Then he understood at last. He had to follow her. What they would achieve by going after Cloisterman he did not know. But at least they would achieve it – or fail to – together.
He hired a fly that had just delivered a passenger to the hospital. The most direct route to the Piazza del Popolo lay back the way they had come, crossing the Tiber uncomfortably close to the Theatre of Marcellus. Loth to take such a risk, Spandrel told the driver to cross by the next bridge up.
No sooner had they set off than a curricle, hard-driven by the look of the dust-cloud it was raising, bore down on them from the direction of the city. Spandrel’s driver had to pull in to avoid a collision. As the curricle swept past, Spandrel realized that Buckthorn and Silverwood were aboard. They were heading for the river-port. How had they known where to look for him? Had someone overheard him talking to the calash-driver at the Theatre of Marcellus?
It hardly mattered now. Looking over his shoulder, Spandrel saw to his horror that they were reining in. They had seen him. And they would outrun the fly. There was no doubt of it. Even if they did not, what could he achieve by pressing on? He would simply endanger Estelle if he led them to the Piazza del Popolo.
The neighbourhood to his left was a warren of alleys and courtyards, where a man could travel faster on foot than by any carriage. His decision was made in the instant the thought came to him. He leaped from the fly, abandoning his bag, and began to run.
‘Spandrel!’ He heard Silverwood’s piping voice from behind him. ‘We want a word with you.’
He did not stop.
Spandrel was soon safe, at any rate from Buckthorn and Silverwood. Trastevere was an unfathomable maze of jumbled dwellings, where the poorest inhabitants of Rome lived in a seething squalor that made Cat and Dog Yard look almost desirable. The dull-eyed children and blank-faced women watched Spandrel plunge past them with indifference, but his peacock-clad pursuers would find themselves – not to mention their gold pocket-watches and silver snuff-boxes – the objects of considerable attention, once they had given up the curricle, as the narrow going would force them to.
Just as Spandrel could not be tracked through Trastevere, however, so he could not keep track of where he was. Whichever turn he took seemed only to lead uphill, away from the river and further from his destination. He could not turn back for fear of blundering into Buckthorn and Silverwood, so on he went, by crumbling steps and winding paths, till he suddenly emerged onto a wide road flanked by high-walled gardens. He was on the Janiculum Hill, commanding a view so extensive that he thought he could make out the twin domes of the churches that stood where the Corso reached the Piazza del Popolo. But what use was that – other than to tell him just how far he was from where he wanted to be?
There was nothing for it but to follow the line of the city wall round to the Vatican and hope to pick up a fly there. The afternoon was already well advanced. Every hour he lingered in Rome added to his peril. But the Gabbiano would have sailed by now. He had thrown away one chance and not yet grasped another.
His pace quickened.
Spandrel entered the Piazza di San Pietro as an ant might stray onto a beach: as one tiny, insignificant speck in a vast landscape. The colonnades seemed to circumscribe a space too huge for him to comprehend. The sunlight sparkled in the fountains and cast a stretched and minatory shadow of the central obelisk to meet him, while the pillars and dome of St Peter’s itself soared shimmeringly above the steps on the farther side of the piazza. It struck him for a moment that he had never seen anything made by man more beautiful than this.
But he could spare no time to relish even unparalleled beauty. He headed towards the steps leading up to St Peter’s, at the foot of which were gathered several carriages, some of which might well be for hire.
He was about halfway between the obelisk and the steps when he realized someone was keeping pace with him away to the right. Glancing towards him, he saw that it was Silverwood. He stopped. So did Silverwood. Then a twitch of the fellow’s head told him where Buckthorn was: no more than twenty yards to Spandrel’s rear, ostentatiously flicking back his coat to reveal the handle of the sword he was wearing.
Spandrel was outflanked and outmanoeuvred, his retreat cut off. They had either guessed where he would go in search of transport or had simply struck lucky; it hardly mattered which. His only hope now was the safety of holy ground. He ran to the steps and started up them. Silverwood rushed to intercept, but his rush was another man’s dawdle. Buckthorn posed the greater threat and Spandrel could not afford to look back to see how close he was.
He reached the top of the steps and headed for the nearest door into the basilica. There were footsteps behind him now, pounding on the flagstones. Then a hand closed around his shoulder. ‘Hold hard,’ shouted Buckthorn, wrenching Spandrel round to face him. ‘You’ll answer to us before you do any praying.’
There was a knife in Buckthorn’s hand. Spandrel had seen it before and knew how adept the fellow was with it. He moved instinctively away, but suddenly Silverwood was behind him, panting and swearing and pinning his arms at his back.
‘Where’s the Green Book, Spandrel?’ Buckthorn feinted a lunge with the knife. ‘Where is it, damn you?’
‘I … don’t have it.’
‘Estelle must have, then. Where is she?’
‘Out of your reach.’
‘If that’s true, I’ll—’
Buckthorn never finished the sentence. Suddenly, the blunt end of a halberd struck his wrist and the knife clattered to the ground. Buckthorn cried out in pain. Then he and Silverwood were seized by tall, broadly built men in helmets and brightly striped uniforms. They were men of the Pope’s Swiss Guard and Spandrel did not think he had ever been so pleased to see a soldier in his life.
‘Take your hands off us,’ bleated Silverwood. ‘You can’t treat English gentlemen like this.’
Clearly, however, the Swiss Guards believed they could. More probably, they neither spoke nor understood English and did not think people brandishing knives at the very door of St Peter’s were at all likely to be gentlemen. They dragged the pair un ceremoniously away.
‘We’ll come after you, Spandrel,’ shouted Buckthorn. ‘Don’t think you’ve seen the last of us.’
A friar standing close by shook his head disapprovingly. ‘Un coltello, qui,’ he said, to no-one in particular. ‘Un sacrilegio.’ Sacrilege? Yes. Spandrel supposed what they had done could well count as that. And he also supposed sacrilege was something the papal authorities bore down on very hard indeed. On the whole, he reckoned he probably had seen the last of them.
He turned away and hurried back down the steps.
The Piazza del Popolo was empty. Not of people, of course. There was the normal assortment of servitori, trades men, travellers and idlers, the customary comings and goings through the gate. But of Estelle there was no sign. And to Spandrel, casting about him as he circled the piazza, it seemed that all he saw was emptiness.
More in hope than expectation, he approached a group of men sitting on the plinth at the foot of the obelisk. They were smoking and enjoying the afternoon sunshine. They looked as if they had been there some time. ‘Parlainglese, signori?’ he ventured. But the only answer he received was a deal of squinting and shrugging. ‘Has a coach left here for Florence? Una carrozza? Per Firenze?’
One of the men, the shortest and slightest built, stood up then and moved to Spandrel’s elbow. ‘Why should you want to know?’ he asked, in a heather-soft Scottish accent.
Suddenly, the other men were on their feet as well, clustering round Spandrel. His arms were seized and held. ‘Let go of me,’ he protested. ‘Who are you?’ But he knew who they were. And he knew they were not going to let him go. There were no Swiss Guards to come to his aid here.
‘There’s a coach leaving this minute, Mr Spandrel. It’s not going to Florence, I’m afraid. It’s going to the Palazzo Muti. And you’ll be riding in it.’
‘A change of plan, Mr Spandrel?’ s
aid James Edgar, surveying him across his desk at the Palazzo Muti half an hour later. ‘Where is the Green Book, pray?’
‘I don’t have it.’
‘Did you ever?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘How did you come to lose it?’
‘It’s difficult to explain.’
‘Really? I suggest you find a way to do so. And I suggest you adhere strictly to the truth while you’re about it. Otherwise the Tiber will have another nameless corpse floating down it tonight.’ Edgar frowned. ‘You understand?’
Spandrel nodded. He understood. All too well.
The light was failing by the time Spandrel finished. It was the same chill point of late afternoon as when he had previously sat in Edgar’s office, just twenty-four hours before. But everything had changed since then. He had nothing to sell and nothing to dream of. He did not even have any lies left to tell. And for that at least he was strangely grateful.
‘Confession to a priest is seen in the true faith as a means of absolution, Mr Spandrel,’ said Edgar, after a lengthy silence. ‘A pity for you I’m not a priest.’
‘I’ve given you what you asked for: the truth.’
‘I believe you have. But it’s not the truth I wanted to hear. Nor yet to carry to the King. The Green Book on its way to Tuscany with an escort of Swiss Guards. And treachery even in the Quirinal Palace. Cardinal Bortolazzi is a great friend of the Bishop of Osimo, who many believe will be the next pope. If the King cannot trust such people …’ Edgar sighed. ‘Some truths are better for kings not to know.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What use to me is your sorrow?’
‘None, I suppose.’
‘I’m glad you understand that.’
‘But …’
‘What’s to become of you? Is that the question teetering on your lips?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s to become of any of us?’ Edgar took an irritable swipe at the papers on his desk, then rose and strode to the window. He gazed out thoughtfully at the gathering dusk for several long moments, before turning round to face Spandrel once more. ‘You are a lucky man, Mr Spandrel.’
‘I am?’
‘I have a proposition for you.’
‘What is it?’
‘Go before the King and tell him you never had the Green Book. Tell him you are an errant clerk of the South Sea Company, seeking to profit from the scraps of information you accumulated in the course of your work. Tell him that, as far as you know, the Green Book was seized from Mr Knight when he was arrested in Brabant and has been in the keeping of the Elector’s ministers ever since.’
‘But … that’s not …’
‘The truth? No. Exactly. It is a version of events that will make me look a fool and you a still more contemptible rogue than you actually are. But it will merely disappoint the King, not destroy him. And that is the most I can hope to gain from this sorry affair. For you, there is a reward.’ Edgar smiled grimly. ‘Survival.’
‘You’ll … let me go?’
‘Not quite. I will persuade the King to spare you. And then I will send you away. There is a ship sailing from Cività Vecchia on Wednesday. The master is a friend of ours. A true friend. You will be aboard. The ship is bound for Brest. And there you will be delivered. What you do then – so long as you never return to Rome – is none of my concern.’
‘If I refuse … to tell this tale?’
Edgar shrugged. ‘The Tiber awaits.’
‘I had hoped … to go to Tuscany.’
‘Fashion a different hope.’
‘Can I not—’
‘No.’ Edgar looked straight at him. ‘You cannot.’
‘I have no choice but to accept?’
‘No sane choice, certainly.’
‘Then …’
‘You accept?’
Brest, or Naples. What difference did it make? What had he achieved by going after Estelle other than to lose her over again? Even the truth was forfeit now. He had no choice. Perhaps he had never had one. He had no hope. But he did have life.
‘Mr Spandrel?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘I accept.’
Interlude
April 1721–March 1722
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ways and Means
AT THE BEGINNING of April, 1721, the Earl of Sunderland bowed to the seemingly inevitable and resigned as First Lord of the Treasury. Robert Walpole succeeded him with immediate effect, combining the office with that of Chancellor of the Exchequer. The nation’s finances were thus squarely under Walpole’s control. So indeed was the nation’s mail, since he at once appointed his brother Galfridus Postmaster-General, or Interceptor-General, as some suspicious letter-writers dubbed him.
Sunderland was not quite a spent force, however. He remained Groom of the Stole and the King’s principal confidant, with control of the Secret Service. He was willing to lie low for a while, but not to accept defeat. There were Members, actual and prospective, to be bribed and blackmailed before the general election due to be held the following March. If more of Sunderland’s bought men than Walpole’s found a seat in the new Parliament, their fortunes might yet be reversed.
The South Sea Sufferers Bill had meanwhile to make its way through the old Parliament. It was intended to be the last word on the notorious Bubble, recovering as much as possible from the estates of the directors and other convicted parties to defray the company’s losses. But the last word was a long time being uttered. Each director was allowed to offset certain inescapable liabilities against his declared assets, necessitating lengthy argument at every stage. Deals were done, bargains struck, favours rewarded. Aislabie, the disgraced former Chancellor, escaped with the bulk of his fortune intact. The heiresses of the deceased Postmaster Craggs were leniently treated. And Sir Theodore Janssen, when his turn came, was mysteriously allowed to keep more than any other director.
The public knew what all this amounted to, of course: corruption in its normal nesting-ground – high places. But what was to be done? Robert Knight remained locked up and incommunicado in the Citadel at Antwerp. (Though not if persistent rumours of his secret removal elsewhere were to be believed.) Of his most sensitive records there was no apparent trace. Walpole waited until most Members had slipped away to their country seats before bringing the matter to the vote early in August. Despite the audible protests of aggrieved creditors outside the House, the Bill was passed. Legally, the South Sea affair was closed.
In Rome, the Pretender continued to believe that discontent over the issue would lead to his restoration. As a plot-hatchery, the Palazzo Muti remained busy. But plots and risings, especially the successful kind, were not quite the same thing. The newly elected Pope Innocent XIII – the former Bishop of Osimo – assured James Edward of his full support, before giving a very good impression of forgetting about him altogether.
At the end of September came news of Knight’s escape from the supposedly escape-proof Antwerp Citadel and his abscondence across the border into France. The Brodrick Committee’s oft-repeated demands for his extradition had finally been answered, though scarcely in the fashion its members had hoped. Another deal had clearly been done. Before the year was out, Knight had established himself in Paris as a financial consultant. As the former chief cashier of a bankrupt company with debts of £14,500,000, his credentials for such a role were manifestly impeccable.
That portion of the British public still hoarding South Sea shares certificates and notes of credit bore such events in a mood of half-stifled fury. Out of pocket and humour alike, they came to hate Walpole even more than the delinquent directors who had bilked them. ‘The Screenmaster-General’, as they called him, had screened his enemies as well as his friends, leaving the poor and the innocent to pay the price.
They can hardly have been surprised when it became known that the presses used for printing the Brodrick Committee’s reports had been smashed on the orders of Viscount Townshend. There were to be no second editions.
Not that those reports contained more than a fraction of the truth, of course. Only a certain green-covered ledger could tell the whole story. And nobody seemed to know where that might be found, or indeed whether it still existed.
With a collective sigh of relief on the part of those who had lost less by it than they had gained, the sorry saga of the South Sea was consigned, if not to history, then at least to history’s waiting-room, whence it was likely to be retrieved only in the most extraordinary circumstances. The political world’s attention shifted back to more familiar ground: a struggle for power between two able and ambitious men, to be decided by that orgy of auctioned loyalty known as a general election.
Book Two
April–June 1722
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Death of a Statesman
VISCOUNT TOWNSHEND HURRIED across St James’s Square through a breezy spring morning. His destination was the London residence of the Earl of Sunderland and the circumstances were sufficiently extraordinary for him to feel disconcertingly torn between elation and apprehension. The election results were still arriving, in their customary dribs and drabs, and those so far received had left the issue between Sunderland and Walpole tantalizingly undecided. But those results had suddenly become irrelevant. The issue was decided. Sunderland was dead.
News had reached Townshend the previous evening of Sunderland’s sudden and as yet unexplained demise. It had been conveyed to him by the Lord Privy Seal, the Duke of Kingston, considerably put out at being instructed by Walpole to secure all the dead Earl’s papers at once, even if it meant breaking into his study to do so. Kingston had not cared much for the propriety of this move and nor had Townshend. But he had nevertheless told Kingston to proceed. His brother-in-law’s instincts, though sometimes brutal, were always to be trusted.
It was undeniable that the long struggle with Sunderland had taught Walpole some unedifying lessons. He had become more secretive, more devious, more downright egotistical. He hid the traits well, beneath bonhomie and bluster, but they were there for those who knew him best to detect. This latest turn of events was an example. With Sunderland scarcely cold in his death-bed, let alone his grave, Walpole was laying claim to documents that were technically the property of his family, trampling on the feelings of his pregnant widow and blithely incurring the wrath of his mother-in-law, the formidable Duchess of Marlborough. All this, moreover, he had embarked upon with out troubling to consult Townshend.
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