'I hid with him,' whispered Kinchin.
The neighbour nodded approval, though in the way of Birmingham people her reaction was restrained. She knew Mistress Lucas had given charity to this mite. Shaking her head and short of breath, the woman seated herself on a joint-stool. She had to right it first, and sat gently as if it might collapse; some of the pegs had been knocked out during the cavaliers' riot. 'They have killed Widow Collins, and fourteen or fifteen others. I heard that two coffins were made last night for men of quality of theirs.' She held her arms folded and rocked with grief. 'Many houses are stripped of goods and furnishings; people were forced to hand over all the money they had. Their own supporters have lost as much as anyone, but that is no help to the rest of us… Go to your people, Kinchin Tew. I will find women for what is needed. Here — she does not want this now — ' The old neighbour jumped up, pulled a cloak from a peg on the door and wrapped it around Kinchin. Then she snatched a crust from the ground, blew the dust off and pushed it into the girl's hand. 'Have you seen Lucas? Some of our killed men were pushed into the trench and their bodies buried when the Royalists slighted the earthworks. They allowed nobody near to recover the dead.'
'Lucas was a prisoner. I saw him last night. I saw him at the Swan — ' Remembering how Thomas was shot in cold blood, Kinchin retched. With nothing in her stomach, she controlled it. The old woman gazed at her; perhaps she had heard what had happened to the ostler.
'The prisoners are all ransomed and free to go. Leave this house now, girl, before Lucas comes home.'
Kinchin was not sure whether this was some warning that Lucas might suspect she had taken part in the theft of his goods, or that he might be angry to find such a starveling had survived while his poor decent wife was murdered. Kinchin had no place here. Women neighbours would attend to Mistress Lucas's laying-out. Jane This and Margery That, a Bess, an Alice, a Susanna… They had gossiped with the smith's wife, attended her churching after Robert was born, and they would now bury her, comfort Lucas and help the smith deal with nurturing the child alone. None of that was for Kinchin. She was an outsider, no matter how much grief she felt for the murdered woman. She left the house without another word.
Clutching the cloak tightly around her and gnawing the hard bread, Kinchin wandered up through the markets, terrified of what she would find. She was carrying the sword from the forge. Under her cloak she held it with care, because there was no scabbard. A cart laden with half a dozen wounded Royalists trundled past, forcing her to press against the side of a house. Her feet stumbled with tiredness and terror. Groups of people, trembling bare-legged in their shirts and shifts, stood outside homes where open windows and doors revealed empty interiors. She saw people who had lost everything. Dazed and depressed, they simply collected in the streets.
Now Kinchin entered a scene that would have seemed to her like hell, had the Tews ever practised religion. As she passed the toll booth, heading into the Welsh End, many cavaliers were still at large. Prince Rupert had gone, but had left behind a group called an antiguard. These men were to protect his army in the rear and secure the route back to Oxford. They knew how to do this work. In every street, triumphal soldiers brandished drawn swords and pistols. They were making excited preparations to set fire to the town. Driving off householders, they used gunpowder, wisps of straw and matchcord. Some fired off special slugs which they said Lord Digby had invented: bullets wrapped in brown paper that they shot from pistols into stables and thatched roofs. Residents pleaded with them to stop, but the answer came back that each quartermaster had orders from the prince to fire his section of the town.
Legitimate arson was a wonderful game. In a market town full of forges, combustible material was easy to find. Laying the fires was easy. Anguished Birmingham people were complaining that they had paid out large sums of money to Prince Rupert, to buy protection for their homes. His men's response was cold and cruel. Anyone brave enough, who tried to save their goods or their premises, was fired at. Fresh blood ran over yesterday's dried blood on the cobbles.
Kinchin was frightened by the fire, more frightened by the soldiers' continuing violence. She pushed her way through to the High Cross, trying to leave town. But all the buildings ahead of her were ablaze. Their destitute owners stood weeping in the street; cavaliers only jeered as thick smoke gusted everywhere. Above Dale End and the Welch End, crackling flames leaped twice as high as the timber houses. To Kinchin's left, Moor Street was noisily burning, and when she ran into Chapel Street, a strong wind blew a great conflagration across the cherry orchards towards her.
At the Bull Inn, opposite the disused priory, with flames hot on her face, Kinchin stopped. A soldier barged past, carrying a pan of hot coals, on his way to start another fire somewhere. A man waved a besom broom at her, its bound twigs streaking the air with sparks. Too much terror finally overcame the girl. As she stood on the cobbles in confusion, she caught two riders' attention.
She recognised the red-haired cavalier and his horse: Faddle. A second rider loudly swore at people, 'The prince deals with you mercifully now! When we come back, with the Queen's army, you will know our true minds — no one will be left alive!'
Edmund Treves saw her. 'Get to safety!' He struggled to control his horse, disturbed by the fires. He could tell how the night's events had changed the girl. She had lost all her earlier trust of him. Of course she was right. Treves had stayed at the Ship Inn, on the outskirts, but he knew what had gone on in the town. Guilt sickened him — though he would not change his loyalty to the King.
Someone else spotted Kinchin, Her father, Emmett, had been loitering in the hope of grabbing property from open houses. Emmett dropped his robbery sack; with ghastly determination he grabbed his daughter and hauled her right under the cavaliers' horses. Gripped so fiercely, the nightmare of her encounters with Mr Whitehall returned to her. 'Here's a nice clean girl, sir!'
'Will you make her a doxy?' Treves retorted angrily.
'No, you may do that!' leered Emmett. 'She will know no other trade, sir,' he wheedled plaintively, as if this excused selling her. He sounded desperate. A kinchin mort — that's a girl, sir, who is brought to her full age and then — '
'No!' His daughter shrieked, now mortified.
Kinchin rebelled. The nickname she had always endured was suddenly hateful. She struggled wildly. Until now, she had accepted her family's intentions. They brought her up to sell. If she stayed with them, they would do it. The closest friends she had ever had were killed last night. Nobody cared for her now.
Unexpectedly, Kinchin wrenched free. In the fight with her father, she dropped the sword that she had taken from the forge. Then Treves's companion reined in his great horse above where it lay upon the ground.
She knew that man too. Kinchin looked up into those unblinking eyes. It was the man with the turquoise hatband. He was holding his carbine. Once again the idea of shooting this girl, the idea that had crossed Orlando Lovell's mind last night, returned to him.
This time, Kinchin picked up and held the sword so Lovell could see it. Lovell reached to hook it from her grasp. Kinchin scrambled backwards. Her father grabbed at her again but it was a feeble movement. She dodged Emmett and fled.
The fire roared all around her; she saw only one way to run. She beat a path back through the unburned part of the town, moving as fast as she could manage through the lamenting crowds. Slowing, she doubled back down the High Street past the Swan Inn where Thomas had been shot, back through the markets where Mr Whitehall had been mangled, around St Martin's Church and past Little Park Street where Mistress Lucas lay dead in her house. She ran down into Digbeth. The last cavaliers were leaving, over the stone bridge. Finding a gap in the procession, she went through Deritend where unknown numbers of killed defenders lay under the flattened earthworks. She passed the Ship Inn, where the elegant Prince Rupert had spent a civilised night, allegedly unaware of the deeds being perpetrated throughout Birmingham in his name.