London in Chains Read online

  Further Titles by Gillian Bradshaw from Severn House

  THE ALCHEMY OF FIRE

  BLOODWOOD

  DANGEROUS NOTES

  DARK NORTH

  THE ELIXIR OF YOUTH

  THE SOMERS TREATMENT

  THE SUN’S BRIDE

  THE WRONG REFLECTION

  LONDON IN CHAINS

  Gillian Bradshaw

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First world edition published 2009

  in Great Britain and in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  Copyright © 2009 by Gillian Bradshaw.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Bradshaw, Gillian, 1956–

  London in Chains.

  1. Publishers and publishing – Political aspects – England –

  London – History – 17th century – Fiction. 2. Great Britain –

  History – Civil War, 1642–1649 – Fiction. 3. Historical

  fiction.

  I. Title

  813.5′4-dc22

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-110-1 (ePub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6796-4 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-165-2 (trade paper)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  Contents

  Aknowledgements

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Historical Epilogue

  . . . the people’s expectations that were much greatened, and their hopes of relief in their miseries and oppressions, which were so much heightened, are like to be frustrate, and while you look for peace and freedom the flood-gates of slavery, oppression and misery are opened to the nation.

  The Case of the Armie Truly Stated

  Acknowledgements

  In researching this book I have taken shameless advantage of other people’s expertise. I am particularly grateful to printer Martyn Musgrove and the staff of Blists Hill Victorian Town, and to Brian Russell, who volunteers in the printshop. They not only allowed me to work on the Victorian hand printing press and enthusiastically shared their extensive knowledge of printing, but also went out of their way to get me on a British Printing Society junket to visit a replica Tudor/Stuart press reconstructed by Alan May. All of this was invaluable, and a lot of fun, too. Any printing-related errors are mine, not theirs.

  One

  It was as though they were riding into Hell.

  A dirty smudge had been visible against the blue sky ahead when they started on the road that morning. It broadened as the day went on, and now it was all around them, stealing the brightness of the afternoon sun. A haze of smoke filled the air; buildings were blackened with layers of grime; even the leaves of plants were filmed grey. The expected scent of coal-smoke, though, was almost swamped by the reek of butcher’s offal and rendered tallow, the tannery stink of rotting hides and the acrid bite of fullers’ shops, the stench of the urine and dung of animals and men. Lucy breathed through her mouth, blinking hot eyes.

  There was noise, too, everywhere: the clatter of iron-shod wheels and hooves on rough cobbles, the rumble of carts and cursing of drivers. Passing a coppersmith’s, she was deafened by the ringing of hammer on metal; even before the din began to fade, it was overwhelmed by the thudding of the neighbouring cooper’s mallet. Everywhere there were voices: talking, shouting; raised up in long swooping howls as vendors tried to make themselves heard.

  ‘EE-ee-EE-ee-EELs alive O!’

  ‘Any KNIVES to GRIND?’

  ‘MIIILK-below, MIILK-O!’

  Lucy looked round at the milkmaid’s cry, thinking of the dairy at home, but, instead of the strong young countrywoman she expected, saw a dirty, white-faced girl in a tattered skirt. The April weather was chilly, if bright, but the milkmaid’s arms were bare; the heavy milk-can on the girl’s head seemed to press her down into the mud, and the mugs and ladle hooked to it rattled at each step like a cough. A ragged beggar-woman, her face covered in sores, held up a hand pleading for a sip for the child huddled against her. The milkmaid brushed past her without a glance.

  On the next corner, two men begged side by side, one blind, the other missing both legs; the blind man still wore the buff-leather coat of a cavalryman. The legless one had an evil face and was muttering to himself. The jostling passers-by didn’t appear to notice him but still managed to give him a wide berth, despite the press of the crowd.

  Lucy had never imagined so many people. When she first saw the crowds in the street before them, she’d asked Cousin Geoffrey whether they shouldn’t wait until the march or riot, or whatever it was, was over. He’d laughed at her.

  ‘This is London, girl! It’s thus all the day – and half the night!’ He guided his nervous mare through the thick of it. His servant William followed on his sturdy gelding, and Lucy, sitting pillion behind William, tightened her grip on the servant’s belt. Behind them, the pack-mule tossed her head resentfully.

  London. They’d been travelling for eight days, with one halt to keep the Sabbath, and now, at last, they’d reached their destination: the new Jerusalem, the new Babylon, the seat of government and the fountain of rebellion. Lucy wasn’t sure what she’d expected London to look like, but it hadn’t been this.

  ‘London Bridge!’ announced Cousin Geoffrey, drawing rein and sweeping a hand at the street ahead of them. ‘Our uncle lives in Southwark, yonder on the other side.’

  He had been to London twice before, as he liked to tell people. He was an eldest son, the heir to the family farm, and he thought highly of himself; Lucy’s opinion of him was not nearly as elevated, but she kept it to herself. She peered round William. For a moment her eyes couldn’t make sense of the scene: there was a river, broad and brown and crowded with boats, but the street seemed simply to continue across it, the tall buildings overhanging the road. Then she realized that there were houses built on the bridge, their back walls hanging out over the river. Shops, too – the signs for them dangled just above the heads of the men mounted on horseback. Londoners busily sold soap and spoons, pewter and plaster, suspended above the current of the river.

  The traffic slowed as they made their way forward, then came to a halt. Lucy peered round William again: there was a jam where two carts had clipped one another in the narrow passage between the shops. Through a gap between two of the buildings on their left she could see the brown water foaming and tumbling around the piers; it seemed to drop several feet. Below the bridge, though, the stream was tranquil, and the boats moved up, down and across it, as many of them as there were carts on the road.

>   William, who’d accompanied his master on the two trips to London, grinned at her over his shoulder and jerked a thumb towards the boats. ‘Plenty of folk take to water to speed them over the river,’ he explained. ‘A bridge crossing can be slow.’

  Lucy nodded, but did not reply. William had become overly-familiar during the journey, encouraged, perhaps, by the fact that she had to sit so close behind him on the horse every day. If she gave him the slightest encouragement, he’d start to take liberties – and Cousin Geoffrey would blame her for it.

  ‘When we came before, we mostly stayed the Southwark side of the bridge,’ William informed her. ‘Southwark’s a grand place. There used to be theatres, four or five of ’em. I saw fine shows then! The Revenger’s Tragedy – that was a good one, with more murders and poisonings than a man could count on all his fingers. The maid I took to see it, she screamed and hid her face in my jerkin.’ He grinned smugly at the memory.

  Geoffrey glanced back reprovingly. ‘You’ll have to do without such licentious fare, Cousin Lucy. Our godly Parliament has closed or torn down all the theatres, and I say, well done!’

  I didn’t want to see murders anyway, thought Lucy, not even make-believe ones, but she knew there was no point in saying so. Geoffrey would only be annoyed that she’d talked back.

  ‘Mayhap there’s still bear-baiting, though,’ said William hopefully. ‘You ever seen a bear-baiting?’

  ‘Nay; nor do I wish to!’

  ‘It’s good sport!’

  ‘Parliament has banned it!’ snapped Geoffrey, giving his servant a stern glare. ‘It gave occasion for license and depravity!’

  William subsided, muttering something that might have been ‘Roundhead killjoys!’ He shot Lucy a conspiratorial look, which she ignored. She found his assumption that she’d agree with him exasperating. He surely knew that her family was just as Puritan as Geoffrey’s! Did he think she was soiled, or was she just supposed to have been won over by his loutish charm?

  They edged forward, halted, edged forward again. The pack-mule suddenly snorted and kicked, and then Cousin Geoffrey’s mare danced nervously: a pair of ragged boys had squeezed past on foot, one of them actually darting under the mare’s belly. Cousin Geoffrey cried, ‘God damn you!’ – an oath he would have rebuked if anyone else had uttered it. He dismounted to soothe his horse, and Lucy took that as permission to slide down from the gelding, relieved at the opportunity to ease her aching rear – and get away from William. The servant, however, also dismounted. ‘A good notion,’ he said, grinning at Lucy. ‘Spare the poor beast’s back and our arses!’ His eyes lingered on her backside as he ostentatiously rubbed his own.

  She said nothing, only went back to check on the mule. The animal bared yellow teeth threateningly. ‘There’s a good girl,’ Lucy whispered approvingly. ‘Look after yourself!’ The mule snorted and canted her ears forward, and Lucy patted her shaggy neck.

  They made the rest of their slow progress on foot, leading the animals. At the far end of the bridge there was a tower: the road passed under the arch of its gateway. The parapet above it was decorated with black lumps on posts.

  ‘See the heads?’ William asked gleefully, pointing to them. ‘All that’s left of traitors! I reckon there’ll be a mort more of ’em before long!’

  Was it true, or was William simply trying to scare her? (‘She screamed and hid her face in my jerkin!’) She stared at the objects, and her eyes snagged on the unmistakable curve of a skull, showing white where the blackened skin had pulled away. She shuddered and looked down at the street, wondering whose head it was and what he’d died for. Who were the traitors in this new upside-down world where the king was imprisoned by his own Parliament?

  They reached the southern end of the bridge and led the horses and the mule under the arch with its grim decorations. Geoffrey mounted up again, and William vaulted on to the gelding’s back and offered a hand to Lucy.

  ‘I would be pleased to walk a while, if I may,’ she said, looking down demurely. ‘To stretch my legs.’

  ‘Your arse, more like,’ muttered William, disappointed, but Cousin Geoffrey merely shrugged. ‘Please yourself. It’s no distance now.’

  He turned the mare left, into one of the wider streets. Lucy followed, already regretting her decision to walk: the street was filthy. There were narrow channels cut on either side for drainage, but these were half-choked with dung and sweepings from the shops and houses. At one point a channel was completely blocked, and half the street was flooded. A pig was wallowing in the dirty water, chewing with evident pleasure on something it had found in the drain. Lucy held her skirts up and tried to pick her way around the side of the puddle without stepping in anything foul. The horsemen had been drawing further and further ahead, and when she looked up after negotiating the obstacle, she found that they’d vanished.

  She stood still for a moment, alone on a strange street. She was cut off from everyone and everything familiar, adrift in a world where she knew no one and no one knew her.

  It was exhilirating.

  She drew a deep breath, shocked by her own response. It was because she knew she was in no real danger, she told herself. Geoffrey and his servant had simply turned up the next cross-street, and even if she had lost them, she could ask directions, now that it was ‘no distance’ to her uncle’s house. She was not, she told herself, so desperate for escape that she really wanted to be alone on the streets of London. She drew another deep breath, then let it out again and picked her way onward.

  The men were indeed just around the next corner, standing outside a shop; they had taken off their hats respectfully. The shopkeeper was speaking to Cousin Geoffrey, but he looked round when Lucy came up, then smiled broadly. She halted, shocked. Yes, it was Uncle Thomas, but he was old. It had been only six years since she saw him last, but from his looks it might have been twice as long: his face was lined and his hair was mostly grey. She remembered her manners abruptly and curtsied.

  ‘Lucy!’ he said and came forward to kiss her in greeting. ‘Little Lucy! Oh, Lord, how you look like your dear mother! Welcome!’

  Being embraced by a man who was to all intents a stranger jerked a scream into her throat. She swallowed it, forced her fists to unclench, tried to smile. Uncle Thomas didn’t notice: he’d already turned back to Cousin Geoffrey and was telling him where he could stable the horses.

  ‘And you, child, come in!’ he exclaimed, taking Lucy’s arm and leading her to the door. ‘Agnes! They’ve arrived!’

  There was no one in the shop, and nobody responded to Uncle Thomas’s call. Lucy, catching her breath, glanced round. Thomas was a mercer – a wholesale dealer in cloth – and the family had always referred to him as ‘rich Uncle Thomas, the London mercer’. His shop, however, didn’t look rich. It was dingy and dark. The sample racks around the walls were half-empty, and what cloth they did hold seemed all the same drab colour.

  ‘Agnes!’ Thomas called again.

  A flabby old woman in an apron appeared, scowling, mending in hand; Lucy took her for the maid, until she demanded, ‘What is it?’ in a tone no maid would use to the master of the house. Lucy stared. She’d met her uncle’s wife only once and her memory was of a fine young matron, vain about her plump good looks.

  ‘They’ve arrived,’ repeated Uncle Thomas. ‘You remember Lucy, my poor sister’s girl?’

  Agnes regarded Lucy with unfriendly eyes. Lucy curtsied, and her aunt sniffed. ‘Well, you still look like an honest woman! That’s well.’

  Lucy felt her face heat, and her hands fisted again. ‘Why should I not look like an honest woman, Aunt?’ she demanded sharply.

  Agnes blinked, taken aback by the tone and offended by it. Lucy glared at her, choked by the impulse to start shouting. She struggled to crush it. Why, she wondered despairingly, did she keep getting angry? It was a kindness in her aunt and uncle to take her in: she could not begin by shouting at them. She forced her eyes down and made herself flatten her hands again. ‘I beg your pa
rdon.’

  Her voice came out wooden and insincere, and Agnes scowled.

  ‘It’s a weary journey,’ said Uncle Thomas with false heartiness. ‘Agnes, Geoffrey’s off stabling his beasts at Fleur-de-Lis; I’ll go and help him. Take Lucy upstairs and make her welcome.’

  Agnes sniffed again but turned and beckoned for Lucy to follow her.

  The next room was a parlour, and the stairs led up from it, wooden and nearly as steep as a ladder. Agnes climbed them slowly and stopped at the top, wheezing a little and pressing a hand to her side. Lucy perforce stopped behind her, halfway up. She found that she was taking shallow breaths: the scent of the house was strange and unpleasant. It was because there were no animals, she decided. She was accustomed to the farmyard smells that constantly tracked into her father’s house, so that the scents of dung and dairy were mingled with the human ones. Here the mingling was with the London reek.

  ‘You’ll bed down with our Susan,’ Agnes said abruptly, glancing back over her shoulder.

  For a moment Lucy’s mind spun, trying to remember who Susan was. Her cousins – her aunt and uncle’s children, the two who’d survived infancy – were named Mark and Hannah. Mark, though, was dead, killed in the war, and Hannah had married and left home just a few months before. Lucy had never heard of any Susan in the family.

  ‘Geoffrey will lie in Mark’s room,’ said Agnes, and there was something defensive in her tone, ‘and we mean to find a lodger for Hannah’s. Susan sleeps in the loft.’ She started moving again.

  Lucy suddenly understood that Susan was the maid. She froze where she was, halfway up the stairs. Agnes looked back at her impatiently. ‘Come along!’

  ‘I might lie in Hannah’s room,’ Lucy said tightly, ‘until you do find a lodger.’

  Her aunt turned back and stood at the top of the stairs, scowling down at her ferociously. ‘Nay. Tom, fool that he is, agreed to take you on, though we’ve scarce enough to keep ourselves. Well, I must obey my husband – but you’re not lying in my child’s bed! Understand this, miss: you’re no heiress. Your place is with Susan.’