Blood's Game

by Angus Donald

  And if being trounced in a naval war were not embarrassing enough, the prince’s mission to England was guaranteed to gall: he came to collect on a debt of two hundred and eighty thousand pounds that his royal uncle had incurred with the House of Orange over a number of years. Charles couldn’t pay it, of course, he could barely afford to keep his own household in bread and beer, and it had been Ormonde’s task to try to soothe the Prince of Orange’s ire at this uncomfortable truth. He had spent many long hours in the prince’s company – a rather delicate and solemn young man, but also endowed with considerable strength of character and a keen intelligence. Ormonde had finally persuaded him to accept that the repayment must be postponed – and, in a moment of quiet triumph, he had cajoled the young prince into agreeing to write off more than one-third of the debt, a hundred thousand pounds, for the sake of future amity between England and the United Provinces. Charles was at a crossroads, Ormonde had told the prince in confidence. The King had scant financial means of support within England and he must have money from somewhere: he could either look to Catholic France for funds, something that many of his most senior advisors were urging, not least that viper Buckingham, or he could look to the Protestant Dutch Republic. If Buckingham’s faction won the day, and Charles sided with France, it meant war once more with the Dutch – and, with the combined might of France and England against them, the small republic must fall. On the other hand, if Ormonde could sway Charles towards an agreement with the United Provinces, both of these proud Protestant nations could better withstand the ever-growing ambitions of mighty France and the unquenchable thirst for la gloire of its absolute ruler Louis XIV.

  The prince had grasped the reasoning instantly and, in truth, it had not been too difficult a task to persuade him to grant a remission of a large portion of the royal debt. The young man must have suspected that Charles could not pay before he set sail for England, and it was obvious that it pleased the young prince to appear magnanimous in the eyes of the world. But Ormonde was still well satisfied with the outcome of the visit and his role in it. Valuable bonds of friendship had been strengthened, and perhaps in time there might be the prospect of a royal marriage – Charles’s niece Lady Mary Stuart, perhaps, to this eligible young Dutchman, to draw the wealthy Protestant republic closer into the English orbit. The duke devoutly hoped that the King would understand just how well he had been served by his Lord Steward in this affair, yet, in his heart of hearts, Ormonde knew that Old Rowley would merely look bored when the new deal was explained to him, play with his damned dogs and ask plaintively whether the Prince of Orange could possibly be induced to advance yet another massive loan.

  The duke let out a long, frustrated sigh.

  ‘Too hard?’ said the girl, looking up from her manipulation of his huge misshapen foot.

  ‘No, my sweet, that’s perfect. But perhaps the other one now.’

  As the duke rearranged his limbs, he contemplated the girl on the seat opposite him. She was breath-taking – there was no denying it; pale skin, soft brown eyes that were almost amber in hue, and that glorious mane of bright hair. He would have her tonight, a little present to himself for the triumph of the House of Orange’s state visit. After a light supper and a bath, he would sample her young body at his leisure. He had been harsh with her; he had beaten her with a dog whip after that humiliating incident with that Blood fellow, a roughneck who had seduced her and led her into his dirty world of Presbyterian rebels, French spies and Fifth Monarchists, all of them scum who sought the fall of the King and his loyal ministers. But it was time to show her his forgiveness. She was a good girl at heart, just easily led astray, and as she had been so pleasingly repentant after her fall, perhaps she ought to be rewarded with a full return to his favour.

  *

  Jenny sneaked a glance at the duke from under her eyelashes as her fingers worked on the huge foot. He was still, she conceded, a handsome man despite his advancing age and bulk. She particularly liked his commanding beak of a nose; a big, fearless, manly feature that dominated his square ruddy face under the long grey periwig. She could not deny that she felt some measure of tenderness for him. She liked being around him, the way he demanded respect from everyone from the King down; the way he expressed his desires and they were instantly fulfilled. He was wealthy and in another existence she might quite have enjoyed the silk-and-roses life as the maîtresse-en-titre to a great man of affairs. She would certainly regret his death – in his off-hand way he had been kind to her – and she hoped that it would be quick. And she would miss the luxury of life at Clarendon House. But she had never been able to refuse Thomas Blood. She had never once said no to him from the day they had first met.

  He had accosted her six months ago when she had been out walking with her maid in St James’s Park. Blood had been funny and charming and courteous – and when her wide straw hat had blown off her head in a sudden gust of wind, he had dived, fully dressed, into the canal to retrieve it for her. She knew that he wanted her for her young body and she strongly suspected that part of her allure was Blood’s desire to cuckold the Duke of Ormonde – for whom he blithely confessed a life-long hatred – but she liked him, he made her laugh, he seemed interested in her likes and dislikes, the minutiae of her daily life. In contrast, Ormonde summoned her with a bell when he felt the urge, rutted like a bull, an angry bull when he could not maintain his manhood, and fell asleep immediately after the act. Sometimes he ignored her for days, leaving her to wander around Clarendon House, bored and alone except for the servants, while he went about his business in White Hall and the City for the King. So when Blood asked her to meet him for a private supper in the upper room of the Bull’s Head the next evening, she found herself saying yes. And after supper, when he took her into his arms and kissed her, well, she had not said no to him then either.

  Being with Blood made her breathless, his touch still made her shiver, even after half a year of knowing him. Their love-making was as profound and shattering as it had been that first night. When she was away from him he dominated her thoughts. What was he doing? Who was he with? Was he thinking of her? She knew full well that he was using her – that he was married to that drab bitch Mary, who had squeezed out half a dozen brats for him, that he would never divorce that drunken hag and belong wholly to her. But he’d promised that once this dark deed was done they would be together, living together, travelling together, loving together. Just the two of them. And for the promise of that joy she’d do anything. Anything.

  She wondered if Blood had got her message. When Ormonde had called for his carriage at Guildhall, she had extricated herself from the glittering melee of Dutch courtiers and wealthy English merchants and stepped outside into the rain to whisper a few words to a waiting street urchin. With a shiny penny, she had dispatched him to the Bull’s Head to let Blood know that the carriage was on the way to Clarendon House, and that it would follow its usual route along the Strand, down Pall Mall and then up St James’s Street to the palace at the top of the hill on Piccadilly.

  She only hoped that she had given them enough warning. Blood had told her that they would be ready and waiting for her signal at the Bull’s Head. And she trusted him. Yet now the carriage was already at the end of Pall Mall and shortly it would take the sharp right turn up St James’s. There was not a lot of time left. Had Blood changed his mind? By God, he was cutting it fine. They would be at the house in a few minutes, safe behind its gates and walls and surrounded by a host of servants. Then Ormonde would surely want to have her and, given the amount of wine he had taken at the banquet, she would certainly face a long, dreary night using every trick she knew to keep his wilting prick hard enough to achieve his satisfaction.

  Jenny peered out of the window into the blackness of the stormy winter evening and she caught a glimpse of a pale, rain-wet face of a running footman and her own reflection superimposed on to his. She looked tired, she thought, and old. The dewy freshness was passing from her face. Ormonde would not want her
for much longer – whatever happened tonight. If Blood failed to fulfil his promise, then the slack-bellied old goat would soon throw her into the street anyway. That was the lot of all whores – to be used and then discarded. But Blood was different. Blood said he loved her. He said he would always love her, no matter what. And she believed him. Blood would still love her even when she was a worn-out baggage of thirty.

  She felt the carriage turn sharply and begin the short journey up St James’s Street towards Piccadilly. She felt the horses slow as they struggled up the hill. She heard vague shouts outside the carriage, something about a dead man lying in the street. The coachman slammed the hand-levered brake on and the carriage crashed to a halt. The duke’s bulk was thrown forward directly on to her body, crushing her with his weight. Both the oil lamps that lit the interior went out at the same time, plunging the carriage interior into darkness. She started screaming – for no reason that she could ever explain afterwards. The duke was cursing foully and shoving at her with his strong arms in an attempt to lever himself upright. Outside the carriage she heard the clatter of many hooves, the clash of steel on steel, shouts of rage and the cry of a wounded man. Ormonde snarled, ‘Where’s my fucking pistol!’ and ‘Shut your fucking noise, you stupid cunt!’ And she heard him scrabbling blindly about on the floor of the carriage. She felt the awkward shape of the flintlock beneath her silk slipper on the carriage’s floor, and pressed her foot down hard to hold it in position.

  The carriage door opened from the outside and a head, the black hat bedecked with an ostrich feather and jewelled with raindrops and the face masked with a dark kerchief, was thrust inside. The man held a flaming resin torch in one hand and a levelled pistol in the other. Over the top of the kerchief, Jenny looked into a pair of bright dancing eyes, blue as innocence.

  ‘Get out of the carriage, Your Grace, or you die right now,’ said the masked man. ‘Get out, if you value your life. You too, my lady.’

  *

  Holcroft sat on the hard high-backed chair beside the door to the Duke of Buckingham’s bed chamber. He was most uncomfortable, his buttocks nearly numb, and the golden coat that he had been issued was scratching his neck. Close up, he had seen the so-called golden cloth was in fact mostly coarse yellow silk with only a few threads of gold woven into the material to give it a metallic sheen. The golden buttons were just well-polished brass. His scarlet woollen waistcoat and breeches were uncomfortably tight and his loose white stockings kept sliding down his shins to puddle at his ankles. But despite his discomfort, he was painfully tired. It had been a long, eventful day and the shock of each discovery about his new life had taken its toll. He could not prevent his eyelids drooping and constantly found himself teetering on the edge of sleep’s abyss.

  He had heard the tall clock in the hall below strike one some time ago and yet the candles still burned in the duke’s chamber behind his back, and the light leaked out under the door to provide some illumination of the dark landing. He dared not sleep. The duke was reading his correspondence and might at any moment call upon him to fetch wine or a slice of bread and cheese. Albert had warned him that Westbury could send him to Matlock for a beating if he were found to be asleep and he did not want to be punished on his very first day. He stared into the darkness, using an effort of will to keep his eyes wide open, and inside his head he imagined he was dealing out his treasured pack of Parisian playing cards. This was a trick he had used before, when the noise and fuss of too many people in the Cock Lane house made him feel bad. He conjured up images of a hand of Slamm being played and watched with his mind’s eye as the cards were dealt out, twelve to each of the four players, and the four remaining cards forming the Stock in the middle of the table, with the top card turned over to determine which suit should be trumps. It was the queen of diamonds – his friend. She seemed to understand his predicament exactly. ‘You can do it, Holcroft,’ she seemed to be saying. ‘You can last the night. I’ll be with you.’ He was just picking up his imaginary hand to examine the cards he’d been dealt, when he heard a voice as if from a vast distance away.

  ‘Boy, hey boy – are you sleeping, you lazy dog?’

  Holcroft whipped his head round and looked up briefly at the looming form of the Duke of Buckingham in his nightgown, peering down at him and holding a stub of candle in his right hand.

  ‘Not . . . not asleep, sir,’ Holcroft stammered. Then he recovered himself, leaped to his feet, bowed and said, ‘How may I serve you, Your Grace? Would you like some food or drink? Shall I fetch you some warm milk from the kitchen? Some wine?’

  ‘I have wine enough for my needs,’ the duke said, handing him the candle stub, ‘but my eyes ache from reading. Come inside and read to me from my correspondence while I take my ease.’

  Holcroft followed the duke into his chamber. And while his master settled himself into the huge curtained bed, Holcroft recharged a three-pronged candlestick with fresh candles from the box and lit them from the burning stub. He set the candlestick on the table by the bed, sat down on a stool and, at a gesture from the duke, he picked up a piece of heavy paper from a pile of documents. Checking with a flick of his eyes to the duke’s face that he should begin, looked down at the paper in his hands.

  28th November 1670

  From Charles Sackville, Palace of Versailles, France

  To His Grace the Duke of Buckingham, at the Palace of White Hall, London

  Greetings, old friend, it is with a growing delight that I can inform you that matters have been advancing at a swift pace here. To my astonishment and joy, I have encountered little or no opposition from the French court to the basis of the arrangement, nor even its finer details, and I hear nothing but words of encouragement for my endeavours from all sides. The agreement is to be called the Treaty of Dover, as we suggested, and I believe, God willing, that it can be signed and sealed by both sides at that good English port within a few short weeks, even perhaps before Christmas. The original sums we spoke of to the French Treasury, amounts which I personally felt were optimistic, perhaps even preposterous, have been approved with scarcely a quibble. The figures we have now agreed upon are, given in English terms, £200,000 on signing of the treaty and £300,000 a year thereafter during the duration of the prosecution of the war against the United Provinces. I confess I find myself gratified by the ease by which so much has been achieved and—

  ‘Boy, Holcroft is your name, is it not?’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace.’

  ‘You read well, Holcroft, very well. But as a kindness please read a little more slowly. I wish to ponder the exact choice of words that the writer has made and thereby judge his mood at the time of writing. The content of the letter is already familiar to me but I am listening for – uh – any notes that ring discordantly.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Holcroft began to read from the letter again, this time at a funereal pace.

  ‘Much better, boy, much better. One more thing . . .’ the duke looked hard at Holcroft as he lounged on the pillow-strewn bed, the yellow candlelight softening the age-lines on his face ‘ . . . I trust that I do not have to tell you that anything you learn from my intimate correspondence, indeed anything of a privy nature that you learn while in my service, must never be spoken of or transmitted to any other – no matter who they might be. Any betrayal of my confidence will be dealt with harshly. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Holcroft continued to read slowly. From time to time the duke made little appreciative humming noises. The English gentleman at the French court, this Charles Sackville, continued at length about the terms of the treaty, the generosity of the French and finished his missive with some items of gossip about King Louis’s new mistress and one or two other personages at the Court of Versailles. When Holcroft had finished reading, he looked up at the duke, who had his eyes closed and appeared to be sleeping.

  Holcroft set the letter down on the top of the pile and was about to steal away and resume his position outside the chamber,
when the duke opened his eyes. He stared at the boy for a few moments almost with a look of confusion, then sat up abruptly, reached over to the pile of papers, fumbled through them and pulled a small square yellow sheet from the middle of the pack. He handed it to Holcroft. ‘Now read this one to me.’

  As Holcroft reached across to take the letter, the duke’s fingers lightly caressed his skin as he took hold of the paper. It was such a shocking contact, despite being a gentle touch, that Holcroft jerked in surprise. He saw that the duke was watching him, a strange, hungry look on his face.

  ‘Are you quite comfortable on that nasty little stool?’ the duke asked softly. ‘If you preferred to, you could take your ease here beside me on the bed while you read – see, there is plenty of room.’

  Now Holcroft raised his eyes to the duke’s face and looked steadily at him for the first time. His pale-blue stare was cold and blank as a field of fresh snow. ‘Thank you but I prefer the stool, Your Grace.’