Moving into the middle of the street, he tripped over an obstruction, keeping his feet only because there was no space to fall. Jack swore and looked down to discover that someone had torn up the kennel at the center of the lane, exposing the elm wood of the water pipe beneath. Exposing—and cutting into.
“God’s rot! Lack-brained whoreson cullies—the Fire is nowhere near you! ” Jack bellowed, to no one in particular. Whatever panicked knave had cut open the pipe, no doubt to douse his own shop in protection, the ass had probably long since fled. No wonder there was so little water coming to the conduits farther down in the City. Jack had no doubt this same crime had been repeated elsewhere. Between that and the drought that had withered the City’s wells, they had scarcely any water at all.
He tried to master his rage. All was not lost. The King had come to support his people again, and left behind his brother the Duke of York to take command of their efforts. Under that generalship, a semblance of order was coming to the war.
The fire-post up ahead was one of the duke’s creations, and a beacon of sanity amidst the howling chaos of the gate. Jack forced his way over to it; the soldiers let him pass, recognizing him for one of the men assembled by the parish constables. Beyond, he collapsed without dignity against a wall, and soon someone pressed a pewter tankard into his hand. Looking up, Jack found himself at the feet of the Earl of Craven.
He scrambled upright again, or tried to; the earl pressed him down. “Take your rest, lad,” Craven advised him. “You need it.”
I’m twenty-six, Jack wanted to say, but one did not argue with a peer, especially one to whom he was a lad. Instead, he stayed obediently where he was, and choked on his first sip of beer. I know that taste. It seemed the Angel Inn was supplying at least one fire-post. Strength spread through his tired body, from his gut outward; the Goodemeades knew what they were about.
From where he sat, the Fire did not look like much. A thick pall of smoke streamed eastward under the impetus of the wind, but beneath it, there was scarcely a glow. God, in His irony, had given them a perfectly clear day, the sun dwarfing all the Fire’s rage.
Jack was not fooled, and neither was any other man with enough wit to breathe. The riverside blaze had been bad enough, but it kept expanding northward. And with every yard it shifted in that direction, it gave itself a broader front: more territory for them to contest, and more edge on which the wind could find purchase. For every yard northward, the Fire would claim three to the west. God alone knew how much of London it would devour before it was done.
If only we did not have the wind…
How far dared he push Lune? He knew the gist of what Ifarren Vidar had done; the faerie lord was undoubtedly the Queen’s enemy. Yet she insisted on keeping him from the Gyre-Carling, even in the teeth of the Cailleach Bheur. She must have some reason for it.
That much, Jack understood. What he did not understand was what reason could be worth sacrificing London for.
He became aware of voices to his right, saying something about Lombard Street. Jack drained the last of the Goodemeades’ beer and pushed himself up. Didn’t even need the wall to help me. How long the strength from that draught would last, he didn’t know, but for now it would do. “My lord,” he said, approaching the earl and a pair of other men, “can I be of service?”
Craven studied him consideringly. “The Fire is moving up through St. Clement’s, Nicholas, and Abchurch Lanes,” he said at last. “One arm of it, at least.”
Toward Lombard, and the houses owned by wealthy merchants and bankers. Who would not appreciate their homes burning down, but would be equally angered to hear of their deliberate destruction. It would be easy to believe, after the fact, that the Fire might have been stopped short of that point, and their belongings saved. Jack raked one filthy hand through his hair and thought. With the wind as it was…“My lord,” he said, “I don’t think we could halt it there regardless. But there are two stone churches on the south side of Cornhill, that might serve as a bulwark; if we create a break there, we might have a chance.”
One of the others said, “That would permit the Fire too close to the Exchange.”
“Permit?” Craven said, with a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “When we have the power to command this blaze, then we may speak of permitting it things. For now…Dr. Ellin is right. Send word to the duke, but I think we must make our defense at Cornhill.”
Jack startled at the sound of his name. To Craven’s weary smile, he said, “I didn’t think you would remember me, my lord.”
“I remember all men who stand up in defense of London’s people,” the earl said. Which sounded noble, even if it were exaggeration. Craven had been one of the few peers who didn’t flee before the plague last year, instead staying to manage the efforts against it. If he’d earned Jack’s eternal gratitude and respect then, it was confirmed now, as the old man placed himself once more in the path of disaster.
Craven clapped him on the shoulder. “Do not overreach yourself,” he said, with a wry twist that said he also remembered how faint a mark such advice left on Jack. “We have hours more to fight before we can think of victory, and we need every man we can muster.”
Jack nodded, but Craven was scarcely out of sight before the physician took to his heels. If the Cornhill break were to be created in time, they would need every hand they could get.
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: noon
Real heat would have burned Lune’s body to ash by now. She was aware of that much, even if she did not know how much time had passed. As it was, the power of the Fire struck, not at her physical flesh, but at her spirit, which struggled to contain it: to keep it from spilling over into the Onyx Hall. Caught between shattering cold and melting flame, the palace would be destroyed.
The bitter irony of it choked her, in the one tiny portion of her mind that could think of anything other than forcing back the heat. The Dragon was not Nicneven’s creature, but in its quest to devour the City, it would do the Gyre-Carling’s work.
Unless she stopped it. With her hand on the keystone of the Onyx Hall, Lune could keep the devastation above from passing below. But for how long? Could she hold until Cannon Street was reduced to cinders, with nothing left to burn? The creeping demise of age the Cailleach whispered in her heart was drowned out, transformed into a raging death, a swift immolation no less dreadful for its speed. She’d put herself in its path; now she could not back away, and and it might kill her.
No. Lune’s joints ached from the strain, but she held. Dying would save no one; it was her life they needed. Her presence here, with her hand on the Stone, holding back the inferno. Whatever it cost her in pain and blood, she would pay it. I would give my life for my realm. I can give this, too.
It was nothing more than nature, simple flame, the London Stone above standing like an altar in a cathedral of coals. The flames, Lune could hold back.
But even as the Fire’s edge moved onward, something shifted in its heart, and a terrible awareness fell upon Lune.
She choked on her own breath, quailing beneath that hellish gaze. Until now, the Dragon’s attention had flickered here and there, diverted by each fresh victim, each challenge mustered by the City’s defenders. It saw only what it devoured, and what yet lay in its path.