‘Who’s there?’ he shouted.
Movement, scuffling, and a more high-pitched muffle.
‘Sir Thomas? Thomas Faithly? Are you down there?’
A sudden flare of light illuminated not only the steps but a level gallery six feet below the hatch, looking down over the darkness of a deep pit. A voice reached him from the other side of the gallery and Thomas Faithly stepped into the light. ‘I’m sorry, Seeker,’ he said, and as he said it Seeker felt something hit his back with tremendous force, sending him tumbling down the steps to land on the beaten earth floor of the pit fifteen feet below. He tasted dirt and almost gagged on air so foul it was worse than in a barn full of dead sheep he’d once come across. The whole side of his face stung, and he could feel the blood begin to seep out of the cuts to mix with the dirt. He tried to right himself, wincing as he realised, too late, that his ankle was twisted and his arm was broken. And then he heard a scuffle, a scream, and Maria Ellingworth cry his name.
She was there, near the edge of the gallery above him, a few feet from Thomas Faithly, and Clémence Barguil was standing behind her.
‘Maria?’ His voice was so hoarse the first time he had to say it again. ‘What are you doing here? Why have you . . .?’ And then he saw that Clémence had her arm around Maria’s neck, and that in her hand she held a knife.
He forced himself to his feet and lunged at the wall, succeeding only in further injuring his ankle. He roared in frustration. ‘Harm her and I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you all.’
Thomas Faithly came further into the light. ‘Steady, Seeker. We mean her no harm.’
Rage almost overwhelmed Seeker. ‘I’ll start with you, Faithly. I’ll tear you limb from limb. You’ll wish I’d shot you the minute I first saw you. Tell that French trollop to let her go. Now.’
Clémence Barguil merely brought the knife closer to Maria’s throat. There was terror in Maria’s eyes as her lips silently mouthed his name.
‘Clémence,’ a voice warned.
Seeker spun round and felt his ankle scream again. He was behind him, Rupert. Still in the workman’s clothes, his hair was sodden, and blood was seeping through the sleeve of his shirt from a wound just below his shoulder. Somehow, though, he managed to retain the bearing Seeker remembered from the battlefield.
‘Discard your weapons, Captain, and she will come to no harm.’
Seeker shook his head. ‘I mean it,’ he said, ‘prince or no prince, I’ll kill you if you cut a hair on her head.’
‘I see my poor carpenter’s disguise has not fooled you.’
‘Nor your clockmaker’s, either. It’s done, Rupert, over with. Fish and Cecil are both taken. They’ll give you up without another thought.’
‘Ah, will they?’ Rupert sounded almost sad. ‘Have you any notion how many times I have been given up, Seeker? My own parents forgot about me as they fled their palace in Prague, did you know that? I was only a few months old, and yet here I am. A servant found me rolled off the sofa onto the floor, and threw me through the window of a moving coach, to land amongst the baggage. I have been throwing myself through moving coaches and escaping ever since. God has not protected me thus far so that I might make my obeisance to your Puritan oaf, who sits on my cousin’s throne.’ He picked up a cloak that had been lying over the rail of the gallery. ‘My friends and I will soon be leaving, and you and this young woman will also find your way out of here, in time. It was not my choice to involve her, but Mademoiselle Barguil felt her presence might serve for us as a bargaining counter, should you trace me here. I am truly sorry to have caused her this distress. I am sorry too, that we have not been able to test each other’s valour in a more fitting arena, Captain.’
‘Valour?’ Seeker’s voice was contorted with scorn. ‘What valour was it to shackle an old man to a wall and leave him to be savaged by a wild beast? What generalship was that?’
Rupert looked at him with genuine incomprehension. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘His name was Joseph Grindle. He fought with you many years ago, in Germany, for your brother, and he recognised you, didn’t he, the day he took an old clock to Clerkenwell, to be fixed in Dietmar Kästner’s shop?’
Rupert’s brow furrowed, and Seeker expected another denial, but it didn’t come, not as he’d expected at any rate. ‘Joseph Grindle recognised me, yes, I am fairly certain of it. But he was not – what? Chained to a wall? To be savaged by a beast? Clémence paid him for his silence, and he left London the same day he’d come into Dietmar’s shop.’
Rupert turned to Clémence Barguil for affirmation, and Seeker saw now that Thomas Faithly was also looking at her. His face, even in the yellow light of this cavern, was like chalk.
‘Clémence . . .’ Faithly said. ‘The old man, that Seeker and I found . . .’
‘Would never have kept his silence,’ Clémence said. ‘He would have betrayed the Prince the minute he found someone to tell it to. This enterprise would have failed, as the others before it have failed, and another gracious prince would have ended his days on earth by the axe of Cromwell’s executioner.’
Thomas Faithly’s face was suffused with horror. ‘But how . . .?’ He couldn’t articulate his thoughts.
Rupert was more collected, although there was a deadness to his voice as he spoke. ‘What did you do, Clémence?’
‘I followed him, as you asked me to. That Croat’s hat of his was like a marker. I came upon him on Cornhill – he had darted into a coffee house but come out again soon afterwards. I told him I was looking for him. I told him I had followed him from Dietmar Kästner’s shop.’ Now a look of triumph spread across her face. ‘I told him,’ she said, her eyes glittering, ‘that I was in the service of Secretary Thurloe, and that myself and other agents had been watching the clockmaker’s shop for some time. He almost vomited his story over me, such was his eagerness to tell what he had seen.’
‘And you brought him here,’ said Seeker.
Clémence nodded, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. ‘I brought him – well, not here, exactly, but to the yard of the gaming house along the street. I knew Thomas had engaged himself there with some acquaintances for the evening, and would be arriving just after dark. I had no idea, really, what I should do with the old man – he had clearly been a soldier, and retained a great deal of vigour. I did not think I would be capable of overwhelming him alone, but I knew Thomas would have no difficulty in dealing with him.’
‘Dealing with him?’ said Seeker.
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Come now, Captain, thousands, hundreds of thousands have died already in this struggle. Who would miss an old soldier whose fighting days are past? He’d had his chances and his time, and his life was nothing compared to that which he threatened.’
Now Seeker turned his disgust on Thomas Faithly. ‘You said you’d never seen him before.’
But Faithly was shaking his head. ‘I never had. I swear it, Seeker. And I didn’t see Clémence that day either.’
Clémence Barguil gave Seeker a fixed look. ‘Your manners are truly dreadful, Captain. If you didn’t keep interrupting me, you would not be led into these misunderstandings. I told the old man – Grindle? – that those who worked for Mr Thurloe used the house on Bankside as a safe house, and that he would need to wait in the outbuilding until I had permission to take him inside, to meet my superior. I opened the door, and then I hit him on the head with a brick.’ She smiled. ‘I am not without ingenuity. When he went down, I hit him again. I hoped he might not come to before Thomas arrived, and then I saw the old dog chains. It was perfect. It took some effort to drag him across the floor close enough to clamp him by the neck, but my gardening activities have given me more strength than most men might imagine. Then I covered him with some sacking.’
Faithly was still staring at her in horror. ‘Seeker, I swear—’
But Cléme
nce interrupted him. ‘Thomas is telling the truth, Captain. The most extraordinary thing occurred as I waited for him to arrive at the gaming house. Just as darkness fell, a cart came trundling into the yard. The man driving it was very concerned that I should leave, just as concerned as I was that he should. He threatened me, and I him, and we raised our threats and our promises awhile until I had gained his trust. He told me the nature of his cargo.’
‘Which was?’ asked Seeker, although he was certain he already knew the answer.
‘Oh, I think you have guessed that, Captain. A bear. A brown bear. A particularly fine specimen too, or so the man claimed. As you will imagine, I was not able to verify this because, it being no easy thing to transport a live bear across London Bridge to Bankside, its keeper had taken the trouble to render it tranquil through some preparation he had got from the man who wished to examine it.’
‘Mulberry,’ said Seeker.
‘Yes,’ said Clémence. ‘The friend of Mr Evelyn’s in whom you took so much interest had contracted with the keeper to examine the animal, to assess its fitness for his scientific purposes. The examination was to take place in the very outbuilding in which I had secured the old man.’
‘Why there? Why take the risk of transporting it from where it had been kept? Surely Mulberry,’ then Seeker corrected himself, ‘Thomas Bushell, could have examined it wherever it was being kept?’
‘No doubt he would have done, but the keeper seemed to have become nervous about the interest lately shown in the animal and had moved it to a location he was not willing to make public. Also, as I understand, he and his charge had business on Bankside that night.’
‘He can’t have been baiting it. The bear pit’s been demolished.’
Now Clémence Barguil’s smile was truly frightening. ‘The one at the Bear Garden, yes, it has. But this one has not.’
‘This . . .?’ And then Seeker understood. The beaten earth floor, the gallery fifteen feet above, the streaks he had noticed on the walls and at first thought to be fungus but now realised were blood, the smell. ‘They’ve been having private fights here.’
She nodded. ‘Well done, Captain. Yes, and to great profit, I understand. I don’t think you had anyone examine the coal-hole of the gaming-house yard, did you?’
Had he? The place would have been looked in, as part of a general search afterwards, but if nothing was found in it, no further examination would have been made.
She was far too amused. ‘If you had done, they would surely have found the hatch at the back, rather like the one by which you entered here, but necessarily larger. A passageway leads down beneath the houses and gardens to come out behind us. London is full of such tunnels and passageways, as I’m sure you know.’
Seeker knew.
‘Anyhow,’ she continued, ‘once Mr Mulberry – Thomas Bushell – had finished examining the animal in the outbuilding, the keeper planned to transfer it here, by that passageway. I told the keeper that I was a friend of Mr Mulberry’s, and that if he deposited his charge securely in the outbuilding, he might go and get himself some supper and I would wait till Mr Mulberry was finished.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I furnished him and his men with enough money that would have done them for ten suppers. I believe they went away and got very drunk.’
Seeker was just considering what justice might be served on Thomas Bushell for his involvement in the murder of a defenceless old soldier when Clémence Barguil forestalled him. ‘Of course, when Bushell arrived, I told him I had been asked to convey to him a message that the animal would not be available for experiment that evening, due to the major-general’s planned raids of Bankside. Colonel Pride had, after all, been threatening for some time to clean the place up. And so Bushell left, much disappointed.’
Rupert spoke very quietly. ‘And what did you do then, Clémence?’
She shrugged. ‘Nothing. I just waited. In time, I heard sounds of the animal waking, and then the man. And then there were other sounds that suggested this Grindle would present us with no more problems, and so I returned to Sayes Court. I think the animal’s keeper must have returned some time soon afterwards, because I do not think you mentioned having come upon the bear when you found the old man, did you, Thomas?’
She might have been enquiring as to whether he had remembered to lace up his doublet.
Thomas’s voice was a husk. ‘Clémence – how could you do that?’
She looked as if she didn’t properly understand his question. ‘I would do anything, Thomas, for the Prince. You must know that.’
Thomas Faithly looked appalled, and Rupert’s face was grey. ‘Clémence,’ he said, staring at her. ‘Oh, Clémence.’
Seeker still couldn’t hear any sounds from outside to suggest his men had tracked them down here. He scanned his surroundings, but there was nothing, not so much as a foothold to help him scale the stone walls of this pit, even had he the use of more than one good arm. His powder was gone and so his pistol useless, and his knife had clattered from his hand as he fell and now lay eight feet or more away, across the earthen floor. He had little doubt that if he moved towards it, Clémence Barguil would sink the tip of her knife into Maria’s throat. The only way back up to her was the stairs, and a heavily armed Rupert was standing at the top of them. Seeker scanned the figures on the gallery. Clémence radiated triumph, but the two men were like players who had found themselves in the wrong play.
Thomas Faithly swallowed. ‘Come, Clémence,’ he said, ‘it’s time for us to go.’
But the woman merely shook her head.
‘Clémence . . .’ more urgently this time.
‘No, Thomas. I will wait here until you and the Prince have got safely away, then I will come.’
‘But then you will be taken,’ said Rupert. ‘Come, Clémence, we go now. We’ll lock and weight the hatch, and be long gone before Seeker and this woman find their way out or are found.’
Again Clémence shook her head. ‘Not him. He will find a way. I have heard it of him.’
‘Clémence,’ Faithly urged again.
Rupert changed tack. ‘Will she come with us, the girl?’
Faithly turned towards Maria, pleading. ‘Will you, Maria? Will you come with us? Will you come with me?’
Seeker felt time stop.
They were all looking at Maria now, waiting for her to speak. Clémence had even lowered the point of the knife and adopted a look of interest. Maria’s eyes darted from one to the other of them and then settled on Sir Thomas. ‘I think you are mad.’
He took a step towards her, and Seeker noticed Clémence tighten her grip on the knife. ‘No, Maria. I have told you: I love you. We can have a life . . .’
‘I have a life,’ she said. ‘And you cannot love me because you do not know me.’
Thomas Faithly looked as if she had struck him. ‘And he does?’ he said, indicating Seeker. ‘Cromwell’s thug? A man with no principles but what he can test with the toe of his boot, the swing of his fist? What life can he give you? You cannot love him, Maria.’
Tears were pricking Maria’s eyes, and she was looking at Seeker. ‘I love every part of him.’
Rupert had heard enough. ‘Thomas, we must go now. Release her, Clémence.’ He was turning away, had his hand below the hatch door, ready to push it up. Still Clémence did not move. She appeared to be considering something.
‘Now, Clémence. I order you.’
‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘You go after the Prince, Thomas, and then I will let this woman go.’
And so she did. As Thomas Faithly moved past her, Clémence lowered the hand that held the knife, and cut the rope that bound Maria’s wrists together. But instead of following Rupert and Thomas, she turned back, towards a dark recess behind the gallery.
‘Clémence! We must go now,’ said Rupert.
‘A moment,’ she said. ‘Less, even.’<
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And then she was gone from sight, with Thomas calling after her. There was no reply, save a sound of sawing, as of a knife through rope, and then a snap. Something fell, something clanked, like chains on a pulley run out of control. Seeker followed the direction of the sounds in time to see a gate at the far end of a passageway behind him fly up. At the same time, he heard a scream, and spun round in time to see Maria falling from the gallery, pushed by Clémence. She hit the floor of the pit with a cry and a thud before he could reach her.
‘Maria,’ he said, crouching down in the dirt, placing his fingers on her neck, feeling for a pulse of life. It was there. He reached towards the hair and carefully moved it back so that he could examine her face. Her eyelids were fluttering and she was trying to murmur his name. ‘Hush,’ he said, brushing his lips to her forehead. ‘Hush now. All will be well.’
Above them, Thomas Faithly had turned on Clémence. Seeker spoke to him. ‘This is your doing, Faithly. I will hunt you down, however far you run, I will hunt you.’
‘Seeker, I never—’
‘You brought her here!’ he roared.
‘No, Seeker. I didn’t know. I would never have—’
‘Come, Thomas, there is no time. Clémence, come!’ Rupert was starting to ascend the steps to the hatch when a noise that chilled Seeker’s blood came from the passageway behind him.
‘What was . . .?’ began Faithly, but he didn’t have the chance to finish before another bestial growl filled the chamber.
Seeker turned slowly. The beast, on all fours, was emerging from the end of the passageway into the pit.
Seeker took a step backwards, trying to spread himself as much as he could, to shield Maria. An arrow of pain shot through his broken arm, again and again. The animal took a moment to raise its head and sniff the air. Seeker dived to his left and grabbed his knife from where it had fallen. The bear flicked its head to the side, roaring, and suddenly reared up on its hind legs. It must have been almost eight feet tall, and as heavy and powerful as several men. Whatever might have been the truth of the Bankside bears of days past, this one had not had its teeth drawn, nor its claws pulled out. This was no blameless cub, no dancing bear for country fairs: this bear had killed.
The Bear Pit Page 30