Plague
Page 5
“It’s got to be worth a try.”
John sucked air through his teeth. “I think we’re going to have to let Beth try there first, Ralph.”
The other spread his hands. “Fine, fine. I know when I’m beat.”
Beth gave them both an enigmatic smile. “Then it’s settled, boys. I’m going to go and see the Red Dragon...”
* * *
The three of them hurried through the streets, with Beth making sure to keep a good distance from the boys, so they weren’t obviously together. As spies, they could blow their cover if anyone made a connection between the three of them, but by now they were used to this covert way of moving through the streets and talking without seeming to be together. The paper, folded up into a tight wad, lay at the bottom of Beth’s purse.
“So how do you know this friend of yours at the college?” John asked, a little too casually, as he brushed past her. Beth fought to keep amusement from showing on her face.
“He’s a regular at the theatre,” she murmured back as John paused, pretending to adjust his boot a few paces later. “Francis Sandford. He’s a charming old gentleman, and he simply loves to talk about symbols and heraldry. He has books full of them.” She shook her head, thinking about how Sandford loved to talk her ear off about the subject when he came backstage to praise her performances.
“Thought you said you were off to see a red dragon?” said Ralph, feigning to cough to cover his speech as he passed a group of ladies.
“That’s his title. Rouge Dragon Pursuivant. All the heralds have titles like that. Bluemantle, Garter Principal, Unicorn. It’s like the Knights of the Round Table.”
Beth could see Ralph roll his eyes as she glanced over at him, but she ignored him.
“Who’s the head of the College of Arms?” John wondered aloud.
“I believe it’s Lord Beaumont, the Duke of Norfolk...”
Finally they reached the grand mansion house close to the north bank of the Thames, and Derby Place, the headquarters of the College of Arms, loomed up at them. “Right, you both should stay out here while I go in. It shouldn’t take me too long.”
Ralph and John both nodded and moved away from the entrance to wait for her. Beth spoke to the officer on duty beside the gate, which was a heavy wood-and-iron portcullis like a castle might have. After some eyelash batting, the guard smiled and admitted her.
She crossed the quadrangle and passed through the inner doors. White-wigged scholars were going to and fro inside, and heads turned to watch her wherever she went. Beth just marched ahead as if she had a perfect right to be there, but wrinkled her nose at the musty, cloistered smell of the place. Like a crypt, she thought. Or the castle of some mad baron from old times. The coats of arms hanging on the walls blazed with bright colours against the dark oak panelling. She climbed the stairs to the upper hallway where a door stood ajar. A mist of smoke was drifting from it.
A quick knock brought a croak of, “Come in, Miss Johnson!” from inside.
“How did you know it was me?” she laughed, as she swept into the room.
“A lovely young woman, entering this nest of ancient ravens?” The man behind the desk could barely be seen through clouds of tobacco smoke. “That’s a major piece of news, my dear. Whispers travel swiftly in a place like this.” He leaned forward through the clouds, long clay pipe in one hand, open book in the other. His milky eyes still glittered with intelligence. “Now, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“It’s something of an usual request, but I was hoping you could look at some symbols for me,” Beth said. “If you have pen and paper, I’ll draw them.”
Francis Sandford sucked deeply on his pipe and blew a long column of smoke up at the ceiling. Beth couldn’t help thinking that whoever had given him the title of Rouge Dragon Pursuivant must have had a sense of humour.
“I’d be overjoyed to. Anything for you, Miss Johnson,” he said. “Draw your symbols, please. The more obscure, the better!” He passed her a quill and paper. “One gets so very bored of tracking down the rights to extinct titles for upstart little lords...”
When Beth had finished, he took the paper in a claw-like hand and peered at it. A deep rumble came from his throat – the sound she knew he always made when he was thinking deeply.
“Hmm ... this is most irregular,” he said. “Lions are frequently found in heraldry.” He paused, raising an eyebrow. “But they’re usually displayed rampant, which means rearing up, or passant, which means walking. To have a lion cabossed affronté – just the head, facing forwards – is not at all common. Are you certain this is correct?”
“Yes, I’m certain. So it’s not heraldic?” Beth asked.
“It may be, it may not. As for these circles, they are assuredly not. They may stand for an archery target, perhaps, or a shield boss, but you will not find them in any of the volumes on these shelves.” He sucked on his pipe again. “But tell me, Miss Johnson, how is Love’s Green Garlands faring? Playing to packed houses, I’ll warrant...”
He obviously hadn’t made it to the opening performance, Beth thought. “We’re rehearsing every single day!” she said. Well, it wasn’t entirely a lie – more of a half-truth. Before Sandford could draw her any further on to the subject of her acting, which would easily consume a whole hour, she asked “Uh, and what about the bridge, and this line?”
“Oh, that’s straightforward enough,” he said with a wave of his wet pipe stem. “Not worth bothering with really...” He paused and looked at her studiously, seeming to regard her in a new light. “It occurs to me that you’ve not told me where you found these peculiar symbols.”
Beth’s heart was suddenly pounding like a military drum. “They were written in an old book. Silly of me, I thought they might be clues to a treasure hoard or something!” She smiled in what she hoped would be a distracting fashion.
“A treasure hoard?” Sandford arched one greying eyebrow. “What a romantic notion...”
“Well, you never know!” Beth said coyly. “What do these ones mean?”
“Wavy lines usually denote water,” he said after some thought, “and the symbol like a bridge indicates a First Son. I don’t suppose you brought the book with you? Perhaps I could take a look—”
“I’ll bring it next time,” she promised quickly. All Beth wanted to do now was leave – the hair at the nape of her neck was prickling. The fact that Sandford had considered that particular symbol so “dull” had set her mind alight with suspicion and apprehension.
There was one person she knew of who used symbolism and heraldry in his cryptic messages. Someone who had crossed their path before. Not just a traitor and a King-killer, but the spider at the heart of their web. A man who she knew was a First Son.
Beth’s mind silently formed the man’s name, and it chilled her blood.
Sir Henry Vale.
Chapter Seven - The Four Swans
Beth quickly made her excuses and rushed out of the College of Arms. The Rouge Dragon Pursuivant’s final words rang in her ears as she hurried through the double doors and out into the quadrangle: “Do be careful out there, my dear. I’d miss my favourite actress if anything happened to her...!”
It could have been a kindly warning against contracting the plague – or something more sinister. Now that the conspiracy was confirmed, Beth hardly knew who she could trust any more.
“What is it?” John hissed as he and Ralph spotted her exiting the gate. The three of them paced quickly away from the building, keeping their distance.
“Not here,” Beth whispered. “Wait ’til we’re back on the street.”
Wisely, John shut up. Beth didn’t say another word until they were a good distance away from the college. Ralph led them down to the bank of the Thames, to a shadowed spot he knew down by the moorings where they could speak without being overheard. Nobody could have listened in unless they were hiding underwater, or drifting by on a passing boat.
Beth told them what she had deduced, and as soon as he heard the name Henry V
ale, John visibly stiffened. They had scuppered Vale’s plans once before, but it seemed as though the traitor would not give up so easily.
“Of course. The would-be King-killer himself,” he whispered. “And to think I watched his execution at the Tower. Or what we all thought was his execution...”
“Exactly. We know Vale’s lethally clever,” Beth said. “Clever enough to fake something like that – and we also knew he’d rear his head again sometime soon.”
John shuddered. “Rear his head indeed. I’ll never forget it. For all the world it appeared that the executioner cut Vale’s head clean off. The blood was like a fountain!”
“That just means that someone really died that day. But not Vale.”
“Could have been a double,” Ralph suggested. “Someone so totally, fanatically loyal that he was willing to die in Vale’s place?”
It made sense, Beth thought. If anyone could talk a follower into dying in his place, Sir Henry Vale could. She recalled with horror his relentless thug Edmund Groby, with his missing finger and his willingness to stop at nothing to kill the King. “They say Vale was very persuasive,” she said. “He probably did convince one of his people that it was his duty to die for the good of the country, ironic though that may be.”
“And anyone who made that sacrifice for their cause would be remembered as a martyr,” John said darkly. “How many times do you have to kill a man before he dies...?”
Beth remembered their spymaster Strange’s words when she’d met him in the bell tower. Chop off one head and two grow in its place. Beth wondered just how much Strange had already suspected of Vale’s involvement in this new plot...
“He’s going to keep trying until he’s stopped,” she said, clenching her jaw.
“Well, we stopped him last time,” John replied, sounding more optimistic now. “That’s got to have set his plans back a bit. I bet we can do it again, if we move fast.”
“You’re right,” Beth said, with a grim smile at the memory.
That adventure had ended at the side of the Thames, not far from where they stood now. With cold-blooded irony, Henry Vale had masterminded a plot to kill the King during the Bonfire Night celebrations, on the anniversary of the first Gunpowder Plot. Beth shivered as she remembered how close they had all come to death. Beth, John and Ralph had had to race against time to uncover the plot and find where the explosive had been hidden. They’d stopped the explosion just in time.
Of course, they had never seen the real Sir Henry Vale. The arch-conspirator had worked from behind the scenes, overseas, out of their reach. They only knew of his involvement because of a coded letter that Beth had found on a drifting ship. Indeed, they couldn’t prove for certain that it was Vale himself and not someone using the name as a tribute – but deep in her heart Beth had been sure it was him.
“Thwarting his plot? Well, that ought to be easy,” Ralph said with ringing sarcasm. “Now Beth’s chum the old Red Dragon’s cleared that note up for us, it’s all as clear as crystal! Wavy lines mean water? Fan-ruddy-tastic. All we have to do now is look for a place that has water in it or near it. That narrows things down a bit!”
“If Beth hadn’t stuck at it when we both wanted to rush off to the tavern, we wouldn’t have cracked the first part of the clue! So it’s lucky for us that one of us is so persistent.” John said.
“S’pose,” Ralph conceded grudgingly.
John was a little flushed now. It was charming how defensive of her he got sometimes, Beth thought with a small smile. But rather than embarrass him further, she turned her gaze out over the Thames. There was no bigger source of water in all of London. Perhaps they shouldn’t overlook the obvious. And of course, there was a bridge across it, too – the famous London Bridge, spanning the waters between the City and Southwark. So many buildings had been constructed upon it that it was more of a street than a bridge. Beth remembered her first sight of the gruesome southern gatehouse, where the heads of traitors had been impaled on spikes. That horrible practice had continued for years until the King had put a stop to it.
The more Beth gazed at the river, the more certain she grew that it would play a role in their investigations. The explosive last plot had been quenched by the Thames. It seemed somehow inevitable that this one should rise back out of it...
“Well, we know a bit more about these symbols, and that’s all very well,” said Ralph, jolting her back to reality. “But can we please go to the pub now?”
* * *
“Best let me get the drinks in for us all,” Ralph said as they arrived outside the Four Swans. “It’ll be less conspicuous that way.”
He seemed much more at home now they were at the tavern, Beth thought with some amusement.
“I know my way round an inn, thank you very much!” retorted John huffily.
“Oh, yeah? I can see yer now,” Ralph grinned. “‘Ho, good barkeep, a flagon of your very finest ale if you please!’ You’ll fit right in!”
“I’m Shadwell born and bred!” John bristled. “I may not talk the street gab like you, but I’m no toff. Watch me!”
Before Beth or Ralph could protest, he’d shoved his way into the inn.
Inside, dusty beams of sunlight slanted in through the windows. Only a few drinkers sat wedged into corners or huddled around tables. The plague must be keeping them away, Beth thought. Bunches of dried-out herbs hung down from the rafters, adding their fragrant hedgerow scents to the overpowering reek of beer slops and sawdust. Her sharp eyes instantly noticed one of the tables had part of the edge broken away and the wood there was pale. Fresh damage. What had happened there?
Beth turned her attentions to John with some trepidation as he marched right up to the table where the serving woman sat. She had paid no attention to who had walked in, but when he slammed a handful of coins onto the wet surface, she finally looked up at him through narrowed eyes. Her pale, pudgy arms wobbled as she gathered the coins up. “What’ll it be?”
“Jug of small ale,” he grunted.
She immediately went to fill a tall jug from a barrel in the nearby taproom. There was hardly any alcohol in small ale, but it was safer to drink than water, especially these days. “Not seen you round ’ere before,” she said over her shoulder.
“Wind blew me all the way from Holland,” John said, with a coarse rasp in his voice that made Beth blink in surprise. “Been paid me pittance for being shot at for King and Country, and I’m looking to splash it up the wall.”
He’s playing the part of a sailor, Beth realized, just back from the wars. Nicely done! She and Ralph hung back, watching him.
“What’s your ship, Jack Tar?” said the woman casually.
Panic seized Beth as she expected John to flounder. She got ready to leap in and improvise, just like she’d done so many times on the stage, but John spat on the floor and said “HMS Fairfax,” then quietly added, “God rot her and her captain too.”
The clunk of the full jug on the table top ended the conversation.
“I’ll thank you for the loan of a mug,” John said.
The barwoman nodded and fetched down a single tankard, which John handed to Beth as he walked over. Carrying the jug himself, he led the way to a small dark booth at the back of the inn.
“You both need something to drink out of,” Beth said. “You are not drinking from the jug.”
John and Ralph both silently unfastened leather tankards from their belts and set them on the table. Beth realized she’d been so used to seeing them there, she’d all but forgotten what they were for.
“Fair play to you, mate,” Ralph said to John, helping himself to the foaming small ale. “That went better than I’d expected.”
“I know ships,” John said. “I work in the Navy office, remember? You could put me in charge of one tomorrow and I’d know exactly what to do.”
“Bit risky speaking ill of the Navy, though, wasn’t it? I’ve been a powder monkey, and I’ve seen men flogged to the bone for talking like that.”
John nodded. “Right – time to get to work. Let’s ask around the inn,” he said. “What were those initials again, Beth?”
“SP, LB, JL and RM,” Beth said. “You think we should ask around for names that match those?”
“If we can find a match, we’ve found a conspirator,” John said. “Well, we might have...”
“Let’s start with SP.” Beth sipped her small ale, so as not to look suspicious. It wasn’t particularly nice, but at least it was safe to drink.
“It’s going to be a bloke, isn’t it?” said Ralph. “I mean, most villains are men.”
“I’ll go along with that,” Beth said with a wry grin.
“So ‘S’ could stand for ... I dunno ... Simon?”
“Or Simeon?” John said. “Or Stuart. Or Sam.”
“Or Sidney—” said Ralph.
“Why don’t the two of you go and talk to the customers?” Beth said, interjecting. “Try to find out what their names are? I’d say that’s the way to start.”
“Good idea,” said John.
“I’m not so sure it is,” Ralph said, shaking his head. “Would you just tell your name to a total stranger who you didn’t know from Adam? They’ll be suspicious of people they don’t know. You’ve got to get them off their guard.”
John stood up, ignoring Ralph. “Well, I think I can do it,” he said.
Ralph just raised his eyebrows and scoffed. “Fine! You go first, then.”
“I will!” John slipped off to one side of the inn. Beth and Ralph listened in closely as John approached one of the drinkers.
“Sorry to bother you, gentlemen, but I’m in a rare confusion. I’m meant to bring a message to a fellow, and dammed if I’ve clear forgot his name. All I recall is, he drinks here at the Four Swans.”
“What sort of message?” asked one of the drinkers aggressively.
John scratched his head. “I’m not really at liberty to say.”
“On your way, then!” the man growled.