The Royal Exchange

NOTE: Trying something new: historical fiction! I don’t know if it is really my style but it was interesting to play with. Also, while I was in the process of writing this, I realized how this story may come off as condescending to a specific country (who I am afraid of if I name now will spoil a bit later). I have nothing against them; anything negative about them are purely interesting historical conspiracies I had found while doing my research and my own creative spin on that. I have no idea if anyone would actually take offense to it, but I just wanted to put that out there. 

Anywaaayys enjoy x

***

September 1, 1666

John could only register the distant buzz of chatter and coughing as his mind drifted to the death of his wife and unborn child.

London had been haunted by the bubonic plague for a year and he couldn’t stand it if the rest of his children got sick from it, like his wife.

Oh, but if he could’ve spent time with them like he had always wanted. John practically lived in the Royal Exchange, where he worked, selling alcohol that he could barely feed his children much for that one meal of the day.

“Hey! John! Stop slacking off, thinkin’ ‘bout heaven know what.”

John shook his head as he tried to clear his mind of the nightmares that struck his life.

“No one is even here to collect the rum I got, William. All of them would rather go to that new shopping mall or buy some goods worth substance. I might as well think about what I could have with more money than I could collect.”

“That’ll give you depression, mate, stop that. People won’t buy from you if you stand there lookin’ like you would rather be anywhere else, that’s for sure.” William walked to the next counter.

***

January 9, 1838

Jacob walks swiftly through the dirty, busy streets of London to work at the Royal Exchange.

The daily train roars over London as he finally makes it inside but is stopped by Bridget, an enthusiastic young woman who works along with Jacob.

“Jacob! Oh, Jacob, you don’t know the information I managed to get today.” Bridget nudges her head in a gesture to suggest that he follows her.

Bridget is one of the only women to work here at the Royal Exchange. Because of that fact, she is normally pretty quiet from all the white men treating her less than, but she is pretty outgoing around Jacob because he treats her right. As a man with a wife and four daughters, how could he treat her any different? Most men here also have a wife and daughters as well, but they’re shallow. She is afraid to tell her own husband she even has a job here.

“What information exactly? If it doesn’t have to do with dragging this city out of poverty then this isn’t good in the slightest.”

They stop in the dusty drawing room toward the back of the building and stand around a desk with too many legal papers to keep straight. Bridget picks up one of them that looks like it is about to fall apart and shoves it in my hands.

“It quite literally just popped into existence.”

The old paper was fragile in Jacob’s hands like it could crumple from age right in front of him. It was a history document that looks misplaced. Jacob reads as quickly as he could comprehend the information. It was from France. It had to do with the Great Fire of 1666. 

It was a tale, really, that the one who had started this great fire was an innocent baker’s oven that sparked and had spread through this exact building along with the rest of this exact city. 

Jacob’s stomach twists. This fire is the reason for his anxiety around his job in London. This city is not any less prone to fires now versus then. His father also died in a fire. The history and his father are why his fear of fire and destruction are so vivid. He wants better opportunities for his daughters beyond poverty but London is their best shot; for him and his family.

“French were to blame this whole time? Why is this coming up now?” Jacob’s eyes roam the page as whole, trying to gather more clues to this mystery.

“We all want to know the same thing, unfortunately.” Bridget is sorting through the rest of the mess on the desk, most likely to see if any other surprises surface.

Footsteps walk into the drawing room and Jacob looks up from searching to see George, a fairly newer employee, while Bridget keeps her head low as George eyes what they are searching through with significant interest.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt you,” George singles his attention to Jacob but gives a side eye to Bridget. “Organizing are we?”

Bridget looks up from the desk but I speak up to save her from George trying to embarrass her like he has become accustomed to doing whenever he has the opportunity. 

“We had found a strange bit of history that I believe you would find very interesting, to say the least.”

George takes the paper from my hands and puts his monocle up to his eye to read the text easier.

“Hmm. It surely is a fascinating piece. Do you believe this may be a sign of something more, perhaps?”

“Is that what you are proposing?” Jacob starts. “The French are not only to blame for the Great Fire, but that they are not finished with that? That, we are not truly in an alliance?”

***

September 2, 1666

Despite the fact that it was early morning, through the window behind John’s counter the sight was always unfortunate. Besides the constant filthy, bustling streets, people were sitting there on the sides of the streets with either no home to go to or vomiting and weak from the plague -- or both. John had learned to have empathy because the reality of his job was that it was always unstable and that him and his family could end up like that. They weren’t well off by any means but John was always grateful.

After some time of minimal sales and too much spacing off to be paid for, William came over to John’s station.

“I know I am in my own thoughts too much I--”

“John. Do you smell that?”

John squinted his eyes and cocked his head to the right, questionably breathed in, then got a whiff of smoke.

His eyes went wide. “Fire. We have to identify where it is coming from before everything is destroyed. It’s way too dry for this.”

John sharply ran from his counter as the fumes of fire became stronger. Suddenly, an army of armed strangers with pistols and swords barged into the building. The crinkling of their suits and their heavy footsteps were the only ones who were making noise. A moment later they start yelling at all of us and each other.

“Everyone! If you want to go home to your wife and children tonight I suggest you crouch on the floor right now and put your hands behind your back!”

No one moved but the tension in that room was making John’s vision go hazy. John didn’t know which he would die to first: the strangers or that phantom fire. These strangers could’ve had the plague. John sucks in a steep breath. He wondered if this was one of many symptoms of having the plague: being completely out of your mind. Despite the fact that John had morbidly feared the plague, he didn’t know too many details about it despite what it had done to his father.

William was visibly shaken but he spoke up for everyone else with his hands, palms out, in the air. “What do you want in here? It would be much easier if one of us showed you all where it is instead of tryin’ to find it on your own. It would take much longer since you don’t know where to look. I also smell a fire, someone ought to take care of that.”

The echo of William’s voice was deafening in the silence it had left behind. The intruders were looking back and forth at each other until finally a man from the front that looked to be around Jacob’s age confidently spoke up. “Fine. I only want one of you, though. The rest of you, do as we asked: crouch and hands behind your back. Who's it gonna be then?”

Then it was employees’ turn to look around at each other, mostly looking at William who spoke up before, but John didn’t want him to go under that pressure again. He didn’t react too self-assured. John watched William who had met his eyes that held mischief. William wanted blood for this and John intended to carry that out for him.

John raised his left hand. “I will lead you all.”

As soon as John spoke, two of the intruders went over, and grabbed either of his arms.

“Where are we going?” The one on the right asked him.

“The drawing room.”

***

January 10, 1838

George looks up from the paper. “Why, that is an assumption isn’t it? Well, yes the fact that the French made a detailed account of them being an enemy of that day, I would propose they planned that and because they clearly got away with it, why wouldn’t they do more? Whatever they be so hateful for I wonder?”

“They definitely don’t list the reasons in the account. Although, we weren’t aligned in the past. The French could be liars?” Jacob proposes.

George’s face is stiff in a way that suggests that he is trying to maintain a neutral expression.

“Do you know where I am from? I reckon you don’t. I put this paper on in the drawing room hoping someone would find it because the French are still after us. That,” he points to the paper he put on the desk. “Is genuine warning for what is to come from them. I am one of them; you know the ‘liars’ you are talking about.”

Utter shock ran through every fiber of Jacob. He couldn’t keep it off his face. “You are newer here. Is that why you came here? How long did you know about this? How--”

He holds up his hand. “I did not plan to tell people to get an interview out of it. I didn’t want to blow my cover and be killed over it, but look how that turned out. I do suggest London evacuates. If everyone left too early then their strike would just wait or try to find everyone. They are going to attack with fire.”

***

September 2, 1666

John was shoved into the drawing room. The short walk to the drawing room, John was trying to come up with some sort of plan to get everyone out of this mess without spilling information. He showed the two men and shouted at him to show them trading documents they had with other countries.

The fumes were becoming unbearable for John to breathe through making him light headed so his pace was slowed.

“Hurry up! We are all running out of time over here,” one of the men said who was waiting by the door while John sorted through documents that were on the messier side.

“Trust me, I know we need to get out of here. These documents are not the most organized.”

“That ugly fire will kill us all. Get going!”

While John was searching through the documents getting increasingly dizzy, he was working to find a pistol hidden somewhere. The two men that dragged him here were holding swords. If only he could attack from a distance, they couldn’t do anything about it. 

“RETREAT! NOW!” A voice boomed through the whole building as those offenders left the drawing room. John followed to see the outrageous flames that already consumed the walls of the main area and closing in rapidly.

People John had worked with for over ten years who he had laughed with and got to know are now simply burning corpses that can barely be seen with the roaring flames.

John starts running through the scorching heat because he could only think of who he was leaving at home. With his last thought, John thinks of his children. As John’s flesh burns, he hoped that they could escape the flames that encompassed the city that day. Hope. John died with hope and nothing more.

***

January 10, 1838

No. To him, this was part of his worst nightmares. They all have got to get out of there. Ice floods Jacob’s entire heart. 

“Why are we waiting around then?” Jacob starts to move toward the door so George and Bridget follow but only Bridget moves a bit, unsure of what to do.

George looks at me and fidgets with his monocle. “You do realize that they are going to burn this building down, including everything in it; we should save as much as we can.”

Jacob gives George a confused face laced with disgust. “The safety of London should come before legal documents for heaven's sake. We all have families to worry about, much less ourselves as well. Unless you want to bring them to France.”

George suddenly is focused on collecting the heap of papers on the desk to clearly avoid eye contact with Jacob. “I will be honest that was their intention with me but I can’t do that.”

Jacob shakes his head. George was a spy although he is on our side. Jacob has too many questions to start right now.

Too late.

The crinkling of flames waste away the wooden walls of the building and surround them all too quickly. All Jacob sees is red. Jacob fills with grief so beyond what he has ever experienced. His body feels so heavy he falls to the floor. Hopelessness. That is all he is capable of at this point. His eyes drift up towards George and Bridget. A father. A mother. 

Disappointment clouds his mind. He is leaving his kids with no father. A father who won’t know if his children are okay or if they are ash already.

Jacob squeezes his eyes shut through the brutal agony of the sears through his body as he passes without the knowledge that most of London ended up fine.

***

September 6, 1666

The brutal flames left London in utter ruin. Most people in the city didn’t make it out but what remained of their bodies were covered in ash. This was the new London for a little while. The scarred people left alive were left with the task of rebuilding. They believed in the tale of the innocent baker; not one who lived knew what truly went on in the Royal Exchange that day. All the living experienced, was the massive decrease of the bubonic plague after the horrific event.

If only they all lived to pass on the truth about the Royal Exchange; the truth about the world alliances. If only so many could have lived to pass on a truth that we all have wrong. Perhaps, a truth that could have changed everything?