From the Charred Remains (23 page)

Without warning, Adam had moved to embrace her then, something he had not done since the day after the Great Fire. Without even thinking, Lucy stepped away from him, causing him to drop his arms to his sides. She just knew that the look of bafflement that crossed his face mirrored her own. She could hardly explain why she had stepped away, except that she was so disappointed that he was not standing up for the watchmaker. She remembered a time when he had braved a dog-baiting ring to stop an atrocity from occurring. Why he would not intervene now, she could not understand.

“Adam, I—” she began, even as he cut her off.

“It’s getting late, Lucy.” He sounded tired. “You should get going. I’ll have John accompany you, so that you’re not stumbling about in the dark.”

*   *   *

The next morning, Lucy set to making a batch of ink—a hot, smelly process—trying unsuccessfully to keep her uneasiness at bay. Thinking of last night’s conversation with Adam only made her feel worse. In part, she was indignant that he was letting a grievous injustice go untended, and in part, in her deepest heart, she knew her pride was hurt. She did not have the power to persuade him as she thought she might.

“Silly git,” she berated herself, softly though so that Lach would not overhear. Noisily, Lucy set a pot of water boiling, stirring in a bit of pine oil, and some other odd things that singed her nose and stung her eyes. Master Aubrey had entrusted them to make enough ink to fill several large pottery jugs that he kept in the cellar. As always, Lach was bossing her around.

“Easy, lass,” Lach said. “You’re liable to spill that pig vomit all over the floor.”

“Pig vomit?” She gingerly laid the blue pottery jar back on the table. “You’re jesting, right?”

Lach shrugged. “Who can tell?”

Certainly, Master Aubrey kept most of the ingredients for making the ink secret, having left instructions to add this amount of brown ground powder, and that amount of green stuff from small clay pots under the workbench by the front window. When the concoction was bubbling, the vile stench assaulted her nose, causing her to double over, nearly retching out her morning porridge.

“Open the shutters, why don’t you?” Lach said, looking a bit green himself.

Lucy gave him an annoyed look. “Can’t trouble yourself, can you?”

“I’ll do you one better. I’ll leave the door open on my way out.” He grinned cheekily.

“Where are you going? What am I supposed to do with all this?” She gestured at the bubbling pot. “This mess?”

His hand on the door, the apprentice turned back for a moment. “Go get the jars from the cellar. Wait until the ink is nearly cool, and then use that spoon there to ladle into each jar,” he explained, snickering. Lach clearly enjoyed bossing her about. “Mind you don’t put the lids on until the ink has completely cooled. Then, put them all back in the cellar until Master Aubrey needs it. I’ll even wait until you come back up.” His last statement was spoken with excessive generosity, as if he were doing her an enormous favor.

Sighing, Lucy descended carefully into the cellar. There was a grated window just above the street that let in some daylight, so she didn’t need to carry a candle. She hadn’t been down here much, but she found the empty jars lined up on some wooden shelves. As she started to fill her arms, she noticed some stacks of old pamphlets and broadsides dumped in the corner. She’d not seen these before.

Curious, she knelt down and began to look through the pile. A quick glance at the printer’s mark showed they were not Master Aubrey’s, but rather from competing printers. Many seemed to be from other countries, including Germany, Holland, and France. There was also a great stack of newssheets called the
Mercurias Caledonian
, which seemed to have been printed in Edinburgh in the 1660s, just after King Charles’s restoration to the throne. When she went back upstairs into the shop, she asked Lach about the sheets.

“Oh, yeah,” Lach said, taking off his apron. “Master Aubrey has agreements with other printers in different countries, and other counties. He likes to see what they’re doing. Sometimes he trades them for a woodcut he likes too.” He showed her one. It looked like a rooster coming from a devil’s mouth. “And here’s another—”

“I see he has
News from Scotland
,” Lucy interrupted, not wanting Lach to get needlessly diverted. “Do you think he has anything recent?”

“I think he may have brought some back from his last trip up north.” Lach gave her a sharp look. “More about the plague, hey?”

Lucy smiled, but didn’t say anything more when he left the shop. Let him think that’s what she wanted to look at them for. Suddenly she was glad Lach had left her alone. After a minute or two, when she was positive the apprentice would not return, she bolted the shop door and returned to the cellar.

Sure enough, Master Aubrey had collected news from Edinburgh, Leeds, and York, many from earlier in the year. Rifling through the hodgepodge from York, she found the usual recipes for true love, reports of highwaymen, some speeches from the King. She was about to set them aside when a tract caught her eye.
A True and Horrible Account of a Good Preacher, Ill met by Vandals.

Glancing at the text, Lucy saw that a parish priest in a little town outside of York had been found dead, a blow to the back of his head. Although she knew from experience that clergy were not always the most godly of men, to murder a priest seemed a most profane act.

Had he deserved it? A little voice inside her could not help but ask. Even as the terrible thought crossed her mind, Lucy tapped on a low-hanging wooden beam, saying a quick prayer, hoping God would forgive her. She continued to piece through the woodcuts, not sure what she was looking for. Before long, the title of a broadside stopped her.
A True Account, of a most terrible poysoning in Carlisle. The first born son of the second Earl of Cumberland, had been found poysoned, in his own bed.

Quickly, Lucy read the rest of the account. Someone had slipped some arsenic to the young man, the guess was in his lamb stew. His mother, the very same Lady Cumberland who had dined at the Hargraves, had come to look for him after he missed their afternoon ride, and found him convulsing in his bed. The local apothecary had been called in, just in time to administer a soothing remedy. It was later discovered that a jar of arsenic, intended to be mixed with vinegar and chalk for Lady Cumberland’s face cream, had disappeared from her dressing table. Lucy knew from reading Dr. Culpeper’s guide to a woman’s healthy complexion that such a mixture was common to whiten a woman’s skin and to remove blemishes. Toward the end of the account, some rumors were mentioned that a maid from the household, who had been let go for an earlier theft, had been suspected of either adding the poison to the stew herself or giving it to the person who committed the act. Nothing had been proved, and the matter had been dropped.

Thoughtfully, Lucy tucked a few of the tracts in her pocket. She spent the next hour ladling the vile ink into the jars, swearing at Lach the whole time for abandoning her to such an unwholesome endeavor. “Errand, my foot!” she muttered. On her way out, she ran into Lach, who had timed his return carefully.

“Shop’s all aired out now,” she taunted. “So your delicate nose won’t be offended.”

Lach just gave her an infuriating grin. “No pack?” he asked, seeing her empty arms. “Where are you off to now? To see your sweetheart?”

“If you must know, I’m off to see Constable Duncan. There is something I must relay to him.”

She hurried out, to forestall any more questions from the smirking printer’s devil.

*   *   *

“I was thinking,” Lucy said to Duncan some ten minutes later. She’d arrived at the makeshift jail to find the constable and his bellman wrestling a drunken man into one of the cells. “About Lord Cumberland.”

“Ugh, I’m a bit busy at the moment, Lucy,” he said through gritted teeth. The drunk was throwing anything he could get his hands on. He looked strong enough, and full of enough spirits to rip the wood frame right off its nails, if they could not restrain him. Since the Fire there had been much more public disorderliness, caused mainly from too much drink and not enough to do. Though athletic in build, the constable certainly looked to have his hands full.

“It’s just that, don’t you think it was a bit odd for a man of his means to be staying at The Sparrow?” Lucy asked, neatly avoiding a tin cup hitting her in the ear. “Hardly a place for gentry, I’d say.”

With a final grimace, Duncan wrenched the man’s hand from the prison bars and shoved him into the cell. He turned back toward Lucy, arms crossed over his red uniform. “It might not mean anything. Furthermore, we have no evidence to conclude that he’s staying there. He might be meeting a business acquaintance there.” He coughed slightly and she knew by “business acquaintance” he no doubt meant a lady-bird, but did not want to say. “Particularly since we know he has brought his wife to the City. He might wish to not involve her with his—” Again, he sought for words. “His business transactions.”

“You’re suggesting that he has a lady love on the side,” Lucy said impatiently. “I’ve never had need of a nursemaid, and I don’t need one now. Believe me, I understand something about how nobles behave.” Catching a whiff of the drunken sot, Lucy added, “Whew! He’s had a bit of ale, hasn’t he?”

Duncan nodded at the drunken man now laying senseless on the floor. To the bellman he said, “Keep an eye on him.” He led Lucy to a bench. “What brought you here anyway?”

“Look at these accounts,” she said, pulling out the penny pieces she’d found in Master Aubrey’s cellar. “What do you make of them?”

Duncan read through them quickly. “May I keep these for a bit?” he asked. “I’d like to read the details more carefully.”

Lucy hesitated. They weren’t hers to give away, but she nodded anyway.

“You’ve got to get back,” he reminded her. “I can’t let Master Aubrey think you’re shirking your duties.”

*   *   *

When Lucy returned to the printer’s shop a short while later, she found Lach waiting for her. “Your lordship Master Adam stopped by,” he said with a mischievous wink, handing her a folded piece of paper.

“Adam came here?” Lucy asked, sounding more eager than she intended.

“Yeah. He waited for quite some time, but neither of us thought it would take you so long to have your piece with the constable. He wanted me to pass this note on to your ladyship.”

Lucy felt an odd sinking feeling in her heart. With slightly trembling fingers, she opened the note, reading Adam’s elegant script. “
Lucy,
” he had written. “
I was hoping I might find you available but you seemed already engaged.
”

She put the note to her chest. “Oh, Adam. What are you thinking?” she murmured, before continuing to read.

“I wanted to tell you that I did write a defense on behalf of Master Hubert, your beleaguered watchmaker, giving him words to speak at the trial. I truly hope that he will see sense and proclaim his innocence. I am not the heartless fellow you see me as these days.”

After that, Adam had scribbled out some words before he’d added his customary signature. With a pang, she noticed he hadn’t concluded with an endearment. She tried to make out the words he had crossed out. She thought it said, “I hope we can meet soon.”

Lucy tucked the note inside her secret pocket. She was warmed by the knowledge that Adam had tried to help the watchmaker, especially since she knew the action stemmed from her plea. At the same time, everything between her and Adam seemed so strained lately. She reread his words.
I am not the heartless fellow you see me as these days.
Why ever would he write such a thing? He seemed distant, but not in the way he’d been when she’d first lived at the magistrate’s household as a chambermaid. Then, the distance had stemmed from their relative positions, and certainly he’d always been courteous. Over time, she knew his regard for her had grown. The night of the Fire he’d admitted to her that he felt the gap between their stations had been bridged.

Lucy smiled for a moment, remembering that desperate, wonderful moment when Adam had pronounced his love for her. In the moment, life had seemed uncomplicated. Uncorking a small vial of ink, she started to write a note, asking if they could meet on the morrow.

Her good mood dissipated though when Master Aubrey returned to the shop a few hours later. He’d been hawking out by Westminster, where he learned that the watchmaker had once again proclaimed his guilt in burning down London. The man had begged to be hanged in the morning, and naturally the courts had happily obliged. It seemed that Adam’s defense had come to naught.

“There’s nothing else to be done for Master Hubert, I’m afraid.” The bookseller moved to pour himself some ale from a large jar on the wooden table. Seeing Lucy clench her fists, Master Aubrey patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “London doesn’t need a martyr, Lucy,” he said, “but it does need blood.”

15

Lucy brushed away some of the dried leaves that had blown into the printer’s shop, and took a deep breath. A week or so had passed since the witless watchmaker had been executed, and a little bit of life seemed to be returning to London. No longer did people seem to be rootless, like so much drifting fog. Indeed, the beginning of October had proved to be quite pleasant, and the heavy smoke smell that had long lingered over London seemed finally to be lifting as well.

Lach and Master Aubrey were both out selling, so it was a rare day that the press was not going. Lucy was about to shut the door, to keep more dirt and leaves from blowing in, when a woman called her name. It was Rhonda Water, looking slightly more disheveled than Lucy had ever seen her. Her fine gray traveling gown looked wrinkled, even a bit stained, as if she’d been moving roughly. Looking closer, Lucy was surprised to see a trickle of sweat on her forehead, a far cry from the collected woman she’d seen before.

“Miss Water.” Lucy kept her tone civil, although her cheeks burned a bit from the memory of the gentlewoman calling her a pauper in the Oxford churchyard. “Is there something you want? Something I can fetch for you?”