The Fire Court: A gripping historical thriller from the bestselling author of The Ashes of London
From No.1 bestselling author Andrew Taylor comes the sequel to the phenomenally successful The Ashes of LondonA time of terrible danger…The Great Fire has ravaged London. Now, guided by the Fire Court, the city is rebuilding, but times are volatile and danger is only ever a heartbeat away.Two mysterious deaths…James Marwood, a traitor’s son, is thrust into this treacherous environment when his father discovers a dead woman in the very place where the Fire Court sits. The next day his father is run down. Accident? Or another murder…?A race to stop a murderer…Determined to uncover the truth, Marwood turns to the one person he can trust – Cat Lovett, the daughter of a despised regicide. Then comes a third death… and Marwood and Cat are forced to confront a vicious killer who threatens the future of the city itself.
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Andrew Taylor 2018
Cover design by Dominic Forbes © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover illustration Old London Bridge (engraving), Jongh, Claude de (fl.1610-1663) / Private Collection © Look and Learn / Illustrated Papers Collection / Bridgeman Images
Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Prelims show ‘A map of the area of London affected by the Great Fire of London in 1666’ © The British Library
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008119133
Ebook Edition © April 2018 ISBN: 9780008119126
Version: 2018-01-26
For Caroline
Table of Contents
Infirmary Close, The Savoy
James Marwood, clerk to Joseph Williamson, and to the Board of Red Cloth
Nathaniel Marwood, his father, widowed husband of Rachel; formerly a printer
Margaret and Sam Witherdine, their servants
The Drawing Office, Henrietta Street
Simon Hakesby, surveyor and architect
‘Jane Hakesby’, his maid, formerly known as Catherine Lovett
Brennan, his draughtsman
Clifford’s Inn and the Fire Court
Lucius Gromwell, antiquary
Theophilus Chelling, clerk to the Fire Court
Sir Thomas Twisden, a judge at the Fire Court
Miriam, a servant at Clifford’s Inn
Pall Mall
Sir Philip Limbury
Jemima, Lady Limbury, daughter of Sir George Syre
Mary, her maid
Richard, Sir Philip’s manservant; also known as Sourface
Hester, a maid
Whitehall
Joseph Williamson, Under-Secretary of State to Lord Arlington
William Chiffinch, Keeper of the King’s Private Closet
Others
Roger Poulton, retired cloth merchant; late of Dragon Yard
Elizabeth Lee, his housekeeper
Celia Hampney, his widowed niece
Tabitha, Mistress Hampney’s maid
Mistress Grove, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields; who lets lodgings to Mistress Hampney
Barty, a crossing-sweeper in Fleet Street, by Temple Bar
Rachel. There you are.
She hesitated in the doorway that led from the Savoy Stairs and the river. She wore a long blue cloak over a grey dress he did not recognize. In her hand was a covered basket. She walked across the garden to the archway in the opposite corner. Her pattens clacked on the flagged path.
That’s my Rachel, he thought. Always busy. But why did she not greet him?
You are like the river, my love, he had told her once, always moving and always the same.
They had been sitting by the Thames in Barnes Wood. She had let down her hair, which was brown but shot through with golden threads that glowed in the sunlight.
She had looked like a whore, with her loose, glorious hair.
He felt a pang of repulsion. Then he rallied. A woman’s hair encouraged lustful thoughts, he argued with himself, but it could not be sinful when the woman was your wife, joined to you in the sight of God, flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone.
Now the garden was empty. There was no reason why he should not go after her. Indeed, it was his duty. Was not woman the weaker vessel?
He used his stick as a prop to help him rise. He was still hale and hearty, thank God, but his limbs grew stiff if he did not move them for a while.
He walked towards the archway. The path beyond made a turn to the right, rounding the corner of one of the old hospital buildings of the Savoy. He glimpsed Rachel ahead, passing through the gate that led up to the Strand. She paused to look at something – a piece of paper? – in her hand. Then she was gone.
