Page 42 of A Murder on London Bridge
“Hold!” a voice barked from within the chamber. “Who goes there?” The words cracked like a pistol shot. Parquier’s head snapped up, his gaze cutting toward the very spot where we crouched. We’d been discovered.
We burst from the closet, tore through the gallery, and stumbled down the stairs until at last we spilled into the alley.
Outside, the city’s breath had become a roar. Bells clamored in frantic warning as smoke coiled skyward, turning the heavens a furious orange. Panic-stricken crowds pressed toward the Thames—some clutching babes, others staggering beneath precious belongings. Not all would find refuge at the river. There wouldn’t be enough boats for so many souls.
Those traitorous men had loosed the fire upon London—willing to raze homes, destroy livelihoods, and sacrifice thousands—merely to cloak their plot to murder the Queen.
“Halt!” A rough voice rang out. Parquier had stationed sentries at the exit.
We did not wait for a second command. My pulse thundered in my ears as we ran through the reeking alley, stones slick with slime. Hollingsworth’s grip closed firm around my hand as we slipped past barrels and crates, until—after what felt an eternity—we emerged at last upon a quieter lane. Only then, certain no one followed, did we dare to stop to catch our breaths.
My voice came ragged, little more than a whisper. “They mean to kill the Queen and cloak it in fire.”
“And burn down the city as well,” Hollingsworth said grimly.
We had no time for more. We had to reach the Queen. So we ran, the fire at our backs, the smoke choking our lungs. London itself had become a pyre. With every stride, the fear gnawed deeper. We raced not toward salvation, but the ashes of a crown.
CHAPTER 22
EMBERS AT THE GATE
London thrummed like a fever, its pulse quickened—uneven, dangerous. Hollingsworth pulled me through the narrow lanes, steering us away from the crush of bodies surging toward the river. Yet always he kept the Thames in sight, its damp breath drifting to us in cold draughts, guiding our course toward Whitehall. Every footfall rang too loudly against the stones, as though the city itself might betray us. From far off, bells clanged—the echo of a warning that had grown teeth.
He guided me around a heap of staves and a dog that warily watched with a single bright coin of an eye. We cut through a lane so tight the buildings leaned together like conspirators, their upper stories nearly touching. A woman leaned from one, hair in a long dark rope over her shoulder, and shouted at someone in a lower window. Their quarrel fell in fragments on us—bucket… ladder… fool of a man—domestic, ordinary, and absurd against the shape the city was taking.
Smoke, I discovered, had a way of lying. It could mimic a hundred innocent things until it did not—tar at the wharf, pitch, a supper gone careless. But beneath them all ran a dry, bitter thread—old wood remembering a long, dry summer too well. That was what caught at the back of my throat now.
We reached a broader street where faces gleamed in the firelight—boys with bare heads and bright eyes, men forming bucket lines by instinct more than command. The first tongues of flame were not yet visible here, only a low wash of color bruising the clouds. Someone cried that it began near Pudding Lane. Another swore it was Farriner’s bakehouse.
A knot of men came up the street at marching pace. Not the King’s guard. Not the watch. Not the bewildered householders—too deliberate for that. Their coats were too fine, their hats pulled too low. I did not need Hollingsworth’s tightened grip to know what he knew—Parquier’s men. Had they found us or were they bound for some other evil?
We turned as though it were the most natural thing in the world and slipped into a cut-through that stank of fish guts and rain. The men passed within yards, their boots biting into the grit. One of them laughed softly, the kind of laugh that promised we will have what we came for.
We stood out badly. Among the humble folk we looked too fine, too easily marked. “Do they hunt us?” I breathed.
“Maybe.” Hollingsworth scanned the alley, listening with his whole body. “But Whitehall is not far. Stay close.”
Close meant close. The lanes twisted like rope laid down by a drunkard’s hand, but Hollingsworth knew their tugs and turns. We slid between a cart horse and its load, ducked beneath a swinging fish sign, skirted a courtyard where wet sheets had been laid to catch sparks—sheets already glittering with embers like wicked stars.
The bells had found their rhythm at last. Not pretty. But then alarms were not meant to be.
“They should pull down the houses,” Hollingsworth muttered. “Make a firebreak.”
“They will,” I said, “but not for four days. During that time, London will continue to burn.”
He halted, staring. “How do you know this?”
“I learned it in my schoolroom. I had an excellent governess.”
“Does the Queen die?”
“No. She lived. But we cannot count on that. Perhapsweare meant to save her.”
He shook his head, only half believing me, though fear and doubt warred in his eyes.
Soon, we gained King Street. The air shifted as if it had lost its mind—drafts from a dozen directions, each harsh with soot. We joined a stream of people moving toward Whitehall—some brisk and tight-lipped, some already wild-eyed and wailing that the world was ending. A peddler kept up with us for half a dozen strides and tried to sell me pins. I very nearly bought a packet out of pure gratitude for the absurdity.
Hollingsworth’s pace lengthened. My skirts were not made for speed. Neither were my lungs. He reached back, and I took his hand. It was an odd, practical intimacy—fingers closing, palms locking—and it stitched me to the night with something better than courage. We crossed a small square where a watchman stood on a stool to be taller, bellowing for leather buckets until he was scarlet and righteous. The people ignored him, because that is what people do when they have already decided upon their own particular salvation.
