London in Chains

by Gillian Bradshaw

  ‘Murder?’ whispered Lucy.

  ‘Aye.’ Jamie picked up his sword, wiped the point and dropped the cloth on Symonds’ stained breast. ‘They feared what you knew of them and they meant to silence you. I take it the other fellow I killed was also of the party that stole your cattle.’

  ‘Aye,’ she said and swallowed. She was suddenly feeling very sick.

  ‘You said there were three of them, did you not?’

  ‘Aye, but–but I think one’s dead. He – the other one you killed – he said that N–Nick h–had . . . had the marks of my teeth in his lip until the d–day he d–died, and . . . you must know, Jamie, that they did worse than steal cattle!’

  ‘Aye,’ said Jamie very quietly. ‘I guessed as much that day you ran out of the barn. I’ve seen ravished maids before – seen that same look on their faces when a man startles them. But I’ll not speak of it without your leave.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her teeth were starting to chatter. She wrapped her arms around herself, then got to her feet. She wanted to vomit, or burst into tears – do something to relieve the cold heavy enormity of feeling. Instead, she walked unsteadily over to the press and leaned against it, then sat down, leaning her cheek against the rough oak. The smell of ink and paper was indescribably comforting.

  Jamie came over, his sword now sheathed again, and squatted beside her. ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked with concern.

  ‘Nay. Nay, just . . .’ It struck her that he was trying to comfort her, when he must be at least as shaken as she was. He had killed twice within minutes of waking.

  He had saved her life. ‘Jamie,’ she said, ‘Jamie – thank you.’

  He met her eyes, and the look on the good half of his face melted some of the cold sickness inside her. ‘It’s a rare thing to do justice,’ he said. ‘I am glad I was able.’

  Justice? She remembered how the second man had raised his hands: he’d been trying to surrender. Could it ever be justice to kill a man who was trying to surrender – kill him without due process of law, with no chance to repent his sins?

  Still, how could Jamie have spared him? If he’d lived, he would have gone to the Committee of Safety and told them about the press. After that she and Jamie would have been two evident malefactors caught with the evidence: the Committee would have been happy to believe any lying accusation Symonds and his friend chose to make.

  The Committee of Safety, she remembered, was still in power.

  ‘We–we must bury them!’ Lucy exclaimed in alarm, getting to her feet again. ‘The Committee would hang us if it knew what we’ve done!’

  Jamie lowered his head, then raised it. ‘So it would.’

  They went over to the body of the second man. It lay on its back on top of a cut line of Declarations, head twisted; Jamie’s sword-cut had opened the throat from jaw to collarbone. The wound gaped horribly, and all the pages around were stained with red. Jamie gave her an ironic look and murmured ‘“And so we took up arms in Judgement and in Conscience”.’

  Lucy shuddered. She picked up a bloodstained page and set it over the staring eyes, then another over the wound. ‘We must hide them,’ she said; her voice was still unsteady but she no longer felt she wanted to be sick. ‘Get them out of sight. We’ll need to borrow shovels before we can bury them.’

  They turned to The Whalebone for shovels. Ned for once was not busy – it was only the middle of the morning – and was willing to speak to them privately.

  ‘What’s amiss?’ he asked concernedly, after shutting the door to one of his small parlours behind them.

  ‘That knave Symonds . . .’ began Jamie.

  ‘The son of a whore!’ exclaimed Ned hotly. ‘What, has he threatened our Lucy?’

  Jamie lifted his sword an inch from the scabbard, then slid it back again, shhk. He held out his hand, turning it so that Ned could see the stain on his sleeve. They had both tried to clean up, but there was limited washing water at the barn.

  Ned stared at the bloodstain, his face going white, then looked anxiously at Lucy.

  ‘I’m unharmed,’ she told him. ‘They followed me to the barn, and I was a fool and never saw them until they came in, but they didn’t know Jamie was there. When they attacked me he killed them both.’

  ‘Both?’

  ‘Symonds had his friend with him. One of the others who stole our cattle. From something he said, I think the third man is dead – I mean, was already dead. Ned . . .’

  ‘Oh, Lucy!’ Ned caught her in his arms.

  It was unexpected, and she flinched and nearly cried out. She stood rigidly, and Ned let her go and regarded her in puzzlement. Jamie laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘Give her room,’ he advised. ‘Did you want to be clutched, on Newbury field after the battle?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Ned, understanding dawning. ‘My brother and I clung to one another like babes. But I saw many of the other sort. Oh, my poor Lucy!’

  ‘We need shovels to bury them,’ she told him determinedly. ‘The Committee of Safety would hang us for killing them, whatever we said – but if they simply disappear, everyone will think they’ve run off for fear of being hanged as cattle-thieves.’

  They decided that it would be a bad idea to be seen carrying shovels out of the city gate: if anyone did connect the disappearance of the two Reformadoes to Lucy’s accusation, it would be deeply incriminating. Ned, however, regularly sent cartloads of stable sweepings out to Moorfields, and shovels were a normal part of the load. The cart went out in the evening, and the men agreed that they would slip out of the city with the cart and bury the bodies under cover of darkness.

  They both told Lucy that she should go home to recover, but this she was unwilling to do. Symonds and his friend had died because of her: she could not just go home and leave others to dispose of them. Ned tried to insist on sending her home, but Jamie unexpectedly changed his mind and came to her support. ‘If she has the stomach for it, she should not go home until the usual time,’ he said. ‘Let her be seen eating her dinner here, and her supper, too. Then if anyone asks questions, her friends can honestly swear that she followed her usual daily round and they noticed nothing amiss.’

  So Lucy and Jamie washed off the rest of the blood and prepared to behave as though it were an ordinary day. They all three agreed to keep the killings a secret, but Ned suggested that someone on the ‘council’ should know what had happened, as a safeguard. At this Jamie decided that the best person to inform was his friend, Captain Wildman. Lucy was reluctant. ‘Must it be him?’ she asked.

  ‘This is because he forgot her name,’ Jamie told Ned with his twisted smile.

  ‘Nay, it’s because he thought she should work for tuppence!’ replied Ned, grinning back.

  ‘Nay!’ protested Lucy. They both turned their smiles on her, and she went on reluctantly, ‘He thinks I am but a silly girl, of no account.’

  ‘I’m sure he has changed that low opinion,’ said Ned gallantly.

  ‘Lucy, he is a gentleman of great ability and honest goodwill,’ Jamie said seriously. ‘He studied the law at Cambridge, and he has travelled widely and has many friends. I trust him with my life and I would have his help in this, his more than that of any man I know.’

  She made a face. ‘Very well.’

  He went off to find Captain Wildman; when he returned, later in the day, it was to say that the captain had volunteered to help them bury the bodies.

  The rest of that day passed like a long nightmare. Lucy ate her dinner at The Whalebone, making sure she spoke to the staff and to several of the regulars; she went back to the barn and printed some more copies of the Declaration of the Army to replace those spoiled by blood, all the while horribly aware of the bodies hidden under mouldy straw in a corner. She returned to The Whalebone for supper.

  Wildman turned up while she was choking down her soup, as neat and self-possessed as ever. That self-possession wavered a little, however, when he was confronted with the dung-cart. Ned, smiling, took the captain’s fine coat and lo
aned him an apron instead, and they all went back to the barn with the dung-cart. Together they rolled the bodies in some old sacking, loaded them on to the cart and covered them with dung.

  ‘Now, Mistress Wentnor,’ Captain Wildman said sternly, ‘you must go home.’

  ‘They died because of me,’ she replied stubbornly. ‘I’ll help to bury them.’

  Wildman shook his head. ‘Mistress, we must wait until full dark for this work, and in this season, night comes late. If you returned home at midnight, it would be remarked upon – or, worse still, you might be questioned by the Watch as to your business, and your name taken. You are the one who accused these two rogues, so you will be the one in question over their disappearance. You’ve done bravely and wisely to follow your daily course all this long day: you should not change now. If you are taken, you put us all in danger.’

  Lucy bit her lip: it was true. ‘Very well, Captain.’

  She left the three men sitting in the barn with the cart and made the long walk back to Southwark. It was just beginning to grow dark when she at last reached Uncle Thomas’s house, and she was sick and stupid with exhaustion. When she opened the door to the parlour and saw her brother Paul standing there, it took a moment for her even to register who he was.

  Paul must have heard her come in from the street because he was already on his feet, alert and anxious. ‘Lucy!’ he cried and strode over to seize her by the forearms. ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Paul!’ she replied stupidly. ‘How come you are here?’

  He shook her. ‘Cousin Geoffrey told us that our uncle had set you to printing scandalous things for his friends in the City. Father would not heed him, so I came. Lucy, it’s night! Where’ve you been?’

  ‘I–I worked on the press and then I supped with friends,’ she said, stammering and off-balance. ‘Paul, there was no need for you to . . .’

  Agnes emerged from the stairwell, her face pinched. ‘Hush!’ She glared savagely at Paul. ‘You gave me your word that you would be quiet if I let you stay!’

  ‘I must speak with my sister!’ protested Paul.

  ‘Then speak elsewhere!’ Agnes ordered in a vehement hiss. ‘I’ll not have you disturb my gentlewoman-lodger!’

  Paul scowled, took Lucy’s arm and pulled her out through the shop and back into the street. It was another chill, damp evening, and the roadway was foul with mud. ‘Lucy,’ Paul said, as soon as they were far enough from the house not to be overheard, ‘I’ve come to bring you home!’

  ‘Oh, have you?’ she replied sharply. ‘Well, I don’t want to come!’

  There was a silence. Paul stared at her, his face a pale blank. ‘Geoffrey said . . .’

  ‘Geoffrey is an ass!’

  Another silence, this one shocked and hurt. Her numbed brain finally caught up with the fact that he had defied their father and come all the way from Leicestershire to rescue her. She’d never expected anyone at home to think her worth it. ‘Oh, Paul!’ she cried in guilt and exasperation. ‘I’m sorry! You’re a dear, kind, loving brother, and brave to come all this way alone, but why didn’t you write me a letter first, to know from me how I did?’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Paul said stiffly.

  She hugged him, and when her arms went round him the last of the swollen chill inside her seemed to melt, and suddenly she was clinging to him and crying.

  His stiffness went: he held her close and patted her on the back. ‘It’s all right, Luce! I’ll take you home!’

  ‘But I don’t want to go home!’ she cried, struggling against the sobs. ‘Oh, Paul! Please, I’ve had a hard, hard day, and I’m–I’m glad to see you, glad that you came, but . . . I like it here! Please, I’m weary to death, but I can explain everything in the morning!’

  Seven

  When she woke in the morning, Lucy realized that she’d lied to her brother: she couldn’t explainanything. She was printing seditious pamphlets on an unlicensed, illegal press, and meeting regularly – in a tavern! – with a group of sectaries who wanted to overthrow the government; she’d been arrested, and she’d helped conceal murder. Not only could she not explain it to Paul, she could scarcely believe it herself. Her life felt ordinary and natural from the inside: how could seeing it through someone else’s eyes make it seem so scandalous?

  Paul could not take her home by force, but that was little comfort. He might have defied their father by coming to London, but she had no doubt that if he went home with a full report of her doings, Daniel Wentnor would demand that she return immediately. She would live at home in double disgrace then, and would be utterly wretched.

  Paul had come to help her, not to ruin her. Surely she could persuade him to let her be?

  Paul was in the parlour when Lucy came downstairs; it seemed he’d slept there. Thomas was at the table eating breakfast, but he was silent, miserable and very nervous; it emerged that when Paul had arrived the previous afternoon, Thomas had been so unnerved that he’d remembered urgent business at the Mercers’ Hall and disappeared for the rest of the day. When Lucy tried to ask her brother about his journey, Agnes hissed that they were not to discuss ‘aught of this scandalous business’ in the house. Lucy was forced to invite him to accompany her to the City. She did not want him to see the press – she had no confidence that he’d agree to keep its location secret – but she didn’t know how else she was to talk to him.

  Paul began almost as soon as they were out of the door: he’d travelled to London with a neighbour who had business in the capital; the neighbour was returning to Hinckley in three days’ time. Paul meant to go with him – and take Lucy.

  ‘But I don’t want to go back to Hinckley!’ Lucy protested again. ‘I am happy here, I have friends, and work I like. I earn three shillings a week!’

  Paul cast a horrified eye at the chaos of London Bridge. ‘How can you like this hellish city? And three shillings, for a woman? Cousin Geoffrey must be right, and this work is no honest employment: else why should they pay so much?’

  ‘It is entirely honest!’ she said hotly. ‘And soon, God willing, it will be lawful, as well!’

  ‘So Geoffrey told the truth, and it’s not lawful!’

  She tried to explain about Parliament and the Army, about levelling hedges and natural law, and about Cousin Geoffrey’s disappointment and the parliamentary clerk. In passing she mentioned what Ned had said about a Parliament-man having an eye on the land.

  ‘Ned’s here?’ Paul asked in astonishment.

  She stared at him blankly. She couldn’t think how he knew Ned.

  ‘When did he come?’ Paul demanded eagerly. ‘Did he seek you out?’

  She realized that he thought she meant her former sweetheart; realized at the same time that she’d forgotten there’d ever been such a man. To think she might have married Ned Bartram! That she might have become Mrs Bartram, the obedient wife of a smug, mean-minded dullard!

  ‘Not that Ned, Paul! Ned Trebet, the keeper of The Whalebone Tavern, where I dine most days.’ It occured to her, with relief, that this might be a way to divert Paul from the printworks. ‘Here, we’ll stop there, and I’ll introduce you. Then you’ll see that my friends are honest people!’

  The yard of The Whalebone was bustling: two ostlers were saddling horses, Nancy was arguing with a tradesman, and a tired-looking Ned was paying a carter for a load of bread. He broke off with a smile when Lucy came up, then directed a look of surprise at Paul.

  ‘Ned,’ she said, very glad to see his face, ‘God bless you! Paul, here is Ned Trebet, keeper of The Whalebone Tavern; Ned, this is my brother Paul, fresh-come from Hinckley. He heard tales which alarmed him, and he wishes me to come home with him.’

  Ned stared at Paul in dismay, then looked anxiously at Lucy. He opened his mouth and closed it again. Lucy abruptly realized that he thought the ‘tales’ were about murder, and hastily added, ‘My cousin Geoffrey, of whom I told you, has been filling their ears at home with stories of Uncle Thomas’s sedition. I’ve been trying to
tell Paul that he’s been misled, and that our friends are honest well-affected people, but I doubt I’ve convinced him.’

  ‘Ah!’ exclaimed Ned, relieved – but only briefly. His brows drew down into a heavy frown. ‘He wishes you to leave London?’

  ‘To come home, aye!’ agreed Paul, frowning back. ‘And I pray you excuse me, Mr Trebet, but for aught I can see Cousin Geoffrey was right, and our uncle has allowed my sister to trespass in a very dangerous business.’

  ‘Don’t blame Uncle Thomas, Paul!’ Lucy said sharply. ‘He misliked my work from the start and nearly forbade it several times, but I persuaded him to it.’

  ‘He was ever a weak man,’ Paul replied, with contempt, ‘and unable to govern a woman.’

  It was exactly the sort of thing their father would have said, but Lucy had expected better from Paul. She stared in cold anger. ‘Then I must be the more to blame, for abusing his weakness!’

  ‘Nay!’ exclaimed Paul, sensing that something had gone wrong. ‘It was his place to judge what was safe and to protect you from—’

  ‘Oh, say what you mean!’ snapped Lucy. ‘You think Uncle Thomas must be either wicked or foolish, and I am too silly to understand that or anything else! What cause did I ever give you to think so poorly of my wits?’

  ‘Mistress Wentnor, good day!’ said another voice. They all looked round and saw Captain Wildman, booted and spurred for riding and carrying a despatch bag. Apparently one of those freshly saddled horses was his.

  ‘This is Lucy’s brother,’ Ned broke in angrily. ‘He wishes to take her from London!’

  Wildman regarded Paul with surprise. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Sir,’ said Paul stiffly, ‘who you are I know not . . .’

  ‘Captain John Wildman, at your service!’

  ‘. . . but indeed I wish to take my sister home, for it seems to me that here she is in danger!’