The Bear Pit

by S. G. MacLean

  The Bear Pit

  Also By

  Also by S. G. MacLean

  the alexander seaton series

  The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

  A Game of Sorrows

  Crucible of Secrets

  The Devil’s Recruit

  the captain damian seeker series

  The Seeker

  The Black Friar

  Destroying Angel

  The Bear Pit

  Title

  Copyright

  This ebook edition first published in 2019 by

  Quercus Editions Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © 2019 S. G. MacLean

  The moral right of S. G. MacLean to be

  identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication

  may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

  or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopy, recording, or any

  information storage and retrieval system,

  without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library

  EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78747 359 1

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

  businesses, organizations, places and events are

  either the product of the author’s imagination

  or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

  actual persons, living or dead, events or

  locales is entirely coincidental.

  Ebook by CC Book Production

  Cover design © 2019 Henry Steadman

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  Dedication

  To Mairi

  Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  17 September, 1656

  Westminster Abbey, State Opening of Parliament

  Boyes stared at the viola case, lying open upon the ground of the courtyard. It was scarcely credible. ‘A blunderbuss?’

  Cecil was defensive. ‘I’ll not miss him. Not with this. Not at close range. Besides, what else would you have had me bring? I could hardly have walked openly through the streets with a full-length musket hanging from my shoulder, not today.’

  Boyes lifted the weapon out of the case and examined it more closely. It was well made, certainly. The short, large-bore barrel was nicely turned, and the flared muzzle well proportioned for scattering the shot. One musket shot might miss a moving target, regardless of the skill of the marksman, but this would not, at close range. At close range. And therein lay the difficulty. A property closer than this house was to the east door of the abbey, from which Cromwell was shortly to emerge, could hardly have been found – its Royalist tenant had been happy enough to take off for his country estate well before today. But still there was the question of whether they would be close enough, and if they were not, how many innocents would suffer in the blast?

  Boyes glanced again at the scaffolding they’d hastily erected against the wall of the yard, on pretence of building work being done. It would be substantial enough for their purposes, and they would not be up there long. In all the security checks carried out for this state opening of Parliament, no one had thought it necessary to check a second time the house of the quiet-living old Royalist colonel. So much for the location. The means was another thing, but while the choice of weapon might leave something to be desired, Fish had assured him that Cecil was one of the best shots in England – at least one of the best that could safely be invited to join an enterprise such as this.

  The hubbub from the crowd outside had been building all morning, but within the walls of this small courtyard little was said between the three men. Boyes could feel a stillness in the air, a tightening in his stomach, such as they had all three known in the last hours before the commencement of a battle. On different sides, some of them then, but not now. This business had been a year and a half in the planning, first mooted in Cologne then agreed upon in Bruges. His mind went back to the small, smoky parlour of that house in Bruges, where an assortment of men who would never have thought to find themselves sitting at the same table, still less planning an undertaking such as this, had come warily together. Their plan would have its fruition within the next half-hour and they would go their separate ways again – Parliamentarians, Royalists, Levellers; men of so many different views and grievances, but they had all come to the one conclusion: Oliver Cromwell must die. What happened after that, only God knew.

  The King had not been told, of course; so unbounded a horror of assassination – even of this usurper – had the murder of his father given him that such schemes were no longer put before Charles Stuart. But the popular rising the young King so waited upon would not happen, not without the crisis that the removal of the tyrant would provoke. Mr Boyes knew this better than most. They would proceed without the King’s knowledge, and then Charles would be presented with the fait accompli, and act as a king must.

  Boyes studied ‘Mr Fish’ – or Miles Sindercombe, former Parliamentary soldier and now paid assassin, did his new London neighbours but know it. Fish had made all the preparations from his lodgings recently taken on King Street: selected the time, found the location, brought in a suitable accomplice in the form of Cecil. The presence of Boyes himself was not so much required for the execution itself, but for the aftermath. He would see to events in England, whilst others readied the King for his return to his kingdom.

  Boyes brought out his pocket watch and opened the casing. The hand of Chronos went slowly closer to the hour. It was almost time. They had been careful today to arrive at the house by the back entrance, and only after the Protector with his council and family had already entered the abbey. Attention would be turned elsewhere, and Cromwell and his party would discover, when they emerged, that the short walk from the east door of the abbey past Westminster Hall to Parliament House was not quite as they had expected it to be.

  Fish had begun to pace. ‘If we should fail . . .’

  ‘We will not fail,’ said Boyes. But he had already considered their escape routes. They could choose to plunge themselves in to the mêlée and confusion that would surely follow on their success, or leave by the back way, down the narrow alley to the landing stairs and then the river, where a wherry waited, then quickly to Southwark.

  The hand of the figure on Boyes’s watch now pointed directly to the hour and he snapped the casing shut. ‘Now!’

  Cecil began to climb the scaffolding, turning to take the blunderbuss once he reached the top. Blunderbuss. Donderbus, as the Du
tch had it: thunder gun. And what a thunder would sound through Europe, if Cecil should find his mark.

  Boyes could feel the excitement mounting in him, the old excitement, as he climbed the scaffolding behind Fish to take his place on the platform. From here, he could see Cromwell’s entire short route from the abbey to the hall. Beyond the hall to Parliament House he could not see, but that didn’t matter because Cromwell wouldn’t get beyond the hall. In the other direction, the crowd that had followed the Protector’s progression from palace to abbey was growing, starved of spectacle and eager to buy up the offerings of the numberless traders along their route. The taverns and alehouses of Westminster would be filled fit to burst today, in celebration of their Puritan lord and much-demanded Parliament. Boyes wondered how many of them had come seven years ago to gorge on the murder of their king, only to join in that dreadful groan when they saw the horror of what had been done. He did not wonder long, though, because suddenly the time for speculation was over: the great east doors of the abbey were opening. Their moment had come.

  Cecil needed no prompting. His weapon was loaded with shot, and his hand steady as he lifted it. Fish and Boyes scarcely breathed as the doors were fully pushed back and he emerged, first, Cromwell himself. Of course. Everyone should know that the honour and the glory of this moment were his, this black-clad kinglet. A band of gold encircled Oliver’s hat, lest any should doubt what they had really done in raising a fenland farmer to be their chief of men.

  Cecil glanced one last time at Fish for affirmation, but just as he lifted the gun to take aim, the crowd, which had been converging on the bottom of the abbey steps, surged forward, and Cromwell’s Life Guard was instantly around him, itself quickly engulfed by the tide of bodies. Fish cursed and turned to begin descending the scaffold, but Cecil stayed him. ‘A moment yet. There are gaps, and that gold band is a beacon through them.’

  ‘He will be wearing a secret beneath the hat.’

  ‘I know. I will make my mark lower.’

  Boyes began to believe that it might yet be possible and then, as Cecil raised his arm a second time, a figure, a mass on its own almost, pushed through the Life Guard from their side and placed himself between Cromwell and everyone to the left of him. The Protector, hat and band of gold and all, was completely obliterated from their sight.

  Again Fish cursed, but Cecil was angry now, and determined not to be deprived of his prey. ‘I’ll go through him,’ he said. ‘I’ll fell him and get to Cromwell anyway.’

  ‘It’s Seeker, Cecil,’ said Fish wearily. ‘Damian Seeker. You won’t go through him and you won’t fell him.’ He turned away. ‘Oliver Cromwell will not die today.’

  Cecil made as if he would argue further, but Fish was no longer listening. Cecil lowered his gun and waited for Fish to reach the ground before passing it down to him and following. Only Mr Boyes did not go down immediately. He watched all the way, as the Life Guard and the procession pushed themselves through the crowd until the doors to Westminster Hall had been closed behind them and those of the crowd who had no good business being there were shut out. Boyes watched a moment longer, imprinting on his mind the dark mass, the huge form of the man who had come between Cromwell and retribution.

  Fish was calling to him from below, urging haste that they might get to the wherry before any chanced upon them here. But Boyes continued to look towards where Cromwell and his impassable guard had been. ‘There will be another day, Captain Seeker,’ he murmured before he, too, descended the scaffolding. ‘You and I will have another day.’

  One

  The Gaming House

  Six Weeks Later: End of October, 1656

  Thurloe shook his head and handed the paper back to Seeker. ‘We are drowning in such information. Agents in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Cologne: every one of them hears something suspect of someone; every one of them writes of heated talk against the Protector. The continent is awash with disgruntled officers, Levellers, Royalists, Papists. We cannot chase down every piece of intelligence that comes our way. We have not the manpower. Corroboration is required. This,’ he looked again at the paper Seeker had handed him a few moments before, ‘this “Fish” is not a priority. Should Stoupe in Paris confirm the report, we will act further upon it, but until that time we do not have the capability.’

  Seeker was not ready to be put off. ‘Stoupe is seldom mistaken, Mr Secretary, and he states that his information came from Bruges. It speaks of a Mr Fish in the area of King Street, suspected of plotting against the life of the Protector. It is not the first time I have come across the name.’

  ‘Oh?’ Thurloe’s interest was piqued.

  ‘Mr Downing’s clerk, Pepys, mentioned that name, more than once, in the days just before the opening of the Parliament.’

  ‘Which was six weeks ago, and nothing attempted.’ Thurloe’s interest was gone. ‘I know of this clerk of Downing’s – he is too often in taverns and over-fond of groundless gossip. Intelligence, Seeker: what we deal in is hard intelligence.’

  Which is what this is, thought Seeker, looking again at the paper Thurloe had just put down.

  The Chief Secretary was weary. ‘We are inundated with intelligence. What cannot be corroborated must take its place behind what has been. This is but a rumour of a rumour. We cannot run around half-cocked at everything we hear – as well put Andrew Marvell in charge.’

  Seeker might have laughed at that, under other circumstances, but there was something in this he did not like the smell of. The source was a good one – he knew it, and the Secretary knew it too, were he not all but overwhelmed. But to countermand Thurloe’s orders was not an option: to blunder in where he had been told not to might upset operations of which Seeker was not even aware.

  Thurloe had almost reached the door when he turned and cast a wary eye at the great hound stretched out in front of the hearth and blocking almost all the heat coming from Seeker’s fire. ‘That has the look of the beast I have seen lurking about the gardens of Lincoln’s Inn, with the gardener’s boy.’

  ‘It is, sir. Nathaniel is fearful it will wander into the city and fall foul of the ward authorities. The constables have been seized by one of their fits of vigilance and stray dogs are about as welcome as stray pigs to the good citizens within the walls at the minute.’

  ‘Though less flavoursome, I’d warrant,’ said the Secretary, throwing the animal another grim glance before leaving the room.

  The door was hardly shut when the dog’s ears pricked up at the sound of a party of riders assembling in the courtyard below, and Seeker’s old sergeant, Daniel Proctor, calling instructions to his men.

  Seeker opened the casement and called down to Proctor. ‘What’s on tonight?’

  ‘Gaming house. Bankside.’

  ‘Right then.’ Seeker felt a surge of energy. He’d been sifting reports and papers for days, weeks even, and the air in the room had become as oppressive to him as a half-ton weight. He hadn’t been on a raid in two months. ‘Have them fetch my horse. I’ll be down in two minutes.’

  By the time he’d donned his cloak and hat, the dog was alert and already at the door. Seeker hesitated only a moment. ‘All right, come on then.’

  Late October and autumn was finally ceding its place to winter. Along the Thames, the city had begun to huddle in upon itself. More manageable, in the winter, thought Seeker. There was a different quality to the cold and dampness of the air, tempers flared less readily and the fear of pestilence receded for a while. The dog bounded ahead of the riders with their torches. The way down to the horse ferry was boggy like half the rest of Whitehall, its water courses knocked askew by rogue builders as London crept ever outwards. A fug of fog and sea coal hung over the river, and the lights of the hundreds of boats plying their trade, carrying passengers and goods from one place to another, gave it the appearance of a constantly shifting, many-eyed sea-serpent.

  The crossing to Lambet
h was short and free of incident. The other watermen, whose mouths were often as foul as the silt over which they propelled their vessels, knew to give the ferry carrying Cromwell’s soldiers a wide berth. Landed at Lambeth Stairs, the horsemen turned northwards, and soon found themselves passing the eerie wastes of Lambeth Marsh. Across the river, the lights of Whitehall and the grand houses of the Strand glowed and flickered. Proctor shivered and even the dog was more alert as they made their way, shadowing the bend in the river, towards Bankside.

  ‘Cold, Sergeant?’ asked Seeker, keeping his eyes trained straight ahead of him.

  ‘The chill of the marshes,’ said Proctor. ‘Like having the souls of the wicked breathe on your neck.’

  Seeker did not mock the sergeant for his superstition. It was a godforsaken enough place by night. The occasional light twinkled from a lonely dwelling or some rag-tag line of cottages that had grown up, somehow, amongst the bogs and pools of the marsh. He didn’t stop to wonder what might drive a person to live there. Disappointment, a course of life gone wrong somewhere, misfortune passed down the generations. They always went to the depths or the edges. The lights and vice and heat of Southwark and Bankside, where the citizens of London had long chosen to indulge the excess of their natures in taverns, brothels and baiting pits, would give way to the misery of the Clink and the Marshalsea, waymarkers on the road to the desolation of the marsh itself. Seeker, too, shivered, and picked up his pace.

  Before too long, they were passing Cupid’s Stairs and the pleasure garden at the curve of the river, and the lights and buildings of Bankside came into view.

  Seeker turned to Proctor. ‘So where is it, then, this gambling den?’

  ‘Old gaming house past Paris Garden, between the Bull Pit and the Bear Garden. Shut up long since, but we’ve had word that it’s come into play again – cards, dice, whatever they think is easily hidden. High stakes.’

  ‘Any names?’

  ‘One or two we’ve heard before – low-level Royalists, stay-at-homes, mostly. Nothing to exercise Mr Thurloe.’