by Angus Donald
‘The wager per point is ten pounds, gentlemen,’ said Littleton. ‘Are we all agreed?’
Holcroft knew that between them, Jack and he had exactly one hundred and fifty-two pounds, which they had agreed was ample to play with even at these high stakes. Although the thought of losing that huge sum – and being unable to repay Aphra and his father, not to mention Churchill’s loss of his horse and whatever else he had pledged – made Holcroft mentally squirm.
‘Yes, we are all agreed,’ said Holcroft.
‘No, we are not all agreed,’ said the duke. ‘I do not want to waste my time with pin money. The wager per point should be something worthwhile – I suggest a hundred pounds a point.’
‘What! That’s preposterous,’ cried Churchill. ‘We agreed to ten pounds – it is already a ten times increase on the last game.’
‘You wanted your revenge, sir. Are you not bold enough to attempt it?’
The duke’s words were a hair away from calling Churchill a coward.
‘We accept the new stakes,’ Holcroft said quietly.
Jack gave him a what-the hell-are-you-doing look but said nothing.
‘Very good,’ said Buckingham. ‘Shall we cut for dealer?’
*
Holcroft frowned at his cards. He could not believe the run of bad luck he had suffered in the past two hands. In the first hand, he and his opponents had been almost evenly matched but Buckingham and Littleton had won seven tricks to Holcroft and Churchill’s six to put them one point down. Holcroft had not been concerned. The luck was bound to fluctuate and he was confident that as long as he played his cards correctly in the long run he would come through. The second game his luck had been worse. Littleton and Buckingham trumped trick after trick. When all the trumps were played, Holcroft took one trick with his king of hearts, Jack took another with his ace of clubs, but Littleton and Buckingham had the rest and five points. That made six points to the enemy. Three more and they’d have the first game.
Holcroft fared a little better in the third hand. Once the trumps had all been played – which gave Littleton and Buckingham four tricks – Jack and Holcroft won the rest and they were finally off the mark with three points.
They won the next hand too, with Jack playing brilliantly and either by guesswork or some strange prescience, leading exactly the suit that Holcroft wished twice in a row. They won ten tricks in all and it was now six points to seven in their favour – two more points would give them the first game.
Holcroft picked up his hand and frowned in utter disbelief at his cards: he had nothing, no, not quite nothing – a knave of spades. Holcroft made it a winner, trumped Buckingham twice and Jack won a trick with the king of spades, but that was it. Their opponents collected nine tricks in total, giving them three points and the first game. As they had won nine points to seven, Buckingham and Littleton were now two points up – two hundred pounds ahead – although these points would not count towards the next game.
By mutual agreement, the four men broke from the table then to stretch their legs, with Littleton disappearing out of the room to visit the officer’s latrines at the back of the main building. Buckingham refilled his wine glass and began to talk loudly and confidently with Colonel John Russell about the state of the defences in the Dutch Republic and the likelihood of those doughty burgers being able to resist the might of Louis XIV’s huge army.
Jack Churchill took Holcroft by the elbow and led him over to the Lely portrait of the King in his armour above the fireplace.
‘What the hell are you doing, Hol?’ Jack’s face was pink. ‘We’re losing – we’re already two hundred pounds down. It’s more than we can pay. Do you know what happens to a guards officer who doesn’t pay his gambling debts?’
‘No, what happens to him?’
Jack paused for a moment. ‘I don’t know, as it happens, no one in the First Foot has ever welshed to my knowledge. But I warrant it would be worse than awful: stripped of his commission, drummed out of the regiment, thrown in the Marshalsea for debt – terrible, terrible things, anyway.’
‘We haven’t lost yet.’
‘We’re certainly not winning.’
‘We just haven’t had the cards, Jack. I can’t win if they have almost all the top cards, no matter how well we play ours.’
‘I trusted you, Hol. You can’t let me down.’
‘I won’t, don’t fret so, Jack, the cards will turn in our favour.’
But the cards did not turn in their favour in the next hand, the first in the new game and, to make it worse, Jack made a simple error discarding a ten of diamonds that might have been a winner. They would have lost the hand anyway, but Churchill’s mistake allowed Littleton to win two extra tricks that he might not otherwise have taken. In this second game their opponents were now four points up. Two hundred pounds just thrown away, Holcroft thought. Maybe a whole lot more if we lose this game and therefore the match. Terrible, terrible things, Jack said.
The second hand was better. By counting his own trumps and making an assumption about their distribution, Holcroft correctly surmised that Buckingham held the crucial ace of trumps but no others and forced him to over-trump Littleton’s winning queen, wasting a trick. They ended up making ten tricks out of thirteen allowing them to score four much-needed points.
It was one game to their opponents, and four points each in this game. If the other side won five points in this next hand, it was game and match to them, and Holcroft and Jack would be seven points down, doubled for losing the match, at a hundred pounds a point: they’d owe their opponents one thousand four hundred pounds, nearly ten times the money they actually had.
Holcroft was dealer, he flipped out thirteen cards to each player, turned over the last card, his own, a seven of hearts, which indicated the suit that was to be trumps and then picked up his hand. At last, the luck was running his way. He could see five trumps and eight clear winners in his hand and if Jack had even a small amount of luck and a good fit with Holcroft they were going to make some points.
They did. Five points, which added to the four they already had made nine – and the second game was theirs. One game each. And Jack and Holcroft were now three hundred pounds up. The next game would settle the match.
The table broke again for refreshment. Holcroft summoned a soldier-servant and ordered a tankard of cooled ale. His mouth was dry and his head was aching slightly. He stood next to the double virginal and admired the painted hunting scene on the open lid. He felt a presence and turned to find the Duke of Buckingham by his side. ‘Interesting game,’ he said affably. ‘It really could go either way.’
Holcroft said nothing.
‘But it’s not going to,’ the duke said quietly. ‘Thing is, my dear Holcroft, you are going to lose. And I will tell you why. You are going to make sure that you lose this match because, if you do not, if you do somehow manage to scrape a win, I shall immediately tell the Duke of Ormonde that it was your father who attacked him that night in Piccadilly last year. And while the duke himself might have mellowed in his dotage, I doubt his son the Earl of Ossory has. To put it bluntly, you will lose this match or your father is a dead man. As you seem so adept at applying pressure, I thought you might appreciate the irony of having to submit to it.’
*
‘Then the rogue had the cheek to say to me: “Keep the Protestant faith, Your Majesty, and we’ll all come up smiling yet!” ’
‘I am surprised you did not have him hanged on the spot,’ said the Duke of York, sipping from his crystal glass of claret.
‘My dear James,’ said the King, ‘if you ever ascend the throne of England – and recall that you are my heir until such time as my sweet Catherine can be induced to bring forth a son – then you can go about in that absolutist, continental manner hanging your subjects willy-nilly or chopping off their heads left and right, but sadly I have to be a good deal more circumspect. The whole country knows what this fellow Blood did at the Tower and Parliament would certainly punis
h me for it – they might stop my grant, God forbid – if I had him executed without trial. And trial means a public trial. Then there is the matter of the boy and his damned pamphlets. There was nothing I could do, brother, but smile graciously and pardon the old villain and his rascally progeny.’
‘I would have proclaimed my faith – the true faith – to the world. You acted as if you were ashamed of the treaty. Never be ashamed of what you know to be right, brother. If Parliament ever gave me the slightest difficulty, over this or over any other matter, I should call on our Cousin Louis of France and have him send an army to hold the kingdom down by force.’
‘That is what our father might have done, may he rest in peace.’ Both men looked at each other sadly.
The King took a sip of his wine and filled his lungs with fresh air. It was a perfect May afternoon, not too hot, not too cool, and he and his brother were sitting in his personal withdrawing room, the Rose Room, with the glass double doors flung wide. A breeze blew in bringing the scent of the white roses that bloomed huge and heavy at the end of the garden.
‘The difference between you and I, James, is that I would rather live in harmony with my subjects even if it means I must hide my faith, but you would put the salvation of your own soul above the security of the realm.’
‘You are courting damnation, brother. Hell awaits you. You know the truth and yet will not acknowledge it.’
‘Oh, I will make my peace with God and the Church at some point; before it is too late, I hope. In the meantime, I want to live in peace with my fellow man. And that . . .Yes, what is it?’
Sir John Grenville had appeared behind his chair. ‘Your Majesty, the Duke of Ormonde is without. He craves an audience. Will you receive him?’
‘Ormonde – this is indeed an honour. He’s not been seen in White Hall for months. Show him in, Grenville, show him in.’
*
‘What did the bastard say?’ said Jack. ‘You’ve gone as white as a lily.’ He stood beside the double virginal and looked into his friend’s face. Holcroft told him what Buckingham had said. ‘I have to lose, Jack, I have to.’
Jack thought for a moment. ‘Don’t do anything foolish, Hol. Just play as normal. I must get a message to someone and a reply. Promise me you won’t do anything rash.’
Holcroft watched Jack walk briskly out of the room. He saw that Littleton and Buckingham had resumed their seats and the duke was leering at him in a most unpleasant manner. Nevertheless, he went over to the table and joined them. A few moments later, Jack slid into his seat. Holcroft looked at his friend, eyebrows raised in a question. Jack just shrugged.
As Littleton dealt the cards, Holcroft looked around the music room. He had not noticed how crowded it had become since they had started their game. Word of the hundred-pound-a-point match had evidently spread fast. He wondered what he ought to do about Buckingham’s threat. It seemed very likely that Ormonde, or his son Ossory, would kill his father if they knew that he was the man who had attacked the duke. He remembered Ossory’s promise of murder at the playhouse last winter when he threatened Buckingham in the presence of the King. His father would have to go into hiding once more. And he was no longer a young man: those two weeks in the Tower under sentence of death had put a strain on his body and mind. Holcroft did not think he would survive another year on the run and, anyway, Ossory or his paid killers would find him eventually. More to the point, for Blood, returning to the life of a hunted man just hours after his moment of triumph would destroy his spirit. Buckingham’s threat was real: he knew he must contrive to lose this game or his father would die.
Holcroft slowly fanned out his cards: an ace, a king, another ace, a queen, a knave, another king, and damn it, yet another ace – losing this hand was going to be as difficult a task as he had ever attempted.
With Jack frowning at him and making little grimacing expressions with his mouth, Holcroft contrived to win only eight tricks and two points from a hand that should have allowed him with ease to take every trick on the table: a grand slam. Buckingham understood early what cards Holcroft had and what he was about and gave him a pleased little nod that made Holcroft feel sick.
When Jack began to deal out the cards for the next game Holcroft’s sense of shame was so great that he could not even look at him. Yet he knew he was right. Jack and he would lose a few hundred pounds – but they would find the money somehow, even if he had to play cards every day for a year, they would find the money. His father’s life must be preserved.
*
The Duke of Ormonde hobbled into the royal withdrawing room and, after making his stiff bow to the King and the Duke of York, gratefully took his seat. After a round of tedious pleasantries and good wishes from all sides, Ormonde came swiftly to the point.
‘I come on behalf of my son, Lord Ossory, to beg a command for him in Your Majesty’s navy. He anticipates a largely naval war with the Dutch and is determined to be at the forefront of the action. You know the fellow well, sire, I am sure, and have no doubt rightly marked him as a hothead and a God-damned fool. But he does have higher qualities: he does not want for conduct under fire, indeed, he is as brave as a lion. Your Majesty will recall that he distinguished himself by his courage at the sea battle of Lowestoft against the Dutch in the fifth year of your reign, the year of the plague, and he longs to repeat that glorious experience. The war, I mean, not the plague. In short, Your Majesty, I am come to beg a ship of war for my son.’
‘What do you think, James?’
The Lord High Admiral scratched his chin. ‘Does your son know much about commanding a ship in battle?’
‘He is a gentleman, Your Grace, he was born to command. As for the mechanical aspects of the ship, surely there are sailormen, tarpaulins, I believe they are called, who can undertake the menial business of raising the sails, hauling on the ropes and so forth. My son’s task will be to lead them to victory from the quarter-deck.’
‘Quite so,’ said James with a smile. ‘Well, the Victory lacks a suitably noble captain. It is being refitted at Chatham but if His Majesty agrees I could certainly assign the Earl of Ossory command of that vessel when it is finally seaworthy. What say you, sire?’
The three men were interrupted in their deliberations by the arrival of Barbara Villiers. She swept into the withdrawing room, completely unannounced, and glided over to the King. She curtseyed prettily to the three men and said: ‘I beg you will forgive my gross intrusion, gentlemen, but I urgently need to speak to the King and I am afraid the matter cannot wait.’
As the dukes of York and Ormonde got reluctantly to their feet and made insincere noises of forgiveness, Barbara whispered into Charles’s ear.
‘What?’ said Charles. ‘Now?’ And then a few moments later. ‘Did he indeed?’ And then, ‘Oh well, I suppose so – if I must.’
When Barbara had left, the King said to Ormonde. ‘It is fortunate that you are here today, Your Grace, for it seems that I must speak to you about an entirely different matter.’
*
Holcroft had no difficulty at all in losing the second hand of the third game. Littleton had all the cards and Buckingham was able to support him strongly. As the cards were being collected, he calculated the points. Buckingham had won five points in the hand just played. Holcroft had two from the previous hand, and three from the game before. If Buckingham won four more points in the next hand, he would have the game, and the match. That would put Buckingham four points ahead of them – doubled for winning the match – so eight hundred pounds. They would owe the duke the colossal sum of eight hundred pounds! But that must be set against his father’s life. He looked up from his deliberations to see a red-coated private soldier whispering in Jack’s ear. Churchill nodded and said: ‘If you don’t mind, gentlemen, before we play the next hand I need to visit the jakes.’ He rose from his chair. He stared hard at Holcroft, waggling his eyebrows up and down. He looks perfectly ridiculous, Holcroft thought. And frowned at his friend.
‘Do yo
u need to use the house of ease, at all, Holcroft?’ said Jack. His eyebrows were jerking up and down like the arms of a marionette.
‘No, thank you.’
‘I believe your friend wants to speak privily with you . . . in the privy,’ Buckingham told him. ‘Why don’t you run along like a pair of gossiping washerwomen and we continent gentlemen will wait patiently for you here.’
While Jack and Holcroft relieved themselves in the wooden trough in the building behind the Foot Guards’ House, Jack said: ‘I have fixed our problem, Hol. Do not be concerned for your father. You must play to win, play with all your heart and mind. Win.’
‘What have you done?’
‘No time to tell you now. You must trust me – play to win. Give this game all that you have and more.’
Holcroft sat back down at the table. Just as Buckingham lifted the cards to deal, he said: ‘One moment, Your Grace. When we began this match you raised the stake from ten to a hundred pounds a point. You said you wanted to play for something substantial. I agree. I suggest we raise the stakes to something appropriate to this great contest: a thousand pounds a point.’
There was a loud collective gasp from the crowd – now as thick as the throng at a fair-day cock-fight.
Buckingham narrowed his eyes at Holcroft. What does the little sneak have in mind, something that came of that gossip in the jakes, no doubt. But, no, they cannot not know what cards they will have. He looked down once at the undealt pack of cards in his hand and remembered that he was five points ahead in this game. Just four more and he would take the match. A thousand a point. That would break this silly little boy and no mistake.
Holcroft glanced at Jack and saw that his friend was appalled. His face was bone white, beads of sweat popping in his hairline.
‘How do I know that you are good for the money if you lose?’ said Buckingham. ‘You may have to pay several thousands to me within the hour – and you are both with hardly a penny to your names.’