by Angus Donald
Blood sat back on his heels. ‘You tell a pretty tale, Will. A very pretty tale, you always have. But that little knock on the head must have scrambled your brains – I can’t run, not with this wounded leg, and I don’t need to escape, anyway. I’m seeing the King tomorrow and he’s going to pardon me. Shall I tell you what I think, Will? Shall I? I think someone gave you a big sack of gold to make sure that I don’t get to go and see the King tomorrow. I don’t hear a peep from you till the night before my pardon and – hello! – here you are, armed to the teeth and extending the hand of friendship. I think you came here to put me down, Will. That’s what I think, old friend. That’s what I’m suspecting as I sit here looking at your ugly old face.’
Hunt gaped at him. ‘You got it wrong, colonel. All wrong. I came here to help you. If you don’t want to chance an escape, well, that’s fine and dandy. Cut me loose and I’ll be on my way. No hard feelings about the ding on the head with the bottle. What d’you say, colonel? Let’s part as friends.’
Blood looked at him sadly. ‘I don’t think I can do that, Will. I think I need to know just a wee bit more about what’s going on out there before I set off to see the King on the morrow. Just for my own peace of mind.’
With only minimal resistance, which Blood quelled with one savage belly punch, he tied Hunt’s legs and elbows and gagged him with a strip of torn bed-sheet. Then he lashed him securely to the chair. He went to the door, making sure that his large body blocked a view into the chamber. He paid a gold piece over to Widdicombe and told the gaoler that his friend would be lodging with him overnight and that, as they had much to discuss, he would be grateful if they were not disturbed until after dawn when it was time to make the journey across London to White Hall to see the King. There would be another gold piece for Widdicome if they were unmolested all night, he promised. And he warned the little man that there might be the odd burst of raucous singing for Hunt was a very musical, if not a very tuneful fellow when the brandy was in him.
‘I like a nice drop myself,’ said Widdicombe, grinning at Blood. ‘I may take this here guinea and see what delights it will buy at the White Horse. I will have to lock you both in, colonel, even though the whisper is that this is your last night as our guest.’
‘I’d be disappointed in you if you didn’t, Widdicombe. You are a man who knows his duty. Here’s another hog, to drink my health,’ said Blood handing the gaoler an extra shilling. ‘Tell your mates what I said about Mister Hunt’s singing. They mustn’t be alarmed. No disturbances, mind!’
*
When the gaoler had left, and the bolts had slammed shut on the far side of the door, Blood returned to Hunt’s side.
‘Remember what we did to that fellow in Kent, Will? The cavalryman we captured after the fight at Maidstone, Lord Somebody, one of Prince Rupert’s aides, remember? Sir Thomas Fairfax told us to get any information we could out of him, and quickly, about where the King’s men had run to? Remember, Will? I pushed a blade under his toenails and worked them off one by one. That brave man resisted answering all our questions until I had done seven of them, and you said you wondered whether the pain was really all that terrible for him. Well, good news, Will, it looks as if you’re about to find out the answer to your question.’
Blood seized Hunt’s leg, tucked it under his arm and pulled off his riding boot. His victim’s screams were muffled by the bed-sheet gag in his mouth but the horrified expression on his face and the frenzied writhing of his body against his bonds made his emotional state perfectly clear. Blood pulled the folding penknife from his pocket and opened the two-inch blade.
‘Let’s start with an easy one, old friend. Why did you really come to see me tonight?’
*
Holcroft was entranced. He leaned his back comfortably against the sun-warmed brick of the inner wall of the Tilt Yard and watched as a company of the King’s Foot Guards, under the stern eye of Ensign John Churchill, completed its drill. Ninety men in smart red coats with blue turnbacks and facings, muskets on their shoulders, swords at their waists, were moving as one man to the commands of a brass-lunged sergeant, who echoed Jack’s far quieter directions. They marched across Holcroft’s front, a hundred and eighty highly polished back shoes, crashing down in unison on the cobbles and at a shout of command they all stopped dead, pivoted neatly to face the opposite direction and marched back.
Holcroft could have watched them for hours. The perfect order, the uniformity of movement and dress, the machine-like quality of this body of men, all sang Hosannahs to his soul. He admired his friend’s easy control of them, too. Jack was the brain that made this red-and-blue man-machine move according to his will. Now they were stationary in the centre of the Tilt Yard, and stamping, presenting arms. At Churchill’s word, they saluted, stamped once more, stood easy and were dismissed, the formation crumbling and streaming away towards the barracks to the south of the Yard where food and ale was being served out for their noonday meal.
Jack sauntered over to Holcroft who was beaming at him and struggling with the urge to applaud the demonstration.
‘What cheer, Hol?’
‘I think your men are quite splendid.’
‘Thank you. We do work pretty hard at being splendid but it is nice to hear it from a civilian. Come and have a glass of sack in the hut.’
When the two men were settled over their wine, Holcroft said: ‘So, Jack, is it all set for the game?’
‘Yes, I lost twenty-two guineas yesterday, which was more than a little painful, but he’s agreed to allow me my revenge tomorrow at two, here in the Foot Guards’ House, in the music room, as you suggested. Littleton and Buckingham against me and a player of my choosing. The game is Whist. No honours. First to nine points. And ten pounds a point. I’ve tipped the groom porter his usual fee to licence the game. Fellowes has declined to be my partner, as we hoped he would. He called me a reckless buffle-head.’
Holcroft looked at his friend for a moment, the childish insult stirring memories in his mind. He shrugged away the thought. ‘So, Jack, I have raised as much as I can for our stake. I pawned some things. My friend Mistress Behn gave me seven pounds – all that she has in the world. And my father gave me ten – I do not know where he got it. You know he and I go to see the King tomorrow morning? We are rather hopeful, in fact: so would you please thank Barbara for her kindness in delivering that note.’
‘I think she would like it if you were to thank her yourself. She has quite forgotten your little spat in the buttery, you know. She’s a passionate creature, is our Barbara, she flies into a rage in the blink of an eye but it is all forgotten and forgiven the next day. She gave me fifty pounds to put towards our venture – which was more than generous – and sends you a kiss – a chaste kiss, she insisted I tell you. She says she wishes us all the luck in the world. I’ve managed to scrape up another thirty. I went to the Jews and put my best horse up as surety. God knows what I am going to do if we lose.’
‘We’re not going to lose, Jack. I promise you.’
‘You have my credit in your hands, Hol, if not my actual life. But it does seem that we are fully prepared. By my calculation we should be able to take at least a hundred and fifty pounds to the table. It should be enough to take him. At least I pray it will be enough.’
‘It’ll be enough, Jack. Be calm, we’re going to wipe his eye.’
Friday 26 May, 1671
Blood mopped the last of the soap from his face with a towel, wiped the razor, closed it and contemplated his freshly shaven reflection in the glass. Today was the day, he told himself cheerily. Today it would all be over. He would be a free man again. He looked pale, he thought, beneath the still-vivid bruises from Wythe Edwards’s beatings, even old. My God, was he now an old man? No, surely not. He needed some fresh air, that’s all, and exercise. The first thing he would do when he was free, if his wounded leg was up to it, would be to hire a good horse and take it for a gallop on Hampstead Heath, or maybe on a good heart-pounding run up to Eppin
g Forest. He could stop in at the Lamb in Romford and see some friends, have a drink . . .
A shadow crossed his brow. He looked in the mirror and focused on the gently swinging corpse of William Hunt, hanging by a noose made from a torn-up bed-sheet from a roof beam in the corner of the chamber. God be with you, Will. We had some good times, old friend. We had some rare old adventures, didn’t we, you traitorous, back-stabbing little shit-weasel.
It had only taken three toenails to get Hunt in a talkative frame of mind. He had admitted that he had been hired by Sir Thomas Osborne to kill Blood in his cell. The gaoler Widdicombe knew nothing about the plot but had merely been told by Osborne not to search Hunt when he came to visit Blood. Then Hunt had been foolish and had begun screaming for the gaoler, yelling at the top of his lungs for help.
Blood had punished him with another two toenails for that. And when Hunt became mulishly silent, it had taken another two to get him to open up again. That made seven and Blood was forced to remind his prisoner that while they might be running short of toenails there was a whole new world of pain available in his fingers. That broke him. Snivelling, sobbing and begging for forgiveness, the story had emerged. Hunt had been recruited by Osborne more than a year ago – he was not Buckingham’s man, he had been adamant about that – Osborne knew his family in Yorkshire. Hunt’s father had once worked for his grand-father and was now a tenant farmer on their huge estate, and Sir Thomas had used the usual admixture of persuasions – threat of punishment and promise of reward – to recruit him, saying that his father would be evicted if he did not comply and promising a reward of a hundred pounds in gold, if Hunt would just share a few details of Blood’s plans. Hunt had been very stupid, Blood considered, because once he had supplied some details about his comrade he was for ever damned as an informer, and Osborne no longer mentioned the hundred pounds, instead the talk was all how Blood would react if he discovered that his lieutenant was a traitor.
There had been no more call for toenails. Hunt had confessed that he had informed Osborne, via a wherry man who took a note across the Thames to White Hall, when Blood was staying with Jenny Blaine at the Saracen’s Head in Southwark last winter and Osborne had passed the information to Ormonde’s son Ossory – aiming to curry favour with that powerful family. Hunt also admitted he had tried to shoot Blood as they were making their escape – hoping to claim the price on his head – but had missed.
Hunt had asked Blood only one question during that long night of pain and blood, snot, tears and confession: he asked how had he known he was coming for him? What mistake had he made?
‘It was the soldiers coming directly to the Blue Boar four days after the attempt on the jewels,’ he said, giving his bound friend a nice big jolt of the brandy from his own glass, just for old times’ sake.
‘Someone blabbed. Couldn’t have been Parrot, or he’d just have surrendered to them instead of going out like a maddened bull when the dogs are set on him. It couldn’t be Tom. If either of them blabbed they wouldn’t have stuck around to face the soldiers.’
‘I thought they’d run, too,’ said Hunt sadly.
‘More backbone than you, Will. Both of them. I reckoned Warburton was too afraid to betray me and, anyway, what would he gain from it? A lot of his customers do dark business in the Boar and he has a reputation to maintain as a closed-mouth man. So, really, it had to be either you or Smithy. And my money was always on you – despite all our years together. I suspected that Buckingham or someone would probably try to silence me the old-fashioned way, at some point, if I made too much of a fuss – it’s the sensible thing to do – and when you turned up on the eve of my audience with the King, well, it all just fell into place.’
‘It was nothing personal, colonel. I found myself in a tight corner and I couldn’t get out of it.’
‘I know, Will, I know. And neither is this personal.’
The sun was just appearing, painting the sky pink and washing away the dark shadows in the chamber. Blood pinched out the candle before moving behind his chair and putting his big arms around his friend’s neck. Taking a firm grip on his right shoulder and his chin, he yanked once, very hard, and heard the little man’s spine crack like a twig. Then he fashioned the bed-sheets into a rope and noose, cut loose all the restraints, replaced his riding boots to cover the damage to his toes and suspended his old friend from a beam, giving the small body a friendly slap as he went off to perform his toilet.
This was the day; it was a fine, warm, rosy dawn, and this was the day that he would be a free man at last.
Blood gave himself one final glance in the looking glass: fit for an audience with His Majesty? Yes, indeed! He nodded once, grinned at his reflection and then he went to the door and began to bellow as loudly as he could: ‘Widdicombe, guards, help me! Come quick – there has been the most horrible accident. My poor friend Mister Hunt has hanged himself while I slept. Guards, guards, come quickly now . . .’
*
At every pillar along either side of the main hall of the Banqueting House stood a soldier from the King’s Foot Guards as still as a statue. Holcroft’s heart had risen when he saw their familiar red uniforms and he looked expectantly around to see if Jack should be their commanding officer. He was disappointed to spot Captain Fellowes lurking by one of the big wooden doors at the far end of the hall to the left of the King, who sat in majesty on a gold-painted throne on a low dais draped in scarlet silk between two elegant Grecian-style columns. On the right of the King stood a grim-faced Sir John Grenville, and beyond him His Grace the Duke of Buckingham, imperious in a towering black periwig and purple robes. To the King’s left, partly obscuring the scowling guards officer by the door, stood Sir Thomas Osborne in an ordinary blue coat and linen cravat and looking dowdy, plain and business-like in these grand surroundings.
Holcroft looked up at the ceiling where a pair of huge chandeliers blazed, despite the morning hour, and shed their light on a series of extraordinarily beautiful paintings of noble kings and half-naked angels, Roman soldiers and cherubs. His father, freshly shaved, his long blue coat brushed, his hair neatly tied back, stood beside him, a pair of light manacles on his wrists and a serene smile curling his lips. A footman in scarlet livery with a short white wig announced their presence in a voice that boomed in the largely empty space – ‘Mister Thomas Blood of Romford Market and his son Holcroft’ – then the man whispered in their ears that they should bow as well as they could and approach the King, but remain at a distance of no less than five yards from His Majesty at all times.
It was Sir John Grenville, who had been a justice of the peace in his native Cornwall, who opened the proceedings. He ignored Holcroft and addressed himself to Blood: ‘You, sir, who call yourself Colonel Blood, stand accused of many gross crimes against the people of England, against the kingdom itself and against the person of His Majesty the King. Most recently, and perhaps most seriously, you have been charged with the attempted theft of the Crown Jewels of England from the Tower of London, a felony that carries with it the death penalty, also you have been charged with the assault and attempted murder of Mister Talbot Edwards, His Majesty’s Assistant Keeper of the Jewels, who is still suffering the effects of the brutal attack on his person, and who may yet die. You have been accused of sedition, rebellion against your lawful King, of riotous assembly, of conspiring to overthrow the offices of state, of violence against the King’s officers, of murder, robbery, rape, arson, horse-stealing . . . the list is as long as my arm. Do you deny that you are guilty of any and all of these crimes and is there any reason at all why it would not be a benefit to the whole country, indeed to mankind itself, if you were taken to the Old Bailey this very morning, tried, sentenced and hanged as swiftly as possible?’
‘I’ve had a grand old time, I can’t deny it,’ said Blood. ‘But I don’t recall committing any rapes: they were all quite willing, as I remember it. Although no doubt they told a different story to their husbands.’ Blood winked at the King
and Charles found himself unable to suppress a smile.
‘Nevertheless, you do not deny the majority of your crimes, any one of which would be enough to earn you the death penalty?’ said Grenville.
‘I’ve been a bad boy, sure. But I come here today to beg for a pardon from His Majesty for my mistakes – not to deny them. And may I take this opportunity to say how gracious it is of you, sire, how beneficent, to grant me an audience. The joy I feel to be basking in the radiance of your presence . . . it is like a man who has been entombed in a cave all his life and who is finally released and granted a glimpse of the blazing sun . . .’
‘You did not give us a great deal of choice about the matter,’ said the Duke of Buckingham. ‘Your son there has been making gross threats to His Majesty, suggesting God-knows-what nonsense, spreading lies, stirring up seditious mischief . . .’
‘I only said I would reveal what I know to be the truth,’ said Holcroft, ‘if my father was not granted an audience with the King. The truth about the Treaty of Dover.’
There was a long, awkward silence.
‘And what do you know, Mister Blood,’ said Buckingham, ‘that makes you think you can dictate terms to the greatest men in the kingdom – indeed, to His Gracious Majesty the King?’
‘I know, sir . . .’ began Holcroft.
‘Wait! Stop there,’ broke in the King. ‘You will be silent, Mister Blood. You will not say another word – for the moment.’
The King turned to his right. ‘You, sir, Captain Fellowes, isn’t it? I want you and all your men out of the hall, right now.’
‘Sire, this man is a dangerous criminal. Indeed, when I went with my men to collect him from the Tower this morning we found a man, a friend of the prisoner, murdered in his cell, hanging by the neck from a beam. Blood almost certainly killed him . . .’