I was not alone. A crowd of onlookers, most of them women, stood with their silent faces turned towards the dockyard on the River Itchen. A flare of red blazed on the horizon; it branched and twined and climbed like a monstrous spider over the skeletal form that rested there.

“It’s the seventy-four,” I breathed, remembering the lovely ship of the line, half-built in the Itchen yard. I had walked through its ribs with Edward and George but two days ago. “The seventy-four is burning.”

“They’ll never save her,” a woman beside me declared. “Not with the wharves aflame, and most of the men hard at work here in town. Two fires in one night — and that after a bit of rain? It’s Devil’s work, I’ll be bound.”

“Devil’s work,” I said thoughtfully. “Or the Monster’s?”

Thursday, 27 October 1808

I am no horsewoman, but last night’s fire demanded expediency; and so I walked this morning before breakfast to Colridge’s hack stable, where for the price of a few shillings I was swiftly accommodated with a skittish dun mare. Her name was Duchess, and she turned her nose willingly enough in the direction of Porter’s Mead, the broad gallop east of the town. As she trotted through the green meadow, I attempted to recall the few riding lessons I had endured at Edward’s Kentish estate. My seat was indifferent, I wore an outmoded riding habit of Elizabeth’s, made over for my use, and the reins felt awkward in my grasp; but Duchess must have been served with far worse mistresses in her life of hire, and offered no snort of contempt. From Porter’s Mead it required but a few moments to achieve Nightingale Lane and proceed thence along the strand to the Itchen Dockyard. We had nosed up the yard’s river channel only three days before, with Mr. Hawkins; but being land-bound this morning I sawed hesitantly at the reins, turning the mare’s nose to the north. She tossed her head, drawn by the sharp scent of the sea, and would have contested the point — but that I forced her around and skirted the dockyard at its rear. From the slight promontory above, I could rest a bit in the saddle and survey the scene of devastation below.

The dockyard’s wooden enclosure was scarred by fire and broken in places, so that I might gaze through what had once been a solid perimeter. In an effort to combat the fire, the lock gates had been opened to permit the surging river to douse the flames. Now a welter of mud and charred wood lay stinking in the watery sun. The seventy-four’s ribs had fallen in a heap of refuse all about the scaffolding, which was similarly burnt to non-description. A dense odour hung heavy in the air; I knew its acrid weight should cling to my garments for days to come. I held a gloved hand over my nose, eyes narrowed against the smoke that still spiralled from the wreck. Three years Mr. Dixon’s pride had been a-building in his yard — a thing of beauty and promise; the blasting of hope felt as brutal as the ruin of iron and oak. A party of men, some wearing the canvas trousers of shipyard tars and others the rough nankeen of labourers, heaved purposefully at the spars. I discerned Jeremiah the Lascar, his face grim and his air morose, but of the genial Mr. Dixon there was no sign. I touched my heels to the mare’s sides, and obediently, she rocked her way down the grassy slope. The sound of hooves ringing on gravel brought the men’s heads up to stare at me in surprise. One spat derisively in the ashes and returned immediately to his labours; the others studied my countenance warily. After an instant, recognition lit the Lascar’s face. He stepped forward, his hand raised to his dark brow.

“Good morning, Mem-Sahib. Where be the young masters today?”

“Safely returned to school. My condolences, Jeremiah — I saw the flames last night from the town’s walls. You have a deal of work before you.”

He laid his hand on the mare’s bridle and ran long fingers over her soft nose. Duchess snorted and thrust her head into his chest.

“That lovely ship,” I mourned. “Was it an accident? An oil lamp overturned in a pile of sailcloth?”

The Lascar bowed his head. “Do not believe it, Mem-Sahib. There was evil at work in this yard last night.”

“The smell of tar is very strong. You think the fire deliberately set?”

“Pitch was spread over the ship before the fire was lit. Pitch is still hot on the spars. We have shifted them with our hands, and we know.”

I touched my heels to Duchess’s flanks, as if to approach the smoking embers, but the Lascar stood firm, his hand at the mare’s head.

“You go now. It is not safe.”

“I heard no alarum last night, before the explosion. How came Mr. Dixon to desert his post?”

Jeremiah’s countenance hardened. “Do not say such things, I beg. Dixon Sahib has gone to his rest.”

“Poor man, I can well believe it. He loved that ship so, he must be ill with exhaustion and despair.”

The Lascar stepped backwards and glanced significantly towards the ruined timber walls, and the vestige of what had been the shipwright’s offices. I followed his gaze, and saw a pallet lying on the ground, with a loose covering of dirty canvas. Under it lay something that must — that could only — be the shape of a man.

“Mr. Dixon?” I whispered in horror. “How dreadful! Was he overcome by the heat of the flames?”

“Fire did not kill him.” The Lascar’s voice was sombre. “We found him there last night when the smoke first rose into the sky, and the men came running to open the lock. Dixon Sahib’s throat was cut from ear to ear. Murder, Mem-Sahib! And when I find the one who did it—”

His fists clenched on the mare’s reins.

I crossed at the Itchen ferry and rode on, through the gentle fields and coppices of Weston, the ground rising and falling as if formed by the Channel tides. Duchess stretched out her nose in the sharp October morning and seemed ready to gallop, but I could not trust myself so far in the saddle, and held in her head. It was as much as I could do to manage the horse, for my mind was full of the bitter intelligence lately imparted. Mr. Dixon, murdered! His throat cut and the seventy-four destroyed! No mere vandals, then, had torched the ship — but an enemy who moved with deadly purpose. The fires on

Southampton’s wharves must have served as diversion, intended to draw the townsfolk away from the River Itchen. With the men already fighting the flames near the quay, response to the second fire must be slow; too slow to save the seventy-four, as the event indeed had proved. It was a calculated evil — a plot well-sprung. A marshal in the field could not have done better.

And all this, but a few days after Mrs. Challoner opened Netley Lodge.

I could not like the coincidence. What had Lord Harold called her? The Peninsula’s most potent weapon. I longed for him suddenly: the steady look, the careless strength. For suddenly, I was afraid. The day was yet young, the hour being not much past ten and most of the world still at breakfast. My sketchbook and paints were secured in a saddlebag, and I had every intention of o’erlooking Netley Lodge for much of the morning. I could not stomach a third full day among the ruins, nor did I believe my outraged parent would condone such a scheme, did she know of it. The word murder would run through Southampton swift as fire along a ropewalk, and my days of rambling the country alone were at an end. I must make the most of the hours remaining to me. My road was the same as Mr. Ord’s had been the previous day. There are advantages in approaching the Abbey by land, as one reaches the ruins from the west. In arriving by sea as I had twice done, I approached from the east — passing Netley Lodge on my way. Today I might establish myself high in the Abbey walls without exciting the notice of anybody at the house, and gaze down upon its activity for the whole of the morning.