strakes caught immediately, the wood burning bright, and he drew them out. He carried them to the timber stack, the flames licking back towards his hands, the sudden light in the yard making him nervous. Yet no one shouted as he moved, nor as he knelt and pushed the two strakes deep into the tangle of rope and wood-shavings.

Perversely, for a few seconds, it seemed as if the flames would die. They burned low, threatening to flicker away, and then he saw the first strands of rope catch, curl and flare into yellow flame. Then the shavings caught. Suddenly there was a spread of flame and Toby backed away.

The moment had not quite come. He did not know how long it would take the fire to catch, but he could not wait here in fear. He lit two more strakes, putting one in a pile of shavings beneath a half-completed boat, the other beneath the rack of curved strakes, and then, afraid of being seen in the growing illumination, he went back to the shadows by the wharf.

The flames were lurid in the boat shed, licking up the boat on its trestles. Surely someone would see! He waited, apprehensive, knowing the enormity of his act. The first fire, in the timber stack, seemed dim. He wondered if it had gone out.

Deep in the great timber stack was a draught, coming in at the base, then funnelling up to the stack's top at the roof of the shed. Unseen by Toby, the flames were being sucked into the natural chimney caused by the stack's construction. He was biting his lip, wondering whether he should re-cross the yard and feed the dim fire, when suddenly there was an explosion of flame, sparks and smoke. The stack had caught.

It caught spectacularly, the fire spreading through the interior by the chimney. One moment Toby could see a dull glow at the base, the next the whole roof of the shed was burning, there was a roar of flame, and Scammell's yard was lit like daylight. Sparks whirled crazily upwards, flames illuminating the base of the plume of smoke that rose above the city. Already there were shouts from the street: 'Fire!'

The blaze was roaring, feeding itself, spreading across the shed's roof and dropping burning fragments into the yard. Toby looked to his right and saw Scammell's face, appalled, at the window. He gripped the handle of his sword. The moment was coming!

Fists battered on the yard gate, voices shouted. The noise was huge now with the sound of flames and of panic, and Toby looked left to see the boat shed tangled in fire. Scammell's business was gone, destroyed.

The watch raised the alarm. The church bell started tolling. All across the city people would look from their windows, wondering if the fire would spread. Whole towns had been destroyed by fires that started as tiny, insignificant flames.

Timbers crashed in the stack, spreading the blaze to adjoining stacks, and then more light, feeble by comparison, was thrown into the yard. Scammell stood in his candle-lit doorway, his mouth slack, eyes staring at the churning red-grey smoke that billowed over his yard. He ran to the gates, shouting incomprehensibly, and began to lift the bar to let the watch in. The heat was fearsome.

Toby was watching the window. He could see the big man, his round, broken-nosed face frightening, staring at the flames. He still held Campion, one hand in her hair, forcing her head down. He turned and said something to the others in the room.

There were shouts at the gate; the watch bellowed orders; Scammell threw leather buckets at them as though pails of water might put out the furnace-like intensity of the fire. Now was Toby's moment. He ran, jumped the three steps into Scammell's house and began to shout: Fire! Out! Out!'

The priest was in the hall, a clinking bag of bottles in one hand, another bottle held to his lips. Toby cannoned into him, knocked him down, and then was in the candle-lit room. 'Fire! Out! Out!'

'We hear you!' the big man shouted at Toby. 'Go on, lad! We're coming!' He was dragging Campion by one arm.

Toby ignored him. He seized Campion's other arm and went on shouting as though he was an excited watchman. 'Hurry! Out!' He pulled Campion away from the man, trying to prise her loose.

'Leave her!'

Thomas Grimmett's shout seemed to wake Campion up. To Toby's eyes she had appeared dazed, almost half asleep, and her bonnet had come off in her struggles, leaving her hair falling gold over her slapped, reddened face. Now she looked at her rescuer and recognition dawned. 'Toby!' She jerked away from Grimmett, clung to Toby, and the huge man bellowed in surprise. He heard her use the name, realised Toby was not of the watch and, letting Campion go, he barred the door with his body and rasped his sword from its scabbard.

'Toby!'

'Stand back!' Toby drew his own sword, feeling the movement clumsy compared to the big man's ease. He had never fought for his life, he had never killed, and the elation of the rescue was evaporating in the face of the other man's evident confidence.

Grimmett half smiled. 'You came for her, did you? You're not going to have her, lad. She's mine.' His sword suddenly lunged, a streak of silver light in the red glare of the fire, and Toby parried, trying to remember his fencing lessons, and felt a surge of relief as the blades rang, scraped, and Toby disengaged, stepping back. Grimmett followed fast, threatening again. Again Toby parried and felt the fear rise in him. The big man was good, far better than Toby, and Toby tried to force the fear down by attacking. He tried to loop his sword beneath the other's guard, thought for a moment that he had succeeded, that he had tempted the other blade wide and that his own was poised at the big man's belly, but then he saw the sword coming fast at his head and ducked clumsily. His assailant laughed.

'You'll have to do better than that, son.'

Goodwife was screaming. Campion ran for the door, left unguarded by Grimmett's advance and the huge man stepped backwards to block her, but she changed direction. She leaped at Grimmett, teeth bared, hands clawing, and managed to catch his hair in her fingers. She screamed at him, her fingers hooked in filthy hair, pulling his head down. He shouted at Goodwife to get her off, swore, but Campion hung on and Toby jumped towards his enemy at the same time. He raised his sword, forgetting his teacher's constant adage that the point will always beat the edge, and hacked the blade down and sideways as if it were a pruning hook and his enemy a tangle of brambles.

Grimmett raised his own sword, but Campion was pulling at him, kicking and obstructing him, and Grimmett knew his parry would be too late. He bellowed in rage.

Toby had never killed. He had never known this killing rage, and he watched, almost detached, as, in the light of the candles and the fire's glow, his blade hit Grimmett's bent neck.

Despite Campion, it seemed as if the head came upright as Toby's blade pierced tendon and muscle. Campion let go, and Grimmett came upright. He forced himself against the sword and Toby sawed the blade towards him. The big man's eyes shut. Toby staggered backwards, the blade free, and there was blood everywhere.

Grimmett fell slowly to his knees. His sword clattered on the floor and his hands came up, as if he wanted to pray, clawing at his own face and neck. Toby watched as his enemy fell forward, slumped like a sack of oats on the floor. Toby had killed for the first time and killed for love.

Goodwife screamed. She was standing in the doorway, staring at Toby. Campion stared too, her hands clutched in front of her mouth, and then she looked up at Toby. Suddenly he seemed to become aware again of the noise, of the fire, of the heat that was making the room unbearable. 'Come on!'

Goodwife cringed aside as Toby led Campion into the hall. The priest was in the corner, rescuing fallen bottles, sucking a second bottle dry. The heat through the open door was searing, the light brilliant.

'Come on!' Toby pulled Campion into the flame-light, his excitement overcoming the shock of his first kill, his vision of the bubbling throat and the astonished, shocked, fading eyes.

Scammell saw Campion come into the yard. He grabbed the captain of the watch. 'Stop them!'

'This way!' Toby turned, holding Campion's wrist, and whirled her round in the yard, blue cloak flying outwards. 'Come on!' They ran, hand in hand, towards the wharf, to the small boat Toby remembered drawn up on the mud.

'Stop them!' Scammell's first shout had been involuntary, startled from him by the sight of Campion with a strange man, but now the watch took up the shout. There was nothing they could do to save Scammell's yard, even his neighbours' property was doomed, but the shout convinced them that they had found the culprits. The shout was picked up, men started running, and the cries were for vengeance.

Toby and Campion jumped on to the mud. Campion fell forward into the stinking slime and Toby whirled his bloodstained sword and chopped down on the rope that tied the small boat. 'Push!'

Campion slipped in the mud again and Toby tossed his blade into the boat and heaved at it. His boots were inches deep in muck, the boat was firmly anchored in the mud, but his country breeding had given him strength and he felt the boat's keel release itself from the slimy suction and then slide down towards the lapping water.

'Push!'

'I'm trying!' Campion was laughing now, an inane laugh of relief and excitement. The flames lit the mud easily, throwing great wavering streaks of light on to the river. Timbers crashed behind them, sparks cascaded into the air, and Campion, black with mud, shook with laughter as she pushed at the boat.

'Stop!' The captain of the watch was on the wharf now, but the boat's stern was in the water and Toby ran it with huge strength clean into the river. He turned, picked Campion up and threw her unceremoniously into the boat. 'Go to the back!' He pushed again, wading deep into the water.