The Butcher Of Smithfield: Chaloner's Third Exploit in Restoration London (Thomas Chaloner Book 3)

by Susanna Gregory

  Chaloner had an uncomfortable feeling that Greeting was right, and that he had been a fool to let the old man deceive him so completely. He turned his attention to the paper, which comprised not a reminder of sires and birthdays, but a fragment of music – a scale with letters written underneath. He gazed at it with sorrow, assuming Maylord had been afraid he would forget those, too. Yet when he looked more closely, he saw the letters did not correspond with the names of the notes – for example, C-sharp had the letter T under it, while E-flat had a W.

  ‘This is not answers for the Bedlam men.’

  Greeting took it from him, regarded it with disinterest, then tossed it on the fire before Chaloner could stop him. ‘Poor Maylord! It looks as though he really was losing his mind.’

  Chaloner left the Rhenish Wine House and went home for dry clothes, selecting some of the better ones from the pile Maude had delivered. The cat was among them, having clawed them into a nest of its own design, and it was not pleased when it was ousted. It had deposited another rat by the hearth, which went to join the growing pile on the mantelpiece. Chaloner put the onion and sage next to them, and was reminded of his landlord’s recipe for rat stew. He sincerely hoped it would not be necessary.

  Wearing an old-fashioned cloak that was far better at repelling rain than any coat, he left for Monkwell Street. The altercation with Leybourn was preying on his mind, and he wanted to apologise to him for accusing Mary of being Newburne’s whore. The streets were awash, and he abandoned any attempt to keep his feet dry; to do otherwise necessitated the kind of acrobatics for which he had no energy. The Fleet bridge at Ludgate was open again, although water lapped perilously close to the top of it, and a layer of odorous sludge along one side showed the level to which it had flooded the previous night.

  He arrived at Monkwell Street, where Leybourn’s brother told him the couple had gone to Smithfield. Chaloner was uneasy. Why would Mary take him there? Was she intending to have him murdered, then lay claim to his house on the grounds that they had been living as man and wife?

  ‘I liked Mary at first, because she made Will happy,’ said Rob Leybourn, as Chaloner prepared to go after them. ‘But she has some very unpalatable friends.’

  ‘Like Jonas Kirby?’

  ‘He is among the better ones. She has invited Ellis Crisp for dinner tomorrow – the Butcher of Smithfield! I would assume she wants our business to fail by forcing Will to associate with villains, but then she only hurts herself. Did you know he lost all his money to burglars last night? Until he makes more there will be no funds for plays and soirées. She must be livid, and I would not want to be in the thief ’s shoes.’

  ‘He is so bedazzled by her that he would probably go into debt rather than disappoint her.’

  Rob sighed. ‘Bewitched, more like. Still, he has not had a woman in years, so I suppose you cannot blame him for grabbing the one who hurls herself at him. I just wish it had not been her. Are you going to find him? Keep him busy, if you can – I plan to move his most valuable books to my house this afternoon. There are fewer than there should be, and I think she has been selling them off. I want the rest where she cannot get at them.’

  When Chaloner reached Duck Lane, he saw a great gathering of people. To his consternation, their attention seemed to be focussed on Hodgkinson’s print-shop. Crisp’s henchmen were out in force, jostling people for amusement. No one had the courage to tell them to behave themselves.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked a disreputable-looking man with a patch over one eye.

  ‘A death in the costermongery. Or maybe the print-shop. I cannot tell from here.’

  ‘Someone else has died of cucumbers?’ asked Chaloner uneasily.

  But the man shrugged as he slunk away, grumbling that there was nothing to be seen and that he was wasting his time.

  Chaloner looked for someone else to question, and saw a number of familiar faces among the crowd. L’Estrange was grinning contentedly, and Chaloner supposed his good humour derived from the fact that he had enjoyed his morning with Dorcus. Joanna and Brome were with him, both looking thoroughly wet and miserable. Not far away, Leybourn was talking to the influential booksellers, Nott and Allestry. Mary kept tugging his arm to make him leave, but he had the animated expression on his face that said he was discussing mathematics, and all the tugging in the world would not budge him. Not far away, Muddiman was conversing with a pair of drovers, and Chaloner eased closer in an attempt to eavesdrop. What he learned made him smile, because it answered at least one mystery.

  The rain came down harder still, driving some of the onlookers away. L’Estrange was among them. Chaloner watched him shoulder his way through the gathering, not caring who he shoved, and anyone who objected could expect to be called ‘damned phanatique’. Unfortunately, Leybourn was in one of his feisty moods, and took exception to the remark. Chaloner hurried forward when L’Estrange’s sword came out of its scabbard. Leybourn struggled to draw his own but, not for the first time, disuse and poor maintenance caused it to stick. Then it came free in a rush, almost depriving Nott of his peculiar hair-bun.

  ‘Come on, then,’ the surveyor yelled, holding the weapon like an axe. Immediately, people began to form a circle around the combatants. ‘Fight an honest bookseller, and let us see who God favours.’

  There was a cheer from the onlookers, but L’Estrange responded by performing several fancy swishes that showed his superior training, and the applause faltered. Leybourn was about to be skewered. Chaloner looked around for Mary, expecting her to urge him to walk away from a confrontation he could not win, but she remained suspiciously silent.

  ‘I shall defend myself in the event of an attack,’ announced L’Estrange loftily, eyeing Leybourn with disdain when he attempted to duplicate the display and ended up dropping his blade. ‘But I decline to debase myself by fooling about with amateurs. Is that your wife, Leybourn? She is a pretty lady.’

  Leybourn was confused by the compliment. He bent to retrieve his weapon. ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘Well, if she is made a widow out of this, you can trust me to comfort her in her sorrows,’ said L’Estrange, winking at her. Mary smiled coquettishly.

  ‘Tell him where to go, Mary,’ ordered Leybourn icily. There was a pause. ‘Mary?’

  ‘Put your blade in his gizzard, Leybourn,’ suggested Nott, jumping back when the surveyor made another of his undisciplined swings. ‘God knows, he deserves it.’

  ‘No,’ said Chaloner, stepping forward to grab the surveyor’s shoulder. ‘Duelling is illegal.’

  ‘Heyden is right,’ said Brome, elbowing his way through the throng to join them. Joanna was at his heels, eyes wide with alarm. ‘L’Estrange is an excellent swordsman, and you will certainly lose this encounter. Walk away while you are still in one piece.’

  ‘You were insulted,’ whispered Mary in Leybourn’s other ear. ‘Will you meekly accept it?’

  Chaloner waited for Leybourn to realise she was encouraging him to enjoin a brawl that would see him killed, but he seemed to have lost his senses as well as his heart. He shoved the spy behind him and held his rapier in a grip that would see him disarmed in the first riposte. Brome’s expression was one of horror, but Joanna darted past him and punched L’Estrange in the chest.

  ‘Leave him alone, you horrible man!’ she cried. The editor regarded her in astonishment, which turned to rage when people began to laugh. Joanna’s bravado began to dissolve. ‘I am not saying you are horrible all the time, but you are horrible when you challenge weaker men … I mean, you are …’

  Abruptly, she turned and fled, scuttling behind her husband. Several onlookers snickered, but Chaloner thought she had at least tried to conquer her fear and make a stand to help a friend, and he respected her for it.

  ‘You are a phanatique, Leybourn,’ declared L’Estrange, turning back to his prey. ‘Why else would you be fined for the sale of unlicensed books?’

  If L’Estrange had expected his observation to earn him the crowd’s supp
ort, he had miscalculated badly. There were booksellers and printers among them, and their sympathies were clearly not with the Government’s official censor. Leybourn found himself with growing support and, with alarm, Chaloner saw him draw strength from it.

  ‘Run him through, Leybourn,’ yelled Nott to accompanying cheers. ‘Williamson will no doubt appoint another cur to do his bidding, but he cannot be as bad as this mongrel.’

  ‘Please, Will,’ said Chaloner quietly. ‘Do not let them—’

  ‘Ignore Heyden,’ ordered Mary. ‘He is a coward, afraid to fight for what is right. You are brave.’

  Chaloner could easily have disarmed his friend, but he did not want to humiliate him by exposing his ineptitude. And he certainly did not want anyone thinking L’Estrange had won the encounter.

  ‘Walk away, Will,’ he urged. ‘You cannot afford to let L’Estrange kill you. You have a wife to consider. What would Mary do without you?’

  Mary’s expression hardened. ‘Actually, I would rather have a man who—’

  ‘He is right, William,’ called Joanna from behind Brome. ‘Think of Mary, and put up your sword.’

  Mary was furious when Leybourn’s blade began to droop, but her rage was the cold kind, and she kept her temper admirably. ‘Perhaps you should fight Heyden instead, sir,’ she said prettily to L’Estrange. ‘William is no phanatique, but Heyden is.’

  L’Estrange moved his head in a way that made his earrings sparkle, while his teeth flashed in an appreciative leer as he looked her up and down; Chaloner thought he looked like the Devil. ‘Heyden is a phanatique, is he? Would you care to tell me how you come by such information, dear lady?’

  She smiled back, fluttering her eyelashes. ‘He was in the New Model Army, fighting Royalists – such as yourself – during the civil wars. And more recently, he was spying in Spain and Portugal.’

  L’Estrange regarded Chaloner appraisingly. ‘I thought you had the look of a Roundhead about you. It is all to do with the boots. Was it you who made the Walbrook burst its banks?’

  ‘He is not a phanatique,’ shouted Joanna defiantly. When L’Estrange whipped around to glare at her again, she managed to hold her ground, although her voice trembled as she spoke. ‘And no one made the Walbrook flood. It is just something that happens when there is a lot of rain.’

  ‘We should be about our work,’ said Brome, boldly grabbing L’Estrange’s arm in an attempt to pull him away. ‘We have a lot to do, if Monday’s Intelligencer is to be ready in time.’

  ‘True,’ agreed L’Estrange, sheathing his sword with a flourish. ‘My time is too valuable to waste on skirmishing with old Roundheads. I can harm their cause much more deeply with my pen than a sword, anyway.’

  Seeing the situation defused, Allestry tried to seize Leybourn’s weapon, although Nott looked disappointed the fuss was over. When Chaloner saw Mrs Nott nearby, eyes fixed longingly on L’Estrange, he understood exactly why the bookseller had wanted a brawl. Predictably, Mary made no attempt to help Allestry; her attention was gripped by the smouldering invitations L’Estrange was sending with his eyes. Chaloner sincerely hoped Leybourn would not notice, or no one would be able to disarm him and there would be blood spilled for certain. He turned to find Joanna at his side.

  ‘I see a solution,’ she said. Her face was pale, and Chaloner suspected the set-to had taken a heavy toll on the timid rabbit. ‘We shall arrange for L’Estrange to entice Mary away from William, and that is how we shall save him. I cannot think of a more deserving candidate for her affections. Can you?’

  Chaloner had spotted Kirby, Treen and Ireton at the fringes of the dissipating crowd, and did not want a confrontation with them, especially in Smithfield, where they had access to reinforcements. He tried to take refuge in the costermongery, but it was still closed, and a notice on the door said it had suffered a flood, but would be back in business the following day. Inside, Yeo laboured furiously with a mop. Chaloner stepped into a butcher’s shop instead, a bloody little emporium of glistening entrails, smelly meat and vats of grease. He was not alone for long, because Joanna and Brome followed him, having abandoned L’Estrange to the various Angels who clustered around him. Mrs Nott was among them.

  ‘Why are you hiding?’ asked Brome. ‘L’Estrange will not fight you now, not while he has all those woman fussing over him.’

  ‘Actually, I am hiding from Hectors. I have aggravated rather too many of them.’

  Brome was appalled. ‘That was rash! They are not just louts, you know – most are skilled fighters, and not all of them are stupid. And I hate to sound selfish, but we enjoyed your company the other day, and were hoping you might dine with us again.’

  Joanna gazed at Chaloner with her huge brown eyes. ‘I hope you have not done anything to annoy Crisp; his Hectors are one thing, but he is another entirely. I would not like you on the wrong side of the Butcher.’ She shuddered involuntarily.

  ‘I doubt I am important enough to attract his attention,’ replied Chaloner.

  ‘Do you think Crisp was responsible for attracting that crowd?’ asked Brome of Joanna. ‘I saw him when we first arrived, but now he is gone. Do you think he dispensed one of his “lessons”? Perhaps on a shopkeeper who declined to pay the safety tax?’

  Joanna shuddered again. ‘Lord! I knew we should have refused when L’Estrange suggested we come here to talk to Hodgkinson. I have never liked Smithfield, and it is a dreadful place now Crisp has accrued all that power. Perhaps we should all go home, before anything else nasty happens.’

  ‘We had a crisis with the newsbooks,’ Brome explained to Chaloner. ‘The Thames Street print-house is knee-deep in water, so Hodgkinson cannot produce Monday’s Intelligencer there. And this morning, blocked gutters flooded his Smithfield print-house, too. The situation was looking bleak, and we have all been sitting in St Bartholomew the Less, discussing solutions.’

  ‘Fortunately, Hodgkinson’s nephew has offered to print it instead, which is a relief,’ said Joanna. ‘We were just leaving, when L’Estrange saw the crowd and decided to investigate. He was hoping it might be a newsworthy incident, because we are short of material for the last page.’

  They talked until Joanna said they should be getting back to the bookshop. Chaloner was sorry, because spending time in their company was infinitely more preferable to the other grim matters that beckoned to him that day. He waited until they had gone, then left the butcher’s stall, pulling up his hood against the rain. Within moments, he realised that Brome and Joanna were being followed. It was by Muddiman, so he moved quickly to intercept the man.

  The newsmonger did not seem at all concerned that he had just been caught doing something rather insalubrious. ‘There is some sort of problem at the newsbook office,’ he said breezily. ‘So I have been spying on Brome in an attempt to find out what it is. Of course, we have a bit of a hiccup ourselves, thanks to you preventing Dury from reading those parliamentary summaries.’

  ‘My apologies,’ replied Chaloner. ‘But it cannot be the first time your plans have been foiled. I do not imagine L’Estrange jumps into bed with someone else’s wife every Saturday.’

  ‘Well, you would be wrong, because he does. I suspect he will have Leybourn’s before the day is out, too, despite the fact that he has already enjoyed Dorcus and her maid. He made a play for my wife once. He asked her to proofread the newsbooks, if you can credit his audacity. But he left disappointed, because she rejected his offer of work and his affections.’

  So, Leybourn was not the only man to be blind in affairs of the heart, thought Chaloner. ‘He does seem unstoppable where women are concerned. I overheard what you said to those drovers earlier, by the way. You have started a rumour that L’Estrange is responsible for the Walbrook flood.’

  Muddiman’s laugh was unpleasant. ‘We shall see how he likes being regarded as a phanatique.’

  ‘This is not the first time you have used your skill as a newsmonger – a gossip, in essence – to teach someone a lesson, is it?’ sai
d Chaloner, giving voice to the conclusions he had drawn before Leybourn’s predicament had claimed his attention. ‘You invented tales about Newburne, too.’

  Muddiman laughed again, and clapped his hands. ‘Extraordinary though it may seem, you are the first to guess that was me. Even Dury has not caught on. Arise, Tom Newburne! What does it mean? Does anyone know? Everyone thinks he does, but ask a dozen Londoners and they will all tell you different things. I amused myself by setting whispers and watching them ignite. Newburne was appalled, because it made him visible when he wanted anonymity. No defrauder wants to be famous.’

  ‘You told me the phrase meant he was Catholic. Dury had a lewd interpretation. Hodgkinson thinks Newburne rose from the dead. Leybourn said it describes men who drink too much and miss church. L’Estrange claims it means a rapid rise to power. Bulteel believes it refers to promotion in the face of brazen dishonesty. The Earl of Clarendon uses it as a curse—’

  ‘But my favourite is the one I told Newburne’s wife – that business about knighting people with a wooden sword. He did nothing of the sort, of course.’

  ‘You adapted the story to suit the recipient, playing on their superstitions, interests, fears and hopes. And you did it well, especially with Hodgkinson. The man actually witnessed Newburne’s encounter with Annie Petwer, yet you managed to make him think he had seen something completely different.’

  ‘Malleable minds. It is fun to shape them. Why do you think I became a newsmonger?’

  ‘You said it was to make lots of money.’

  Muddiman cackled. ‘Well, there is that, too.’

  ‘Hickes is following you,’ said Chaloner, looking to where the hulking spy was making a bad job of pretending to inspect some sausages. ‘So who is watching Dury?’

  ‘I have no idea. We quarrelled today – because of you, in fact. I told him he should have taken firmer measures in Dorcus Newburne’s garden, and he told me he is not that sort of fellow.’