The King was not informed until eleven o’clock. He and York came immediately and at his order men began to blow up houses. It was too late to save the City by that means, but it was all they could do. Both the brothers worked hard and without stopping for rest or food. They helped to man the pumps, passed water-buckets, moved from place to place offering what encouragement and sympathy they could. More than anything else, it was their courage, energy and resourcefulness which prevented widespread panic and rioting.
Even so, the streets became unsafe for any foreigners who were obviously Dutch or French. In Fenchurch Street a blacksmith knocked down a Frenchman with a heavy iron bar, smashing his cheekbones and his nose. A woman who was believed to be carrying fire-balls in her apron was attacked and badly mauled and bruised before they found that the fire-balls were only chickens. Another Frenchman with an armful of tennis-balls was seized upon and beaten unconscious. No one cared whether they were guilty—the mounting hysteria demanded an explanation for this terrible calamity, and they found it in the three things Englishmen most feared and hated: the French, the Dutch, and the Catholics. One or all three must be responsible—they were determined not to let the guilty escape with the innocent. King Charles ordered many foreigners jailed for their own protection and the Spanish Ambassador opened his house to others.
The Thames was aswarm with little boats, smacks and barges, which plied back and forth—carrying people and their goods to safety in Southwark. Shooting sparks and pieces of burning wood fell hissing into the water or started new fires in blankets or clothing. Sometimes a boat overturned and spilled out an entire family—the river was so crowded that it was like coming up under ice and trying to find an open space.
Finally Amber and the five men had to abandon their horses and continue on foot.
They had been riding for almost thirteen hours and she was sore and stiff; she felt as though she would never be able to make her knees touch again. Her head swam with fatigue. She longed to drop where she was and stay, but she forced herself to go on. Don’t stop, don’t stop, she told herself over and over. Take another step. Go on. You’ve got to get there. She was afraid that she had missed him—that he would be gone or the house burned and though tortured by fatigue, she pushed ahead.
She grabbed at people as they passed, shouting to ask if Cheapside had burnt. Most of them shoved on by, ignoring or not even hearing her, but finally she got an answer.
“Early this morning.”
“All of it?” He was gone and she accosted several more, dragging at their shirt-sleeves. “Is all of Cheapside burnt?”
“Aye, lad. Burnt to the ground.”
The answer gave her a plunging shock of despair, but it was not as great as what she would have felt under any other conditions; for the hysterical energy that was in the moving groping crowds had communicated itself to her. The fire was so gigantic, the destruction so wide-spread and terrible that it assumed a strange unreality. Shadrac Newbold had been burnt out and with him probably all the money she had on earth-but she could not just then fully realize what it meant and might mean to her. That must come later.
Nothing mattered now but to find Radclyffe.
Outside the gates in Chiswell Street and the Barbican and Long Lane the people were still waiting dubiously. They were hoping, as those who had lived in Watling Street and Corn Hill and Cheapside had hoped, that the fire would stop before it reached them. But the flames had already broken through the walls and the wind had increased to such fury it seemed impossible anything at all could be spared. Some ran distractedly in and out of their homes, unable to make a decision. But others were moving what they could, throwing pieces of furniture and piles of bedding out of upper-story windows, stacking carts with dishes and silver-plate and portraits.
Amber hung closely to Big John Waterman as they shoved their way along Goswell Street, for they were going against the crowd and the irresistible tide of people sometimes forced them backward in spite of their efforts.
There were mothers who balanced great loads on their heads, holding in one arm a sucking baby while they tried wearily to watch other children and keep them from being crushed or lost. Husky porters, arrogant and rude, shouted and swore and elbowed their ruthless way—for once it was they who gave the orders. Bewildered.animals were everywhere. A bleating frightened goat tried to butt his way through. Cows were hauled along with yelling children astride their backs. There were countless dogs and cats, belled pigs, squawking parrots in their cages, monkeys perched on the shoulder of a master or mistress, chattering angrily and snatching at a man’s wig or a woman’s necklace. There were men who carried on their heads a feather-bed and on top of that a trunk that shifted perilously and sometimes went crashing to the ground. Others had everything they had been able to save tied into a sheet and slung over their backs. There were a great many pregnant women, desperately trying to protect their awkward bellies, and several of the younger ones were crying, almost hysterical with terror. The sick were carried on the backs of sons or husbands or servants. A woman lying in a cart rolled slowly by; she was groaning and her face was contorted in the agony of childbirth; beside her knelt a midwife, working with her hands beneath the blankets, while the woman in her pain kept trying to throw them off.
Their faces were desperate, apathetic, bewildered. Some of the children laughed and played games between the legs of the crowd. Many of the old had become perfectly listless. But all of them had lost everything—the savings of a lifetime, the work of generations. What the fire took was gone forever.
With Big John’s arm about her Amber slowly fought her way. She was too small to see over the heads of the crowd and she asked him again and again if Aldersgate Street was burning; he continued to tell her that it did not look as if the flames had reached it yet, but they seemed near.
If only I can get there! If only I can get there and find him!
Cinders got into her eyes and when she inadvertently rubbed them they became inflamed. She choked and coughed on the smoke, and the hot scorching air that the wind blew into her nostrils and lungs made every breath painful. It was only by tremendous effort that she kept from bursting into tears of sheer baffled rage and weariness. She might have fallen if Big John had not held her up. Somewhere they had lost the other men—who perhaps had gone off to join the looters, for thieves entered the houses even before the masters had left.
At last they came to Radclyffe House.
The flames were just below it in St. Martin le Grand and had almost reached Bull and Mouth Street at the corner. Loaded carts were lined up in front and there were servants—and perhaps thieves too—carrying out vases and portraits and statues and furniture. She forced her way in. No one tried to stop her or even seemed to know that she was there. Certainly they could not have recognized her with her soot-smudged face, her hair in long dirty snarls, her torn and blackened clothes.
The hallway was in a turmoil. The broad center staircase was covered with men and furniture—one carrying a small Italian couch, another bundled in ornate golden drapes, someone with a Botticelli painting on his head, another balancing one velvet-seated Spanish chair on each shoulder. Amber approached a liveried footman who carried one end of a gigantic carved chest.