From the Charred Remains (2 page)

Meanwhile, the two boys were still playing, oblivious to all that was going on around them. The helmet of one boy had slipped over his eyes. “I’ll slick you to bits, Sir Dungheap,” he called to his friend, his voice somewhat muffled under the heavy iron mask. They heard him make a wretching sound. “Hey, this thing stinks!”

“Not so fast, Lord Lughead,” Sir Dungheap retorted. “First, you shall have a taste of my sword.” The other boy struggled to lift the sword, but only succeeded in toppling them both over, a great mash of arms, legs, and rusty armor.

Although Lucy was hot, tired, and greatly in want of an ale, a smile tugged at her lips. Clearing the rubble was backbreaking work, but it had already brought in a few extra shillings that she and her brother could sorely use. Besides, there was a funny sort of camaraderie that had arisen among the group she was with, some friendly jesting and singing had helped pass the long hours. Most people blamed the Catholics for the Fire. Papists, they called them. This notion united them a bit as they labored, even though by some accounts the inferno had started on Pudding Lane when a baker had failed to douse his ovens before his slumber.

Others hysterically claimed that the French had set London ablaze. Even before the Fire, it was customary to mock and jeer the French. After all, King Charles had been at war with France for a number of months now. Why they were at war, Lucy could not really say. She thought it had something to do with the Dutch and shipping routes, but was otherwise in the dark. At first, when the war was going well, the French were just the source of many tavern jests. Who hadn’t laughed at the French “dancing men,” who dared fight the valiant English soldiers? Who hadn’t heard the tale of the French sailors who had looked down the barrel of a cannon to see if the gunpowder had been lit? As the war dragged on though, and the English began to suffer actual damages, the mood toward the French had grown steadily more poisonous. In the weeks leading up to the Fire, rumors abounded about Frenchmen plotting to blow up Parliament, just as Guy Fawkes had tried to do some sixty years before.

Since the Fire, though, all foreigners but especially the French were looked at with heavy suspicious eyes. As rumors worsened, Lucy knew that at least a few French merchants had fled London with their families for fear of a mob being set upon them. Just yesterday, they’d heard of a Frenchman in Smithfield being run out of London with a pitchfork.

But it wasn’t just the French or the Catholics who were being blamed. A lot of griping, though, and surly words were being directed toward the King himself. No matter that the monarch had helped fight the flames with his own hands, many Londoners were still quick to claim that King Charles had not done enough to help the survivors. Last Thursday, the monarch had stood at Moorfields to declare that the Fire had been an act of nature. “Not foreign powers!” he had proclaimed. “Not subversives! Not the Catholics! Not even our enemies across the Channel. An act of God!”

This pleased the soothsayers and almanac-makers to no end, of course, particularly as people began to buy their books and seek more hidden prophecies. Still, most people were not convinced. “Looking for a scapegoat, they are,” the magistrate had told her. “I can tell you, Lucy, this worries me.” She remembered how last year, when the full-blown plague had finally descended on London, Master Hargrave had called his servants together. “If ever you see a mob forming, you run the other way!” he had warned them. “Bad things happen when a crowd takes leave of its senses.” The same was surely true in these tense days.

Thinking of the magistrate’s kindness, Lucy smiled. She could never put into words the fortune she had received when entering service in Master Hargrave’s household. Not only was he a just and godly man, but he was not one to diminish an idea simply because it came from a servant. As she learned later, he had not minded that she secretly listened to his daughter’s tutors, so long as she had polished, chopped, swept, and laundered as she ought. When he would read texts to the members of the family, fulfilling his moral duty as the head of the household, he would allow her to ask questions. He was only required to read them the Bible to assure the salving of his conscience, but over time he began to read from other texts he enjoyed—Locke, Hobbes, and the like. Even Shakespeare, since the ban against frivolity had been lifted by the King six years before.

How shocked his son, Adam, had been, when he first returned to his father’s household upon completing his legal studies in law at the Inns of Court. Not only that his father would question his chambermaid about some fairly difficult pieces, but, as he told Lucy a long time later, he was deeply struck by her ability to answer his father’s questions in a lively and imaginative way.

Thinking of Adam now, Lucy bit her lip. For so long, there had been nothing between them. Like his father, Adam had always treated her respectfully, not being a man to abuse or force himself upon his servants, as so many men of their station were wont to do. He’d always been courteous, but generally aloof, seemingly paying her little mind. From time to time, though, they had shared curious fluttering exchanges that had revealed that she was in his thoughts, but she did not know what to make of it.

Then, when the family was beset by several tragedies over the last year, including the death of her mistress, Adam’s mother, something between them all had begun to change. To the magistrate, Lucy had become something like a daughter. To the magistrate’s daughter, she had become a sister. To Adam, well, she became something more dear, although for the longest time, as she recently learned, he had struggled with his feelings for a servant. Social convention claimed that there could be no honorable match between gentry and servant, and she knew he had not wished to dishonor her.

The night of the Fire though, Adam had seemed to cast convention aside. She shivered, remembering his fervent promises. Even in the immediate aftermath, their future together, not quite stated, had seemed possible. But what would that future be like, she couldn’t help wonder. Would she be accepted by Adam’s peers? Certainly not by those who knew her to have been a chambermaid. Would such a poor match hurt Adam’s career? And more insidiously, a little voice whispered inside her, did she even want to get married? The world of dawning opportunities beckoned. Marriage, children—could they wait? The magistrate had told her once how much he had admired several of the petticoat authors, women who had dared take up a pen and promote their own views. Had he been suggesting something to her? She could not be sure.

With a slight sigh, Lucy remembered her last conversation with Adam, a week ago, in the magistrate’s kitchen. He’d been pressed by the Lord Mayor to help survey the wreckage and assess the scope of the property claims, and had barely slept or eaten for three days. Sitting at the bench, resting his head on his fist, Lucy had never seen him so overwhelmed and distracted. The disaster that had befallen the City was clearly taking his toll.

Exhausted, he’d barely spoken to her, and seemed to be only half-listening when she broached the topic of her leaving service to look after her brother, Will, a smithy in his own right. “It’s not as if I have a place here. Not truly,” she’d whispered. “Not since Annie has taken on my old responsibilities.”

At that, he had opened his eyes and frowned. “She’s done so for a few months now. Nothing has changed. There’s no need for you to leave.”

“Nothing has changed?” she had asked. “It no longer feels proper for me to live here. That’s what changed. Or perhaps you don’t agree?”

The words came out differently than she intended, and for a second he looked hurt and puzzled. “I was not aware that I had dishonored you,” he said.

“No, no. You haven’t,” she said, fervently wishing she had not spoken. “Please, you’re exhausted. Let us discuss this at another time.”

He had closed his eyes. “Yes, I am quite weary. The madness that is out there, Lucy. The beggars, the looters, the liars. So many at the mercy of some truly godless wrongdoers. I should not like you to see it.” Then he trudged up to his chamber to sleep, as he was leaving early the next morning. Given her work cleaning up the rubble, their paths had barely crossed and they had found no time to resume this delicate conversation.

Watching Sir Dungheap and Lord Lughead again, tilting aimlessly at each other, Lucy was reminded of this promise of a new world. At what other time could ragamuffins become knights, she pondered with a smile.

Again, Annie was following a different thought. “Those lads best not let them soldiers see them with those swords. They look valuable, fancy-like,” she said, sniffing. “Those boys are going to get hauled off to Newgate. Well, not Newgate, since that’s been burnt, but another jail.”

Lucy shivered, remembering the long terrible months during which her brother Will had wasted away in Newgate jail, the stinkhole of London. Mercifully, he had been released before the plague had taken hold. Not for the first time, Lucy wondered what had happened to the rest of the prisoners during the Fire, for surely the jailers she had met would not think twice about running off without setting the denizens free. The official word was that no one in the prison had died. She had heard whispers, though, that the prisoners inside had simply been left to the inferno and their eternal damnation. And if Will hadn’t been set free—. She thrust the thought away.

“Oh, sorry miss, I didn’t think,” Annie said, awkwardly patting her arm. “They won’t be off to jail. More likely they will get their ears boxed.” She set her shovel down, as if she were about to start moving debris again. Instead, she took a half-step closer to Lucy. “Someone’s watching us,” she whispered. “Just yonder, past the stones there.” She discreetly pointed her finger.

Lucy followed her gaze. Sure enough, a young man was looking at them, not raking as he ought to have been. “Not working too hard, is he?” Lucy commented. Catching her eye, the man began to saunter toward them. “Oh, no! He’s coming this way. Ignore him, Annie. We’ve work to do.”

The young man planted himself in front of them. “’Tis a shame your pretty hands are getting dirtied in this muck.” When he grinned, his face lengthened, making him look a bit devilish.

In that instant, Lucy recognized him and rolled her eyes. Sid Petry. She’d seen him once pick a woman’s pocket and later being tried at court for another misdemeanor. Like the other laborers, Sid was wearing heavy wool breeches and a jacket, but somehow he didn’t seem quite as raggedy or dusty as the rest of the men, although a light grime covered his features. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and his dark blond hair looked fairly well kept. His hazel eyes danced with mischief.

Her own eyes narrowed. “Shouldn’t you be working,
Sid
?” she asked. Annie looked at her, surprised Lucy would know the former ragamuffin.

Sid’s smirk grew. “So we’ve met, have we?” he asked, looking more interested. Not wanting him to recall the exact circumstances of their first meeting nearly two years before, when she was just eighteen, Lucy repeated her question.

He winked. “Who’s to say I’m not working?”

Remembering Sid’s penchant for petty theft, Lucy hid a smile. “Looting is a bad business,” she warned. “The justice of the peace may not be so lenient this time. You might get more than the stocks, should you do anything the law might not like.”

Sid puffed up his chest. “So, you’ve seen me work, eh?”

“Seen you get caught.”

“Ah, you cut me to the quick.” He looked around. “Don’t see no Redcoats nearby, do you? They must have pinched off for a pint, I’d wager.”

“They’re around. Take something. You’ll see.” Lucy warned him again. She looked around. Sure enough, there weren’t any soldiers around anymore. For heaven’s sake, she thought. The looting that could happen if the others realized that the soldiers were no longer paying attention. She turned back to Sid. “You’re familiar enough with the stocks, aren’t you?”

Sid stepped closer to her. Being close to seventeen or eighteen now, he’d grown taller since she had last seen him, and now loomed over her a bit. “Ah, miss. I don’t even know your name?”

“She’s Lucy,” Annie piped in, even as Lucy elbowed her in the ribs. “I remember you too, Sid. From the streets.”

Sid turned his attention to the younger girl, slapping his head in mock dismay. “Now I must be going daft. Not to recall two lovely lasses such as yourselves.”

Annie looked pleased. “Oh, get on with you.”

Lucy was about to wave Sid off when she noticed one of the boys, Sir Dungheap, suddenly drop his sword, and rip off his helmet. Looking horrified, he began to shout, making an odd gurgling sound. He pointed downward at something hidden on the other side of the mound of debris. Lord Lughead was nowhere to be seen. For a moment Lucy felt sick. He probably had run his mate through with a sword.

But then the boy started to call. “Help! Help! A body! A body!”

Hearing the boy’s cry, Lucy and Annie dropped their rakes and buckets and raced over the rubble, their skirts catching in the debris, Sid a few steps ahead of them. Lucy wondered sickly what they would find. She had heard of a few bodies that had been found here and there. A young woman, too afraid to jump from a burning building. An elderly woman found huddled in St. Dennis, probably thinking the great stone pillars and God would protect her. And most miraculously of all, the corpse of a saint who had died some hundreds of years before, perfectly preserved after being displaced somehow from his crypt.

But when Lucy reached the boys, she gagged. A man’s body was spilling from a great wooden barrel, where it lay on its side on the ash-covered ground.

“He knocked it over, he did it,” Sir Dungheap said, a bit resentfully, pointing at the other boy. “Standing on top of that barrel, ’til he toppled it over, he did.”

Sir Lughead, who looked a little pale, tried to muster a cheeky grin. “Not my fault the body was in there, though, was it?”

Ignoring the boys, Lucy took a closer look. From the vermin crawling all over him, he’d clearly been dead for a while. Lucy dimly noted a shock of black hair and brownish skin before her eyes fixed on the handle of a knife protruding from his chest. His eyes—mercifully—were closed. She saw Sid turn away in disgust.