A Masterpiece of Corruption

by L. C. Tyler

  ‘I think, however, that I may be able to get somebody else to speak for me. Sir Richard Willys has chambers at Gray’s Inn?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But surely you are not seeking his assistance? Thurloe could arrest him any day.’

  ‘As I told you, I think my father knew him. He is clearly out of favour with the Republic, but he will in turn have friends – former Royalists who have now gone over to Cromwell. I think that he may be able to help me if I explain things properly.’

  ‘But why would he? Your father may have known him, but … You will, of course, not reveal to him any part of our conversation?’

  ‘You mean would I threaten to expose him as the head of the Sealed Knot if he doesn’t help me?’

  ‘It would be pointless – I have already revealed all to Thurloe.’

  ‘Sir Richard doesn’t know that, though, does he?’

  ‘You must not let him know that you know he is part of the Sealed Knot.’

  ‘Then, of course, I shall do no such thing.’

  But there is something about the way she says it that I do not entirely trust.

  ‘I’ll speak to Thurloe,’ I say. ‘After Christmas, I shall speak to Thurloe. I’ll tell him it is important that you receive help. There is no need for you to go anywhere near Gray’s Inn.’

  I shall indeed speak to Thurloe at the first opportunity. But by the next time I see him, I hope that some arrests will have been made. The sooner Lambert is arrested the better – and I think I know who may provide the last piece of information that will speed Thurloe on his way. I must speak again to the good Dr Bate. I believe I can find him at the College of Physicians, of which body he is a Fellow. Both Cromwell and Thurloe have said I may confide in him, and so I shall.

  ‘Lambert?’ he says. ‘I would not have believed it possible. He lives in exile in Wimbledon, does he not?’

  Bate’s room is full of many objects that I recognise – the saws and probes and forceps; the tall blue and white jars with labels in abbreviated Latin. There is a glass jar full of leeches, wriggling and squirming. I wonder if they are hungry, but they are fat and black and sleek. I think they have eaten well today.

  ‘Lambert has an accomplice,’ I say. ‘A former soldier, who was under his command and still, it would seem, has his loyalty. This man travels freely. Did you meet Esmond Underhill when you were at Hampton Court? A sneaking little ferret-like fellow. He claimed to work for Mr Thurloe.’

  Bate considers. ‘Yes, I think I did. He engaged me in conversation more than once, enquiring about His Highness’s health.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘Perhaps more than I should, had I known who sent him. He asked me with which drugs I was treating His Highness. As you say, he had a very convincing story that he was employed by the State. Have you told Mr Thurloe of your suspicions about Underhill?’

  ‘Of course.’

  If Dr Bate could be thus cozened, perhaps I should feel less guilty about what I had told Underhill – whatever that was. Still, I shall not criticise Dr Bate for whatever trifles he may have let slip.

  ‘Did Underhill mention General Lambert?’ I ask next.

  ‘At one point I mentioned something and the wretch muttered to himself that he must needs report it to my Lord Lambert.’ Bate pauses and looks at me carefully.

  ‘So, contrary to what Lambert said, they are in touch with each other.’

  ‘There can be little doubt,’ says Bate.

  ‘Thank you. I shall let Mr Thurloe know,’ I say.

  ‘Did you meet with Sir Richard Willys?’ Bate asks. ‘When we last spoke, you seemed to think that he played some role in this.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I found him.’

  Bate looks as if he would like to know more but, even though Cromwell says I may trust his physician, I doubt that I should tell him I now know Willys is the leader of the Sealed Knot.

  ‘Then whatever you have found out, you doubtless also reported that back to Mr Thurloe?’

  ‘Of course,’ I say.

  ‘And to the Lord Protector?’

  ‘Not as yet,’ I say.

  ‘Thurloe does intend to inform His Highness? He has proved slow in the past to act, as I have described to you. It would be unfortunate if he kept this information to himself for too long.’

  ‘I am sure Mr Thurloe knows what he is doing,’ I say.

  The College of Physicians is close to St Paul’s and I do not have far to travel to reach my lodgings. The lanes are, however, not familiar to me and I pause for a moment, trying to decide whether to go right or left.

  ‘Are you lost, Mr Cardinal?’

  I turn to see Brodrick and two other men whom I do not recognise.

  ‘No,’ I say instinctively. These lanes are almost empty and somehow I would feel safer back on the main road.

  ‘I think we should see you back to your lodgings,’ says Brodrick.

  ‘That’s kind,’ I say, ‘but I’m sure I can find my way back.’

  ‘Why don’t we come with you anyway?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you …’

  ‘It won’t be inconvenient. And we can have a little conversation as we go.’

  A large hand pushes me from behind, directing me neither left nor right but into a narrow passageway straight ahead. Any thought that this might be the quickest way home is extinguished quickly when it proves to be a dead-end. And any thought that Brodrick wishes me well is extinguished when I am forced against a sooty wall.

  ‘You’ve lied to us,’ he says, getting straight to his point.

  ‘Of course I haven’t,’ I say, wondering which of my lies he is referring to. Has Underhill already told them I am not John Clifford? So much for Thurloe’s theory that it would be safer for me not to flee to Essex.

  ‘Who sent you?’ asks Brodrick.

  Ah, that lie.

  ‘Hyde,’ I say.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You know that.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘I explained before.’

  ‘You gave us Hyde’s answer to our question about Cromwell’s assassination.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How odd then that we have since received a letter from him. He asks us to desist from any such scheme. There is no mention of you at all. And – before you waste any more of my time – the letter is genuine. The question is: are you genuine, Mr Cardinal? Or have you lied to us since we first met? I don’t like being lied to, Mr Cardinal. Nor do the gentlemen who accompany me. None of us likes being lied to. And if you have lied to me you will regret it very much indeed.’

  As Thurloe said, Brodrick talks when he would be better advised to hold his tongue. When he commenced his sermon against lying, I still had no idea what to say. By the time he had finished I had had all the time I needed to think.

  ‘Hyde’s letter does not contradict what I told you,’ I say. ‘He wants me to arrange the thing – not you or Ripley. I wasn’t even intended to see you. Of course there was a letter to you telling you to desist, or you might have marred my plan.’

  ‘Why did Hyde tell you not to involve us? We are his representatives here. I don’t believe he would cut us out.’

  ‘He doesn’t trust you,’ I say. ‘You know that.’

  Brodrick nods. Tell people what they have already told you and they will believe it.

  ‘So, why doesn’t Hyde trust me?’ he asks.

  ‘Because you’re a whoring papist,’ I say.

  Well, it might have been better if I’d had more time to think of that answer. Still, it suffices. Brodrick nods again. ‘No shortage of those in Brussels,’ he says.

  ‘Does Ripley know you have me pinned against a wall in an alleyway?’ I ask. ‘Or is this your own little plan?’

  ‘Ripley’s not my master,’ he says, but he gestures to his two companions, who back off a pace or two.

  Still, it clearly isn’t just that Hyde doesn’t trust Brodrick. Brodrick doesn’t quite trust Ripley, it would see
m. And I think Ripley does not entirely trust Willys. And I’m sure Hyde doesn’t trust any of them. Long years of Thurloe buying their agents one by one has rightly made the Sealed Knot suspect everybody. It’s what cripples every Royalist plot. Brodrick has decided to try a little bluster on his own account, it would seem. And he hasn’t addressed me as ‘Grey’. Not yet.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I take it I am now allowed to find my own way home?’

  Brodrick shakes his head. My interrogation isn’t over.

  ‘The lady who is staying with you,’ he says, narrowing his eyes. ‘Who is she?’

  But surely the Sealed Knot know who Aminta is? Because that’s why they think I’m a Clifford myself? I realise that there is still much I do not know. The sooner I can finish this conversation, the less chance there is that I will give myself away.

  ‘She is my cousin,’ I say cautiously.

  ‘Has she also come over from Brussels?’

  ‘No, Paris,’ I say. ‘She and her husband and her father live in exile in Paris.’

  ‘What’s she doing in London then?’

  ‘She has business here.’

  ‘Come to compound with Parliament?’ Brodrick pushes his face close to mine. I really ought to be able to identify the vintage that he has been drinking. ‘A pair of turncoats then, your cousin and her husband?’

  ‘No more than the Duke of Buckingham.’

  ‘He’ll live to regret his desertion of the King. Why is your cousin staying at Mistress Reynolds’s?’

  ‘She had been told I would be there.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘My mother,’ I say.

  ‘Your mother has a very loose tongue.’

  ‘That is undeniable.’

  ‘So do you if you have written to your mother to say that you were travelling to London on the King’s business.’

  For a moment I had forgotten that I am not studying law in London, free to write to my mother as I choose. I recall it now. It also occurs to me that my mother may at some stage in the past have corresponded with Brodrick. But I cannot raise that mitigating factor now without revealing that I am John Grey. And I have no idea whether Brodrick trusted my mother any more than he trusts Hyde.

  ‘I didn’t tell her that,’ I say. ‘She simply knows this is where I stay in London. When I’m here.’

  ‘So, she has no idea that you have just travelled over from Brussels?’

  ‘It would surprise her very much indeed to learn that I had.’

  I am losing track of what is true and what is not, but there is no doubting this last statement.

  ‘Then perhaps you should have chosen other lodgings this time. Don’t tell this cousin of yours more than you have to.’

  I nod. Not telling Aminta more than you have to is always a good plan. Not telling Brodrick more than I have to is an even better one.

  ‘So which way do I need to go now?’ I ask.

  ‘Speaking as a whoring papist,’ says Brodrick, ‘I don’t give a fig which way you go. Good day, Mr Cardinal. We’ll meet again soon.’

  I wait until Brodrick and his companions have left. Then I set off by what seems to me to be the best route. I hadn’t noticed before – perhaps there were more pressing matters – but it has certainly started snowing again. If Brodrick plans to follow me, he will have a clear trail of footprints to guide him.

  Saint Nicholas

  The snow continues to fall. Dirty London is again covered with a carpet of white, though grey smoke rises from chimneys and black smuts of soot fall with the snow. It drifts against the walls of houses. Even the great coaches are now impeded by the sheer mass of it, their painted wheels choked and blocked. I, on foot, plod onwards, my shoes and stockings caked with ice. The lane that Mistress Reynolds’s residence occupies is a narrow strait of gently undulating snow between the dark cliffs of the houses. Glistening icicles have sprouted in clusters and now dangle murderously above my head.

  I sense an illicit jollity even before I open the front door. A burst of heat from the fireplace in the hall hits me as I enter. Then I notice the candlelight glinting on the dark, glossy leaves of holly and mistletoe. The scent of spices and wine greets my nose. Coming from the cold air outside, I find this intoxicating. Intoxicating and dangerous.

  ‘You are celebrating Christmas!’ I say.

  ‘Tush,’ says Aminta. ‘Half the households in London will eat goose tomorrow.’

  ‘It is not the goose they eat,’ I say. ‘It is the blasphemy that is mixed into the sauce.’

  ‘Then eat of the goose and leave the blasphemy on the side of your plate,’ says Aminta. ‘In any case, I think that it is our pudding that is truly Arminian. Goose with a plain sauce, as we shall serve, is almost puritanical in comparison.’

  ‘And what harm could there be in a cup of mulled wine on a cold evening?’ asks Mistress Reynolds. ‘That cannot threaten the Republic in any way.’

  ‘Not at all,’ says Aminta. ‘Let us make this Puritan take wine with us, Mistress Reynolds.’

  I accept the cup from her and sip cautiously, not out of religious considerations but because I fear Aminta will have used too much nutmeg and billed it to my account.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Very good,’ I say.

  ‘See?’ says Aminta. ‘It has not turned you into a Royalist. You are merely a slightly less sour Puritan.’

  ‘I am no Puritan,’ I say. ‘Did you visit Gray’s Inn this afternoon?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  This is not good news.

  ‘Did you find Sir Richard?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  ‘Was he helpful?’

  ‘How could he be otherwise?’ she asks. ‘This is, after all, the season of goodwill, is it not?’

  ‘Indeed,’ says Mistress Reynolds. ‘And you should attend church with me tomorrow, Mr Grey.’

  ‘Neither of you should attend church,’ I say very firmly. ‘It would be most inadvisable.’

  ‘Tush,’ Aminta says again.

  Aminta knows I cannot say more in front of Mistress Reynolds. I hope she is merely teasing me.

  ‘I certainly shall not attend,’ I tell them. ‘Nor should you.’

  ‘More spiced wine for the Puritan lawyer,’ says Aminta. ‘I think he still needs a great deal of sweetening.’

  At first I can hear nothing at all. No carts or carriages are abroad. I get up from the pallet on which I now sleep and go to the small, leaded window. I rub my finger on the icy surface until I have a circle that I can see through. The snow in the lane must be a foot deep at least. One set of footprints runs towards the main road, but this is not a day for people to stir. And yet, I fear that somebody may have done so. I knock gently on the door of what was my bedroom but there is no reply. I turn the handle and peep in. The bed is empty and unmade. I look out of the bedroom window and at the footsteps, leading away from this very house. Is it my imagination or do I see the mark of a long skirt that has, here and there, trailed through the snow?

  I pull on my breeches and button my doublet and run down the stairs.

  ‘You are eager to attend church this morning,’ says my landlady, ‘but I fear that I cannot accompany you. The snow is too deep for one of my age and sex to venture out.’

  ‘Aminta …’ I say.

  ‘When I see her, I shall forbid her to go out in the snow too,’ says Mistress Reynolds, thus destroying my hope that Aminta has actually gone on some innocent errand for her or indeed that she is safely in the kitchen, plucking a goose or preparing an Arminian pudding.

  ‘Where is the nearest church?’ I ask. I do not doubt that Aminta is there at this very moment, warning the congregation to disperse before the authorities arrive.

  ‘St Mary’s is our parish church. But …’ My landlady looks at me, and not for the first time, with puzzlement.

  ‘And the service begins …?’

  ‘In half an hour.’

  ‘I must go at once,’ I say.

  ‘But�
�’

  ‘It is essential that I am there.’

  ‘Had I known my wine would have such an effect, I would have given you some on your very first evening,’ says Mistress Reynolds.

  But I am already out of the door.

  St Mary’s is not hard to find. It is a tiny stone building without a spire, wedged between two mean and dirty houses. I burst in through the door. The narrow nave has half a dozen rows of pews, no more. Two candles are burning on the altar. I detect the merest whiff of incense. The handful of worshippers who are already there turn in mild surprise. Aminta is not amongst them. There is nowhere for her to hide. She is not there. Then I remember my landlady saying ‘but’. What was she about to tell me? That she did not attend this small church herself? In which case …

  ‘Is there some larger church near here?’ I ask. I sound unappreciative and ungrateful.

  ‘St Michael’s,’ says a man, frowning. ‘But will you not stay, now you are here? Our welcome is as warm as theirs, and the service is about to begin.’

  In a moment soldiers will burst in here and arrest them all. Yet, if I tell them and Thurloe finds out, I risk my own safety. Only an idiot would warn them.

  ‘There are soldiers on their way,’ I say. ‘However warm your welcome, it would be better if they did not find you here. Now, where is St Michael’s?’

  St Michael’s is very much bigger and the service has already started. I edge in at the rear of the congregation and scan people’s backs to see where Aminta might be. I do not sing, but I do remember some of the Christmas hymns from when I was young. The harmonies are almost as intoxicating as Mistress Reynolds’s wine.

  And all the bells on earth shall ring,

  On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;

  And all the bells on earth shall ring,

  On Christmas Day in the morning.

  How easy would it be to fall into sinful and superstitious ways! Yet I resist and see this spectacle for what it is – a crude puppet show unworthy of the church that houses it.

  And all the Angels in Heaven shall sing,

  On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;

  And all the Angels in Heaven shall sing,

  On Christmas Day in the morning.

  But here too I cannot see Aminta. Then at last it occurs to me. If she had time to warn only one congregation, where would that be? St Paul’s! London’s great cathedral! This is a Christmas goose chase and no mistake. I start to edge towards the outside. I must go at once. But this time I cannot stop another service and announce to the congregation that it should flee. They were foolish enough to come here and must take their own chances. Only those of us wise enough to stay away will avoid their just punishment.