The Thief Taker (31 page)

He turned the possibility over and over, but couldn’t make it fit with what he knew of Malvern’s plans.

‘Did he sign an address in the betting book?’ asked Charlie hopefully. ‘Some place I might track him?’

But Jenny shook her head. ‘If he did, I did not see it.’

‘Did you go to his home?’ pressed Charlie. ‘Perhaps you remember the street?’

‘He took me to a church,’ said Jenny, her face stricken. ‘Full of mouldering food.’

She shuddered and went on. ‘I only made my escape by hiding in a priest hole. But he had a brute load of bloodied tools. God forbid what he might have done to me.’

Charlie tried to quell the agonised thought that Maria could be encountering those same tools.

‘Where was the church?’ he said, fighting to keep his tone even.

‘I do not know,’ admitted Jenny. ‘Only that we wandered for a while through backstreets. Girls such as I are not welcome in churches,’ she added apologetically.

Charlie felt a terrible paralysing feeling sweep over him. That he would not find her. He thought back to Malvern’s map, but it was no help to him. No churches had been marked, and there was no pattern to the crosses to suggest a headquarters.

‘What size was the church?’ he tried. ‘Was there anything to mark it out?’

Jenny shook her head slowly. ‘I think you would call it large,’ she said slowly, ‘Or so it seemed to me. And it stank inside,’ she added wrinkling her nose.

Charlie let out a breath.

‘Did it have a graveyard?’ he tried, panning through ways to narrow things down.

Jenny nodded. ‘I think so. Yes. It did. We walked through it. I remember, I tried to make a joke about walking over graves.’

Charlie let his mental map of London range around Botolph Lane. There were seven churches within walking distance. Only three had a graveyard.

Fen Church, St Clements and All Hallows.

What could distinguish those churches?

‘You said it had a priest hole?’ Charlie said, taking Jenny’s arm urgently. ‘You hid inside?’

Jenny nodded. ‘Hid inside, shaking for my very life,’ she affirmed.

‘That could only be St Clements or Fen Church,’ decided
Charlie
. ‘All Hallows never hid priests.’

He toyed with the facts for a moment. But they brought him no closer. Time was too short. He would have to take a guess.

Of the two, Fen Church was nearest to the river. It was nothing better than an educated guess, but if Malvern planned an uprising, proximity to the Thames might be tactical.

‘Can you take me to the Tower of London docks?’ Charlie asked, turning urgently to Marc-Anthony.

‘We can sail you to St Katherine’s docks,’ said Marc-Anthony. ‘But that part of London is deadly dangerous Charlie. Plague has made it a no man’s land. You should be prepared for the worst.’

‘What worst is that?’

‘I think you may be horrified Charlie. To see what has become of your City.’

‘Yet I must go, and quickly,’ said Charlie.

Marc-Anthony signalled to his men, who loosed the anchors and set about manoeuvring the sails.

The ship heaved off into the swelling current, and Charlie felt relief to be taking action.

Marc-Anthony disappeared momentarily and returned with a long rifle.

‘You should take this,’ he said, handing the gun to Charlie. ‘It is only a rabbit gun, but it is the sturdiest weapon on board.’

Charlie took the gun. ‘Are you sure you can spare it?’

Marc-Anthony waved the comment aside. ‘It shoots out a spray of shot which could slow a man down perhaps,’ he said. ‘If the angle were right.’ He considered for a moment. ‘If you got a good shot right in the face it may do some greater damage.’

‘Thank you Marcus.’

‘I am sorry I cannot arm you properly,’ said Marc-Anthony sadly. ‘But you know how it is Charlie. All the good pistols belong to rich folk. This is the best we have, but better than nothing eh? When terrible men abound.’

Chapter Seventy

Maria felt the hard stone floor beneath her and a tomb propping her upright. Her wrists were still bound tightly with rope, and a gag of rough cloth cut into her cheeks. She was in a church. But the building had been repurposed.

A terrible smell hung in the air. Like the butchers at Smithfield on a hot day. As though meat had been piled up to rot.

Maria twisted her head for a better look at her surroundings.

The church had been filled with piles and piles of weapons. There were stacks of swords and pikestaffs lining hundreds back against the wall. From the look of the cache they had all been purchased second-hand. Most bore the chips and scratches of battle with regimental marks from the Civil War. The occasional bulk was newer, presumably bought up from some rich householder who held a larger private supply. Malvern must have been buying up stocks for some time.

In a neat stack in the corner was what looked to be the contents of a fine domestic house.

Perhaps Malvern, like other better-off householders, had removed his possessions to secure storage against plague looters. There were chairs and tables. Rolled rugs and tapestries and chests. A familiar symbol caught her eye. The crown with its array of looping knots.

It was wrought in metal and attached to an unusual looking trunk. The design was Dutch and the largest she had ever seen. A sea-chest, she decided, looking at the make of it. The kind of strong box you would need to store all your worldly valuables on a voyage, protected from the elements.

She thought of Charlie’s key. Too small for a door. Too large for a chest. But this chest. This outsized chest might fit.

There was a fluttering sound. Pigeons. She had seen a cage of them in the wagon. He used them to send messages, and she had seen him set the cage in the cemetery outside the church. No doubt they were part of his wider plot.

But the knowledge was useless to her in her current situation.

Maria twisted hard in her bindings. The ropes had been secured tightly enough to cut into her skin, and every movement hurt. Steeling herself against the pain, she bucked and writhed, managing to point her bound hands towards her hip, where her purse hung.

Was there a needle as she hoped? Her fingers fumbled, catching the
edge of her purse, and she stifled a cry of pain as the ropes bit deeper.

Finally the edge of her little finger caught the top of the purse. She manoeuvred it awkwardly, delving inside. Her fingertips first seized on the wax cosmetic, and she cursed. Groping further inside, she explored the edges for a hidden needle.

But there was nothing but a few coins. A great surge of hopelessness swelled up, and she drove down the urge to cry.

The heavy sound of a door closing echoed across the church, and she froze.

Footsteps rang across the flagstones.

For a moment she caught a flash of heavy canvas cloak. And then, standing in front of her with his ghastly iron mask, was the plague doctor.

She felt her lungs contract. The beak tilted to one side and then back again. Then the great mask dropped down so as to hold its glittering crystal goggles level with her face. Two black unblinking holes stared out. Maria dropped her gaze, trying to steady her breathing.

The monster spoke and her heart pounded anew.

‘You remind me of my wife.’ The voice was low and distorted by the mask.

Maria stared back into the glass eyes.

‘Shall I tell you what happened to her?’

The plague doctor settled himself a little nearer and Maria pressed herself back against the tomb.

‘She had been sent to a nunnery for her own protection,’ he said. ‘For Civil War was rife and you have likely heard what Protestant soldiers did to the wives of rich Catholics.’

Malvern peered at her face for a moment. ‘You are too young to remember,’ he decided. ‘What terrible deeds were committed then. You may think now is a dread time to be Catholic in London.’ He gave a low humourless laugh. ‘Men never did worse things than to their own countrymen in the name of God.’

‘I was but a boy when I saw soldiers murder my parents. They let me live. But I sometimes wonder if that was a mercy.’ He brought the gloved fingers to where his mouth might have been. ‘You do not think in the same way,’ he said. ‘Some things you see and they change the way you think. You do not feel for your fellow man as you once did.’

‘By the time the Civil War was over, I had lost all,’ Malvern continued. ‘But I still had my wife. She at least was safe from the horrors.’

He looked thoughtful at this, as though the image of his wife had fortified him through horrors.

‘And then they told me,’ he said, the emotion drained from his
voice. ‘At first I would not believe it for myself. When I found her . . . .’

There was a long pause.

‘When I found her they were keeping her locked in the barn. She was roaming around on all fours. No better than the animals penned in there with her.’

The gloved hands began to rub together. ‘I never found out what they did to her.’

He stopped as if unable to verbalise the memory. ‘Those of us who fought for the King thought we would be rewarded. And now his son has returned and betrayed us.’

He took a little roll of paper from inside his cloak.

‘This is his downfall. This little roll of paper. When it arrives, London will fall and then England. The King will arrive back to find his country is ruined.’

A sound which could have been a laugh issued from behind the metal mask.

‘They think I spread plague, those country fools who try to slow my journey,’ he said. ‘But I spread something far more powerful in the City. The contamination I bring will force the traitor King to his knees. And it is the greed of his own people who bring his downfall, for they take my infection to every place in the city.’

Malvern moved closer to Maria suddenly.

‘It has always interested me, the difference between Catholics and Protestants. On what can be borne in silence.’

The low voice had a different texture to it now.

Maria noticed the bag. It must have been inside Malvern’s cloak, but he had brought it out as he talked. Well-worn leather, like a workman’s satchel.

Inside she could make out the glint of iron tools. Brands and pincers. Torturer’s tools. The implements made by the Thames Street blacksmith flashed through her mind.

‘My wife is not with us now,’ said Malvern. ‘But she is owed a final spell. A water spell.’

He considered for a moment.

‘I know not how she might perform it, so I must improvise,’ he said, moving closer. Malvern’s hand glided reverently over the iron tools. His eyes glittered.

Maria’s body had set to cold hard ice.

‘How do you think your faith will fare,’ asked Malvern. ‘When unspeakable things are done to you?’

Chapter Seventy-One

It took over four hours to sail up the river and Charlie felt the fear build every second.

Then the edge of St Katherine’s dock finally hove into view.

A gust of wind blew along the ship and men called for the sails to turn.

‘Wait but a little and we will dock you safe to shore,’ said Marc-Anthony. ‘You had best not swim the waters in plague time.’

The wait was agonising and the view more terrible as the docks inched closed.

St Katherine’s docks housed the squat shape of Customs House, and the area was usually teeming with sailors and export officials, traders and retailers all eager to deal in imported merchandise. Today there was no one.

Charlie looked to Marc-Anthony and his friend’s face said it all. He plainly thought a journey into the heart of London to be a suicide mission.

The ship drew level with the dock and Charlie made a heartfelt thanks before hopping to dry land. Behind him the sailors leapt into action, swinging the sails with loud shouts in their urgency to get back out onto the wider river.

Charlie took in the deserted docks. The only import sat on the once heaving wharves was a single barrel which buzzed with flies. It was a shipment of cod and peas, which had been broken open and spoiled.

Turning from the sad scene Charlie made his way west, following the river towards London Bridge.

Along the shore the huge warehouses had been looted. When he passed London Bridge he gasped aloud in horror.

London Bridge was formed of thick arches which slowed the river to a crawl during summer and caused it to freeze over entirely in winter. The narrow apertures had been stopped up with hundreds of bloated-blue corpses. A handful lolled at the shore, but the current had swept the rest to a thick cluster which bottle-necked against the stricture of the brick bridge. There were so many that they formed a ghoulish dam to the natural tide.

The people floated naked, or dressed in thin vestiges of decayed clothing. Partial dress revealed the skin from their limbs peeling away in black ulcerations. Their stomachs bulged at the surface, distended and huge, whilst their legs and arms hung limply
underwater
.

Charlie looked for any evidence that anyone was trying to clear the waterway of its unholy cargo. There was none. No one had even tried.

Swallowing hard, Charlie turned back inland. Time was running out.

He made his route to Alders Gate through what were once the most populated places. But the sights swelled the unease in his stomach to horror. Leadenhall showed stand after empty stand, and a litter of filth had blown into the unkempt marketplace on the breeze.

He passed a church where the mass graves were over-filled and rotting Londoners burst above ground.

At first he didn’t recognise Fen Church Street at all. Grass and thistles had knotted up amongst the pavements.

The plague must have run unchecked here for months, he realised, with no authority realising how bad the spread. Nature was halfway to reclaiming the district. Another month, he thought, and the ground level would be entirely swallowed up.

Charlie had expected the plague would have him mourn
people
.
But he had never thought it would be his own City he grieved for.