Coke sighed. The lessons were good, and well received. Yet sometimes they were delivered in the tone of a schoolmaster speaking to a particularly dense child. ‘Nay, sir,’ he replied without raising his head, ‘that’s a catch I learned all by myself – perhaps on the score of robberies I undertook in plain sight while you and all the other thief-takers chased my shadow.’
The big man chuckled, scratching under his luxuriant beard. ‘Ah, Captain Cock. Would you rather be holding up coaches still than about such subterfuge?’
‘I would rather be about what we agreed.’ He sniffed. ‘Using our respective skills to hunt and snare my former fellow road knights. Splitting their bounties between us.’ He coughed again at Pitman’s execrable tobacco. ‘This is not the king’s highway, sir. We will find no highwayman here.’
Pitman stopped smiling. ‘No. But we may find someone else. And there’s money in him, have no fear.’ The thief-taker leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table, hands and pipe bowl sheltering his mouth. ‘Have you found him out?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Is he the short young fellow in the brown doublet sitting directly behind you across the tavern?’
Coke opened one eye. ‘How do you know already what I have only just discovered?’
‘He is one of the few here not in company. His clothes, though plain, are better cut than most. His wig is certainly more expensive. And he has just pulled out his timepiece for the third time in as many minutes. He is waiting for someone.’ The pot boy placed a tankard on the table and moved away. Pitman took a large swig. ‘And I was told the rendezvous would be in the Seven Stars.’
‘By whom? For Chrissakes, Pitman, who is this bloody fellow? Why are we concerned with him?’
The questions came fast, borne on irritation. Pitman shoved the pint pot across. ‘Drink, Captain, while the fellow scans behind him now and pays us no nevermind.’
‘But –’
‘Season your impatience with ale and I will answer you – as far as I am able.’ As Coke obeyed and drank, he continued, ‘I’ll tell you this, though – find him out and we will be wealthier for it at twenty guineas a man. Nay, I do not know who he is, Captain, if that is what you would ask. Neither does our employer –’
‘Employer! We work for no man –’
Pitman raised a hand, interrupting the interruption. ‘Alas, Captain, but in this case we do. He is –’ Pitman took a deep breath. It was the information he knew he’d have to share with his friend. It would not please. Marry, it did not please him. Nonetheless. ‘Sir Joseph Williamson. He is the Under-Secretary for –’
The expected reaction came. ‘I know who he is, sir,’ hissed Coke. ‘For any fancy title he possesses, he is still England’s spymaster. What have we to do with such a man?’ His eyes widened. ‘Pitman, you do not say –’
‘I do.’ Pitman took a big swallow before he continued. ‘We are summoned to the service of the state. Again.’
‘Shit.’ Coke reached over and took Pitman’s ale from his hand, near draining it, before setting it down. ‘And what service are we doing it in this tavern, pray?’
‘According to the whisper Sir Joseph heard, we are here to thwart a conspiracy that will begin here.’
‘Its aim?’
‘To assassinate the king.’
Strangely, Coke felt his anger leave. Perhaps it was the ale. ‘Oh. Merely that?’ Coke laid his head back onto his forearms. ‘You make me tired, Pitman. We are not spies, nor government agents, nor guards of the king’s person. Why would Sir Joseph seek our aid?’
It was another thing that Pitman truly did not wish to discuss. Yet he must. ‘Because he believes the conspiracy is hatched by our old enemies, the Fifth Monarchists. That the man over there still checking his watch, and this other he awaits, are both members of that infernal crew.’
The captain reached up to pinch between his eyes. And so it circles back, he thought. The fanatics who made Sarah Chalker a widow, who near killed us all, now seek to kill the king – again. ‘Other? What other?’
‘It was the one additional whisper that Sir Joseph’s agents had caught. The arrival in London of a most dangerous man. So dangerous he does not have a name. Merely a nickname.’
‘Which is?’
‘Homo Sanguineus.’
Coke frowned. ‘I ever regret that the late deplored wars forced me to exchange further classical education for bullets and blades. But does that not mean “man of blood”?’
‘It does.’
‘I see. So what now, Pitman? What would our master have us do? Play the role of damned spy? Observe, report? Arrest? I am not a constable, sir. Unlike you.’
‘I fear, as does Sir Joseph, that the affair might be more pressing than that. Do you know what today is?’
‘The sixth of April.’
‘And what does that signify?’
‘Just tell me, man, before I lose the will to live.’
‘Very well.’ Pitman glanced across the room, to the man now scratching hard under his expensive wig. ‘In ’61, Major General Harrison was executed. You may have heard of him.’
‘He was a regicide, was he not? Signed the death warrant of our late king, Charles I?’
‘He did. And suffered the fate of a traitor for it. He was hung, drawn and quartered. Yet ’tis said that, despite the horrors visited upon his old body, the general never stopped singing hymns. Right up to the moment when they were extracting his guts with hot tongs…’
Coke raised a hand. ‘I beg your favour – you can spare me the details.’
Pitman smiled. ‘I always forget what a weak stomach you have, Captain. Odd for a military man. Well,’ he continued, ‘that was five years ago to this very day.’
Coke lifted his head. ‘You do not mean –’
‘I do.’ Pitman nodded. ‘Sir Joseph believes they will attempt their revenge on the anniversary of Harrison’s…martyrdom, as they would have it.’
Coke frowned. ‘Easily countered. His Majesty may spend the day cavorting with one of his many mistresses in his apartments at Whitehall with a troop of cavalry to guard each door.’
‘He may, but he will not. For he has an appointment.’
‘Where?’
Instead of answering, Pitman bent and plucked something from the floor, and laid it on the table before Coke. It was the playbill he had but lately been perusing. Announcing a performance to be given of the Tragedy of Hamlet – in less than one hour’s time. ‘Betterton is His Majesty’s favourite player. He never misses his first assay of a role,’ Pitman added.
Coke barely heard him. He rose.
‘Calmly, man. Where do you go?’ Pitman said.
‘To the playhouse. Sarah’s there. And if these fanatics are there as well –’
He half turned – and Pitman reached and seized his arm. ‘They are not, man. They are here. And our best chance to intercept them is –’
He was interrupted, not by Coke’s argument but by the main doors beside them banging open, and by the shout given by the man in a long, black cloak who entered. ‘The judges are returning!’ he yelled. ‘The courts are in session. All persons with business before their Worships to come forthwith.’
Where there had been quiet, now there was noise, as lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants, all rose, drained tankards and loudly made their last points. Where there had been space, it was now filled as men flooded the area before the Seven Stars’ trestle. Coke and Pitman turned, seeking through the sudden mob. But as the smoke cleared through doors flung wide onto the street, and as the lawyers streamed out, they saw that the man they’d been watching so assiduously had gone.
‘The back door, swiftly!’
There were still enough customers to hinder them and despite his size it took near half a minute for Pitman to push through, Coke in his wake. The back door gave onto a dank alley. But its only occupants were five men adding to its reek by pissing against its walls. The man they sought was not one of them.
‘T
he playhouse!’
Coke set off at a good pace, Pitman level with him. ‘Tell me,’ he said, as they dodged between the yellow puddles, ‘how did you single out this fellow amongst all the others? Did you take my advice?’
‘In a way. I used this.’ He tapped his nose.
‘Ah good! Your sixth sense.’
‘No. I used this.’ He tapped again. ‘The man reeked.’
‘Not uncommon in London. Marry, my Bettina says that if I do not take my fortnightly bath –’
‘You mistake me. This was a particular kind of smell. Such a one as I have scented only one place before. You will have smelled it too.’
‘Where?’
‘On a battlefield. In the late king’s wars, you may have fought for Parliament and I for the King, but I wager our comrades smelled exactly the same going into a fight for the first time. I know I did. It is the scent of terror,’ he nodded, ‘and this man reeks of it.’
They rounded the corner and were gone.
Had Pitman not been so distracted he would have noticed something in the alley – for he was famed for his seeing of even the smallest detail. And this was not even that small, truly. A man near as large as the thief-taker, leaning against the wall, unbuttoned. A man engaged in the act of pissing yet voiding nothing. A man who tucked himself away now, buttoned his breeches and followed, at a steadier pace, those three who hurried to the theatre. The ones he’d spotted immediately in the tavern as they looked elsewhere – for he had a good eye for an enemy, born of the experience of having had so many.
He need not hurry, knowing he had ten minutes before the new rendezvous he’d arranged in a swift whisper with the man who – he had to agree with the government toady – smelled none so well. Though he wished the time were shorter so that he could relieve himself of the large metal ball that pressed against his spine.
Shifting it a little, the man known as Homo Sanguineus walked slowly towards a royal death.
2
PLAYHOUSE GHOSTS
‘Do you see nothing there?’ he screamed, arm flung out, eyes wide in terror.
Sarah knew what to say. Knew that she was meant to deny the ghost – and she could not. Because there was one there – the ghost of a man who was not dead. The ghost of William Coke.
Thomas Betterton, his arm still thrust before him to ward off the spirit, looked down at her upon the bed. His eyes narrowed.
Speak, she thought, and still couldn’t. Not when it wasn’t Bill Tarbuck the actor gazing at her from the far side of the stage but the man she loved. The man whose child she carried, who had left their bed not three hours before. His eyes, that had always held pain deep within them, were clear of it now. He even had a slight smile upon his lips. In another moment perhaps his laugh would come – so rare, and doubly prized for its rarity. But what made the apparition even stranger was that he was not dressed as he had been when he left her that morning. Then he had been attired in his customary black – while his spirit was bare-footed, wore a patched grey shirt, knee-length breeches, every item as soaked and dripping as his hair.
‘Mrs Chalker!’
She couldn’t look away. Not yet. Not when the spirit was turning and she saw…that the right side of his face was freshly scarred.
‘Ah!’ She could not help her cry.
‘No!’ Betterton slammed his hand onto the bedpost. ‘You are not meant to see him. Only I am! You know this!’
Sarah forced her gaze up. From the grey, calm eyes of the man she loved to the black and angry ones above her.
‘Are you pausing for effect, madam?’ Betterton continued. ‘I forbid it. I have told you – this exchange must build swiftly to the point of the ghost’s exit,’ he hissed. ‘ ’Tis why we are rehearsing this bit – yet again! – with the doors of the playhouse to be opened in a moment to admit the audience. To admit the king, damn me.’ All restraint went. ‘For the love of God, ye dumb whore, just say your fucking line!’
It was as if he’d slapped her and, by the way he waved his hands, he looked as if he ached to do so in more than foul words. It made her take a breath – another, yet deeper. The first restored her to the place and time she was. The second mastered her anger: there was no good to be gained from fighting with the leader of the company, however insulting. Not with his new production of Hamlet about to open in half an hour.
Her third breath, the deepest yet, allowed her to look across to where Coke’s ghost had stood – and see no ghost there – or at least only the actor playing Old Hamlet. ‘I am sorry, Thomas,’ she said. ‘ ’Twas your performance, seeing your father’s spirit. I swore I saw him too.’ It was not the most heartfelt of her deliveries so she hurried on. ‘I apologise.’ She looked across at Tarbuck. ‘And to you, Bill. May I try again?’
With a grunt, Betterton resumed his position and flung his arm out. He said his line, she replied promptly, and carried on thus to the end of the scene. The feeling did not matter, this last rehearsal was about precision not passion. The audience, it was hoped, would stimulate them to that. It was understood in the theatre that all final run-throughs must be poor to make the first performance great.
The scene ended. It was the last one they would rehearse. ‘To your preparations, all. Admit the audience!’ Betterton bellowed and as other actors hurried away, he took Sarah’s arm, ungently. ‘And you, ma’am, get some food into you. Every moment I think you are going to faint upon the stage.’ He looked pointedly at her belly. ‘Your baby still irks you?’
It was said with no concern for her, only himself. He had been persuaded that Sarah’s illness was a passing thing and that she could undertake roles still. She had to maintain him in that belief. She did not know what she would do for money if she could not act, with the babe’s birth still five months away and Coke in his new and uncertain trade. ‘Nay, ’tis fine, Mr Betterton,’ she said, patting her stomach and smiling. ‘Indeed, I am quite recovered. You are kind to ask.’
It was the best performance she’d given that day. Betterton walked away, muttering. And as soon as he did, Sarah moved to the opposite side, to the bucket she’d discreetly placed there, parting her long auburn hair just in time to void a thin stream. She crouched, awaiting more, remembering. Why had her William’s shade visited her like that? He was not dead. She would have known it instantly if he were, Coke’s presence being as strong as that of their child within her. She may not have had all her mother’s gifts as a cunning woman, a communicator with the departed, but she could still tell a ghost apart from…a premonition? What had he been trying to tell her, this future William? He was clad as if for the sea. Must he go abroad? Must they?
Shivering, she bent again to heave nothing into the bucket.
She felt a hand, gentle upon her back. ‘Sarah?’ came a voice as soft as the touch.
‘It’s all right.’ She raised herself, managed a little smile. ‘I’m well.’
Dickon’s eyes wandered as they ever would, as did his other hand through his hedge of wheaten hair. William had rescued the orphan from his doorway three winters since and had restored him to health, though his full wits would probably be ever beyond him. ‘You are s-sick, Sarah,’ he said.
‘I am.’ She put her hand over her belly. ‘ ’Tis the baby.’
‘The cap’n’s baby.’ He smiled, then frowned suddenly. ‘The cap’n –’
Chill, brought by the memory of a premonition, displaced the heat on her brow. ‘Any news?’
‘Nay, n-none.’
The boy would get upset too long apart from his ‘cap’n’ – especially if he suspected his guardian was in any peril. ‘All is fine, I am sure,’ she said quickly. ‘They are celebrating success in some tavern, sure.’
It worked. ‘In some tavern, sure,’ Dickon repeated, then frowned again. ‘The b-baby? Why does it make you sick?’
‘I do not know. It was not so last year…’ She cut herself off. She did not want to think of that lost child, nor of the man who had fathered the babe, the man whose nam
e she still carried – her late husband, John Chalker. There were enough ghosts about the stage of the Duke’s Playhouse already, especially as she had last seen him, a torn and bloody carcass.
She closed her eyes, rose from her crouch, mastered her stomach – for from a few feet away came excited voices, the first of the audience jostling for places on the front benches in the pit.
Dickon straightened too. ‘C-candles,’ he said. She had got him the work behind the scenes at the playhouse and he took his job – mainly the trimming and setting of the candles in the chandeliers that would light the scenes – most seriously.
He moved away but she paused to listen beyond the shouts and arguments in the pit. Words came clear, from a multitude of voices.
‘Your Majesty!’
‘Your Royal Highness!’
‘Huzzah! Huzzah!’
There could be no doubt. King Charles, together with his brother James, Duke of York, had arrived at the theatre’s doors. He’s early, she thought, gathering her dress to squeeze between the painted wings depicting Elsinore’s battlements and bedchambers. She had work to do – to eat if she could; and to paint herself so that she looked as if she could be Hamlet’s mother, though Betterton and her were of an age, both twenty-eight. Still, she knew she looked how she felt: ill and old. Very little ceruse would be needed for which she was grateful – the scent of the white lead paint always made her giddy. And she knew that seeing Coke’s spirit had left her quite pale enough.
—
‘Your Majesty!’
‘Your Royal Highness!’
‘Huzzah! Huzzah!’
The man of blood watched them, a little sheltered from the downpour beneath the branches of a sycamore, his cloak tight about him and his uncocked hat pulled low. He did not join in the cheers that greeted King Charles and his brother as they stepped from the coach. He observed – Charles’s finery, a scarlet coat whose colour was near suffused in all the gold trim and creamy lace; the king’s four guards, men as large as he with the same gimlet stares; the mistress Charles handed down, who shrieked at the rain, its effect on her elaborately set coiffure, tendrilled and tonged for hours, and ran under the theatre’s portico. Laughing, Charles acknowledged the acclaim again with a smile and a wave. Then he and his brother strode down the avenue his guards had created through the mob which folded after them like the Red Sea closing after Moses and Aaron.
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