The Licence of War

by Claire Letemendia

  With the last of his energy, Laurence hurtled up the street, skidded to Mistress Edwards’ door, and hammered on it with his fists. It opened almost at once, and he staggered inside. “Shut it, quick,” he hissed, and unseen hands obeyed.

  A candle flared, illuminating a lugubrious, stubbly face, and a white nightgown. “Troopers after you, Mr. Beaumont?” Barlow asked in his funereal tone, as if inquiring about the weather. “You get upstairs, sir, and let me deal with them.”

  VI.

  Laurence blinked awake after a profound and dreamless sleep to see Cordelia, his favourite of Mistress Edwards’ ménage, seated on the edge of his bed. She glowed with surprising health in her shabby, patched dressing gown. “Cordelia, you look very well,” he said, smiling at her.

  She wriggled a hand beneath the bedclothes, and pinched him on the thigh. “Not six months since you last hid with us, and here you are, in trouble again.”

  “In far less trouble than I might have been, thanks to Barlow.”

  She mimicked Barlow’s rumbling voice. “ ‘How dare you disturb me at this hour of the night? I’m a tax-paying citizen. I shall complain to the authorities, I shall.’ Oh, he was a laugh with the troopers, sir.”

  “I wasn’t laughing.”

  Her hand strayed higher. “Fancy some sport?”

  “I would, but I’m promised to a certain lady.”

  “Did you get married?” she asked, continuing to explore.

  “N … no, but I hope to marry her.”

  “Where is she?”

  He shifted away; Cordelia had provoked in him the inevitable reaction. “At Oxford.”

  “Well, then! What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. And the flesh does seem willing …”

  “It is, but I can’t.” He reached down, and stilled Cordelia’s hand. “Thank you, though,” he said, giving it a friendly squeeze.

  Cordelia pouted and lay back on the bed. “Didn’t we have fun in better times, before you left to fight abroad, and before the rebels took over and made every day a Sunday,” she reminisced. “The place was lovely: hangings and paintings, and feasts – gentlemen coming and going until the break of dawn – with more coming than going, I’d say. Not that you’ve changed, sir, which is why a little sport—”

  “Hey, what’s this?” he interrupted, noticing her rounded belly. “Mistress Edwards must have had a change of heart, in her old age.”

  “She has, sir.” Cordelia stroked her stomach proudly. “I’m over four months’ gone.” Then she saddened. “The Mistress won’t do as she used to for us girls, ever since she lost Jane in August.”

  “Lost?”

  “She couldn’t staunch the bleeding.”

  “Oh God, poor Jane,” he murmured, understanding. “What a way to die.”

  “We buried her in the yard of St. Saviour’s. Ned Price persuaded the clergyman that she was his sister, and pure as the driven snow. You haven’t met Ned, have you, sir.”

  “Who’s he?” said Laurence, distracted, thinking of Isabella. In her youth she had been lucky to escape Jane’s fate.

  “A player’s son, a nobleman’s castoff – it’s a fresh story every day,” said Cordelia. “Only Mistress Edwards knows the truth, but she won’t tell us. You can be the judge of him yourself: he’s in the kitchen with Barlow.”

  Conditions had deteriorated in the front room where Mistress Edwards received her gentlemen callers. From his last visit Laurence was accustomed to its disguise, a necessary precaution since Parliament deemed her business a serious crime: plain whitewashed walls, bare floor, and hard, high-backed chairs around a table on which a selection of religious books and tracts were laid out. But now damp bubbled behind the plaster, and a depressing odour of rot hung in the air.

  “Barlow?” he shouted out.

  His guardian angel sloped in, followed by a younger man. “Mr. Beaumont, Ned Price,” Barlow introduced them.

  “A pleasure, sir,” declared Ned Price, his grey-blue eyes sparkling, and bowed with a flourish. Laurence extended a hand. “Oh,” said Price, looking bemused as he clasped it, “I see you prefer the Puritans’ manner of greeting.”

  “We are in a house of prayer,” said Laurence, “and they do have some habits to recommend them.”

  Price was of average height, his hair a middling brown, and his features, otherwise as undistinguished, were infectiously animated. A sanguine temperament, Laurence thought; and whatever mystery shrouded his origins, Price cut a fine figure in his slashed doublet and breeches, lace collar, and calfskin boots. While Laurence had never bothered about his own dress, his upbringing had taught him the difference between quality and fake goods; and he had learnt during his rather less-privileged years as a spy and cardsharp to note every detail of what others wore. Price’s collar was an imitation of Brussels spinning, and the suit tailored deceptively well from cheap, flashy fabric.

  “My friend, you really must stop saving my life,” Laurence said to Barlow, gripping his meaty paw.

  “All right, then, sir – I shall.”

  “No, truly, man, I have to thank you.”

  “Barlow needs no thanks – he derived immense gratification from baffling those dunderheads,” Price interjected exuberantly.

  Barlow ignored him. “I was on my way to bed when the shots rang out, sir. Did you get one of them troopers? Your pistol smelt to me as if it had been fired.”

  “I fired once, and I must have wounded somebody,” said Laurence, hoping that he had not hit Corporal Draycott. “I heard a cry of pain, at any rate.”

  “A shame I wasn’t here with Barlow,” said Price. “I’d have gone to the door posing as a man of the cloth who had visited to instruct Mistress Edwards’ household in their Bible studies.” He lifted his eyes to the ceiling, and talked through his nose like a divine. “ ‘A malignant fugitive, on the loose in this neighbourhood? We shall not sleep safe until he is apprehended!’ What do you say, Barlow?”

  “I say you are in love with yourself, Ned Price.”

  “Don’t talk of love to me, you heartless monster. Barlow still hasn’t remunerated me for a job of work we did the other day,” Price explained to Laurence, “so I couldn’t buy supper last night for my sweetheart.”

  Laurence was tickled to catch Barlow’s familiar euphemism: a job of work. Price must be a thief, like Barlow.

  “Is she the serving wench you’ve been ogling at the Saracen’s Head?” Barlow asked.

  “Mistress Susan Sprye is not a wench, Barlow. She’s of yeoman stock and hails from the West Country.”

  “What does she want with you, you penniless bastard?”

  “I’m penniless because you haven’t—”

  “Quiet, now – the mistress is coming.”

  Laurence heard the tap of a cane. As Mistress Edwards entered, he fought to conceal his shock: she had never been a large woman, and arthritis had plagued her for as long as he had known her, but in less than half a year she had shrivelled to skin and bone, and her formerly sharp eyes had clouded over. She had even neglected to dye her hair; grey strands peeked out from her clean white cap.

  “Mr. Beaumont, welcome.” He kissed her gnarled hand, and she smiled as flirtatiously as ever, revealing her stained false teeth.

  “Cordelia told me about Jane,” he said, drawing out a chair for her. “I’m so sorry.”

  Her wrinkled lids lowered briefly, as if she found his words as inadequate as he did. “I cherished that girl as a daughter.”

  “She’s in heaven now, madam,” Barlow grunted.

  “Can whores go to heaven?” she asked Laurence, in a cynical yet curious tone.

  He knew she was anticipating her own death. “If there is a heaven, it would be a gloomy place without them,” he replied.

  “You may leave us, Ned Price,” she said with regal hauteur, and invited Laurence and Barlow to sit. “I can tell what you’re thinking, sir,” she said to Laurence, when Price had disappeared. “Let’s not discuss it.”

  Laurence nodded
. “How is your business?”

  “Cordelia, Perdie, and Rose are with me, and my maid Sarah, of course, but I couldn’t keep the other girls on a fraction of our old custom. It’s the taxes, sir: men can’t afford the luxury of my house, with Parliament skinning their pockets. Barlow’s had to go back into his trade, and I had to sell my jewels for a song – apart from that necklace you bought off me fair and square.” Mistress Edwards winked at him with a touch of her old gaiety. “Did it please the lady?”

  “Very much. She wears it often.”

  “Did I say it was a gift from a suitor of mine? I could have married him and settled down, but I was wild, then, and heedless of the future.” Mistress Edwards paused for breath, her hollow chest heaving. “Oh, sir, I can’t count the number of girls I got out of their difficulties. I didn’t never falter, until Jane.” She scowled at her hands. “They was trembling worse than leaves. I shall not touch another girl. But what future will Cordelia have, with her baby?”

  “At least she’s happy about it.”

  “She’s over the moon, the silly creature. So what brings you to London, sir?”

  “My work for the Secretary of State. I’ll find somewhere else to hide by tonight. Things are hard enough for you without the danger of sheltering me.”

  “No, sir: them troopers have ferreted about here countless times, with nought to show for it. We could close the door to custom, if you’ll recompense me for the lost earnings. It won’t be a fortune, but I might charge a little more than we generally take in, for the risk.”

  “Tell me your fee,” said Laurence.

  “I’ll think upon it.” She smiled again, always pleased at a good bargain. “What’s your errand, sir?”

  “I have a list of names to investigate. They may be of Parliamentary spies. Sir Bernard Radcliff drew it up.”

  “Radcliff?” She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve, coughed into it, and tucked it back, not swiftly enough for Laurence to miss the vivid blood in her spittle. “The Radcliff who used to visit us before the war?”

  “The very same. And on his list may be the name of a new man John Pym has recruited from abroad as his spymaster, to search out the King’s allies here in London. From what I know of that fellow, he’s a ruthless sort.” Laurence described to them the grisly package of ears.

  “Then he don’t deserve to live.” Mistress Edwards rapped her knuckles on the table. “And if we can do some damage to Pym by hunting him out and killing him, I shall die content. Pym and his dogs of rebels have ruined my livelihood and now they’re sending me to my grave. I’d like to strangle them all, for the misery they’ve caused us.”

  Laurence was silent, abashed by the force of her hatred. She had suffered from the war in ways that he had not, despite venturing his life, both in battle and in his clandestine activities.

  “Who’s on the list, sir?” Barlow asked, as though already planning their demise.

  “Victor Jeffrey, Anthony Burton, James Pritchard, Christopher Harris, and Clement Veech.”

  “They ring no bells for me,” said Mistress Edwards.

  “Nor for me,” said Barlow.

  “I also have to get a message to a goldsmith, Thomas Violet, who has his shop in Cheapside,” Laurence said.

  “That’s easily done,” Barlow told him. “My nephew Jem could pop round and deliver it for you.”

  Mistress Edwards patted Laurence on the wrist. “You must not stir from my house until the hue and cry dies down. Barlow, could Price inquire about them names? He has a wide acquaintance.”

  “That he has, madam – wide as the day is long,” Barlow agreed, scratching his stubbly jaw.

  Laurence felt instantly uncomfortable. “Can I trust him?”

  “He won’t betray you, sir,” Mistress Edwards said. “In some matters, he can’t even trust hisself, but he wouldn’t betray any friend of mine. And my girls will want to help, too.”

  VII.

  “If this horrible racket persists, you will be accused of conjuring demons in your rooms,” Clarke warned Seward, his fat jowls wobbling.

  Pusskins was crouched motionless at the door to Seward’s bedchamber, ears flattened, and coat and tail puffed up, emitting unearthly yowls. Shut inside was a stray cat that had followed Seward home when he had been picking mushrooms earlier in the College meadow. He had not had the heart to turn it away.

  “But, Clarke, if I open the door, there will be bloodshed! Might you take it to your house in Asthall?”

  Isaac Clarke dumped his enormous weight into a chair, and brushed some of Pusskins’ hairs fastidiously from the hem of his robe. “If I do, you will be unable to bring your demon when you come to stay with me there.”

  “In that case, I must put the poor thing out. Clarke, restrain Pusskins, whilst I secure the object of his wrath.”

  “And let him tear me to pieces!” said Clarke, not budging from the chair.

  “How could he, you great elephant? You are a thousand times his size. Grab him by the scruff of his neck.”

  No sooner had Clarke heaved himself up than there was a knock at Seward’s front door, and a low voice inquired, “Dr. Seward? Are you in?”

  The men regarded each other apprehensively. “Is it that woman?” Clarke mouthed. Seward nodded. “Whatever can she want?”

  “She has come to ask me about Beaumont,” Seward mouthed back. With extreme reluctance, he went to answer the door.

  “Oh,” said Mistress Savage, evidently disappointed to find Seward had company. “How are you, Dr. Clarke? Forgive me, Doctor – you are busy.”

  “Madam, I was about to leave – a good day to you,” Clarke said. “I shall see you in Hall, Seward.” He skipped nimbly past her and off towards his rooms, with a speed that belied his girth.

  “Enter, Mistress Savage,” said Seward, “but beware of my cat.”

  Pusskins ceased yowling and studied her with marked interest, then trotted over to her. She stooped to stroke the animal, a privilege that was Seward’s sole prerogative. “How may I assist you, madam?” he demanded.

  She let the cat alone and glared at Seward. “The day before yesterday, the day you called at my house, Beaumont returned from a meeting with Lord Digby and announced to me that he had to sup with the Queen. I therefore accepted an offer to sup with Digby, expecting Beaumont home later. But he didn’t come home and nor, as I learnt subsequently, did he attend Her Majesty at supper. The next day I went in some distress to his lordship, who told me Beaumont was supposed to leave for London on his business – but not until that morning, and with another agent, for greater safety. Lord Digby is as consternated as I am. I know Beaumont came to see you,” she carried on, now more pleading than angry. “Did he tell you what he was about to do?”

  “No,” said Seward, feeling a grudging empathy for her. “His disobedience is reprehensible,” he added, more honestly.

  “And dangerous! And has he so little concern for my feelings that he should leave me without explanation, without so much as a goodbye?” Seward took this as a rhetorical question. “Doctor,” she said, “what’s that scratching noise? Have you mice in your bedchamber?”

  “It is a stray feline. Pusskins is bent on destroying him.”

  “As is true of most males, your cat can’t tolerate a rival.”

  “I was hoping to liberate the beast, but I fear for its life if I try.”

  She gathered up Pusskins into her arms. “I’ll hold him.” Seward unlatched the door. A thin black form slinked out, and a pair of emerald eyes peered up at them. Mistress Savage began to smile. “I happen to have an infestation of mice in my kitchen, and this creature is starved.”

  “Then it is yours.”

  “I should call him ‘Beaumont,’ but that would be one too many, under my roof.”

  Seward considered. “As a youth here in College, Beaumont earned the epithet of ‘Niger,’ because of his dusky skin.”

  Mistress Savage offered Pusskins to Seward, and plucked up the stray. “Niger he is. I t
hank you, Doctor – for the cat, and for the name.”

  Seward could not help smiling himself. “Listen to it purr. It knows you have rescued it from imminent death.”

  “Let’s pray that Beaumont has nine lives,” she said, as he ushered her out. “He’s spent more than a few of them already.”

  VIII.

  Sarah had lit a fire in the hearth, and Laurence had provided money to buy Mistress Edwards’ household what he suspected was their first decent meal for some time. After they had eaten their fill, Price asked, with a blithe enthusiasm that worried Laurence, “Where shall we begin tomorrow, Mr. Beaumont? We might catch some gossip in Westminster about that man Pym hired.”

  “You might,” Laurence acknowledged nervously; he could picture Price in his gaudy clothes lurking at the doors to the House of Commons, and getting himself arrested.

  “We’ve the list, sir.” Cordelia prodded a finger at her temples. “We whores don’t forget gentlemen’s names. We can disguise ourselves as straitlaced Puritans, like we did for you before, and inquire around there.”

  “One of you girls can set up a stall in the precincts,” Mistress Edwards said, “selling flowers.”

  “Or religious pamphlets,” Perdita said. “We’ve heaps of them.”

  “There’ll be talk of last night at St. George’s Fields, sir,” Barlow put in.

  “And hereabouts – what with all the shots them militia fired, they woke the entire neighbourhood,” said Mistress Edwards.

  “I could go to the fort,” volunteered Price.

  “Hmm,” said Laurence. “On the subject of last night … Harper and Draycott might purposely have let me go, in order to see where I’d lead him, but I’m not convinced of it. Harper was furious that he had to free me, and Corporal Draycott seemed genuinely embarrassed by the whole affair. And they waited too long to pursue me. I believe Pym’s secretary had corroborated my lies to Draycott, and that for some reason, for a short while, I had them fooled.”