Aston cleared his throat. “Sir, how do you intend to go about your hunt?”
“I’ll start today,” said Laurence, “by releasing Mr. Draycott from Oxford Castle.”
“The same for whom you went to such great lengths, my Lady Hallam,” Aston said. “Had I known earlier that he was of value to Lord Digby, I’d have provided him straight away with more comfortable conditions.”
“I must insist on accompanying you, Mr. Beaumont,” said Isabella, “even if I was once told that gaol was no place for a woman. I’ll be fascinated to witness your second meeting with Mr. Draycott. On their first,” she explained to Aston, “I believe it was he who took Mr. Beaumont prisoner, in the name of Parliament.”
“This is no place for anyone, except perhaps Veech and your delightful host,” Laurence muttered to Isabella, as the turnkey ushered them through. The common pound was even worse than he recollected; obviously the Governor had not a shred of compassion for his prisoners.
Isabella was shielding her mouth with a fold of her cloak. “How I remember coming here to rescue your tortured body.”
“I haven’t forgotten, either, what you did for me,” he said.
Draycott occupied a solitary cell; while bare, it was at least clean. He had altered since that October night on the barge: there were streaks of grey in his hair, and deeper lines in his face. His skin bore the chalky tinge of incarceration, and he was unshaven. When they entered, he rose from his pallet bed and stared at them like a man in a dream.
“Good day to you, sir,” Isabella said.
Laurence extended a hand. “Mr. Draycott, Governor Aston has invited you to be his guest in Oxford, from henceforth, unless you prefer these rather monastic quarters.”
“Aston?” repeated Draycott, in an incredulous voice. As he took Laurence’s hand, his eyes strayed to Isabella. Laurence felt sympathy: they were both in love with her, and neither of them could have her. “I’m sorry, sir,” Draycott said next, “but I cannot accept hospitality from a man I so detest.”
“I quite understand – I share your opinion of him: he’s an insufferable bastard.” Draycott’s mouth dropped open, and Isabella started to laugh. “We’ll find you lodgings elsewhere,” Laurence went on, “but before that I want to introduce you to an ally. He was my tutor when I was up at Oxford, and is now my close friend: Dr. Seward, of Merton College.”
“Ah. I attended Cambridge.”
“Cambridge, eh? You’d better keep that to yourself, or he may hold it against you.”
“Then I shall, sir,” said Draycott earnestly.
Isabella laughed again, and winked at Laurence. “You are unaccustomed to Beaumont’s sense of humour, Mr. Draycott. It’s been his weapon of choice, even in the direst of circumstances.”
“Seward has prepared a yet more powerful weapon for us,” Laurence told Draycott. “A special remedy for Mr. Veech.”
Draycott looked round in astonishment at Seward’s front room, though to Laurence it appeared tidy; Seward must have left much of his paraphernalia at Clarke’s house. “Mr. Draycott,” said Seward, once they had been introduced, “I know from Beaumont and Lady Hallam how Veech mistreated you, and how, unbeknownst to him, you tried to collaborate with Beaumont in her escape. Are you ready to collaborate with us in his murder?”
“I am, wholeheartedly,” replied Draycott. “How will he die?”
“By poison,” answered Seward, with a relish that tickled Laurence.
“That fits, Doctor: he is a weird and poisonous man.”
“I have even speculated that he may have some rare disease, after hearing about the oddities in his face and figure, and the striking absence of hair on his arm.”
“I’ve noticed those things, too,” Draycott said. “It could be why he always wears his long, thick coat, whatever the weather. He also shrinks from contact. When he was brought wounded to Derby House after you shot him, Mr. Beaumont, he would not allow the surgeon to undress him. More recently, after I had visited you in the Tower, Lady Hallam, I accused him of being incapable of natural human feeling – I meant, towards women,” Draycott elaborated, blushing. “He burst into a fury, and demanded what I had been told about him, and then he grabbed me by the throat and by my … private parts. When I swore I’d been told nothing, he released me and became as suddenly calm. And he said, ‘I’m not like most men. I don’t share their weakness..’ ”
“He might have other weaknesses,” Laurence suggested, avoiding Seward’s eye.
“Or be misshapen from birth,” Isabella put in.
“There’s an interesting possibility, my lady,” Seward said. “Now, Beaumont, apprise Mr. Draycott of the plan.”
Laurence addressed Draycott, without a trace of humour. “I’m afraid you play an essential role in it. Right up to the very end, my life and yours will hang upon your ability to convince Veech that you remain in his thrall, and that you wouldn’t care a toss if I die. Should things go smoothly, it will appear as if his heart unexpectedly failed him. But if he has the least suspicion of you, we’re finished.”
IV.
Veech was relieved that the humid weather had not penetrated St. John’s offices: he already sweated inside his coat, and the brace pressed more tightly against the joint of his knee. At once he found himself staring: a dirty, wasted, sullen version of Draycott sat across the table from St. John.
“Mr. Draycott has suffered abominably in gaol, at the hands of the Secretary of State and the Governor of Oxford,” said St. John, gesturing for Veech to take a chair.
“About five weeks away, and you’ve aged five years,” said Veech.
“His lordship’s agent, Edward Price, recognised me from our dealings here in London, and I was consigned without trial to rot in the pound at Oxford Castle,” Draycott said, his voice low and resentful. “Neither he nor his lordship enlightened me as to the fact that Beaumont had by then gone to procure Lady Hallam’s escape, which I learnt of only today, from Mr. St. John.”
“There was no news of it in Oxford?”
“If there was, it did not reach me, in the depths of hell.” Draycott sank his head into his hands. “The keeper of the Castle took every chance to abase us prisoners, with encouragement from that vicious papist Aston. We were mocked and taunted and beaten. And at their whim, the guards deprived us of food and water. Those less able to bear their thirst had to drink their own urine. I nearly prayed to die.”
There are worse things than death, Veech wanted to say. “How did you get out?”
Draycott raised his head again wearily. “Last week I was moved to a separate cell. The turnkey would not say why. The next day, he gave me a sealed letter directed to Mr. St. John, a purse containing eighty pounds in coin, and a message for me that as soon as the town bells struck midnight, I would discover the door to my cell unbolted, and the guards would not stop me from quitting the gaol. When I tested the door, it opened to my touch, and out I went. The guards were all asleep at their posts.”
“In a drugged sleep,” said Veech, his heart skipping in his breast.
“Yes, as I since realise. I had to ignore the pleas of my fellow prisoners, and hurry on. At the gates, the sentries paid me no notice. In town I bought a horse, and then I rode for London. Until Mr. St. John showed me what was in the letter, I had no clue as to who had rescued me.”
Veech frowned. “Mr. Beaumont. But why?”
“You will know Beaumont’s motive, Mr. Veech, when you read this,” said St. John, passing the letter to him. “He has made the Committee a proposal to which there is a certain logic, given his present situation and his character.”
The sloppy scrawl puzzled Veech: it was not what he would expect from an educated man. “ ‘Sir,.’ ” he read aloud, “ ‘I write to you by Mr. Draycott, whose liberty I organised as a mark of my good faith in what I am about to offer you, before I leave England for an indefinite exile. It is true that I aided Lord Wilmot in his design to remove from power the Secretary of State, as part of terms for a peace
with my Lord Essex. I wished to satisfy my private quarrel with Lord Digby over his callous neglect of Lady Hallam: in spite of her brave service to him and to the King, he would have let her go to her death. Without his knowledge, and together with my accomplices who are all of them skilled lawbreakers drawn from the rabble of society, I fetched her out of London..’ ” Veech frowned again: he still nourished his theory about Pembroke as a culprit, though his investigations had hit a cold trail. “ ‘I must depart for France by the end of the month, and have no time to waste, so here is my offer to you. I have intelligence of the schemes fomented in the City by Lord Digby over the last year, as I was his instrument in effecting most of them. Some you are aware of, others were stillborn, and more are being concocted as I write. I can supply the Committee detail of these plans, and keys to the figures employed by Digby in his correspondence, which were my invention. Once abroad, I would also report from Paris any intelligence that may help to expose him as the villain he is..’ ” Veech paused. “How tempting.”
“Yes, but there is a catch,” said St. John.
Veech read on, to himself. Beaumont would meet with St. John, and no one else. He asked for Mr. Draycott to escort St. John to an inn, the White Hart, outside the village of Stokenchurch, near High Wycombe. A clever choice, thought Veech: he knew the village was a popular stopping place for travellers to change horses on the Oxford to London road. Although now in Parliament territory, it lay closer to Oxford: a twenty-mile ride. “I pledge to come alone and unarmed, on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth of this month of August,” Beaumont continued. “If by dusk I have no word from you, I shall wait no longer. In the case you attend, should you seek to detain me or harm me, or should you later unmask me publicly as your informant, you will be doing Lord Digby a favour and yourself none, for you would lose your pair of ears in Her Majesty’s Court.”
Veech smirked about the pair of ears. “Arrogant fellow,” he said, returning the letter to St. John.
“The Committee is inclined to accept,” said St. John. “Apart from the worth of his revelations about Lord Digby, an informant of his rank in Paris would be a boon to us. Yet the meeting itself is but four days away, and the Committee hesitates for me to undertake the risk.”
“You should not. I’ll go in your stead with Mr. Draycott and a party of militia. We’ll arrive in good time and scout out the meeting place, lest he’s plotting an ambush. Any hint of trouble and I’ll bring him to London.”
St. John glanced at Draycott. “What say you, sir?”
“I think it beneath our dignity to parley with a traitor,” Draycott said, sounding disgusted.
“We are equal traitors in the eyes of the King, Mr. Draycott. And we are not parleying with Mr. Beaumont,” said St. John. “We are merely benefiting from his treachery.”
V.
“Are you bound for Chancery Lane, Mr. Draycott?” Draycott nodded; he wished Veech had stayed behind with St. John, rather than following him out. “Then let’s take a skiff together, to Temple Stairs.”
As they sat side by side on the narrow board, Draycott noticed Veech’s whole face glowing, like that of a starved man anticipating a banquet. “You talked of adversity in your Oxford gaol,” he said, in a newly expansive, companionable manner. “For three years, after I had been submitted to unspeakable injuries, I was chained to a bench of this width, crammed into a pirate ship with other galley slaves. We were whipped to toil at the oars, and had to consume our rations and sleep and piss and shit without moving from our places, and without prospect of freedom, except through death, to which many succumbed. Many tried suicide, and were kept alive and tortured for their crime.”
Draycott concealed interest: both Pym and Sir Montague had been right about Veech’s past. “How were you not driven insane?”
“I fixed my mind upon my brute survival, and put myself in a state of war with any who opposed me, which gave me licence to do whatever was necessary for my preservation.”
“The rule of beasts, not men.”
Veech laughed and shook his head. “Beasts are gentler to each other than men, Mr. Draycott. They haven’t the instinct for deliberate cruelty.”
“What was your life before that?”
Veech settled his elbow on the bow of the skiff, and studied the river traffic benignly, as though it were ferrying to and fro at his command. “I was born and bred in Wapping, and apprenticed young to a spice merchant. He had a lucrative business. I bargained for him in the foreign ports and supervised the quality of his purchases. I spied out the cheaters who would disguise their stale produce for fresh, or fake their bills of sale, or elude their debts. And I punished them, so they wouldn’t repeat a swindle. I was eight and twenty, sailing for Naples harbour, when my ship was boarded by Barbary pirates. For a decade I vanished: into their galleys, and then into their fortresses on the African coast. But through a happy chance, I was granted my freedom. I entered a militia in Italy, and then the Dutch army, where I gained the more artful skills for which I was recruited back to England, to serve John Pym.”
“What happy chance bought you your freedom?”
“I told my overseer of a revolt that some of us slaves had been planning among ourselves. I was ordered to extract the confessions of my co-conspirators and to execute them, slowly, to deter future rebels. It was a small price to pay, to be shot of my chains. I can guess what you’re thinking, sir,” said Veech, as the skiff pulled into dock, “but don’t flatter yourself. All men are Judases, given enough incentive. Look at Beaumont, spilling his lordship’s secrets to the enemy.”
“He is a Judas, and a sly one, at that. He’s outfoxed you again: you won’t have your revenge.”
“Oh yes I will. And the Committee will hear I killed him in self-defence. If you say otherwise, let me warn you: I know where you sent your family.”
“This time you’ve no need to threaten me, Mr. Veech,” Draycott said scornfully, though inside he was sick with fear: now he and Beaumont could not fail. “I couldn’t give a damn for his life. Just swear to me that when he’s dead, you’ll leave me and my family alone.”
“I swear I shall – it’s the last I’ll ever ask of you,” said Veech, in such a tone that Draycott believed him. “Afterwards, should you so choose, I can arrange for you to resign honourably from Mr. St. John’s service with a fine pension.”
“Then for once,” Draycott told him, “I’ll willingly assist you.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I.
Laurence squinted through his spyglass at the valley below. A party of ten riders was galloping down the track towards the White Hart Inn. He handed the glass to one of Aston’s men, next to him; they were both flat on their bellies amid ferns still damp with morning dew. “Veech is on the brown mare. That long coat marks him out. Draycott’s on the piebald. Remember him well – you must let him escape unharmed.”
“Yes, sir,” said the man, and passed back the glass.
Laurence trained it again on Veech, who had brought a smaller escort than he had expected. He himself was equipped with thirty troopers from Aston’s guard concealed at strategic posts overlooking the inn, a lonely establishment situated about a mile from the village of Stokenchurch. Through the day and night they had spent encamped in the Chiltern Hills, they had seen no Parliamentary troops reconnoitring; perhaps a sign of too much confidence on Veech’s part. So what plan had Veech for today, Laurence wondered nervously, and had he any whisper of suspicion about Draycott?
The riders dismounted in the yard, Veech hampered by his damaged leg. The rest of them, armed with carbines, spread out to inspect the property. When they had reported to Veech, he, Draycott, and a hulk of a fellow went in through the front entrance. Those remaining stabled the horses and dispersed, some to the rear of the White Hart and some to the grounds. The landlord’s servants and early customers were now filing out from the kitchen entrance, in the direction of the main road.
“Where are they going?” asked Laurence’s companion.
“Veech may think I have accomplices among them. It seems as if only the landlord and his daughter have stayed behind.”
“Is it a problem for us, sir?”
“It’s an advantage,” said Laurence. “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”
By three o’clock in the afternoon, he had spied no more riders, and no new activity at the inn. He adopted an old army precaution: to empty bladder and bowels prior to battle. Then he wrapped in cloth the vial of belladonna and foxglove that Seward had mixed with aqua vitae, tucked it into a pocket in his close-trousers, and fastened his breeches. If in the worst case he or Draycott had to consume any of the food Draycott was to poison, the correct dose to reverse the monkshood’s toxic effects would be a gamble to estimate: he and Seward had tested the antidote successfully on rats, but not on a larger animal. Nonetheless, he derived comfort from it, as a sort of talisman from his friend. Inside his doublet lining was the slim knife he always carried; otherwise he was unarmed. He repeated to Aston’s man that the guard should stay alert and in position, mounted his horse, and set out for the main road, and on to the White Hart.
II.
Draycott saw Veech tense and shift in his chair at the thud of horse’s hooves in the yard; he had been sitting impassively at a table in the taproom on which he had laid out writing instruments, a sheaf of blank paper, and his matchlock pistol. “Is it him?”
Draycott rushed to the window. “Yes, and he is alone.”
Veech nodded at the big militiaman. “Otis, go with Mr. Draycott.”
They went out, Otis brandishing his carbine and Draycott his pistol.
Beaumont swung from the saddle and regarded them with aristocratic disdain. “Damn you, put away your weapons. As I promised Mr. St. John, I’m not armed.”
The Licence of War Page 57