The Black Friar

by S. G. MacLean

  Thurloe nodded, coughed, took another sip of the cordial. ‘An attempt was made on the Protector that night. It came to nothing – I’d had him removed from Whitehall by boat as soon as the scrawling on the wall was seen.’

  ‘The perpetrators were caught?’

  The Chief Secretary shook his head. ‘And neither were the guards who had been on duty at the outer door of the Banqueting Hall found. It seems they had contrived to slip away unremarked, their uniform and arms forestalling any questions, or notice even. A warrant has been put out for them, but the army is so riddled yet with Fifth Monarchy men I doubt they will be found.’

  ‘Round them all up then,’ said Seeker. The thing was clear to him and he could not comprehend that it had not immediately been done. ‘They hardly hide that they have insurrection in mind anyway – there isn’t a street corner on which one of their deranged preachers isn’t calling for the Saints to rise and prevail against the Beast.’

  Thurloe regarded him for a minute and then raised his hands feebly. ‘The Lord Protector won’t allow it. He is still in hopes of bringing the Fifth Monarchists of the army back into the fold. Harrison, Overton – they fought at his side, they were among his closest friends and he prays daily for their restoration to him; he misses their comradeship.’

  ‘He trusts too far,’ said Seeker, more blunt than he was wont to be on the subject of the Protector, but he knew Thurloe would not need reminding that Overton had denigrated Cromwell as ‘A tragical Caesar acted by a Clown,’ or that Harrison, who still freely walked the streets and had become the figurehead of the Fifth Monarchy men, proclaimed the Protector ‘The dissemblingest most perjured villain alive’.

  Thurloe attempted a smile but the effort defeated him. ‘I do not, though. I do not trust at all. We are alert to the danger of a rising by the Fifth Monarchists, and you know we have the means to defeat it, but I fear they will make another essay on the Protector’s person, that they will try to mask it while our attention is taken by watching for the beginning of their rising. That is why I brought Carter Blyth back from the Netherlands when I did, and told no one, absolutely no one.’ Thurloe took a moment to summon what strength he had and Seeker waited until the Secretary was ready to continue.

  ‘I recalled Blyth to London and had him embed himself with a group of Fifth Monarchists known to meet at St Pancras. Others in the city and throughout the army have been charged specifically with tracking any plans for a rising, but Blyth’s instructions were to seek out and report on any deeper, more specific threat to Oliver himself.’ He looked directly at Seeker. ‘I don’t know how high any such conspiracy might go, how close to Oliver’s person those involved might be. That was why I could not risk telling anyone.’

  ‘Seven weeks ago? What have you heard from Blyth since then?’

  ‘Each week, for four weeks, I received intelligence reports from him. For the last two, I have had nothing.’ Thurloe looked to the fire and then to Seeker. ‘What lies under a shroud behind the locked door Daniel Proctor guards confirms my fears: Carter Blyth was compromised, and has paid the price for it.’

  Seeker was of the same opinion. ‘But not even Meadowe knew Blyth was back in London?’ It was widely known that, increasingly, the young linguist who’d been brought in to assist and gradually replace the blind Milton as Secretary of Foreign Tongues had become Thurloe’s overworked right-hand man in the handling of agents.

  Thurloe shook his head. ‘Philip has been fully occupied, God knows, in keeping an eye on what’s coming in from the continent – on the Royalists. One deluded scheme after another, each more crackpot than the last, despite Hyde’s efforts to bring them into line.’

  It was commonly believed in Whitehall and Westminster that Edward Hyde, the exiled Charles Stuart’s chief minister, was responsible for the only sense spoken or good counsel ever given in the refugee court. It was said that Henrietta Maria, the queen mother, ensconced in her Parisian exile, loathed Hyde with a passion, something that only served to increase the esteem in which the Republicans held the man.

  Thurloe continued. ‘The Sealed Knot still reports to Hyde, whose advice tends to the biding of time, but there are those, less patient, who have been throwing wild ideas at Charles himself.’

  When Seeker had first heard the name ‘The Sealed Knot’, under which English Royalists at home colluding with their counterparts abroad had lately chosen to organise themselves, he had laughed. A sealed knot had no loose end, nothing that could be tugged, manipulated, worked upon until the whole came apart. A sealed knot was strong, limitless, the purpose of each part of it working in harmony with the rest. Those Royalists who had plotted the overthrow of Cromwell and the return of the Stuarts had lurched from one desperate, ill-conceived scheme to another, their indiscipline, loose tongues, carelessness and self-interest condemning each attempt to failure almost before it started. And now they thought if they would but organise themselves, and give themselves a name, all would be well.

  Hyde, traipsing round Europe after his king, had been relieved at first, it seemed, to have one set of fools to deal with and hold at bay instead of twenty, and stop them doing his royal master’s cause more harm than good. But the word from Charles’s court of late was that the plotters were becoming restless, tiring of Hyde’s caution, and hell-bent on action.

  ‘They’re not completely without guile, though,’ Thurloe continued. ‘We’ve learned of late that they’ve been circumventing our surveillance by communicating with one another at race meetings. Clever that. Of course, we’ll have to put an end to race meetings now, but it’s for the greater good. And this frayed end of the Sealed Knot was behind the arms smuggling we uncovered amongst the gunsmiths only a fortnight ago.’ The Secretary took another sip of his cordial and looked over to Seeker. ‘Our old friend Lady Anne Winter will be mixed up in it somewhere, I am convinced. I have just yet to work out how, but she is closely watched and we are working on it.’

  ‘Huh.’ Seeker did not quite smile. The woman was as brazen in her royalism as she was formidable. Her mind and her morality travelled pathways that could hardly be comprehended, still less foreseen. He was not sorry that she was, on this occasion at least, someone else’s problem. ‘You think Royalists are behind Blyth’s death?’

  Thurloe breathed deep. ‘That would be convenient, but I doubt it. Nevertheless, while they play out their petty shows, their panem et circenses for the masses, it will divert attention from our problems with the army, and from what I require you to do.’

  Bread and circuses. Seeker had little knowledge of the Latin tongue, but that at least he understood. Better keep the populace diverted with cheap entertainments and leave the ruling of the country to those who knew better how to do it. ‘You wish me to find his killer.’

  The Secretary nodded, draining his glass. ‘And I want to know why they did it and how much they knew – what they were trying to stop Carter Blyth reporting to me.’ Gripping the arms of his chair, the secretary began to attempt to raise himself from the seat. Seeker moved to help him, turned to call for Thurloe’s man.

  ‘No!’ insisted Thurloe. ‘Let him be.’ He collapsed down into the chair. ‘That cupboard.’ He raised a trembling hand towards the upper row of panelling in the wall behind where Seeker had been seated. ‘I have the key.’ He fumbled in the pocket of the heavy woollen shag-lined gown tied with a silk cord over his smock, and handed a small brass key to Seeker. ‘The leather case on top. Bring it to me.’

  Seeker went across to the wall and, without recourse to the footstool set beneath it, succeeded in reaching the lock in a small door he hadn’t previously noticed, and pulling out the leather case he found on top of some ledgers there. He relocked the door and handed the case to Thurloe, who shakily undid the ties. Taking a sheaf of papers from inside it, he handed them to Seeker. ‘These are my transcriptions of the reports I received from Blyth, although I doubt they will do much to help.’

  Thurloe waited while Seeker read the reports, and then sp
oke, summing up what Seeker was thinking. ‘There’s very little in them that we didn’t already know. A few names of Levellers suspected of supporting the late unrest in the army, some coming and going with associates of the lawyer John Wildman who are already being watched, a lot about Major-General Harrison.’

  Harrison. Seeker remembered seeing Thomas Harrison in the field, fighting in the parliamentary armies like one possessed. Harrison, who had truly believed that by defeating Charles Stuart’s army and then severing that man’s head from his neck, Parliament had been preparing the way for the thousand-year reign, in person, of Jesus Christ. He and the others who now called themselves ‘Fifth Monarchists’ had been mesmerised by Cromwell once, as he led them in the field to astonishing victories that could only be God-given, but they would not have it that he should rule over them in peacetime. Where once there had been love and loyalty, now there was virulent hatred and vitriol. The New Model Army had spawned offspring its leaders struggled to control.

  ‘And Wildman has not yet been found?’ enquired Seeker, still giving his full attention to the paper in front of him.

  ‘No, but once he has been, he’ll be looking at the inside of the prison cell for a good few years – he goes too far this time. The word is that this “Declaration” of his is worse than Lilburne’s “England’s new chains”. But these chains will bind him tight and shut his mouth so long he’ll wonder that he ever thought to open it.’

  It was indeed rumoured that this new “Declaration” against Cromwell that Wildman was thought to have in hand was so provocative and incendiary it would be banned as soon as it landed in the Censor Office. Seeker had come across a rough draft of it only three days since in the garret at Dove Court, and had burned it before Maria’s eyes. He had known, from the night over two months before, when he and Elias Ellingworth’s sister had finally given in to their feelings for one another, that such conflicts would come between them. His assertion that it was either burn the pamphlet or arrest her had done nothing to assuage her fury.

  Seeker could feel Thurloe’s eyes on him. ‘There are reports though that Wildman has been seen in the company of the lawyer Elias Ellingworth, and to frequent his home at Dove Court.’ Thurloe’s voice was careful, and it told Seeker everything he needed to know. ‘I think, perhaps, you should look into the matter, Damian.’

  ‘I will,’ said Seeker quietly, the words just edging out from his clenched jaw. He turned the papers over. ‘There is no indication where Blyth lodged.’

  Thurloe let a coughing fit pass. ‘It was necessary that he should be very deeply embedded. For his own safety and the security of his mission. All I know is that he went among the Fifth Monarchists, at St Pancras on Soper Lane, posing as one of their number to gain their trust. It had always been his practice to send the fullest details by a more secure cypher only when he was certain.’

  ‘How were the reports transmitted?’

  ‘In the usual way. I arranged a covert location, then informed Dorislaus at the postal office that anything directed to that place should be brought directly to me on intercept, without being opened.’

  Seeker nodded, and glanced again at the bland reports. ‘And you have had nothing by the second cypher?’

  Thurloe shook his head.

  ‘So he had found nothing yet,’ mused Seeker, ‘and yet . . .’

  Thurloe leaned forward, as if they had at last come to the part he’d been waiting for.

  Seeker took a moment, as if to clarify in his own mind what it was that left him so ill at ease. ‘Blyth hints now and again at another matter, more so as the reports proceed, and not much connected to the mission on which he was sent.’ He looked up at Thurloe, who nodded. Carter Blyth had committed a cardinal error – he had veered from the path on which his master had set him, and now he was dead. Now they had come to the point.

  Thurloe’s voice was low. ‘I need to know what it was that Blyth was doing, what trail he was following, that took him to his death. I need to know whether the dangers he encountered were for the Protectorate, or for him alone.’ Another pervasive shiver assaulted Thurloe and he clung more closely to the woollen blanket his man had set around him, gathered what strength he had left. ‘I want the whole truth of it, Damian, whatever that might be.’

  Seeker nodded. ‘I’ll need the name Blyth went by.’

  There were rumours that Thurloe kept the book here, rather than at Whitehall, the book in which he noted the identities of all the Protectorate’s agents, alongside the code names that they went by. No one but the Chief Secretary knew those identities. As well, perhaps, that they did not.

  Regardless of where he might keep it, Thurloe didn’t need to look in the book. ‘Gideon Fell. He called himself Gideon Fell.’

  Their business finished, the reports in their leather case returned to their cupboard in the wall, Seeker stood to leave. Before calling on Thurloe’s servant he asked, ‘And Blyth’s body?’

  Thurloe was fussing at the fire, shifting a log with the poker. He hardly looked up. ‘Say it is diseased, have it thrown in a pit. Bury it deep.’

  Three

  Soper Lane

  Having left the Secretary to nurse his misery in peace, Seeker walked down the stairways and half-lit wood-panelled corridors of Lincoln’s Inn. He could feel nervous eyes on him. Well might there be. There had been few troubles he had looked into that a lawyer was not mixed up in somewhere, and the Inns of Court had long been the haunt of those who would see themselves as ‘the coming men’. Even in the war, even in the matter of the death of the King and since then, too many on Parliament’s side had written of their affection and regrets to old friends from the Inns who had chosen to follow the Stuart standard.

  Seeker paused a moment to look out through the diamond-leaded panes of a window onto the dormant, hard-frozen garden below. A waft of pipe smoke and a burst of laughter came to him from a room he could not see down some corridor to the side. Was that what Thurloe sometimes came here for? Companionship, a brief respite from the duties of office, the friendship of other men? Seeker breathed in the smoke a moment, then stepped out and readied himself to face London’s other odours.

  *

  The oldest church in England, they said. A fit place indeed for the second coming of Christ. Green and pleasant enough around, if you didn’t mind the leatherworkers, old soap-boilers and lounging labourers looking for a day’s employment. Seeker wondered how Carter Blyth had clothed himself, comported himself, when first he had come here to St Pancras church to insinuate himself into the ranks of the militant godly. He left his mount, Acheron, by the gate in from Needler’s Lane. There were few other souls lingering here on this cold January afternoon. A child with a bucket was making his way from the gate of a house backing onto the churchyard.

  Seeker stopped him. ‘Where are you headed, boy?’

  The child was speechless a moment, and then managed to say, ‘To fetch water from West Cheap. My mother hasn’t the money to pay the water-bearers.’

  ‘Hmm. And where will I find the preacher?’

  ‘John Spittlehouse? He’s usually in the vestry, this time of day. Schooling.’

  ‘You do not attend his school?’

  ‘My father won’t have it. Says I’m not to go near them.’

  ‘Go near who?’

  ‘Those Fifth Monarchy men. You should hear them. The terrors they’d put on you, when they talk of the Beast.’

  Seeker was taken by a little devilment. ‘And how do you know I’m not one of them?’

  The boy’s eyes went wide and his mouth shaped itself into an incredulous smile that he could not hide. ‘You? You’re no Fifth Monarchy man, you’re the Seeker. Everyone knows that!’

  Seeker grunted. ‘Your mother’s water will keep five minutes, I daresay?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘Good, keep an eye on my horse there.’

  As the boy dropped his bucket and ran to take the horse’s rein, Seeker approached the vestry door, his boots crunchi
ng on the frozen, fallen leaves beneath them. He could hear the sound of the preacher’s voice, promising dreadful fates for those who did not believe in the true God, the God of Daniel, the all-conquering God of the Book of Revelation: ‘“Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! For the Devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”’ The words were spoken with a terrible relish, and the children who pushed each other through the door past Seeker looked as if they would rather have been anywhere but the place they’d just left.

  The preacher was just closing his Bible as Seeker stepped into the vestry past the last escaping child.

  ‘And what do you hope to teach them by such lessons?’ he asked the small, thin man whom he knew to be a soap-boiler by trade.

  ‘Enough that they can read their Bible, know their rights, and speak for themselves,’ the man replied. He assessed Seeker carefully. ‘You haven’t come here to learn your letters though.’

  ‘No, nor my rights.’

  ‘A captain of Nol Cromwell’s guard? A servant of Jehu! You have no rights.’

  Seeker had no interest in trading scripture. ‘I want to know about one of your congregation. He might have come amongst you about six weeks or so ago. Went by the name of Gideon Fell.’

  The preacher was instantly suspicious. ‘Went? What was his real name then?’

  Seeker ignored the question. ‘You know the man I’m talking about?’

  A curt nod.

  ‘When did he first appear here?’

  The preacher gave the matter some thought. ‘It would have been about six, seven weeks. About the end of November, beginning of December, I’d say.’

  ‘Was he alone?’

  Again, a nod. ‘At first.’

  Seeker would keep that one for later. ‘And what story did he tell?’

  The man shrugged. ‘Same story as most of them. He’d been a soldier – no story there, we’d all been soldiers. Left the army when Cromwell turned his back on the cause of the righteous for his own carnal ends. Went to New England for a while, Massachusetts, but the Lord put it in his heart to return and join the fight for His kingdom, that’s what took him to this door.’