Petals in the Ashes (15 page)

We gathered around one woman who was telling of how she had seen the king himself amid the flames. ‘He was stripped to his linen undershirt!' she said, ‘passing buckets of water from the river to try and dowse the fire at Apothecaries Hall. His brother the Duke was alongside him, and both looking the very essence of masculinity and strength.'

‘How did you know it was the king?' one asked. ‘Was he wearing his crown?'

‘Or was there an actress alongside o' him to rub salve into his burns?'

There was laughter before the woman replied with dignity that she knew it was he because a fine black horse had been standing alongside, held by a groom, and the horse's saddle and blanket had borne the royal standard.

Another housewife told of the looting which was going on in the Halls of the Guilds. ‘At Dyers Hall, as soon as the fire had cooled, looters came crunching across the ashes and took away all the melted gold and silver they could handle.'

‘I heard this too!' another joined in. ‘And some twelve full suits of armour have been seen going downriver on a barge.'

‘I saw a man killed over the hire of a cart!' one volunteered. ‘Two men were bidding the owner five shillings … ten shillings … then the sum was one
pound, and it went up and up until they had reached ten pounds!'

There were murmurs of wonder at this.

‘The owner gave the cart over to one of the men and took the money,' the tale-teller went on, ‘whereupon the other took out a knife, stabbed him and ran off with the cart!'

‘But there is plenty of money to be earned for honest labour!' a man on a stall sought to tell everyone. ‘They've set up fireposts down in the City. Each is provisioned with beer and bread, and the king will give a shilling a day to each diligent man who helps fight the fire.'

‘That's only because he's fair frighted out of his wits that it'll reach his palace,' one answered dourly.

‘It'll not reach that far,' said the stall-holder, ‘for they're now pulling down rows of houses in the fire's path with grappling irons.'

‘But the flames have a mind of their own and leap over the gaps that are left!' a woman said. ‘I've seen it with my own eyes leave two rows of houses untouched and start ablazing in a complete new spot.'

‘I heard of a family who lost their direction in the darkness,' another offered. ‘A heap of coal on the quay caught fire, sending thick rolling smoke everywhere, and yon folk ended up with their cart in a blind alley and were set upon by a marauding gang. All their furniture and possessions were taken from them!'

Anne and I listened to these tales with bated breath, scarce knowing if we should believe them or if the reports were exaggerated. Anne thought they could not all be true but I, having seen London in the grips
of plague and encountered many and worse horrors, was inclined to believe them all.

Having completed our purchases, we both felt full of a strange restlessness and did not want to go back to the shop, for we did not feel we could follow our normal routine and begin frosting sweetmeats on a day such as this. Instead we decided to walk to the north of the City and see if we could climb the City walls and glimpse the fire from there, and thus find out whether it progressed or no, and if so, whether it approached us.

Smoke now hung directly over us like a cloud, and there was the distant rumble of thunder in the air. As we walked, every moment it seemed to grow hotter, and as the sun rose higher, it lost its pale face and became a strange and horrid red disk.

Anne glanced up at it. ‘I don't like that sun,' she said with a shiver. ‘It doesn't seem natural. Today seems like the day of judgement: the end of the world that the clergy sometimes speak on in church.'

I tried to reassure her but could not do so with any conviction, for the same thought had already occurred to me. I tried to remember what I'd read in the almanac in Highclear House about 1666 being the Year of the Beast, when a cleansing fire would be brought down. I also thought about what I'd said to Mother about London being as safe as houses …

When we reached the walls, we found that at any point along them, especially near a gate, the roadways were crowded with carts, carriages, sedan chairs, horses and people on foot, all carrying furniture and fighting and jostling with each other to get out, and
thus we could not make much progress. The situation was not helped by a large number of people fighting to get
in
: those looking for their families, going to rescue things from their homes, and also porters, labourers, carters – anyone with a conveyance on wheels for, as we had been told, there was a deal of money to be made from the moving of furniture and possessions. At Cripplegate we found confusion and accidents and fighting crowds, and these at Moorgate and Bishopsgate too, and finally (after we had seen one family's horse fall and break its legs on a pile of abandoned furniture, also a poor cat running for its life with all its fur afire) decided to go to All Hallows church and climb the tower there.

Although on occasion clouded by gusts of smoke, we now had a view which was quite terrible in its aspect, for it could be seen that the whole northern shore of the Thames was aflame from beyond the bridge on our left as far as the sturdy bulk of Baynards Castle on our right. Seeing this dreadful sight, my eyes straightaway filled with tears, for it was most shocking and awful to see those wharves, lanes and alleys and those houses and rooms ablaze, or reduced to sticks and ashes, and to think what devastation and terror must be in the hearts of those who lived and worked there.

Anne and I held each other tightly, both quite speechless with shock. Now that I had witnessed this scene for myself, words could not convey how awful I found it, for it did truly seem as Anne had said: that the end of the world was nigh.

Once I had dragged my glance back from the shoreline of the Thames I realised that our view was
unobscured only because there were now very few large buildings between us and the river. Churches were burnt away or still in flames, many Halls of the Guilds were razed, as were the noble buildings in Cornhill and even – I uttered a cry – the magnificent Royal Exchange had surrendered, for I knew well where it had been and it was there no more! Straightaway, the thought of the visit I'd paid there with Abby came to me: the vast marble edifice of stately columns and noble statues, the gaily dressed gallants and so-fine ladies gossiping in the courtyards, the immaculate little shops containing delicate and rare items – all gone!

But even that knowledge was diminished by Anne suddenly screaming and burying her face in my shoulder, pointing with a shaking arm towards the heart of the fire, where now could be seen a wall of flame, some fifty feet high, moving as swiftly as the wind and travelling east to west along a row of houses. As I watched, horror-struck, each building in its path caught and erupted one after the other, small volcanoes sending blizzards of sparks everywhere. Stone buildings were slower to catch, others – according to what was stored within – burned fast and mad. This running fire was only halted when it reached the grey mass that was Bridewell prison on the banks of the Fleet and, beating against this, could go no further.

Thus thwarted, the fire, like a terrible living beast, turned and began to move slowly northward in a maelstrom of heat and noise. Reaching what must have been a storehouse containing spices and peppers, there was a sudden soft explosion and then a shimmer
of blue, purple and green in the air which was terrible in its beauty and strangeness and made me and Anne both cry out in wonder. A moment later, an amazing spicy scent filled the air which for a moment dominated the stench of sulphur and gunpowder.

All in all, we stood there some two hours, until the front line of the fire was a mile across and the banks of the Thames were clothed in fire almost as far as we could see. We stood overlong for, although the sight before us was terrible indeed, it was also compelling in its very terribleness. It had something of the air of a public execution about it: spectacle and drama mixed equally with horror and fear.

We might have stayed longer, but I was anxious to see how things stood back at the shop. When the wind changed direction slightly and began to blow thick, sulphurous smoke in our direction, making us cough, we decided to descend. As we did so, two pigeons with their wings still burning thudded down beside us.

‘They stayed too long on their perches and caught alight,' a man remarked, and he picked them up by their singed feet and declared he would take them home for his dinner.

‘At four o'clock in the morning, my Lady Batten sent me a cart to carry away all my money and plate and best things … which I did, riding myself in my nightgown in the cart; and Lord, to see how the streets and the highways are crowded with people, running and riding and getting of carts to fetch away things …'

Anne, beside me on the wooden pew, moved and whimpered softly in her sleep. It was hot in the small church and crowded besides, and I had not been able to sleep at all for wondering what was going to happen to us.

Last night the wind had been blowing strongly in our direction, and there had been great discussion with our neighbours in Crown and King Place as to whether the fire, still some distance off, would reach us. Mr Newbery said it would, and declared he was off to Moore Fields to lie under a bush and be safe, but others said they were sure the fire would be stopped long before it came to us, and besides, there
was a vast firebreak being constructed along Lombard Street and it would not get further than this.

Most of the neighbours wavered, swayed first by one argument, then by the other, then one old woman declared that the flames could burn her up if they cared to, for she had not moved for plague and would not move for fire either. In the end, though, only a few stayed on in their homes, while most went to take shelter in St Dominic's church, feeling that there was safety in numbers and we would be able to alert each other quickly in case of danger. Here we had ranged ourselves and our precious possessions (Kitty being amongst these) along the hard benches and tried to make ourselves comfortable. We shared our food companionably, sung some of the old songs to try to cheer us, and several men had firewatched through the night.

I had not heard from Tom the previous evening, but took some comfort from a neighbour telling me that because of the fire, Bartholomew Fair had not opened since Saturday and that most of the fairground folk had already moved off to a fresh site. I felt in my heart that the love we shared (for though unspoken, I felt it was that) meant that we would meet again – for surely we had not lost and then found each other for no good reason?

As I shifted in the pew and rubbed at my stiff neck, there came a scritching and a scratching from Kitty's basket at my feet. It was very dark, however, there being no candles lit, and I did not dare loosen the tied lid, for if I did so she would run off and hide herself in some chink in the church and we would never see her again.

I think I dropped off to sleep shortly before dawn, but when I awoke to the sound of someone calling eight o'clock, it was still dark because of the heavy smoke which surrounded us. For a moment I could not remember where I was, and then I jumped up with a start to find Anne awake and feeding Kitty a cup of milk. Fresh bread had also been delivered, for the king had decreed that every working baker was to bake for the masses who were without a hearth or home.

As we ate, news began coming in from passers-by about fighting and looting in the shops, and about where the flames had reached, and what had caught fire and what had been saved. The previous day Anne and I had seen the fire reach Bridewell Prison, and though its walls were still proving too sturdy to collapse, they were blazing from end to end. Here – alas – the fire had jumped over the high City walls and was now racing west down Fleet Street, devouring the fine merchants' houses that Tom and I had seen on the previous Sunday.

The wind still encouraged the fire towards the north and west of the City; it had not moved east more than two streets away from Pudding Lane where it had started (whether from a baker's failing to put out his oven properly or from a foreigner's incendiary we did not know). The only good news we had received was that London Bridge had so far been saved, for the fire had not burned more than four struts along before it reached a gap in the houses and been halted. There was fire all along the banks and wharves here, though, and strong danger of the Tower of London catching.

‘The king's beasts in the menagerie roar to wake the Devil!' a young man with a sooted face and singed
hair told us breathlessly. ‘For no one dares go near them – and there is no place to move them!'

‘Can't they be given some linctus or herbs to send them to sleep?' someone asked.

The young man shook his head. ‘The fire rages all around and it is monstrous hot in their quarters – no one can bear the heat enough to get close to them. The beasts pace to and fro and oft-times throw themselves against the bars of their cages in their distress.'

‘But suppose the fire breaks down their cages and they escape?' a woman asked him in some nervousness. ‘There would be great apes and tigers running in the streets!'

The young man shook his head. ‘They would be burned to death before that,' he said. ‘And even now they may be dead from the smoke.'

‘Then I wish the poor beasts a quick and painless end,' the woman said, ‘for all dumb animals must be near out of their minds with terror.'

Hearing this, Anne and I picked up Kitty and put her straight back in her basket. We had lost our cat Mew to the plague, and I did not wish to lose Kitty to the fire.

As our neighbours gradually went from the church – either to go home or to make for safe ground – we fell to talking about what to do next. We had not cleared everything from the shop, and wondered if we should try to obtain a cart to collect our bed and our few pieces of furniture and bring them into the church for safety. On looking outside, however, it became obvious that we would never obtain any sort of conveyance, for everything with wheels had already
been pressed into duty and was crowding the lanes around us in great muddle and confusion.