Blood On the Stone

by Jake Lynch

  ‘Not if you don’t want me to, sweet.’ He was being his agreeable best. But her contented smile soon gave way to a frown.

  ‘What did you think of what Farmer Pawling said?’

  ‘About the five guineas? Not a bad price, for a pair of milchers.’

  ‘No – I mean about Gregory. He’ll like as not hang now, for murder.’

  ‘I should think so, an’ all. The scoundrel!’

  She squeezed his arm in acknowledgement, but continued with her train of thought.

  ‘But none of us knew about that till today. Farmer Pawling, he seemed to be saying that yesterday, when he came back with Father from seeing Master Sandys.’

  ‘This again? Why trouble ourselves with it now?’

  ‘There’s something there what don’t seem quite right.’

  Richard stopped for a moment, looked at her, and sighed – surmising, from her expression, that she would not simply let the matter drop.

  ‘Why, the rascal had already fired his flintlock by then, and killed poor Daisy and Cassie.’

  ‘Aye, but a Royal Guardsman’d never hang for that, surely? So how did he know, like?’

  ‘Well, he do know a lot, don’t he, about the world, and that? Probably more than you and me,’ he replied gently.

  ‘’Tis strange, though. I saw him that morning, dead early, riding off towards the London road, he was. Then a bit later he came back to pick up Pa, and they went into town together.’

  Richard made a flummoxed shape with his lips, and breathed in and out through his nostrils, shaking his head.

  ‘Well, we’ve to go and see Master Sandys ourselves at the Guildhall on the morrow – he wants you to tell him what happened with Gregory and Ladlow,’ he reminded her presently. ‘You can tell him about this, an’ all.’

  Chapter 25

  An Appointment with the Bishop

  One of the grooms in the stables at Christ Church was a boyhood friend of Ed’s, and, for what was, after all, his day off (as he reminded his brother), the pair had promised themselves a hack out to the top of Boars Hill to enjoy the views across the county. So, Luke called at the college with Robshaw, and they climbed the stone steps to keep an appointment with the Dean, who was also the Bishop of Oxford, John Fell.

  In the reign of King Charles I, his father had been Dean before him, and, during the Puritan ascendancy of the Interregnum, the younger Fell taught Classics to undergraduates while keeping the Anglican flame alive from a modest house on Merton Street. Now a leading figure of both academic and ecclesiastical Oxford, he was credited with restoring order and dignity to college life by enforcing distinctions designed to keep undergraduates in their proper place – their classrooms – and by burnishing and safeguarding its scholarly reputation. Pawling had wanted the Freedom bestowed by the City on Titus Oates, accuser-in-chief of the Popish Plot, to be matched with an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity from the University, but Fell blocked the scheme, thus incurring the then-Mayor’s undying enmity.

  ‘Ah, Sandys. Come in, come in,’ the Bishop exclaimed with a beatific smile as the pair reached the open door of his chambers. ‘Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, eh, my boy?’ An eminent Latinist, Fell was amused and fascinated by Luke’s trajectory from, as he put it, ‘classical scholar to constable’. When they met, he invariably repeated this quotation from Virgil – meaning, ‘happy is he who can ascertain the causes of things’ – to test the memory of his former student with an aphorism he considered particularly fitting.

  ‘Quite so, your Grace, quite so,’ Luke replied.

  ‘So, what can we do for you today?’ the Bishop asked.

  ‘I need your permission to interview the college porters, sir. We believe they may have seen something that might help in our inquiry. We’re investigating the murder of the MP, William Harbord, on Monday night.’

  ‘Ah yes, we heard about that. A bad business. May God rest his soul,’ the cleric replied. ‘Well, you may certainly ask them if they saw anything.’

  ‘Thank you kindly, sir. That will be most helpful.’

  ‘Think nothing of it, dear boy. Whilst I have you here, let me show you something.’

  Fell unfurled a large sheet of paper in front of him. Beckoned to join the Bishop on the other side of his desk, Luke stood alongside him and looked down at an elegant drawing he immediately recognised as the work of Christopher Wren.

  ‘Know what that is?’ Fell asked.

  ‘’Tis a tower, sir – in the Gothic style, unless I’m much mistaken.’

  ‘Gothic, that’s right, Sandys, Gothic, indeed. We’ve got Kit Wren to lift his head out of his work on St Paul’s Cathedral to design us a tower to complete the college wall on the Fish Street side. It’ll go over the gates to Great Quad, you know. ’Tis to be a bell tower: we’ll move Great Tom there from the chapel.’ He gripped the younger man’s arm, the intensity of his vision burning in his eyes. ‘’Twill be the crowning glory of my work here, Luke – the crowning glory!’

  As College Dean, Fell had presided over an extensive building programme at Christ Church, making improvements to the Great and Peckwater Quadrangles, and laying down the Broad Walk, with its twin lines of elm trees, across the meadow. He and Wren had become firm friends through Fell’s energetic promotion of the Sheldonian Theatre, one of the building projects that had confirmed the architect’s reputation as the foremost of the age.

  ‘A fitting legacy for you, sir,’ Luke said.

  ‘A monument to Providence, and the limitless bounty of our Lord,’ the Bishop immediately corrected him. ‘But it’s good of you to say so, dear boy. There’s just one problem.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Stone! We can’t get enough. Back when the College was built, Cardinal Wolsey got the stone from Headington Quarry, of course, but that’s mostly worked out now. Wren’s engaged a master mason, you know – a very capable man, Christopher Kempster, of Burford. Of course he’s got his own quarry over there, but the stone is too dark a shade – doesn’t match. Also, it’s a very long way, which adds greatly to the cost.’

  ‘Is there none to be had in Oxford?’

  Fell’s countenance took on what Luke would call, if it were not in an eminent man of the cloth, a crafty expression.

  ‘Ah, well, there are ways, of course. Magnum vectigal est parsimonia, hmm?’

  This was from one of Cicero’s Paradoxes, which Luke remembered well.

  ‘Economy is a great revenue?’

  ‘That’s right, Luke, economy is a great revenue, indeed. And that’s where I need your help,’ the Bishop went on, grasping Luke’s elbow in conspiratorial fashion; ‘ad susceptum perficiendum: to finish what we started.’

  Sandys momentarily caught Robshaw’s eye, which was fixed in a meaningful stare; but immediately looked away. Having witnessed many such scenes in the past, the deputy let out an all-but-inaudible sigh. His master was susceptible to flattery, at least of the intellectual variety, and he knew full well what was coming next. They would be asked to undertake some errand for the Bishop in exchange for his assent in this portion of their investigation: a request to which Sandys would readily accede, with reckoning of the cost – in time and perhaps even risk – made only afterwards, when it was too late to back out. To cap it all, it was invariably Robshaw’s participation in such escapades that he would blithely pledge, as well as his own – without ever thinking to consult him on the matter.

  Sure enough, Fell now elaborated on the situation impeding his supply of limestone. He planned to save money by sourcing the material from the still-substantial ruins of Osney Abbey, whose lands were seized at the dissolution of the monasteries under King Henry VIII to establish Christ Church in the first place. So, what was stopping him?

  ‘Vagabonds, Luke. Sad to say, the ruins have become a redoubt for vagabonds and masterless men. I’m afraid Kempster downright refuses to send his labourers there to fetch the stone: says it’s too dangerous.’

  ‘Begging your pardon, your Gra
ce,’ Robshaw cut in, ‘the University proctors can’t go along and look after them, then?’

  ‘Hm-hm!’ Fell chuckled. ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But no, the statutes won’t allow it. The proctors are strictly confined to University premises by day, and then, after nine o’clock, the city within its established walls. No further.’

  ‘Well, that is the limit of our own jurisdiction, sir, if it comes to that,’ Luke pointed out.

  ‘These boundaries, Luke, that divide us. These walls – whence came these walls?’ the Bishop asked rhetorically. ‘Mere lines on a map, drawn by a man. God knows no earthly boundaries, my boy. Incepto ne desistam – may I not shrink from my purpose.’

  Now came the moment for which Robshaw had been bracing himself.

  ‘So, how can we help, your Grace?’ Luke asked. Thus it was that Sandys and Robshaw ended up agreeing to escort a crew of Christopher Kempster’s men, the following day, to the Osney Abbey ruins, where they would begin the job of taking away stone for the new building.

  ‘That’s how he rose to be both Bishop and Dean,’ the deputy observed, as they made their way back downstairs. ‘He knows how to get men to do what he wants.’

  *

  Two porters were on duty at the lodge: short-sighted old Greening, who spent the interview squinting at the two constables disturbing his peace and quiet and revealing, in the process, an unprepossessing set of half-rotten teeth; and his junior colleague, by the name of Hignett. In deference to their order of seniority, Sandys and Robshaw questioned the older fellow first, but, finding his answers confined to indeterminate monosyllables, they soon gave up to concentrate on the younger. And indeed, Hignett, they quickly established, was the very man who had performed the duty of walking round from the lodge with a bunch of keys as Great Tom sounded the nine o’clock curfew on Monday night, and locking the heavy oak doors that secured the Great Quadrangle on the Fish Street side of the college. The spot was more or less opposite The Unicorn and Jacob’s Well, and he distinctly recalled surveying the street in the clear moonlight, and noting with satisfaction that it was empty:

  ‘There was nothing outside that there door when I locked up the House, sirs, I’d swear to it.’

  *

  As they walked the short distance back to the Guildhall, the pair discussed the implications of Hignett’s evidence for the possible time frame of the murder.

  ‘So, how long passed, then, would you say, between the nightwatchmen calling at your place to tell you about the body, and the time when you knocked on my door?’ Luke asked.

  Robshaw gurned pensively.

  ‘Could only have been ten minutes, at the most.’

  ‘I wish I could remember what time that was. Actually, come to think of it, Ed said he was admiring the pendulum clock in the hallway at that point – he’d never seen one before. When he’s back I’ll ask him if he can recall where the hands were pointing.’

  Chapter 26

  A Trip to the Theatre

  At the office, Captain Sutherland was already waiting. Luke was to go with him to a meeting where plans for the Royal party’s progress to the drama were to be finalised, then straight away implemented. The Foot Guards’ commanding officer, Colonel Russell, greeted Luke with evident relief.

  ‘Ah, Sandys, this is Lord Finch, the Lord High Steward and Lord Chancellor, who’s in overall charge of His Majesty’s security. This other gentleman is…’

  ‘…with me,’ Finch said testily. Cold grey eyes quickly appraised him from a lean, weathered face, and Luke surmised the tall, strong-looking figure, who stood slightly apart from the other two men, to be one of Finch’s intelligence officers.

  ‘Sandys will advise us on the local situation,’ Russell continued, looking at Luke expectantly.

  Lying on the desk was the college’s copy of Scholae Publicae Universitatis Oxon, open at the double-page print of the map of Oxford made by David Loggan a few years earlier, and Luke traced with his finger the route he’d decided to recommend for the King to reach the Sheldonian.

  ‘Well sirs, the Royal carriage should probably leave Christ Church through the side gate on to Blue Boar Street, here. That way, we’ll avoid the junction of The High with Cornmarket and Queen Streets, here. The market’ll be winding down by now, but that’s the busiest area.’

  ‘And it’s where the Whig mob tends to gather,’ the supposed intelligencer said.

  ‘If there’s a mob, sir, we can disperse it. But yes, there are men who seem to spend a lot of their time loitering in and out of the taverns around there.’ Luke did not care for the implication that control over the streets of Oxford was in question, but he was still inclined to avoid the possibility of any trouble. ‘Then we can bring His Majesty across The High by Oriel Street, here, and into St Mary’s Passage, down the side of the church.’

  ‘And then, when they get out of their carriages, we can take them into the courtyard of the Bodleian and come through the Divinity School door,’ Russell finished for him. ‘Excellent suggestion, Sandys. Lord Chancellor?’

  ‘Yes, well, I see no objections.’ He turned to his intelligence officer.

  ‘Seems sensible to me, sir.’

  ‘One thing,’ Luke said, as Russell closed the valuable book. ‘Why is the play not being performed in the College Hall? Dramas were put on there in the past, were they not? For the King’s father when he was here?’ The other men exchanged glances.

  ‘Theatrical fashion,’ Finch pronounced disdainfully. ‘The players have decided their set won’t fit in there.’

  ‘I see. What’s the play, by the way?’

  ‘By some chap called Charles Saunders,’ the Lord Chancellor replied. ‘Tamerlane the Great, apparently. No idea what it’s about, but the King seems to be looking forward to it.’

  *

  The passage for the Royal party, and the dozen or more carriages required for the whole Court to follow, was lined by heavily armed Foot Guards, hurriedly deployed on Russell’s orders once the route had been finalised. Luke had instructed Robshaw to make sure the City constables were all on patrol in the High, and to come and find him straight away if trouble flared at any point. As for Luke himself – he was going to the theatre. Plays and players had thrived in the reign of Charles I, but were banned outright under Oliver Cromwell. At the Restoration, two rival theatrical companies – the King’s and the Duke’s – were awarded Royal Patents, and now vied for audiences in London, but performances in the provinces were almost unheard of. He would be there on duty, to be sure, and in his official capacity – but that would not stop him enjoying the show.

  Looking upwards from his seat in the Sheldonian, Luke had an oblique view of the lurid ceiling fresco, depicting the revelation of truth in arts and sciences, with a cherubic figure at its centre perched somewhat implausibly on a smoky-orange cloud. As ever when he entered this, the most striking of all the city’s recently added buildings, however, he was more impressed with the ceiling itself. It was a mark of Wren’s genius to have solved, at a stroke, a problem with which countless generations of architects had struggled in vain: how to construct and support a roof whose single span exceeded the longest timbers available, without recourse to pillars or pediments. John Wallis, Oxford’s own Savilian Professor of Geometry, first proposed the geometrical flat grid design, as theoretically the strongest structure – but it took a man of Wren’s ingenuity and audacity to be the first to put theory into practice.

  From his position in the top tier of the steeply banking auditorium, Luke’s attention shifted to the figure in the centre of it all: His Majesty, lavishly bewigged and clothed in gorgeous silks and velvets, with a ruff like a white-foamed waterfall cascading from his neck. Even after more than twenty years on the throne, the so-called ‘merry monarch’ made no concessions to public disapproval of his love life, flanked as he was by his two favourite mistresses of the moment, red-haired Nell Gwynn – herself a former actress – and Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, in a blue satin cloak.r />
  The action on stage unfolded, in blank verse, a bloodthirsty tale of wars and rivalries. Outside, cloud had been thickening all afternoon, and the dramatic effect was in no way diminished by the faintly audible thunder from the darkening sky. In the story, Tamerlane – played by Thomas Betterton, one of the foremost actors of the London stage – began by boasting of his conquests:

  ‘Far greater’s our renown in glorious arms,’ he declaimed in suitably resonant tones, ‘who know to conquer too, enlarge our sway, and teach the haughty Ottoman to bow.’

  Luke had difficulty following the plot as it became more involved, with a developing quarrel between Tamerlane and his son. He must have missed the reason why, but suddenly one of the numerous courtiers on stage dramatically snatched up a sword and made as if to attack the potentate – only to be restrained and disarmed. Just as he was redoubling his concentration, he happened to glance down to see an all-too-familiar figure entering the theatre by one of the doors on the far side: Robshaw. What did he want?

  Chapter 27

  Trouble on the Streets

  Sure enough, the deputy wanted Luke’s attention, and – judging by the expression on his face and the urgency with which he beckoned his master to descend from his perch ‘in the gods’ – something was amiss.

  ‘We got a riot on our hands here,’ Robshaw reported in agitation as the pair huddled at the bottom of the stairwell. ‘There’s mobs has been forming all day, with students at one end, and them London folk up the other. Now they’re squaring up, like, and it’s us caught in the middle.’

  Attracted by the kerfuffle, Captain Sutherland joined them.

  ‘Sandys – all well?’

  ‘Not entirely, Captain. Apparently there’s a disturbance brewing on the High Street between rival mobs.’