The Blackthorn Key

“Fire!” Stubb screamed. “Put it out! Put it out!” Frantic, he scanned the shelf behind the counter for water. Wat ran through the smoke to the fireplace and stamped at it, trying desperately to stop the smoldering paper from catching anything else.

I grabbed Tom by the collar. I pulled. We ran.

? ? ?

Tom sprinted through the London night, clutching the panicked Bridget. I ran behind him, twisting at every corner to see if we were followed.

Either we lost them or they hadn’t seen us, because we made it to the alley behind Tom’s house without sight of Wat or Nathaniel Stubb. We nearly crushed ourselves at the back door—or, more accurately, Tom nearly crushed me—trying to scramble inside at the same time. I slammed the bolt shut and bent over the table, panting. Tom leaned back against the plaster and slid down, gasping for air.

Poor Bridget struggled in his hands. I had to coax her from him, and hold her to my face until she quieted. She was made of sturdy stuff, that pigeon, because she calmed down well before either of us did.

I went to the window. I looked for a glow, for smoke, for something to announce that the gunpowder I’d set off had flared out of control, that I’d burned my own home to the ground. But I saw nothing, and I knew that by now, if the fire had caught, the alarm would have been raised. Still, I watched, waiting.

Tom looked out next to me, his arm pressed against my shoulder. “Are we safe?” he said.

I didn’t know how to answer that.





SUNDAY, MAY 31, 1665


The Visitation of Mary





CHAPTER


16


I COULDN’T SLEEP.

It wasn’t just that the floor of Tom’s bedroom was a forest of splinters. It wasn’t the fear lingering in my guts, either. Tom had been as scared as I was, yet ten minutes after his head hit his pillow, he was snoring louder than carriage wheels on cobbles.

I couldn’t sleep because I knew who’d murdered my master. I couldn’t sleep because his killers were now coming after me.

And I didn’t know what to do about it.

I wanted to run to Lord Ashcombe, tell him what I’d seen. I couldn’t. Even if he believed me—and the King’s Warden didn’t really seem like the trusting type—I had no actual evidence that Stubb and Wat had killed my master. It would be my word against Stubb’s, and I wasn’t stupid enough to not know how that would turn out. He was a master, I was an apprentice. No one would listen to me.

Tom could back me up, of course, but he wouldn’t be taken any more seriously than I would. Plus, we’d committed a serious crime. Breaking into a house—even if it was my own—was bad enough. Taking the cube and the sash, both now hidden under Tom’s bed with the page from the ledger, was theft. The penalty for stealing either was death. We’d both end up swinging from the gallows, murdering cult or not.

Tom’s bedroom door creaked open. His youngest sister, Molly, padded in on bare feet, curled up on the floor, and snuggled into me, clutching a well-loved blanket to her chest. I listened to her breathe as I lay awake and thought. To see Stubb and his apprentice hanged for their crimes, I’d need to go to Lord Ashcombe with hard evidence, or the support of someone with higher standing than Stubb. Someone respected, whose position placed him above ordinary men. I didn’t know how to get the first. But the second, maybe I could do.

? ? ?

I slipped out from under Molly’s arms and crept out of the house with the dawn. Most days, the streets would already be jammed with traffic: tradesmen on their way to work, merchants hauling goods to market, coachmen swearing at pedestrians. But today was Sunday, the Lord’s day of rest. Though there were a few souls out to greet me with a pleasant morning, the city felt empty.