From the Charred Remains (7 page)

“Oh, I see.” Looking about, the woman sat down. She slid over a coin, which Lucy quickly palmed before pushing the Fire poem across the table. The innkeeper started over, a baleful look on his face.

Lucy smiled pleasantly up at him. “Some mead for my companion if you please, sir.” She glanced at the woman, who was staring at the first page of the pamphlet, and made no attempt to pay for her own drink. Reluctantly Lucy handed the innkeeper a coin, mentally counting what she had left. She prayed that he would not expect her to buy another drink for herself, for she could not spare any more.

Thankfully, the barman nodded, satisfied. “Hannah!” he called gruffly to the serving maid. “Another mead here!” He even took the dingy towel hanging from his waste to wipe away the little pool of liquid that had spilled on the table, before moving off.

Now, the woman had begun to anxiously page through the
Miscellany.
At the pamphlet’s last page, the woman’s face grew pale; indeed, she looked quite ill. Belatedly, Lucy wondered if the woman had taken sick. She edged back in her chair, lest the woman should sneeze upon her. She cursed herself for not carrying a posy that might ward off the sickly vapors. Although the physician Larimer had declared London well-rid of the plague, the ague and other deathly maladies never truly went away.

To Lucy’s dismay, the woman’s eyes had filled with tears. “You said this poem was found with the body?” she whispered, pointing at the woodcut on the front. Lucy could barely hear her over the din of the inn.

Lucy nodded. “I saw him myself. Poor sod. He was killed through and through with a knife. Before the Great Fire. A wonder his body survived, and that’s a fact.”

The woman’s shoulders slumped. “Thank you.” She stood, turning quickly on her heel. Before Lucy could say anything more, the woman turned and walked unsteadily out of the tavern.

Without thinking, Lucy raced after the woman, who had gotten a few paces down the street. “Miss! Wait!” Lunging forward, she grasped the woman’s arm. Something was clearly amiss. “Pray, you are not well. Let us sit back down. Have your drink.”

Lucy led the woman back into the Golden Lion, almost as one might lead a child. The serving maid, Hannah, was standing by the table they had just vacated, looking bemusedly at the steaming tankard in her hands. “Oh, you came back,” she said. “I was about to dump this back in the kettle.”

The woman still looked dazed, and a bit teary, but seemed to revive slightly when she placed her hands around the warm tankard.

“Drink,” Lucy urged. She wondered if the woman’s wits might be addled, given her odd countenance. Then she recalled the woman’s clear and elegant speech. Distraught as the woman might be, she did not seem touched.

The woman dutifully took a sip, breathing in the fragrant liquid. Lucy took the moment to study her. Looking to be in her late twenties, the woman had dark circles under her eyes that added to her years. Her mouth was pinched and drawn, her dark brown hair pulled in a practiced way under her soft blue cap. Again, Lucy was struck by her pallor. She scrambled for something to say. “I’m Lucy Campion.”

The woman looked up from the woodcut. “Thank you.” She hesitated. “I’m Rhonda.”

“Do I know you, Miss—?” Lucy asked, noticing the woman had not provided her last name. Clearly she did not want to be too familiar, and yet even servants did not introduce themselves with just their first name. Truth be told, only ladybirds and doxies kept their last names to themselves, and that was only to keep from further shaming their fathers and brothers. Or so Lucy had been told. She did not have any prostitutes among her own acquaintance.

The woman seemed to realize this at the same time. “Rivers. Miss Rivers.” The way she hesitated made Lucy suspect that was not her real last name. “No, we’ve never met.” “Miss Rivers” took another sip of the hot liquid. The sustenance seemed to calm her, as it had Lucy a half hour before when she first sat down in the tavern.

“How did you know I was,” Lucy paused, “a bookseller?” For a moment, she forgot the woman’s obvious turmoil, savoring the ease with which she had proclaimed her new identity. Bookseller! Then her natural curiosity resurfaced. “Did you see me selling the miscellany outside? I did not see you, though.” She searched the woman’s face. Something about the woman’s sad eyes prompted her memory. “You heard Master Aubrey tell the story, back at his shop!” she said, snapping her fingers. “I remember you now.”

“Yes, I was there. I’d been to the market with my father, hoping to bring some provisions to some of my father’s acquaintances who’d been put out by the Fire,” Miss Rivers admitted. “I heard the printer say you would be selling them at the Golden Lion on the Strand. I needed to read the pamphlet myself. So I followed you.”

“Then why didn’t you buy the pamphlet there? Save yourself the trouble?” Lucy asked. Miss Rivers looked to be a woman of means; it was unlikely she had not possessed sufficient coin. Truly, the woman’s actions made no sense.

“I can see you are wondering at me.” Miss Rivers’s chin trembled. “I didn’t want to believe it. Then I found I could not bear not knowing.”

“I’m sorry,” Lucy said, clasping her hands at the table. “I don’t know what came over me. I know I do not always heed my tongue as I ought. You do not owe me any explanations. Truth be told, you seemed so distraught.”

Miss Rivers looked down at her tankard, which was still about half full.

Lucy continued her stilted amends. “The Fire, you must have lost—” That didn’t sound right, so she tried again. “The body, I mean, the man who was murdered—” Seeing Miss Rivers’s face blanch, she stopped again. After a moment, Lucy settled on the most tactful question she could muster. “Did you lose someone in the Great Fire?”

Miss Rivers spoke, her tone flat and colorless. “Yes, I’m most certain I did. My great love. He came for me. Now he’s dead!”

Lucy shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand. How can you know he was the one who died? I mean, no one knows who the body could have been,” she stumbled again. “I mean, who the man was, not even the constable.”

“I know,” Miss Rivers declared, with the same chilling certainty. She pointed to the poem that Sid had found in the wooden barrel. “He wrote that poem. For me.” Despair rising in her voice, she repeated again, “He’s dead! I know it!”

“How could you possibly know that?” Lucy asked, hoping to stave off the woman’s growing agitation. “It just says ‘Dear Hart.’ Surely, that could be for anyone. And the poem is unsigned. Aren’t poems signed? Even if just with ‘Anonymous’?”

Miss Rivers smiled, a sad pitiful smile. “I know you mean well. But I can prove the poem was intended for me.” She smoothed out the woodcut. “See, it’s an acrostic.”

Like the London Fire poem, Lucy realized. She watched as Miss Rivers put a delicate finger on the first letter of each line.

N
ow, Dear Hart—

A
s the poet says, come to the garden in spring. There’s wine and

s
weethearts in the pomegranate blossoms.

R
emember!

I
f you do not come, these do

N
ot matter.

I
f you do come, these do not matter.

M
y rose will bloom, among the

H
earty pineapples,

e
ven in the first freeze of autumn.

R
ose, my love—

E
ven kings can wrong a fey duet.

“N-A-S-R-I-N-I-M-H-E-R-E,” Lucy spelled out loud. “I still don’t get it.”

“‘Nasrin, I’m here.’ That’s what it says. He was speaking to me.” Seeing Lucy’s puzzled look, Miss Rivers continued in a more hushed tone. “My name
is
Nasrin, in Persian. You see, my name, ‘Rhonda,’ actually means ‘wild rose’ in Welsh. My parents’ tribute to my Welsh lineage, I suppose. When I told my sweetheart that, he wanted to give me a special name, which also meant wild rose, which only he and I would know.”

“Nasrin?” Lucy tasted the name. “How did he come up with that, I wonder.”

Miss Rivers smiled slightly, her voice thick with tears. “You see, my sweetheart he is—was—Persian, from the land of the Shah.” She shook her head. “He must have traveled here. ‘Nasrin, I’m here.’” She dabbed at her eyes. “He must have been hoping to surprise me. Now he’s gone!”

“Yes, it would seem so,” Lucy said, chewing on her lower lip. “However, the poem was only published by mistake—because I had asked Master Aubrey to include it in the
London Miscellany.
Why didn’t he just tell you he was here? Why did he need to inform you by poem?”

Miss Rivers was silent for a moment. When she spoke, it was with the air of someone seeking to share a heavy burden. “My father would never allow him to see me, I’m afraid. Certainly, he would not let me be courted,” she said. “I met Darius, you see, in the court of the Persian shah. My father, an Oxford scholar, wanted me along because of my expertise with languages. Not that he would admit to that completely, of course.” She took a sip. Revived, she continued. “Even though we lived graciously, my father could never quite view the Persians as his equals. I am ashamed to say it. He was keen enough to study their culture and their literature, but become connected by blood? This he could not do.” Her voice shook a bit. “We had traveled to Persia with another of my father’s colleagues from Denmark. I think my father may have hoped the Danish gentlemen would become smitten with me, or I of him, to keep that valuable connection close to our family.”

Lucy grimaced. She knew well of the expectations that gentry had about marriage. They married for property and connections, usually giving little thought to love and friendship.

Miss Rivers continued. “Instead, I met Darius, one of the translators at court. We fell deeply, madly in love. From him, I learned about life, love, and the poetry of the great mystics.” She gulped. “We often wrote poems to each other. My sweet Darius must have intended to send this poem to me. To let me know he was here.”

“So he wanted you to know he was here in London,” Lucy said gently. “Yet he doesn’t say where he is, or how to meet him.” She paused. “Or does he?”

Miss Rivers studied the poem again. “I’m not entirely sure. In the first part, Darius is referring to the words of Rumi, an ancient poet. This passage was one I loved most deeply. When I heard the poem read, I just knew he had written it.” Closing her eyes again, the woman recited, “‘
Come to the garden in spring. There’s wine and sweethearts in the pomegranate blossoms. If you do not come, these do not matter. If you do come, these do not matter.
’” She smiled at the distant memory, perhaps remembering her love-drenched days in a garden with Darius.

“You did not say the word ‘remember,’” Lucy noted, dragging Miss Rivers from her reverie, having followed the words written on the paper with her index finger. “That’s what Darius wrote in the poem.”

“No, I supposed Darius must have added the word to make sure my name was easily spelled in the acrostic.”

“Was this second part also written by this poet, what did you say his name was, Rumi?”

Miss Rivers frowned. “I don’t know. It doesn’t sound familiar.” Musing, she read the last line of the poem again. “
Even kings can wrong a fey duet.
I wonder.”

“Wronged by a king.” Lucy repeated. “You said ‘land of the Shah’ before. Is the Shah a king? That’s what he must have meant, don’t you think? And a ‘fey duet.’ That must be you and him. Rather sweet, truly.” Though she tried to sound comforting, Lucy could not help but blink away tears thinking of poor Darius spilling out of the barrel, knife through his chest. Perhaps he had come to London to challenge Miss Rivers’s father and seek her hand in marriage, only to wind up murdered in an old seedy tavern. She looked away.

“Yes, you must be right,” Miss Rivers said, but she didn’t seem convinced. Lucy was thankful when she passed Lucy a coin for the mead. She pressed Lucy’s hand. “Lucy. Dear. Thank you.”

Lucy found herself unexpectedly drawn to this dignified and sad young woman. “I think you should tell the constable about,” she hesitated, “your young man. Darius.” Seeing Miss Rivers’s mouth turn down in protest, she added, “Constable Duncan does not know who this man is. The law should be apprised.”

“Lucy, I can see you mean well, but talking to the constable will not bring my Darius back. Nothing will bring him back to me.”

“Surely you would want his murderer brought to justice?!” Lucy said. To think otherwise was too painful. She herself had spent more than two years trying to bring a monster—the murderer of her most dear friend—to justice.

“I cannot explain. Pray, do not press me any further.” With one final sob, Miss Rivers fled from the Golden Lion. This time Lucy made no attempt to follow her, stunned and saddened by what she had just learned. It wasn’t until much later, when it was far too late, that Lucy realized she had not asked Miss Rivers about the other items in the leather bag.

4

“His name was Darius,” Lucy said. Duncan looked up from a stack of papers, squinting at her in the bold streaming light of the setting sun. In the hours since she had last been on Fleet Street, the constable had made a sort of makeshift jail near the site of the Cheshire Cheese. It looked to have once been a candle-maker’s shop. She remembered now a chandler had worked there but had succumbed to the plague or the ague, or some other such malady rampant in London before the Fire. Evidently, the City had appropriated the shop as one of the many jails temporarily designed to hold criminals while they figured out what to do without Newgate or Fleet Prison. She could see they had lost no time, however, in putting up bars across one side of the old workroom, to lock up the riff-raff and other nefarious sorts that the constable wanted off the street.

“What?” Duncan asked.

“Darius,” Lucy repeated. “The dead man. In the Fire. His name was Darius. He was Persian.”