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Authors: Andrew Taylor
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the material of both coat and breeches. Black, perhaps, and yellow.
‘A suit of livery?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
A badge was fixed to the collar. Williamson rubbed it with his fingertip. I peered at it. A pelican was feeding her young with flesh plucked from her own breast.
‘He’s one of Henry Alderley’s men,’ Williamson said. ‘The goldsmith – you must know of the man. That’s his device, and his livery. That’s why the body has been brought here. That’s why we must know who killed him. And above all that’s why we must go carefully.’
The King had gone by barge to the Tower, inspecting his ruined capital on the way. From there he intended to ride to Moorfields, to address the crowds of refugees. Master Williamson would have liked to go with him.
Instead, he was obliged to walk to Barnabas Place in Holborn to see Henry Alderley about a dead servant, with me in attendance on him. It was much hotter here, even in the unburned streets, than it had been by the river. In the normal run of things, he would have taken a coach, but the streets were so congested with traffic that this was impracticable. He was not habitually an active man and his face was soon shiny with perspiration.
These were strange times. There had been riots last night, and rumours of food shortages. Foreigners had been attacked on the assumption that they had been responsible for the destruction of London, purely by virtue of their being foreign. The King had summoned the militias of neighbouring counties, ostensibly to help fight the Fire but also to keep order if the riots spiralled out of control.
But even in the middle of this crisis in the nation’s capital, Master Alderley was still a man of importance, not just a goldsmith and an alderman of the City. His wealth was enormous, and the King himself was said to be one of his principal debtors.
So Williamson naturally wished to treat Master Alderley with due respect. But I was puzzled, all the same. Why come himself at a time like this? He was not a justice. He was not a lawyer. He was not a courtier.
Williamson frequently glanced over his shoulder, as if worried that I might slip away, leaving him alone among the refugees and the desolation. This was probably the first time that he had left Whitehall since last week. He must have known in theory what the Fire had done to London, but the reality of it took him by surprise.
We skirted the remains of the City, avoiding the worst of the destruction. He was visibly shocked by what he saw: the smoking ruins, the blackened chimneystacks rearing out of the ashes, and the sluggishly moving crowds of homeless people encumbered with possessions and with the weaker members of their families.
These horrors affected me, too, but I had my own worries to distract me. Williamson had no reason to trust me, let alone like me. I had worked for him only since the beginning of the summer. The connection between us had come about in a most unexpected way, and he could not have welcomed it.
In May, I had petitioned the King for the third time, begging that His Majesty might in his infinite mercy see fit to release my father from the Tower. He had been imprisoned since the suppression of Venner’s Rising in 1661. Though my father had not taken part himself in this abortive attempt to seize London on behalf of King Jesus, he had been a known Fifth Monarchist before the Restoration, and the authorities had seized treasonable correspondence that implicated him in this new rebellion. Since my father was a printer by trade, the conspirators had asked him to print a proclamation announcing the change of monarchy from the terrestrial to the divine. Fool that he was, he had agreed.
The Fifth Monarchists took their beliefs from the second chapter of the Book of Daniel, in which the prophet interpreted King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a great image made of gold, silver, brass, iron and clay. Daniel prophesied on this evidence that four kingdoms would
‘A suit of livery?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
A badge was fixed to the collar. Williamson rubbed it with his fingertip. I peered at it. A pelican was feeding her young with flesh plucked from her own breast.
‘He’s one of Henry Alderley’s men,’ Williamson said. ‘The goldsmith – you must know of the man. That’s his device, and his livery. That’s why the body has been brought here. That’s why we must know who killed him. And above all that’s why we must go carefully.’
The King had gone by barge to the Tower, inspecting his ruined capital on the way. From there he intended to ride to Moorfields, to address the crowds of refugees. Master Williamson would have liked to go with him.
Instead, he was obliged to walk to Barnabas Place in Holborn to see Henry Alderley about a dead servant, with me in attendance on him. It was much hotter here, even in the unburned streets, than it had been by the river. In the normal run of things, he would have taken a coach, but the streets were so congested with traffic that this was impracticable. He was not habitually an active man and his face was soon shiny with perspiration.
These were strange times. There had been riots last night, and rumours of food shortages. Foreigners had been attacked on the assumption that they had been responsible for the destruction of London, purely by virtue of their being foreign. The King had summoned the militias of neighbouring counties, ostensibly to help fight the Fire but also to keep order if the riots spiralled out of control.
But even in the middle of this crisis in the nation’s capital, Master Alderley was still a man of importance, not just a goldsmith and an alderman of the City. His wealth was enormous, and the King himself was said to be one of his principal debtors.
So Williamson naturally wished to treat Master Alderley with due respect. But I was puzzled, all the same. Why come himself at a time like this? He was not a justice. He was not a lawyer. He was not a courtier.
Williamson frequently glanced over his shoulder, as if worried that I might slip away, leaving him alone among the refugees and the desolation. This was probably the first time that he had left Whitehall since last week. He must have known in theory what the Fire had done to London, but the reality of it took him by surprise.
We skirted the remains of the City, avoiding the worst of the destruction. He was visibly shocked by what he saw: the smoking ruins, the blackened chimneystacks rearing out of the ashes, and the sluggishly moving crowds of homeless people encumbered with possessions and with the weaker members of their families.
These horrors affected me, too, but I had my own worries to distract me. Williamson had no reason to trust me, let alone like me. I had worked for him only since the beginning of the summer. The connection between us had come about in a most unexpected way, and he could not have welcomed it.
In May, I had petitioned the King for the third time, begging that His Majesty might in his infinite mercy see fit to release my father from the Tower. He had been imprisoned since the suppression of Venner’s Rising in 1661. Though my father had not taken part himself in this abortive attempt to seize London on behalf of King Jesus, he had been a known Fifth Monarchist before the Restoration, and the authorities had seized treasonable correspondence that implicated him in this new rebellion. Since my father was a printer by trade, the conspirators had asked him to print a proclamation announcing the change of monarchy from the terrestrial to the divine. Fool that he was, he had agreed.
The Fifth Monarchists took their beliefs from the second chapter of the Book of Daniel, in which the prophet interpreted King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a great image made of gold, silver, brass, iron and clay. Daniel prophesied on this evidence that four kingdoms would
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