About the Book
Spring, 1661
After years of civil war followed by Oliver Cromwell’s joyless rule as Lord Protector, England awaits the coronation of King Charles II. The mood in London is one of relief and hope for a better future.
But when two respectable gentlemen are found in a foul lane with their throats cut, it becomes apparent that England’s enemies are using the newly re-established post office for their own ends. There are traitors at work and plans to overthrow the king. Another war is possible.
Thomas Hill, in London visiting friends, is approached by the king’s security advisor and asked to take charge of deciphering coded letters intercepted by the post office. As the body count rises and the killer starts preying on women, the action draws closer to Thomas – and his loved ones. He finds himself dragged into the hunt for the traitors and the murderer, but will he find them before it’s too late?
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Map
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Acknowledgements
Select Bibliography
About the Author
Also by Andrew Swanston
Copyright
The King’s Return
Andrew Swanston
For Isaac and Amelie
CHAPTER 1
April 1661
FOR AN HOUR the Dutchman had been standing silent and unmoving in the doorway of a derelict house halfway down the lane. He was hooded and wore black leather gloves, a black coat and soft leather boots. Neither the waiting nor the chill of the night bothered him – he was used to such things – and he would stay there until midnight if he had to. Nor was he concerned at using this lane again. It had served well enough the first time, it was dark and quiet and he had taken up his position early to make sure that there was no one about and to accustom his eyes to the dark.
He had collected his instructions from the usual place behind a loose brick on the side of an inn in Bishopsgate that he checked at a different time every day. This was his second task since arriving from Holland at the end of March. He hoped there would be more.
The bells of a church somewhere in the city signalled ten o’clock. The mark was due. The Dutchman removed a long-bladed knife from inside his coat and carefully tested the edge with his thumb. Not that there was any need – he had whetted the blade himself and knew that it would cut almost anything short of steel – it was just a habit acquired over ten years of perfecting his craft. Ten years in which he had never failed to carry out a commission successfully.
From his left the Dutchman heard footsteps on the cobbles – not the brisk steps of a man returning home or a constable, more the shambling gait of a drinker trying to find his way without falling over, or an elderly man uncertain of his balance. His information was that the mark was elderly. A small man, he had been told, slightly stooped and poor of eyesight. Not a man likely to give him any trouble. He touched his damaged face and smiled. He liked easy money as much as he liked killing Englishmen.
The Dutchman lowered his head, backed into the doorway a little more and waited for the footsteps to pass him. When they did, he looked up from under his hood. A stooped man was shuffling down the other side of the lane towards the river. He knew that his mark would wait at the end of the lane for the man he expected to meet to emerge from the Honest Wherryman tavern. The mark would be watching the tavern door and would not see his attacker approaching from the shadows on the other side of the lane. He had no idea how an elderly man had been persuaded to come to such a place at night, nor did he care.
He slipped out of the doorway and down the lane, keeping ten yards or so behind the mark. He watched the man reach the tavern and stand outside it. For a moment he looked as if he was about to go inside, but then he moved on. The Dutchman closed the gap between them, glanced about to be sure there was no one else in the lane, and when he was no more than five yards away, darted forward, grabbed the old man’s hair, pulled his head back to expose his throat and with one swift stroke opened his windpipe. A fountain of blood spurted from the wound. It was done so cleanly and so fast that the victim uttered not a sound. The Dutchman lowered the body on to the cobbles, then wiped his blade on the man’s coat and patted his pockets. He extracted the dead man’s purse and pocket watch and turned back up the lane. To the coroner the murder would look like the work of a robber.
The mark was dead and there was nothing to connect the Dutchman or his paymaster to his murder. Within thirty minutes he was back in the house in Wapping that had been provided for him.
CHAPTER 2
THE CARRIAGE IN which Thomas Hill sat – as a gentleman should, with his back to the coachman – rattled over the Southwark cobbles towards London Bridge. After three uncomfortable days Thomas’s backside was sore and his temper short. Holding a lavender-scented handkerchief to his sensitive nose, he leaned out of the window and shouted at the coachman to stop. Among the beggars, urchins and street vendors, he had spotted a mercury selling news sheets. Thomas summoned the boy and handed over three pence.
The front page of the news sheet was devoted, unsurprisingly, to the coronation and the magnificent procession which would precede it. On the eve of his coronation, King Charles II would proceed with his knights and bishops from the Tower to Whitehall, under arches erected especially for the occasion, and past a naval display at the Royal Exchange, a Temple of Concord in Cheapside and a Garden of Plenty in Fleet Street. The king was a man who, like his devout Catholic mother, Queen Henrietta Maria, understood the importance of ceremony, the more extravagant the better. That tiny, formidable lady had led an army of three thousand men to Oxford and had dressed and lived as a soldier, yet could spend thousands on entertainments for the king. For her son, the streets had been cleaned and gravelled and rails erected to keep the crowd a suitable distance from the royal party. Thousands were expected to line the route.
As for the coronation itself, the writer described in fulsome detail what the new king would be wearing, who, with his brother James, would accompany him, and what the ceremony, designed by the Garter King of Arms himself, would entail. And he reminded his readers that, had he not died of smallpox six months earlier, the king’s brother Henry would also have been at his side.
As Thomas read on, he learned who had made the royal shoes, the royal wig and each item of His Majesty’s magnificent coronation robes. The people of London were about to witness the grandest ceremony the city had ever seen, as befitted a monarch restored to his rightful throne after twelve years of dreary Puritanism, and the great day, the day for which all of England had been waiting, would end with a wondrous display of fireworks. Thomas disliked fireworks and hoped that he would not be expected to attend. The coronation itself would be quite sufficient.
When he turned the page, Thomas’s eye was immediately caught by the headline of the next story.
ANOTHER MURDER IN PUDDING LANE
Sir Montford Babb found dead
Coroner believes robbery again the motive
Thomas caught his breath. There used to be Babbs in Hampshire and he remembered Sir Montford as a rather vague, kindly man, not a man you would expect to find with his throat cut in a filthy London alley. And he was surprised to find the murder of a single unknown man reported in the news sheet, especially when those who had sat in judgement on the king’s father or taken any part in his trial were being arrested and executed every week. Perhaps the writer thought it best to spare his readers’ sensibilities. Hanging, drawing and quartering – a traitor’s death – was a gruesome, sickening affair. Thomas read on.
Sir Montford’s body had been found in Pudding Lane two nights earlier, near the Honest Wherryman alehouse. He had been attacked from behind and his throat cut. As his pockets were empty, the coroner, Master Seymour Manners, had concluded that the motive was robbery. It was not known why Sir Montford had been alone in a dark street best known for its low taverns and bakers’ shops, but there were no witnesses and no other clues. This was the second such murder in the space of three weeks, the previous victim having been a Mr Matthew Smith, also robbed and found with his throat cut in Pudding Lane. The coroner had expressed the view that both victims died at the same hand.
Like Mr Smith, Sir Montford Babb was a respectable gentleman, well known in the coffee houses of the city. He had no known enemies and his distraught widow had been unable to shed any light on the matter. With the murderer still at large, gentlemen were advised to take great care on the streets at night.
Thomas put aside the news sheet and closed his eyes. He pictured a whiskery old face, a soft smile and a Hampshire voice. Montford Babb had been a harmless old gentleman. May his murderer be brought quickly to justice. And may Thomas Hill’s visit to London be a brief one. Already he missed his books, his friends and the Hampshire countryside. Even for a coronation, London was no place for a man who valued his peace.
At the southern end of the bridge the coach pulled up. Thomas alighted, and his bags were handed down. He paid the coachman, tried not to look at the heads impaled on spikes over the gate and, followed by two boys carrying the bags, set off on foot across the bridge. He did not care to take a river wherry up to Westminster Steps, nor was it worth attempting the bridge in a coach – both sides of it were lined by tall buildings which met in the middle and formed a narrow tunnel through which all traffic had to pass. It would be quicker and easier to make the crossing on foot.
As he walked, Thomas thought of the extraordinary man whom he had come to see crowned king and who had ridden across this same bridge almost twelve months earlier. The future Charles II had stood, aged twelve, beside his father when the royal standard was raised at Nottingham, had fled the country in the summer of 1647, had returned to Scotland and marched south, only for his army to be routed at Worcester, had famously escaped again after spending a day hiding in an oak tree on the Boscobel estate, and had returned eight years later to reclaim his throne. And, astonishingly, he had done so without a shot being fired or a drop of blood being spilt in his name. Charles had agreed to an Act of Oblivion, and spoken of peace and reconciliation, of forgiveness and goodwill, and waited for the way to be cleared for his return. No fighting, no army, no invasion.
Mind you, the blood was flowing now. If his own father had been unjustly executed, Thomas wondered, would he have taken his revenge by promising his enemies clemency, only to hunt them down and execute them with single-minded ferocity? Would that not make martyrs of the executed and increase the risk of a backlash? Or would it terrify the malcontents into submission? Old comrades were now sitting in judgement on each other, condemning each other to death and hoping the king would not turn his wrath on them. The country’s politics were every bit as complex as one of the mathematical problems with which Thomas liked to wrestle, and a good deal more dangerous.
A hundred thousand people, it was said, had lined the route from Dover to Canterbury and thence to London. A hundred thousand men and women, many of whom had supported, even fought for the cause of Parliament, but now wanted nothing more than the return of their monarch. The Black Boy, some people called him, for his dark complexion. A clever boy, too, to have survived eight years of exile and to have returned in triumph.
At the north end of the bridge, Thomas agreed a fare for the journey to Piccadilly and climbed into a hackney coach while the jarvey loaded his bags. The coach lurched forward and they were off, along the north bank of the river, up to Ludgate Hill, along Fleet Street and the Strand to Charing Cross, the very place where a number of the king’s enemies had died under the executioner’s axe, their entrails extracted and burned before their eyes, their heads sliced off and their bodies quartered and displayed around London. The stench had been so bad that the local people asked for the executions to be moved to their traditional place at Tyburn.
The further west they travelled, the wider and cleaner the streets and the grander the buildings. Both sides of Piccadilly were lined with elegant, brick-built town houses – a different world to the narrow, dark alleyways no more than a mile to the east, where thieves and whores plied their trade and rotting beasts and dung heaps assailed the senses. Mounds of filth and reeking drains were not fit for prosperous merchants and landowners. Their money bought space and comfort.
Outside one of the finest houses on the south side of Piccadilly, they pulled up and the jarvey jumped down to open the door. Thomas stepped out. It was a lovely April day, the chestnuts in St James’s Fields were coming into leaf and there was neither a severed head nor a dangling corpse in sight. His spirits restored, Thomas breathed deeply and knocked on the imposing door. It was opened immediately by a liveried servant.
‘Thomas Hill, sometime bookseller, indentured servant and cryptographer, and devoted admirer of Mrs Carrington.’ He announced himself with a broad grin.
The servant returned the grin. ‘Good morning, sir. I am John Smythe, Mr and Mrs Carrington’s steward. They are expecting you in the sitting room. This way, if you please.’
Thomas was shown into a large, sunlit room where a tall man, his thick black hair lightly streaked with grey and his waist only a little thicker than Thomas remembered, stood beside his elegant wife, their backs to the window. Before Thomas could say a word, Mary Carrington rushed forward and engulfed him in an embrace. When she eventually released him and stepped back, he could see that she was every bit as beautiful as he remembered. Her green eyes shone and her skin, unblemished by the Caribbean sun, glowed. In a flowing emerald gown with white lace at the neck and cuffs and with her black hair tied back with a matching ribbon, Mary was still ravishing.
‘Thomas Hill,’ she said, hands on his shoulders, ‘what a delight. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you for months. A little greyer at the temples, perhaps, but just as handsome and not a pound heavier. Are you as well and prosperous as you look?’
‘Apart from occasional gout, both, happily. As are you, I hope,’ replied Thomas, delighted that Mary had taken such trouble with her appearance, although she was a woman who would look beautiful in an old sack.
‘I too have been looking forward to seeing you, Thomas,’ interrupted Charles Carrington, hand outstretched, ‘and if my wife would be good enough to release you, I would like to make my own inspection.’ Charles looked Thomas up and down. ‘Well, my friend, you seem to have cleaned up rather well. Very well, in fact. Bright of eye and clear of skin. Come and sit and tell us how you’ve managed it. Alas, plantain juice is not to be found in London. Would you care for a glass of Madeira instead?’ While in Barbados, Thomas had become fond of the juice of the plantain mixed with a little sugar, which had sustained him through many a long day of torment. Now he much preferred Madeira.
Having filled three glasses from the bottle on a side table, Charles proposed a toast. ‘To Thomas Hill, without whom I might still be a miserable bachelor.’
‘To you both, without whom I might still be mi
serably indentured to the brothers Gibbes,’ replied Thomas, raising his glass. For nearly three years the barbaric Samuel and John Gibbes had been his masters in Barbados.
Despite the warmth of the day a fire had been lit in the grate. For a minute the three friends sat unspeaking around it. Mary broke the silence. ‘Well now, this is a fine thing. We haven’t seen you for nine years and none of us can think of a thing to say. You first, Thomas. Tell us everything you didn’t put in your letters. Everything, mind. Warts and all, as the late Lord Protector would have said.’
‘Did say, by all accounts,’ replied Thomas, ‘and I really haven’t much to tell you. As you know, my sister Margaret died of a fever at Christmas two years ago. It was a sad time and I miss her terribly. My nieces are well. Polly has just turned twenty-two, she’s married – happily, I think – and, as I mentioned in my letter, Lucy is two years younger, and here in London at the behest of the Duchess of York. She is a guest of Lady Richmond in Whitehall.’
‘Indeed you did mention it. What an honour for her. She must be an exceptional seamstress to have been appointed to make the Duchess’s coronation gown.’
‘I believe she is. And an embroiderer, too. We are very proud of her. I just hope London does not turn her head. She is a lovely child, but unworldly and easily led.’
‘I am sure you will keep an eye on her while you are here,’ said Mary. ‘And what about you, Thomas?’
‘I live a quiet and virtuous life in Romsey with my books and my writing. I seldom venture far from my own bed and it was only your invitation that persuaded me to travel to London.’
‘Are you still living in the house you built by the school?’
‘I am, and happily the school thrives. It has thirty pupils and two teachers. I read my books, enjoy my cellar and bore my friends with earnest talk of philosophy and mathematics.’
The King's Return: (Thomas Hill 3) (Thomas Hill Novels) Page 1