Twisted firestarters

A reimagining of the diaries of Samuel Pepys

It’s 17th-century London, during the reign of Charles II…

Iwas woken from a slumber by shouting from somewhere down the corridor. My head was light from wine. There was no sign of the woman who’d been by my side. The last I could remember was her going to fetch more wine. Then I caught it on the air – the smell of burning.

I slid from the canopied bed and stumbled across the floor, my legs caught up in the shirt that hung down over my bare legs. I felt for my boots.

The noises from the corridor grew louder. Panicked screams and the pounding of feet along old wooden floorboards. I pulled on my boots, my eyes straining to see in the near-darkness. Then, picking up the small clay oil lamp that provided the room’s only illumination, I grabbed my satchel and opened the door.

A cloud of acrid smoke stung my eyes and filled my lungs, causing me to choke. Figures ran past the doorway, shapes in the billowing smoke, their flickering lamps floating by like spectres.

Holding my arm to my mouth, I forced myself out into the corridor. All around I could hear screams of panic. People jostled against me, desperate to reach the staircase and then the safety of outside. In the crush, the lamp was knocked out of my hand and shattered on the floor. A lick of flame from the spilled oil ignited a pair of silk curtains.

The smoke was growing thicker by the moment. I could hardly see a thing. All I could do was run with the crowd and pray that they knew their way around the building better than I did. We rounded a corner and the air cleared a little. I could make out an open space with a tall ceiling, the glint of gilded walls and a skylight through which the moon illuminated the hazy air. I recalled earlier passing through an atrium on the way to the bedchamber. That meant we were on the top floor, with three storeys between us and the safety of the street.

“This way.” Mother Quick stood at the top of a wrought-iron staircase, holding a lit candelabra. Her pink silk gown was dishevelled and torn down one side, her tall wig tilted askew.

“Move!” she repeated, as a crush of men and women ran past me and down the stairs.

I did not follow.

“Mr Pepys, you must go,” she shouted. “Have you seen Mr Hewer? The man I came in with. I must find him.”

She thought for a moment, sweat making rivulets through her thickly powdered face.

“He was at cards in the parlour. You’ll find him outside. Now go.”

A great billow of black smoke made us both choke. We held on to each other, gasping for breath. It was then that we saw them.

Standing at the entrance to the corridor, flames rising around them, they looked more like devils than men. Four of them, dressed in the clothes of fine gentlemen, but with hair styled into rigid spikes. One carried a flaming torch. Behind them, the silk drapes that lined the corridor were ablaze.

The men saw us and grinned. With horror I saw that their teeth were filed into points like the fangs of an animal.

Mother Quick gripped my arm.

“Mr Pepys, run.”

I could hear their terrible cries behind us as we fled down the stairs. I knew that if they caught us we would be bludgeoned to death on the spot. Suddenly Mother Quick tripped over her skirts, dropping the candelabra.

We were plunged into darkness.

Had the bawd let go of me at that moment then I do not think I would have survived. Fortunately, she knew the building inside and out. I held on to her for my very life, following blindly as she jerked right and left. We ran along a corridor, skirting around furniture that I could neither see nor remember from when I had last come this way, an hour or so ago, when the night had seemed so very different.

As we half-tumbled down the last flight of stairs we heard dreadful screams from

Their teeth were filed into points like the fangs of an animal

above – whether it was clients of the house or those brutes consumed by the inferno of their own making, I could not tell. But I had no intention of finding out.

We burst out of the open door and collapsed on to the hard ground of Bankside, coughing the acrid air from our lungs. I felt the sweat pouring off my brow and I thought I would vomit.

I turned just in time to see three of the wild men crashing through the door and running off into the night, whooping and hollering. As they passed us I saw that their cudgels were stained with blood and they carried whatever valuables they’d been able to take from the house as they went. I staggered to my feet and turned to help Mother Quick, but she’d already gone in search of her girls.

I was suddenly aware of how unaffected he seemed by our narrow escape

“Sam!” A voice cut through the darkness.

It was my assistant Will Hewer, running towards me, his white shirt torn and smeared with dirt, his blond hair almost black with soot and ash. As he reached me, he grasped my arms, scanning my face with concern.

“God be praised! I couldn’t find you.

Are you hurt?”

In answer, I fell to another fit of coughing and Will led me across the cobbled street. “Who were they?” I managed to sputter. “I know not. Thieves. They looked like devils. But I think they have gone.”

We reached the shelter of an empty stable. Will leaned me against a wall, where I gasped in the cold air, trying to recover my strength.

“Sam?”

I could hear the concern in his voice and was suddenly aware of how unaffected he seemed by our narrow escape. By contrast, my hands shook and water streamed from my stinging eyes.

There was an explosion and the sound of falling glass as the top floor windows blew out, flames engulfing the silk curtains. I felt a pang of sadness as I looked at the grand townhouse, once known as the sapphire of the Southwark Stews. Soon it would be gone forever.

“Sam?” Will said again, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Time to go.”

“Of course,” I replied, looking down at my filthy and torn undershirt.

And with one last look at the awful scene, we set off in search of a boatman to take us home.