‘Piffle,’ said Holles. ‘Go and find someone else to bleat your stupid accusations at. I am busy.’
Willys’s sword started to come out of its scabbard and his companions prepared themselves for a skirmish, but Holles was too experienced a campaigner to be provoked into a fight where he would be so heavily outnumbered. He sneered his disdain at Willys and strode away, leaving the man spluttering in frustrated indignation.
‘Willys is Bristol’s aide,’ said Holles to Chaloner when they were out of earshot. ‘Loyal to his master, but deeply stupid. He has been trying to goad me to do battle with him for days now – he probably thinks it will please Bristol to see Clarendon with one fewer supporter.’
‘He is right. Clarendon will be less safe without you watching out for him.’
Holles cleared his throat. ‘I am sorry I could not protect you from that Brandenburg ape on Saturday. He flew at you like a madman, and you were down before I could draw my pistol. I had no idea such a lumbering brute could move so fast.’
‘Neither had I,’ said Chaloner with a sigh.
Chaloner took a circuitous route to the Lord Chancellor’s chambers, hoping to see Scot on the way, but he was out of luck. He met Brodrick, though, who told him ‘Peter Terrell’ had been invited to speak to the Royal Society on his botanical theories, and that the lecture and meal that followed were likely to take most of the day. He smiled ruefully at the spy.
‘I am afraid Greeting played well last night, especially the Locke, and the Queen professed herself enchanted. She has asked us to perform for the Portuguese ambassador tomorrow, and Greeting has agreed to join us. It is unfortunate, because I prefer your company to his – all he wants is a chance to hobnob with high-ranking courtiers – but it cannot be helped.’
‘It is only temporary,’ said Chaloner, dismayed. ‘The splint will be off on Saturday.’
‘Perhaps so, but Lisle told me these dressings often cause permanent damage. However, you may be lucky. When you are well again, I shall talk to some friends and see if they have any vacancies. Musical consorts are all the rage these days, so it should not be too difficult to find you something … suited to your reduced abilities.’
Chaloner watched him walk away, shocked. He flexed his fingers. Surely, Lisle was wrong? He could not imagine life without his viol – and a trumpet would not be the same at all. Feeling somewhat low in spirits, he accessed Clarendon’s suite via a servant’s corridor, and tapped softly on a door that was concealed behind a statue. The Lord Chancellor opened it cautiously, and Chaloner saw it had been fitted with bolts and a bar since his last visit.
‘I came to tell you what I have learned about the man May shot, sir,’ he said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into his voice. The truth was that any investigation paled into insignificance when compared to what the loss of music would mean for his quality of life.
‘What man?’ The Earl seemed agitated, and Chaloner supposed he was not the only one who had been unsettled by bad news that day. ‘Do you mean that beggar? Forget him, and concentrate on Bristol. He is plotting something serious – I can sense it.’
Chaloner recalled what Temperance and Maude had told him. ‘Yes – there is a plan afoot to bring your “moral rectitude” into question. Have you met a woman called Rosa Lodge? She is an actress.’
‘Certainly not! Such persons are invariably ladies of ill repute, and I am a happily married man. I leave that sort of thing to Bristol. And, unfortunately, to the King.’
‘Have you found any petticoats among your belongings? Ones that do not belong to your wife?’
The Earl’s voice dropped to a prudish whisper. ‘There was some feminine apparel – an item of an intimate nature – under my pillow last night. I assumed Holles had put it there, to cheer me after an unhappy session with the King. However, I do not approve of lewdness, so I threw it on the fire.’
‘Temple hired this Rosa Lodge to accuse you of immoral acts. If any ladies request private interviews, you should refuse them.’
‘That will not be a problem. I have turned away three today already – I sent them to Colonel Holles. He has a kind heart, and will help them if he can.’
Chaloner was sure he would. ‘Some of these actresses are very good, though. And Temple seems very determined.’
‘So am I, Heyden – good and determined.’
Dusk had fallen by the time Chaloner had finished talking to the Earl, so he joined Holles in escorting him home to Worcester House. Because Clarendon disliked his crumbling Tudor lodgings, he had purchased land on the north side of Piccadilly with a view to building himself something rather better. Chaloner had seen the projected designs, and was astounded by the display of lavish opulence. It would be the finest edifice in the city, far grander than anything owned by the King, and was certain to cause jealousy and resentment. Tentatively, he had advised scaling down the plans, but the Earl had tartly informed him that he did not know what he was talking about.
As he and Holles left Worcester House, Chaloner happened to glance over at the candlelit windows of Webb Hall next door, and saw the unmistakably hulking profile of Johan Behn framed in an upper chamber. He frowned, trying to think of a good reason why the merchant should visit Silence after dark. Did he intend to take up where her husband had left off, and buy a ship to ferry sugar from the plantations? Chaloner wondered whether Eaffrey knew what her lover was doing.
Holles announced a desire to visit Temperance, so Chaloner went with him, curious to know why her establishment was so popular with powerful nobles. It did not take him long to appreciate the difference between a ‘gentleman’s club’ and a bawdy house. Professional musicians played the latest compositions in an ante-chamber – he was startled to see Greeting sawing away – and skilled cooks had been hired to provide guests with good food and fine wines. The girls were pretty and in possession of all their teeth, and Preacher Hill stood outside to prevent undesirables from entering. He would have repelled Chaloner, too, but Temperance intervened.
‘Thomas will always be welcome,’ she said, laying a hand on Hill’s arm. The preacher–doorman smiled, although the grin turned to a glower as soon as her back was turned.
‘Just behave,’ he snarled, as Chaloner passed. ‘If there is any trouble from you, I will … ’
‘Will what?’ asked Chaloner mildly.
Hill bristled. ‘Just behave,’ he repeated, before turning to vet the next customers.
While Holles made a nuisance of himself with a sadly misnamed lady called Modesty, Chaloner listened to the quartet, thinking with satisfaction that Greeting’s bowing was well below par. He stared at his bandaged arm, and hoped with all his heart that Lisle would be able to help him on Saturday. Before he became too consumed with self-pity, he went to sit near Maude, who was holding forth about the latest play at the King’s House in Drury Lane, and then listened to a portly gentleman describing plans for a new pheasant garden in Hyde Park. It was well past midnight before he left, slipping away quietly when Holles went moustache-down on the table and began to snore.
He lay on his bed in Fetter Lane, watching the stars through the window and thinking about his viol as he listened to the periodic cries of the bellmen. At five o’clock, he rose and spent an hour practising his bowing, muting the strings with his immobile left hand, so the noise would not disturb his landlord. Then he washed, dressed and set off for White Hall to spy on Bristol. He wore his best clothes and a wig of real hair, so he would be able to mingle with the upper echelons of British high society and not look out of place.
The King liked to ride in St James’s Park of a morning, and most high-ranking, early-rising members of the Court went with him. They took their retainers, and the palace’s many hangers-on went, too, so the monarch’s peaceful gallop was often carried out in the presence of hundreds of people. Unfortunately for Chaloner, it meant most courtiers were either riding with His Majesty or still in bed, and he could hardly eavesdrop in an empty palace.
Annoyed with him
self for forgetting that there was little point in visiting White Hall before ten o’clock, he turned his attention to the other leads that needed to be explored. First, he wanted to visit St Martin’s Church, to ask whether the vergers really had collected a body – Fitz-Simons’s – from May. Secondly, he had to talk to Scot. And thirdly, he needed to go to St Paul’s Cathedral and ascertain why Webb was not in his vault, but in the Anatomical Theatre at Chyrurgeons’ Hall. He recalled Wiseman saying the faces of the dead were kept covered during the operation, and hoped it was true. He could not imagine Temple being very pleased to discover a fellow member of the Guinea Company was being chopped into pieces before his eyes.
St Martin-in-the-Fields was a sturdy building with a strong tower and lofty sixteenth-century windows, although it had been a long time since it had stood in any meadows. He found a verger, who informed him that he and a colleague had indeed been summoned to White Hall to collect a corpse, but when they had arrived, the body was nowhere to be found.
‘Someone stole it, probably as a practical joke,’ opined the verger. ‘And we had a wasted journey. May refused to recompense us for our time, though. Bastard!’
Chaloner took his leave, full of thoughts. Had Fitz-Simons staged a permanent disappearance by only pretending to die at May’s hands? Had he killed a vagrant to take his place in the charnel house? If so, then Johnson was complicit in the plan, because he held the keys to the shed where the impostor’s body was being stored. Did that mean Johnson would deny access to any surgeon who wished to pay his last respects and view the corpse? Or was the entire Company aware of what was happening, but was rallying to defend one of its own? The city companies were fiercely loyal to their members, and might well try to help Fitz-Simons out of trouble.
Scot was still not in his room at the Chequer, so Chaloner went to St Paul’s. It was a long walk from St Martin’s Lane to London’s mighty cathedral, and he was tired from his late night, so he took a carriage. The driver, keen to deposit him and collect another fare as soon as possible, flew along Fleet Street at a pace that was dangerous. Chaloner gripped the window frame as he was hurled from side to side, certain all four wheels were never on the ground at the same time. All the while, the hackney-man cursed and swore – at his pony, at other coachmen, at people on foot, at men on horses, at stray dogs and at the world in general. Everyone was a fool, he informed Chaloner cheerfully at the end of the journey, and he himself was the only man fit to take a cart along a road.
St Paul’s was in a sorry state. A hundred years earlier, lightning had deprived it of its steeple, and the architect Inigo Jones had been invited to remodel its exterior. He had obliged with a façade that looked nothing like the rest of the church, and a classical portico that stood out like a sore thumb. During the Commonwealth, the chancel had been used by a huge congregation of Independents, who could not have cared less about the welfare of the building and only wanted a place large enough to rant in; the nave had been designated as a barracks for cavalry. Soldiers and iconoclasts had smashed its statues, melted down its plate, and punched out its medieval stained glass. Then they had turned their attention to the lead on the roof and in the windows, so that holes now allowed birds, bats and rain inside. Pigeons nested in the ceiling, adding their own mess to the ordure on the once-fine flagstones, and sparrows twittered shrilly above.
When the King had returned from exile, he had been shocked by the sorry state of his capital’s cathedral, and invited the nation’s most innovative architects to submit plans for its rebuilding. The leading contender was Christopher Wren, who had in mind a central dome with chunky square aisles. The King was keen to see the work begin as soon as possible, and tiles, marble and wood had already been purchased. However, while His Majesty might have been satisfied with Wren’s design, it was not received with equal enthusiasm by the Church, and the project was bogged down in an endless cycle of arguments and opposition. While they wrangled, the old building slid ever deeper into decay.
Chaloner prowled the nave, hunting for a verger who might be willing to let him see the register of burials, to ascertain whether Webb had made it as far as his pre-paid vault. He was in luck. The first man he asked was named John Allen, once a gardener at Lincoln’s Inn. A bad back had forced him to retire, and Thurloe had helped him to secure work at the cathedral. Allen was more than happy to help one of Thurloe’s friends; he fetched the register from an office, and scanned the list of entries.
‘Webb,’ he said, jabbing with his finger. There were several names beneath Webb’s, suggesting that funerals in St Paul’s were distressingly frequent. ‘He was supposed to go in the chancel crypt, but that is full at the moment. His wife – a fat, fierce woman – said she paid for an inside spot, and insisted we keep our end of the bargain, so we put him in with Bishop Stratford, whose top is loose.’
‘I am not sure what you mean,’ said Chaloner uneasily. ‘Whose top?’
‘The lid of Stratford’s sarcophagus.’ Allen led the way to one of the transepts. Against the wall was a medieval tomb, all stone pillars and canopies. Prayerful angels had once watched over the dead prelate, although the Puritans had ensured that they now did so without their heads. Allen grabbed the lid of the tomb with both hands, to show how easily it could be moved.
‘Webb is in there?’
‘Well, we had to dispense with his coffin.’ Allen lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘You are a man of the world – you know that a good, second-hand casket fetches a decent price, if you have the right contacts. For a shilling, I will show you his corpse.’
Chaloner handed over the coin, expecting to have it back when it was revealed that Webb’s final resting place was not where everyone assumed. To prove he was getting his money’s worth, Allen made a great show of puffing and groaning as he hefted the slab to one side, eventually revealing that Webb was not the only one to enjoy the bishop’s company. It was crowded in the sarcophagus, and Chaloner backed away with his sleeve over his mouth.
‘That is Cromwell’s hat-maker,’ said Allen helpfully, pointing to the oldest resident. The prelate’s mortal remains were, presumably, the dust at the very bottom. ‘He has been here for about five years. Then there were two sisters – they came about eighteen months ago, although they are reaching the point where we can squash them down to make room for someone else. The fellow on top is Webb.’
‘This is what burial in St Paul’s entails?’ asked Chaloner, appalled. ‘After a few weeks, the remains are shoved to one side so the next corpse can be rammed in?’
‘We leave it a bit longer than that,’ said Allen indignantly. ‘And space is tight in here, although we have lots of room in the graveyard.’
‘That is not Webb,’ said Chaloner, pointing to the most recent addition.
Allen regarded him askance. ‘It most certainly is! I put him in here myself.’
‘Webb was a wealthy merchant – well fed and healthy enough to walk from African House to The Strand – but this fellow is severely emaciated. Also, Webb was stabbed, but this man died because his skull has been smashed. It cannot be the same person. Did Silence see the body removed from the coffin?’
‘Of course not! We do not let the next-of-kin see that sort of thing. What kind of men do you think we are? We open the caskets and perform the interment after everyone has gone home. But if you are right, then where is Webb? And more to the point, who do we have here?’
‘I have no idea, but I recommend you close the tomb and do not open it for anyone else. There is something very odd going on, and you would be wise to have nothing to do with it.’
Allen regarded him soberly. ‘If it is that odd, then it will be dangerous, too. So, I give you the same advice – have nothing to do with it.’
Chaloner was beginning to wish he could.
The monarch and his Court were still exercising in St James’s Park by the time Chaloner returned to White Hall, so he walked to the trees that stood along the wall separating the Privy Garden from King Street beyond
, and found a venerable yew with thick, leafy branches. He insinuated himself inside its thick canopy, well hidden from anyone who might glance in his direction, and prepared to wait. He was not particularly interested in watching Lady Castlemaine’s possessions being carted this way and that, but there was nothing else to do, and a certain degree of entertainment was to be had from the confusion. She was becoming exasperated, and swore in a way that Chaloner had not heard outside the army – and even then she could have taught his rough old comrades a few choice expressions.
After a while Bristol appeared, wearing a long gown and a soft linen hat that suggested he had only just prised himself from his bed. He stretched, yawned and began to stroll around the garden, but the best place to be was near the trees, where he was safely distant from clumsy servants with heavy pieces of furniture. The spot also put him well away from Lady Castlemaine’s sharp tongue, and allowed him to ignore any appeals for help.
He lit a pipe, and the scent of tobacco wafted upwards, almost masking the odour of onions. He was not left alone for long, because Adrian May approached with a letter in his hand. That morning, the spy’s bald pate was covered with a dashing red hat that sported the largest feather Chaloner had ever seen – he could not imagine what sort of bird might once have owned it, and only knew he would not like to meet one. With May was the obsequious Temple, exposing his toothless gums in a grin of greeting. Temple wore a gold-brown periwig with curls that flowed so far down his back they covered his rump. Chaloner suspected it had been designed for someone considerably taller.
‘Good morning, My Lord,’ gushed Temple. ‘I bring interesting news from Lincoln’s Inn.’
‘Is it about the garden?’ asked Bristol. ‘I already know that twisted old lawyer – Prynne – intends to take a rather pleasant wilderness and spoil it with some nasty design of his own.’
‘Oh,’ said Temple, crestfallen. He thrust his fingers under his wig and scratched. ‘Have you heard about Thurloe, too? How he is so dismayed by the proposed changes that he swallows all manner of tonics to calm himself ?’
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