The Black Madonna (Roundheads & Cavaliers Book 1)
Page 44
There was rapid firing ahead. The Cavaliers, feverishly trying to fill in a traverse ditch so their Horse might pass, were being methodically picked off from roofs and windows. Finding suitable cover and coolly instructing Selim to re-load for him, Luciano selected a target, took aim and fired. A man dropped from a roof-top. His next shot took out a musketeer from an upstairs window and his third, a red-faced fellow perched uncomfortably on a gable-end. It also brought a near-lethal retort whizzing past Luciano’s ear.
Selim, who preferred to trust his knife, swore.
An hour passed, then two, both redolent with noise and confusion. The next stage of the advance took Colonel Belasyse to the Frome Gate and some of the day’s worst carnage, while Colonel Wentworth – with Luciano and Selim grimly following – fought his way towards College Green and the Cathedral. Ahead of them, an inner fort known as the Essex-work was taken when its defenders mistook a party of Royalists fleeing from a cavalry charge for a concerted attack and decided to run for it. Luciano knew how they felt. The cavalry officer who emerged from somewhere or other plainly didn’t. Using the flat of his sword and cursing like all creation, he was trying, without much success, to make the men stand. Luciano thought he looked vaguely familiar and eventually placed him as the same Captain Ambrose charged with securing him after Powick Bridge. He didn’t look so chilly now; just totally bloody furious.
Leaving the captain to his impossible task, Luciano and Selim continued advancing grimly behind Wentworth’s men. They came under increasingly heavy fire from the Brandon Fort but there was no turning back. And in the mêlée that followed, Luciano ceased to think of it – or, in fact, of anything at all.
They took the cathedral and pressed on towards the quay. Any experienced soldier would have called the resistance weak but Luciano didn’t know that. He merely obeyed the impulse to survive and, drawing his sword, used it.
Wentworth sent to the Prince for permission to fire the ships on the quay and was refused it. His Highness, it seemed, was intent on the minimum of destruction. But petards had been sent for to blow the gates of the Brandon Fort, Prince Maurice’s Cornishmen were preparing to reinforce them and it was said that Colonel Belasyse had taken the Frome Gate. In short, the day was almost theirs.
More than almost. High in the castle, Nathanial Fiennes was facing both the folly of trying to hold a not entirely sympathetic city once its defences were breached and the fact that his losses were already heavy. It was time to save what he could. His mouth full of bitter aloes, he ordered a drummer out to ask Rupert for a ceasefire and parley.
It was over. Bristol had fallen.
Luciano sat on the quayside, his hands loose and not quite steady between his knees. The silence, now that the guns had stopped, seemed less peaceful than uncanny – or as if one had suddenly gone deaf.
Selim watched him for a moment and then, holding out the shining ribbon of his sword, said, ‘Take it. It is clean now.’
Luciano looked at the blade. As Selim said, it was clean. He himself wasn’t. Gripping the nausea hard inside him, he held out his bloodied hands to receive it.
* * *
Everyone said the terms of surrender contained no surprises. Colonel Fiennes lost his artillery, ammunition and colours and all the usual clauses were inserted for the protection of the city’s inhabitants. Nothing out of the ordinary … and nothing to account for the colonel choosing to march his men out a good two hours before the appointed time on Thursday morning – and before the Royalist officers were present to restrain their men from jeering and plunder.
‘Where were you at Runaway Hill – and where are you now, oh Lord?’ came the impiously mocking cry as fights erupted over sundry articles.
‘Stragglers and sharks,’ remarked de Gomme, emerging at Luciano’s elbow. ‘And perhaps some of our boys that were ill-used at Reading.’
Luciano said nothing but merely waited in silence until Rupert and Maurice arrived to restore order so that the exodus could proceed with some semblance of dignity. Then, leaving the Cavaliers to enjoy their conquest, he slipped discreetly into the heart of the city.
* * *
Wealthy, respected and secure, Alderman Ahiram Webb was by no means sorry to see Colonel Fiennes kicked out of Bristol. Not that his sympathies lay with the King – for Ahiram was a Puritan of sorts. It was good for business and made it unnecessary for his wife and daughters to squander a fortune on furbelows. He’d decided that there was a lot to be said for Puritanism – provided one didn’t carry it too far. And therefore he would have felt more comfortable actively supporting the Parliament, had it not been for the indisputable fact that the Parliament’s occupation of Bristol hadn’t done much for trade.
In addition to owning the largest soap-works in the city, Ahiram also had two fine new merchant-ships in the Kingsroad harbour. He was grateful to the Robber Prince for not burning them. He’d be even more grateful if the King – who, lacking London, needed the good city of Bristol very much indeed – were to show his appreciation with a little commercial encouragement. Such as a monopoly on the manufacture of soap, for example. And so, with this winsome possibility in mind, it wasn’t hard to put a smile on his face and join the Common Council in welcoming the victors to the city. Indeed, the only thing he wouldn’t do was have soldiers billeted in his house. After all, he had two young daughters to think of – and his sons had yet to learn the art of flexible Puritanism.
July became August while Rupert and Lord Hertford squabbled over the governorship of Bristol. Then, amidst bells, bonfires and banquets, King Charles arrived for a state visit. And though he didn’t fulfil Ahiram’s dreams on the subject of soap, he did something almost as good. He issued a charter making Bristol the staple port for the Levant, Eastland and Russia Companies in place of London. Ahiram was ecstatic. He pored over charts and ledgers and went about his daily business, both public and private, with increased confidence and vigour. He did not notice the discreet, hawk-nosed individual who shadowed his every step. There was, of course, no reason why he should.
He first encountered the man del Santi at a meeting with certain other merchants who, like himself, were eager to link their fortunes to the great companies. Ahiram began by wondering who had invited him and then ceased to care. The Italian, like a gift from God, was precisely the expert they needed. Clearly and concisely, he expounded on cargoes, routes and charter arrangements … then he recommended an approach to the Levant Company for the sake of its lower risk-potential and the substantial profits to be made in silk, spices and cedar-wood.
Before leaving the gathering for a very different sort of appointment near the docks, Ahiram invited the signor to sup with him the following evening and was pleased when the fellow accepted. It would do no harm to steal a march on the others, after all – and who knew what might not come of it?
What came of it was that the Italian spent the evening charming Ahiram’s wife and daughters, listening attentively to his sons’ maunderings on the intricacies of soap-making and admiring the size and style of their home. On the matter of trading in the Levant, however, he proved maddeningly elusive. And when, at the end of the evening, Ahiram tried to force the issue, the signor said blandly, ‘Forgive me – but I never mix business with pleasure or embark on a new venture without first getting to know my potential partner. I’m sure you understand.’ He paused, the dark gaze pleasant but inscrutable. ‘But perhaps you’d care to dine with me at my inn one evening next week. Shall we say Thursday?’
* * *
‘Well?’ demanded Luciano crisply when, much later that night, Selim returned from a certain house on the quayside. ‘Is it a brothel?’
Selim spat hard and accurately into the empty hearth.
‘Yes. And more.’
‘What then? Opium?’
‘Opium – bhang – hashish. And children.’ There was a long, significant silence as their eyes met and locked. Then, ‘The soap-maker,’ finished Selim with contempt, ‘likes young boys.’
‘Nine – ten years, perhaps. Everyone in the house knows him. Always, without fail, he goes there on Thursday nights and takes a private upstairs room where a boy and the poppy are awaiting him. Then he leaves, as I have told you, so that he may get home before it is light.’
Luciano loosed a long, noiseless breath.
‘That’s that, then. You’ve done well.’
‘Is he the one?’ asked Selim hopefully.
‘I doubt it. A man stupid enough to dull his wits with opium isn’t likely to be bright enough to evolve the kind of tortuous plot that killed my father. Moreover, though in certain circles whoring is considered socially acceptable, pederasty is not. So it rather looks as if, like someone before us, we’ve uncovered friend Webb’s dirty little secret.’
‘Oh.’ Selim was disappointed. ‘But you will still punish him?’
‘What do you think?’ A bitter smile twisted Luciano’s mouth. ‘Why else am I here?’
* * *
While for two men in Bristol the week dragged by on leaden feet, the King proclaimed his devotion to the Protestant religion and offered a free pardon to all those misled by his enemies. His reward was that Poole, Portland, Dorchester and Weymouth all surrendered to his forces and Royalist risings in Kent gained possession of Sevenoaks, Tonbridge - and the energetic person of Sir Harry Vane.
Mr Pym, meanwhile, put a purchase tax on goods which he felt didn’t constitute any of life’s necessities. Since the list included wine, beer and sugar, few people applauded his choice. And then, bowing to the demands of Lord Manchester – and his lordship’s importunate but increasingly successful colleague, Oliver Cromwell – he set about raising the seven thousand Horse that would replace those lost by Essex, Waller and Fairfax.
With the King’s army successful just about everywhere and his own popularity registering at several points below zero, Pym’s main concern was to stop the squabbling at Westminster and lure Essex away from the Peace Party. Over the torment in his stomach and beginning to suspect how gravely ill he really was, Pym cast about for some means of stabilising his rocking ship – and found it in the extremists’ dire mismanagement of the new taxes. Within no time at all, Waller was on the wane, Essex back in favour and the peace proposals narrowly defeated. While in the City, ministers delivered pro-war sermons and crowds converged on Westminster shouting ‘No peace!’ Pym reflected on the fragility of public opinion and was glad that he had other, more substantial irons in the fire.
In Bristol, Luciano del Santi read Mercurius Aulicus’s angrily satiric account of Royalist prisoners being held in ships on the Thames prior to being sold as slaves in the Indies and of the savage dispersal of a group of poor women pleading for justice outside Westminster. Never having had a very high opinion of English justice, it did not surprise him – but neither did it touch him. He had, after all, other fish to fry.
* * *
On Thursday evening Alderman Webb presented himself punctually at the Italian’s door and was cordially received. The table, already set for dinner, bristled with the inn’s best glassware and pewter and, after a welcoming glass of particularly fine claret, Ahiram found himself sitting down to a dinner of sea-trout with walnuts, beef and oyster patties and a tenderly roasted goose. Restraining himself admirably through the first course, he waited until the second appeared before launching into the business which had brought him there; and then was both surprised and gratified by the direct and staggeringly practical answers he received.
His own plans meticulously laid, Luciano ate little, drank less and was quite content to tell Mr Webb everything he wanted to know whilst keeping his glass filled. On this occasion, the key lay in perfect timing … and his initial goal was to get the fellow relaxed but not jug-bitten. Then he could begin.
Time passed. Servants cleared the board of all save some fruit and a squat, green bottle of brandy and Ahiram, lighting a long, clay pipe, embarked confidentially on an equally long tale of certain shady but highly profitable business deals. Luciano listened with apparent interest whilst watching the other man out of hooded eyes. And finally, when the saga drew to a close he said mildly, ‘We all do what we must. The art of success is in relegating sentiment to its proper place and seizing life’s opportunities with both hands. I, for example, could put you in contact with a family of Genoese bankers and merchants whose influence and goodwill could be invaluable to your new ventures … but I doubt you would consent to ally yourself with them.’ He paused briefly. ‘Their name, you see, is Falcieri.’
‘Falcieri?’ repeated the alderman vaguely. And then, sitting up, ‘Falcieri?’
‘Quite. They had, I believe, a kinsman who went to the scaffold here in England on a charge of treason.’
‘Did – did they?’
Luciano sighed.
‘Let us not play games, Mr Webb. You, of all men know that they did – for you had a hand in the matter yourself, did you not?’ A faint smile curled his mouth but left his eyes untouched. ‘I’m afraid I took advantage of my position within the Court to gain a brief glimpse of the trial record.’
‘I … see.’ Ahiram looked half blank, half wary. ‘So you know all about it, then.’
‘More or less.’ Luciano absorbed the fact that Webb seemed unaware that the trial record had lain for years in the fat hands of Samuel Fisher and said coolly, ‘I haven’t mentioned it to the Falcieri – mainly because they care little for the events of so many years ago and also because it is my impression that Signor Alessandro was a fool, a scapegoat or just plain unlucky. No doubt you – if you felt so inclined – could tell me which.’
Ahiram thought about it.
‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why do you want to know?’
Luciano spread expressive hands.
‘My inquisitive nature. The Falcieri are both wealthy and powerful – which naturally makes me wonder how Vittorio’s brother came to end on the gallows. Then again, I also wonder how you - a respectable man of some standing – could have become involved in such an affair. And how much more you might be able to tell me of it.’
‘It was all a very long time ago,’ temporised Ahiram. Now that the first shock of hearing that name again had begun to wear off, he found himself feeling pleasantly mellow once more. There was no danger here that he could see. The Italian was just indulging in a little scandal-mongering, that was all … coupled probably with a perfectly natural wish to pick up a potentially useful hold on this Genoese banker he’d spoken of. You couldn’t blame him for that. Such scraps of knowledge often came in very handy.
Reaching absently for the bottle, Ahiram refilled his glass. There didn’t seem any harm in telling del Santi what he wanted to know – or some of it, in any case. After all, who was likely to be interested in a fifteen-year old trial these days? On the other hand, it would be stupid to break a fifteen-year-old silence unless there was some advantage in it.
Meeting the enigmatic eyes across the table, he said slowly, ‘This banker-cum-merchant you mentioned … Falcieri’s brother: How wide are his interests?’
‘Wide enough. In two generations the family’s come from the backstreets to owning half of Genoa. Their banking house has offices in Florence and Venice; they have a merchant fleet of some half-dozen ships trading throughout the Levant; and they make jewellery and gold plate for most of the noble houses of Europe – not excluding the Medici and the Vatican.’ Luciano smiled meditatively into his untouched glass. ‘It’s just a pity that the circumstances are so unfortunate – for my own liaison with the Falcieri has been immensely rewarding. However. Naturally, one has a care for one’s country. And you can’t possibly wish to associate with the family of a known traitor – so matter how influential they may be.’ He looked up and met the alderman’s eye blandly. ‘As I said. A pity.’
It was, as he had known perfectly well, too big a carrot for a man like Webb to resist. Smiling still, he waited.
‘All right.’ A current of strange excitement ran throug
h Ahiram’s veins and he was almost glad he’d been offered the right inducement – for the temptation to tell had been nibbling at him for the last ten minutes. ‘All right. But it’s to go no further, you understand? If you repeat it outside this room, I’ll simply deny the whole thing and it will be your word against mine.’
Luciano’s brows rose.
‘Of course.’
‘Very well.’ Ahiram drew a long breath and prepared, all unknowingly, to plunge into the pit of his own undoing. ‘Alessandro Falcieri was no more a traitor than I am. He’d just made one enemy too many – and the wrong one at that. Someone wanted him out of the way without taking the risk of murdering him – so they got the law to do it for them on a false charge.’ He leaned back and folded triumphant arms. ‘What do you think of that?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Luciano, gratifyingly amazed. ‘I’m tempted to ask if you’re sure … but since you gave evidence at the trial, one presumes that you must be.’
‘Aye - and it’s true enough. As far as the evidence goes, I – well, I was told what to say. And if I was, it stands to reason that the others probably were too. Not that I asked, you’ll understand. Some things are better left alone.’
‘Oh – quite. So … you were told what to say. By whom?’
‘I don’t know and never did.’
‘Come now, Mr Webb – you surely don’t expect me to believe that?’ Luciano laughed softly. ‘You must have known – or how could you have become involved?’
‘I had a letter. An anonymous letter.’
‘And blithely perjured yourself on the strength of it? It doesn’t sound very likely, does it? Unless … unless, of course, you were also very substantially paid. Or being blackmailed.’
Ahiram gave a convulsive twitch and reached for his glass.
‘Let’s just say I had my reasons,’ he replied sharply. ‘But what I’m telling you is that somebody – perhaps one of the other three – wanted Falcieri dead and had the means to make the rest of us cooperate.’ He took another drink. ‘The fellow was nothing to me, after all. Just some scurvy money-lender. And you do what you have to, don’t you? Said so yourself.’