“Hope you can swim better than you can row!” the fisherman crowed. “You keep rowing like that and you’ll sink yourself soon enough, son!”

Junior Waltham was already pink in the face from rowing. He ignored the cackling fisherman and concentrated on pulling the oars through the water.

It was a near-miss Samuel witnessed several times during the course of the journey. The brown waters of the River Thames were swarming with hundreds of boats of every size and description. Barges and tenders headed both ways along the river, whilst tilt-boats and lighters crossed from one side to the other. Meanwhile, the boats of oyster-catchers and eel-fishermen bobbed in the middle as their owners dangled lines and nets over the side. The air was noisy with the shouts of boatmen telling each other to watch out, and the blasphemous oaths of those for whom the shouts had come too late.

Every now and then Junior Waltham glanced over his shoulder, as much to make sure they weren’t going to collide with any more boats as to see where they were going. The red-faced boy puffed and wheezed as he heaved on the oars. He was only a year older than Samuel but large powerful muscles pushed through the sleeves of his well-worn shirt as his arms went back and forth.

Small waves broke against the side of the wherry and water sprayed over the edge, splashing Samuel’s cuffs. He let go of the side and shook his wrists. Sitting beside him in the stern, and taking up most of the perch, Father Thomas let out a quiet sigh. The elderly rector was wearing his black vestments and a dun-coloured cloak, which he had managed to keep dry. He kept his gloved hands folded in his lap, a gesture Samuel now copied for the remainder of their journey.

From the river Samuel could see the spread of London. The city was built on twin hills that sloped up from the waterfront. The gradient of the steep hills could be seen from the way the earthenware-tiled roofs of the houses appeared to get higher and higher the further they were from the river. Most of the wooden houses were in fact quite short and narrow and they were so densely packed together that Samuel couldn’t make out the routes between them as anything more than shadows.

A dense pall of yellow-black smoke hung over the city, the result of ten thousand chimney-stacks releasing continuous streams into the sky. The sulphurous cloud was pricked by the tall pointed spires of over a hundred churches, which towered over the rooftops of the houses crowded around them. Tallest of them all was St Paul’s, the grandest church in the city, which dominated the skyline. Samuel could see the lead roof, white with age, glinting in the morning sunshine.

Junior Waltham rowed past Paul’s Wharf and on to Blackfriars. It was busy on the river but it was chaos at the quays and boat-stairs lining the riverbank. There were so many boats trying to reach the wharves that there wasn’t enough room for some of the larger tenders and coasting vessels. They stopped beside smaller skiffs and lighters already moored and their passengers and goods crossed over the boats in between to reach the quayside. The wherry Samuel was sitting in was small and narrow and Junior Waltham slipped through gaps the larger boats couldn’t.

They stopped near the shore-end of a wooden wharf, where the water was too shallow for the boats that sat heavier in the water. Junior Waltham let go of the oars and untied the cloth from around his neck to wipe his sweaty face.

“Thank you, Master Waltham,” Father Thomas said, using his stick to steady himself as he got to his feet. “How much do I owe you?”

Junior Waltham panted and shook his head. “Nothing, Father.”

Samuel climbed up on to the wharf then turned round to help Father Thomas. Once on the wharf the old rector took out his small purse.

“You must want something,” he said.

Junior Waltham shook his head again. “You’re going to help Jack. I couldn’t take your money. It wouldn’t be right, Father.”

Father Thomas glanced awkwardly at Samuel, then he said, “I must insist.”

Junior Waltham smiled at Samuel and took up his oars again. He began to row and when he was about twenty feet from the wharf he called, “Good luck!”

Samuel lifted his hat. Junior Waltham waved.

Father Thomas sighed. “Come on, Samuel,” he said, tucking his purse back inside his cloak. Then he started along the busy wharf toward dry land.

As Samuel followed him, he saw barges and hoys stranded on the mud. They leaned over on their sides, shallow water lapping at their exposed keels. It was an especially low tide, compounded by the year-long drought. Very little rain had fallen since winter, which left the mud along the riverbanks exposed and drying. The smell of salty mud baking in the hot sun lingered around the waterfront.

Samuel had never been in this part of London before but Father Thomas seemed to know where he was going. They followed a narrow uphill street toward the ancient city wall. The houses on either side had jettied upper storeys, which meant their first floors projected out over the street. In places the street was so narrow that sometimes the jetties of houses on opposite sides of the street were almost touching. Samuel and Father Thomas had to walk beneath them whenever a cart came down the street. They were walking against the grain of the crowd, as most people seemed to be coming the other way, heading down toward the river.

When they reached the city wall there were dozens of people trying to leave the city through the narrow arch at Ludgate but hundreds more were trying to come into the city at the same time. Armoured city watchmen tried to control the flow of people, stamping the blunt ends of their halberds on the ground to establish their authority. It was the hooded wagons and hackney carriages that caused the most delay because only one of those could pass through the gate at a time. Like the boatmen on the river, the carters heckled each other impatiently.

Samuel and Father Thomas walked through behind a wide, slow dray cart. They were outside the city now, but London had long since spilled over its medieval walls and these new districts, the liberties, were just as built up and as crowded as anywhere within the old boundaries. Father Thomas turned right outside the gate and led Samuel up a street that headed north. Like the streets within the walls it was narrow, and cobbled with small, round pebbles and unshapely flints and oyster shells embedded in dry earth. A kennel ran down the centre of the street, a shallow gutter that was meant to carry rainwater downhill, but there hadn’t been any rain in so long the kennel was clogged with dust and ashes and rotting scraps.

“Can I take this off when we get inside?” Samuel asked, tugging at his russet-coloured doublet. It was a hot day and the jacket was tight.

“No,” said Father Thomas. “You’re wearing your own shirt underneath it and they won’t let you inside the courtroom if you don’t look presentable.”

Samuel sighed. Father Thomas had borrowed the clothes Samuel was wearing from Mr Snagwall, one of his wealthier parishioners, who lived at the northern end of St Clement’s Lane. Mr Snagwall’s son was the same age as Samuel but he was shorter and also thinner, so the clothes were too small. The black breeches he was wearing should have reached his shins but instead were tied off above the knee. The worsted stockings weren’t big enough for his feet, and neither were the buckled shoes, which pinched his toes and made him walk funny. The only thing he was wearing that fit him was the wide-brimmed felt hat, but Samuel hated wearing hats as it was.

“That’s the place,” Father Thomas said, flicking the end of his stick toward a large dirty-white wooden building built on the other side of the street.

At this time of the morning the Old Bailey sat in shadow from the city wall. Samuel and Father Thomas crossed the street between two slow-moving carts. Samuel knew the courthouse by reputation. Everyone accused of a serious crime in the city north of the river was brought here and put on trial. He had expected it to look older, threatening, more foreboding, but instead it looked like any other stately Tudor building, with straight-coursed herring-bone gables and peeling stucco facades.

Father Thomas took off his hat and pushed through the rough-hewn oak doors. Samuel hesitated, then also removed his hat and followed the rector inside. A clerk pointed them toward the courtroom, where the session was about to begin.

It was a large, open-plan room. No less than seven judges sat behind a long oak desk on a raised platform at the head of the room. They were all old men with long robes that fell over their portly figures. The judge in the middle had a tired look in his eyes and jowls that reminded Samuel of a bloodhound. Mounted to the wall above his head was an old sword, its long blade pointing upwards.

Father Thomas led Samuel to seats for spectators around the edges of the courtroom. They sat down with their hats on their laps and waited. Samuel had never been inside a courtroom before. He sat up straight and looked around.

In the middle of the room there were two short wooden beams erected at waist height, facing each other at a distance of about fifteen feet. Samuel counted six men sitting on either side of the gap between and guessed they were the jurors because there were twelve of them. They were all smartly attired and wore expensive-looking wigs of ringleted raven-coloured hair that tumbled over their shoulders.

“Father, what if you can’t help him?” Samuel whispered.

“I will do my best, Samuel, I promise you that,” Father Thomas replied.

“But what if the jurors won’t listen to you, Father?”

Father Thomas sighed. “Then you know what the sentence will be.”

Samuel swallowed. “Death?”

Father Thomas nodded curtly.

The judge that had reminded Samuel of a bloodhound banged his gavel loudly on the desk in front of him and called for order. The courtroom fell silent.

Samuel’s heart began to race as a man was brought out with manacles around his ankles. He was wearing a plain tunic and loose breeches. His autumn-coloured hair was lank and unwashed, though his face looked well scrubbed. The clerk of the court led him to one of the two short wooden beams, which the man stood before and rested his hands upon. Then the clerk bowed his head briefly for the judges and turned to address the courtroom, reading from a small piece of paper.

“This court for our Lord the King sits to hear the case that Mr John Tanner, late of Eastcheap, London, labourer, not having the fear of God before his eyes but moved and led away by the instigation of the Devil, on the twenty-fifth of August at the eleventh hour of the night, voluntarily, maliciously and feloniously did murder by drowning Mr Henry Thoroughgood, late of Coldharbour, London, merchant, contrary to the peace of our Lord the King, his crown and his dignity.”

The clerk of the court bowed to the judges again and took a seat with other clerks, note-takers and lawyers sitting between the judges and the jurors.

The judge with the gavel interlocked his fingers on the desk in front of him, looked down at the accused and said, “How do you plead, Mr Tanner?”

“Not guilty, My Lord,” said the accused.

Samuel swallowed. The man glanced over at him briefly. Samuel thought he saw a brief smile appear on his lips. The clerk of the court and the main judge had called the man Mr John Tanner, but Samuel knew him by another name.

Uncle Jack.

NOTES:
I got the idea for this story about eighteen months ago when I saw a Channel 4 documentary about the Great Fire of London. I bought the two books on the subject currently in print (one by Neil Hanson, the other by Adrian Tinniswood) but didn't actually read them until recently. In the year between I allowed the idea to simmer in the back of my mind, but was never quite happy with what I had. It was going to be like a seventeenth century version of "Oliver Twist" with an opportunist rector taking in plague orphans and protecting them from the law when they steal for him. Things would come to a head when London is engulfed by fire and the rector realises there are rich pickings to be had in abandoned houses, but one of the young thieves, a boy named Samuel, stands up to him and escapes through the burning city. The only thing that survives from that plotline is the boy named Samuel. Father Thomas in this chapter is not the bent vicar.

This was quite a difficult chapter to write, as first chapters go. It's only 2000 words long but there's a wealth of information in there. You learn about the river, the boats on it, the weather and climate, what the city looks like, the streets, the houses, the people and the clothes, as well as hints about the characters. One might argue this is information overload, that some of this could have been kept back to later chapters by starting with the arrival at the Old Bailey (as I considered doing). But that only applies on the assumption that I'm not already holding back a lot of material for when it becomes more pertinent in later chapters. So it's certainly not a case of "Look, here's everything I know about London circa 1666" on my part, but the problem was ensuring that's not how it came across.