The King's Evil

by Andrew Taylor

  Lady Quincy bade me ring for the maid. She ordered Stephen to be made ready and brought down to the hall. While we waited, she handed me four documents: the paper that had come with the boy, which confirmed her ownership of him; a letter signed by her transferring him to me; his certificate of scrofula from Mr Knight; and the ticket of admission to a public ceremony that the surgeon had written at the end of the last visit.

  ‘So that is that, sir,’ she said coldly, taking up her sewing again. ‘I daresay we shan’t meet again.’

  ‘I think we shall, madam. The King has commanded me to escort you and Mistress Frances to the private ceremony, whenever that will be. And Stephen.’

  ‘Stephen? Stephen? What nonsense is this?’

  ‘The King has agreed to touch him as well, on the same occasion.’

  She sucked in her breath but did not dare object. We exchanged cold farewells and I went down to the hall. Stephen was waiting with his few belongings wrapped in a cloth bundle.

  We walked up to Moorgate, where I found a hackney to take us to the Savoy. I asked him two or three questions, but all he would say was yes or no. We spent most of the journey in silence.

  When we reached Infirmary Close, Sam let us into the house. He whistled at the sight of Stephen. ‘An African, eh? We had one of those on my last ship. Nimble as a cat, I give him that, and he could sing a psalm as well as any Christian. Can you sing a psalm, boy?’

  Stephen stared at him.

  Sam clouted him gently. ‘I asked master for a boy to be my legs for me. I suppose you’ll do well enough when you find your tongue.’

  I took Stephen down to the kitchen. Margaret looked askance at him. ‘Are we having him in the house?’

  ‘He’s staying,’ I said. ‘He can be a kitchen boy. Whatever’s needed.’

  ‘A pagan? Is he safe?’

  ‘Give him work to do. He can chop the kindling and carry in the coal. Sweep the floor. Run errands and turn the spit.’

  Stephen was looking around, his eyes wide.

  ‘First of all, though,’ I said, ‘give him something to eat.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  LATE IN THE afternoon, Hakesby and Cat were alone in the Drawing Office. Brennan was away in the City, overseeing the digging of the new cellars at Dragon Yard.

  Cat was measuring the height of an arch when there was a knock at the door. James Marwood came in with a long bundle under his arm. She threw him an irritated glance, for he had thrown out her calculations. She hadn’t seen him since he had given her Cousin Edward’s satchel last week and almost immediately rushed away to Whitehall.

  Once he had greeted Mr Hakesby, he came over to her. He laid the bundle on the table and unrolled it. The covering was an old cloak. Inside was a sword.

  ‘What’s this?’ she said, putting down her pencil. ‘Can’t you put that thing somewhere else?’

  ‘Mr Milcote gave it to me for you,’ he said. ‘A sort of wedding present. It used to be your cousin’s. It’s an old sword, but it was made by Clemens Horn, it seems, which makes it desirable.’

  ‘It is,’ Hakesby said, raising his head at the name. ‘And valuable too.’

  ‘I don’t find it desirable at all,’ Cat said. ‘My cousin was proud of it.’

  ‘Then sell it,’ Marwood said.

  Hakesby struggled to his feet. He shuffled towards his closet, unbuttoning his coat.

  Cat touched the sheath. ‘It’s still damp from the well. It’s almost wet.’

  ‘Milcote said it needs a new one. The leather’s decayed.’

  She shivered. ‘I don’t want it anywhere about me. Will you take it away and dispose of it for me, sir?’

  ‘If you wish.’

  ‘You’ve been kind,’ she said, her voice curt as if reprimanding him. She was suddenly aware of how much she took Marwood for granted, and how much he had done for her. ‘I’m grateful.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he muttered.

  Hakesby closed the door of the closet behind him. Cat heard the scrape of the bolt. Her future husband did not like to be disturbed when he was trying to persuade his bowels to move.

  She drew nearer to Marwood. ‘Did you actually see him? How was he?’

  ‘Milcote? As well as might be expected. They keep him away from the others, which is a blessing. He’s waiting to hear when he will die.’

  ‘He’s a good man in his way,’ she said. ‘A decent man, too, and a brave one. He served his master well, and the King. He needn’t have confessed to the murders, either.’

  ‘He’s also a sodomite,’ Marwood pointed out in a flat, hard voice.

  His tone enraged her. ‘My cousin Edward was a rapist. A bully. A blackmailer. A thief. He would have killed me if he could. Do you honestly believe that Milcote is worse than he was?’

  ‘Perhaps not. But you can’t deny what Milcote did was against God and nature and the laws of man.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Sodomy’s a sin. A crime. Everyone knows that.’

  ‘Why – if it harms neither party and both want it?’

  ‘Are you saying the Bible is wrong?’ Marwood hesitated. ‘And the laws of England, too?’

  ‘Perhaps I am. Would that be so very strange?’ She sensed that he was less sure of his ground. ‘Besides, it’s not the Bible that’s wrong necessarily, it’s the men who interpret it and use it to justify bad laws.’

  ‘Milcote killed your cousin and Gorse. Doesn’t he deserve to hang for that alone?’

  ‘That’s beside the point,’ she snapped.

  ‘You’re mad.’ Marwood turned aside to roll up the sword in the cloak.

  ‘You’re like them all, aren’t you?’ she said. Somehow they were no longer talking about Mr Milcote. ‘I thought you were different, but you’re not. You intrigue and plot with the best of them. It’s all Mr Williamson, and Mr Chiffinch, and how they both need your services, and what each of them can do for you in return. It’s my lord this and the duke of that and whispering secrets in people’s ears. It’s what the King said to you when you saw him last. It’s your house in the Savoy and your servants and your cursed new periwig. I can’t even trust your kindness to me. I wager it has some purpose behind it.’

  She paused for breath. The intensity of her anger had taken her by surprise.

  ‘Why are you marrying Hakesby?’ he said.

  ‘What’s that to you? I conduct my life as I please. I’ve decided to marry him, and I shall. And I do it for the two best reasons in the world: I esteem him greatly, and it’s a prudent step for both of us.’

  ‘Prudent?’ Marwood had paled, which threw into relief the scars on the left side of his face.

  ‘Yes. And speaking of prudence, have you seen my aunt lately?’

  ‘Yes.’ He took a step back as if she had threatened to hit him. ‘But that has—’

  ‘You should stay away from her.’ She wanted to hurt Marwood. She also wanted to help him. ‘Don’t you understand? That whey-faced bitch poisons everything she touches, sooner or later. She’ll poison you if she hasn’t already.’

  He winced. ‘Thank you. But you needn’t concern yourself. Pray make my farewells to Mr Hakesby.’

  He picked up the bundle and bowed. At the door, he paused and looked back. ‘You said the sheath was still damp from the well. But how did you know he was wearing that sword when he died, not one of his others? How did you know the sheath had been in the well in the first place? How …’

  His voice faded. Noises drifted up from the street. From Hakesby’s closet came a low moan that might have been caused by pain or pleasure.

  Cat’s anger deflated. She said: ‘I thought … I thought – I assumed – that Edward must have been wearing it when …’

  For a long moment she and Marwood stared at each other. Marwood turned away without a word and raised the latch. After he had gone, Cat went into the closet where she slept. Words were dangerous. So were memories. She lay on her bed and stared at the wall. Her eyes filled with tears. S
he willed her mind to become as near as possible to a perfect blank.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  GEORGE MILCOTE WAS hanged on 7 October, along with eight other condemned felons. It was a Monday, which was the usual day of the week for hangings. The administration of justice cost money. All things being equal, the authorities preferred to make economies of scale, so it was sensible to hang as many felons as possible on the same occasion. Moreover, each public hanging attracted substantial and often rowdy crowds, which clogged the streets of London even more than usual and which in turn had its effect on trade.

  In the middle of the morning, the prisoners, all men, were taken to Tyburn in a cart. Their shackles had already been struck off at the prison, where the hangman would have shaken the hand of each man. This was not entirely a courtesy: it enabled him to estimate the heights of the men and the individual lengths of rope he would need for them.

  I saw the cart from afar, for I kept my distance. Some of the prisoners were in their Sunday best; some were attended by their families and friends. But Milcote had no one beside him, and he still wore the filthy clothes I had seen last week. He had lost his hat and wig. He stood apart from the others, clutching the rail. But he was straight-backed and calm-faced. He was going to his death like a soldier.

  The procession wound its way slowly over Snow Hill and across Holborn Bridge. At St Giles-in-the-Fields, the cart stopped, and each of the prisoners was given a quart of ale to ease their journey to oblivion. Milcote poured his ale on the ground, and the crowd booed.

  At Tyburn, the Triple Tree was waiting, the three posts supporting a horizontal wooden triangle from which more than a dozen felons could be conveniently hanged at any one time. I went ahead of the procession and pushed my way through the foot of the gallows, where the hangman was checking his ropes and bantering with the women among the spectators. He broke off when I gave him a sight of my warrant with the King’s signature.

  I drew him aside. ‘You hang a man named Milcote today, I believe?’

  ‘Aye.’ He spat on the ground. ‘A sodomite and a murderer.’

  ‘How much would it cost to make it short?’

  He looked me up and down. ‘People won’t like me doing that. Especially for someone like him.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Ten shillings, sir, and I’ll tug his legs and break his neck. Once he’s danced on the rope for a minute or two.’

  I tapped the warrant. ‘Do it as soon as he’s up there and you shall have a pound in gold. Ten shillings now, and ten shillings afterwards.’

  Once we had struck our bargain, I withdrew into the crowd as the cart approached the gallows. The men were hanged from the cart in groups of three. Some of them exercised their right to address the crowd; others prayed to their Maker. But Milcote said nothing. He stared up at the sky, standing as if on parade. I could not but admire his courage.

  After their speeches, the condemned men were blindfolded. The horse was led forward, drawing the cart under the scaffold. The hangman placed the halters around their necks. Then the horse pulled the cart from under the gallows and the men were left dangling and kicking and pissing themselves in the air.

  Milcote was in the second batch. He raised his head while he was waiting for the blindfold. It seemed to me that his eyes roved over the crowd, looking for a friendly face. While he was looking in my direction, I raised my arm, and he nodded: perhaps he saw me standing there and knew he was not quite alone; I hope so. He had done Cat a kindness that perhaps she did not entirely deserve. But I honoured him for it.

  When the three men had been blindfolded, the hangman gave a signal, and his man led the horse and cart away from the gallows. There was a sudden silence, as if the entire world were holding its breath. Then three more men were dancing on air.

  The hangman stepped forward and wrapped his huge hands around Milcote’s ankles. He pulled sharply. It was over.

  After I had paid the hangman’s fee, I walked slowly to Henrietta Street to tell Cat what had happened and what I had done. God knows what I hoped for in return. Not praise, certainly, not from her. But perhaps her acknowledgement that I had valued Milcote’s good qualities, as she had, though not for the same reasons.

  As I walked, I turned over in my mind the other matter that lay there, which had festered like an untended sore for the last three days. The sheath of the Clemens Horn sword had been damp. Cat had known that it had been in the well. But only Milcote, Gorse and I had been aware of that. I had not told her, and she could not have learned it from Milcote or Gorse.

  Gorse, who claimed he had found Alderley’s body there on the Monday morning, could not have seen the corpse unless he had lowered a lantern down the shaft. Milcote had told me that Alderley had commanded him to lure Cat to the pavilion on the Saturday evening. He had also told me that he had not done as Alderley had ordered, that instead he had thrown Alderley into the well to end the blackmail once and for all.

  Then how could Cat have known that the sheath had been in the well? How could she have known even that Alderley was wearing the Clemens Horn that evening, rather than one of his other swords?

  Unless … Suppose, I thought, Milcote had lied to me?

  Suppose Cat had gone to the pavilion on Saturday afternoon after she had met me at the lace shop in New Exchange? ‘I have a meeting with one of our clients in less than an hour,’ she had said to me as she rushed off. ‘I must go.’ Had the client been Milcote? Had she gone to the pavilion, believing she would find Milcote there, and found Alderley waiting for her instead?

  ‘One day,’ she had said a few minutes earlier, ‘I shall kill my cousin.’

  How else to explain that discrepancy about the sheath of the Clemens Horn? In theory, it should have been an unequal struggle – a grown man with a sword facing an unarmed young woman taken by surprise. But the woman had been Cat, and I had just put her on her guard against her cousin, so perhaps the odds had not been as weighted against her as they seemed. Then, that very evening, long before the news of Alderley’s death was known, she had fled from London, despite telling me earlier at the New Exchange that she would not run away from her cousin. But running away from a possible murder charge was another matter.

  Suppose Milcote had returned to the pavilion to find Cat gone and Alderley drowned in the well? Even if he had wanted, he could hardly have accused her of the murder without revealing his own part in arranging the affair. Everything followed quite naturally from that, including this last act: his decision to take the blame for Alderley’s death on his own shoulders when he no longer had anything to lose. He had been thrust into the part of a villain by Alderley’s blackmail. The role had not come naturally to him and this, perhaps, had been his attempt to make reparation to Cat.

  Should I say something of this to her, if only to make her aware of Milcote’s last kindness to her? Or should I hold my peace?

  In Henrietta Street, I knocked at the door at the sign of the Rose. The porter recognized me, and was instantly affable. Mindful of Cat’s good name, I asked if Mr Hakesby was within.

  ‘You’ve missed him, master,’ he said. ‘Indeed, you’ve missed them all.’ There was an unusual excitement to the man’s manner, and I wondered if he were drunk. ‘The Drawing Office is empty.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Up at the church.’ He pointed across the road at St Paul’s. ‘Mr Hakesby’s marrying his cousin today. Mr Brennan’s one of the witnesses, him and Dr Wren.’

  ‘But they haven’t called the bans yet,’ I said. ‘I thought the wedding was at the end of the month.’

  ‘Bishop’s licence.’ The porter gave me a leer, one man to another. ‘Mr Hakesby couldn’t wait.’

  Cat lay on her back, dressed in her shift and nightcap. The bed curtains were open. A dozen or more candles burned around the room; a reckless extravagance.

  ‘I want to see my bride on her wedding night,’ Hakesby had said at supper, nuzzling closer to her and slurring his words a little, though whe
ther from wine or his illness she could not tell. ‘Have I not earned this?’

  Until then, she had assumed that their marriage would be essentially a business arrangement for their mutual benefit, and that the usual conjugal duties of the bed would have no place in it. Hakesby had implied as much when he had made his offer to marry her the previous May. He was old and infirm, and there had been no hint of love-making from him then or later – until now.

  For the moment, God be thanked, she was alone. She listened to the sounds of the night. Henrietta Street was rarely silent. Its proximity to Covent Garden saw to that. In the colonnades around the piazza, and in the neighbouring streets, you could find a whore or a beggar or a man to dice with at almost any hour.

  It was before midnight, and the shouts and singing drifted up from the street, mingling with the clatter of hooves and the grating of wheels on the roadway. Cat wished she were on the floor above, in her little closet off the main Drawing Office in the attic. It was quieter there, nearer the sky, and she would have been alone. Instead she was in her new bedchamber. Hakesby had leased the entire floor, which meant that her new home consisted of a parlour or withdrawing room and four closets, as well as the room in which she lay. At least he did not expect her to maintain a kitchen – their food would be prepared below or ordered from a cookshop or tavern.

  ‘It’s all most convenient,’ Hakesby had said when he had shown her the apartments. ‘It will suit me very well to be so near to the Drawing Office, and you will be glad to be mistress of your own establishment at last.’

  Cat had said nothing. She had made a bargain with Hakesby and the terms he had given her were more than generous. After the events of the last three weeks, she knew that she should be grateful that she was not dead or imprisoned. Instead, here she was – the mistress of her own establishment. During the day she would be able to do work that interested her. She had the legal protection of a man’s name. Her husband had given her a place in the world. What was there to dislike?