“He is?” a tow-headed, freckled youth grabbed the edge of the window. “Really?”
“Really,” Alys told him. “And before that he marched with Monmouth, and before that he marched with Cromwell, so you can believe me when I say that I am for freeing the bishops. No tyrants! No papists!”
There was a great cheer, and some of the men swore they would loose the horses from the carriage and drag their heroine wherever she wanted to go.
“No, no,” said Alys. “I’m about my good uncle’s business and I have to go to Cheapside for him.”
“Let the honorable lady pass!” someone yelled, and the cry was taken up and down the road, past a temporary barricade where themen had entered a Roman Catholic house and were throwing religious paintings out of an upstairs window.
Alys, controlling her fear, deposited her cashbox safely with Alderman Johnson, received a receipt, and assured him she would go home for safety’s sake by water.
“And then I’m closing the wharf till London is quieter,” she said. “I’m going down to Sussex.”
“I would to God that I could go too,” the Alderman said. “I thought it would quiet down with the birth of a prince. But it’s never been this bad since the Oates riots.”
“And they were about a lie, and came to nothing in the end,” Alys said stoutly.
“They were bad enough to send those two—the king and his wife—into hiding in Scotland,” the Alderman said gloomily. “I wish they’d go again. And I wish I could get Julia and Hester out of town.”
“They can come with us,” Alys said. “Matthew would be pleased.”
“Would he?” the Alderman asked, wondering how much Alys knew of the failed betrothal. “They were thinking of a match, you know?”
Alys shook her head. “He’s too young to be thinking of marriage,” she said. “And if he had a preference at all, it was for Mia.”
“I’ll send Mrs. Reekie and Hester to you, if I may,” the Alderman decided. “I don’t want them in town with all this going on. Julia’s nerves are so bad… I can’t risk it.”
“Of course they must come!” Alys said. “We’re leaving tomorrow or the next day. They must come at once.”
“I’ll tell Dr. Reekie,” the Alderman decided. “And he can send them in his carriage. Is there room for him too?”
“Yes,” Alys said. “It’s a very large house.” She flushed to think that she was boasting, and corrected herself. “It’s not ours, of course.”
“Yes, I know. I’ll tell Julia to pack. It’s good of you, Mrs. Shore. And your strongbox will be safe in my cellar. It was safe all through the great fire, and nobody has ever got into my house.”
There was a sudden noise of cheering from outside, louder and louder, and the noise of many people running on the cobbled streets. The ragged shouts came closer.
“Stand to!” Alderman Johnson shouted at his clerks. At once, in a practiced drill, they closed and bolted the shutters over the windows, bundled their papers into locked boxes, and took up heavy cudgels and waited at their posts, as the noise got louder as the mob got closer.
Alderman Johnson glanced back and saw Alys standing calmly beside his desk.
“Nothing to fear,” he said. But then he checked. “Sounds like cheering…”
It was an exultant yelling rather than a battle cry. Men’s and women’s voices cheering wordlessly, filled with joy. Mr. Johnson nodded for the front door to be opened a crack, and he listened. Then he put the big man guarding the door to one side and stepped out.
“Not guilty! Not guilty!”
“Wait!” the Alderman, with his guard close behind him, grabbed a man running past, who was yelling at the top of his voice. “What’s the news?”
“The bishops are free! The bishops are free!”
“The judges freed them?”
“Declared them not guilty, defied the king. Not guilty! The jury would have none of it! That’s told him!”
“The judges freed the bishops?”
“Holloah! God has saved the church!”