Draycott envisioned himself in his lawyer’s role addressing an unrepentant criminal; nothing must betray their complicity. “Raise your hands, Mr. Beaumont, and walk ahead of us into the taproom.”
Beaumont scowled, though he followed the order.
Veech did not stand when they came in. He motioned Draycott to come over beside him, and then examined Beaumont as he might a hoard of treasure, his eyes glittering. “Mr. Beaumont, I am Clement Veech.”
Beaumont surveyed him with apparent indifference. “Where’s Mr. St. John?”
“He was kept in London, on Committee affairs. He requested me to conduct our interview.”
Beaumont’s nostrils widened like those of a startled thoroughbred. “His absence demonstrates bad faith,” he said, and turned on his heel.
“Another pace towards the door, and I’ll shoot,” said Veech, picking up his matchlock. “Not to kill, to wound.”
Beaumont swerved about. “When I shot you, I fired at random. I apologise, Mr. Veech. But I won’t talk to you. The Committee has disrespected my terms.”
“A traitor merits no respect, and you’ll do as you’re bidden.” Veech lowered his pistol. “I must search you. Remove your doublet and give it to me.” When Beaumont tossed it onto the table, Veech hunted through it. “You were armed,” he remarked, of the thin blade he found there.
“With a knife for eating,” Beaumont said derisively.
“The landlord is cooking us rabbit stew. You can eat with fingers and a spoon.”
“I don’t intend to eat with you.”
Veech placed the knife on the table by his pistol. “Your boots.” Beaumont dragged out a chair and sat down to pull off his boots. He kicked them under the table to Veech. “And your breeches, boot hose and stockings.”
“What in God’s name …?”
“Do as I say,” muttered Veech, continuing his hunt. Beaumont peeled off his stockings, unlaced, stood to drop his breeches, stepped out of them, and threw them violently onto Veech’s side of the table. “And your shirt,” said Veech, delving into the breeches’ pockets.
“By Jesus,” swore Beaumont, as he whipped it over his head. Balling it up, he hurled it at Veech; he was now naked except for his close-trousers. Draycott waited, agonised, for Veech to produce the antidote Beaumont was to bring. Yet Veech had lost interest in the clothing.
He got up and limped in a ponderous circle around Beaumont, studying him as though entranced. Draycott was surprised by the number and severity of scars on Beaumont’s lean body; the darkness of his skin rendered them all the more noticeable. “You have been in the wars,” said Veech, resuming his seat. “We share an acquaintance with pain.”
“May I dress?”
“Not until you finish undressing. I want everything off.”
Beaumont loosened the tie on his under-linen. He hesitated, as if out of modesty, a hand covering his groin. Then he shifted his hand away, and the light garment fell to the floor. Veech beckoned him nearer. His hands were curled into fists, and he was shaking, from rage at the humiliation, Draycott assumed; he could see no fear in Beaumont.
“Raise your arms, and come and stand in front of me,” Veech ordered.
“Have you a perverted desire that you wish me to satisfy, Mr. Veech?” Beaumont inquired.
“I might think of one, since you suggest it,” Veech said, laughing. As Beaumont approached within a few inches of him, he seized the knife and used the blade of it to lift Beaumont’s privy member and then his scrotum. Draycott could hardly breathe.
“No more than you’d expect to find between a man’s legs,” said Beaumont. “Now may I dress?”
Draycott caught in Veech that same unwarranted rage. As swiftly, it dissipated. “You know what you remind me of, Mr. Beaumont – a Lascar, or an Arab. Save for one thing.” Veech stroked the blade to his foreskin. “I travelled to the East when I was about your age, and spent some years there,” Veech carried on conversationally, as when he had told Draycott of his time as a slave. “I saw many a convert to Mahommet circumcised and it requires an expert hand – not a skill I possess – and even so, there can be accidents.” Otis made a little choking noise in his throat that elicited another laugh from Veech.
Beaumont’s eyes were fixed on Veech, not on the knife, but his mouth had started to tremble. “Were you ever a convert?”
Veech sobered instantly, and snapped, “No, I was not. On the subject of hands, open yours and hold them out to me, palms up.” Beaumont hesitated again. As he obeyed, Draycott’s heart sank: in his left palm was a cloth bundle. Veech grabbed it and unwrapped the cloth. “Your infamous sleeping draught?” he asked, of the vial.
“It would induce sleep, yes,” said Beaumont, in a faint voice, “but that’s not why I have it with me. It’s opium tincture. My gut has been unsettled recently.”
Veech unstopped the cork, sniffed at the contents, and licked the wet end of the cork. He spat on the flagstones and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “You liar, it isn’t poppy.” He offered it to Beaumont. “Drink of it, to settle your gut. Not too much – we’ve work to accomplish.” Beaumont accepted it and drank a tiny sip. “Give it here.” Veech corked the vial and placed it on the table by his pistol. “You may put on your shirt. You won’t need any more than that.” Beaumont cast him a look of unmistakable dread, and proceeded to tug the garment on. “Sit opposite me and Mr. Draycott.” Veech pushed the writing instruments and paper towards Beaumont, leant back in his chair, and folded his arms across the broad mound of his chest. “Start on the ciphers you designed for Lord Digby.”
III.
Laurence constructed charts of symbols and letters, and filled in the squares, pausing only to dry his sweating hand on the front of his shirt, or to dip the quill and commence on a fresh page. He had reams of codes and ciphers memorised, not that it mattered now. How foolish he had been. He thought of Lady d’Aubigny smuggling the Commission of Array into London tucked into her dress, where no gentleman would search; and none had searched her there, as he had said to Draycott on the barge. But Veech was no gentleman, and his own lack of forethought could be his death. The belladonna and foxglove were gradually taking effect: his mouth was parched, his head throbbed, and his stomach ached. These changes heralded further debilitating symptoms: muscular spasms, dizziness and blurred vision, incoherence, and unconsciousness from which, on the last occasion, he had been fortunate to wake. Today he had swallowed less, but the concentration could be stronger. Yet he might welcome unconsciousness; it was not hard to predict what Veech had in store for him.
His muscles began to twitch, and he struggled to write on. From the corner of his eye, he checked the angle of the sun’s rays through the taproom windows. Was it four or five o’clock? He twisted his head to and fro as if to relieve a crick in his neck, and saw Veech’s guard on a bench by the door, carbine on his meaty knees, toying with a length of rope; he had the protruding brow and jaw, and the ungainly build, of a giant, although his expression was more dim-witted than brutal. Draycott appeared petrified, in the literal sense of one turned to stone. Meanwhile Veech was casually scanning the completed pages. Laurence detected in his face and physique and fleshy hands the soft, sinister quality that Price and Draycott had spoken of; and there was a power to his voice, and to those hooded eyes beneath his black brows. Laurence admired Draycott anew: he had known what a man they had to kill. How hopeless seemed their plan, though it was late in the day to abort.
“Otis, ask the landlord when his stew will be ready, and remind him not to skimp on the seasoning,” Veech said to the guard, who rose on his massive feet and stomped into the kitchen.
Laurence was now twitching more uncontrollably. He darted a frown at Draycott: a missed chance for him to slip in the monkshood.
Veech sat forward; had he guessed who had been chosen as his murderer? But then he said, with mild concern, “Mr. Beaumont, your pupils are unnaturally swollen. I believe you’ve poisoned yourself, instead of me! We must work faster. I d
on’t want to lose a single scrap of intelligence before you die.”
Otis shambled in, and announced, “Half an hour, sir.”
“Otis, Mr. Beaumont is having trouble sitting still. Take that rope and tie his ankles to the legs of his chair.” Otis tied the rope tight, but it was no help to Laurence: the chair rattled along with his twitches. More concern crossed Veech’s face, and he moved to snatch the quill from Laurence, and a sheet of paper. “How did you and Lady Hallam flee London after your friends rescued her from the Tower?”
Laurence moistened his lips with his tongue. “We … left in the Earl of Pembroke’s carriage.”
“Then he is a Royalist.”
“He’s as staunch for Parliament as your Oliver St. John, and he was as pleased to shelter us and get us out of London as I am to be here with you,” Laurence said, his words tripping over each other. “But I told him if he didn’t, I would air in public a compromising secret of his.”
“What might that be? A vice akin to Sir Montague’s?”
“No: a past act of disloyalty to the King, which would … would prejudice his reputation.”
“How did you come to learn of it?”
“Through a … a coincidence.”
“That’s no answer. Why didn’t he have you killed?”
“If he did, his secret would be leaked by my friends.”
Veech bored into Laurence with his impenetrable gaze. “What is his secret?”
“I came to betray Lord Digby, not to inform on Parliament’s friends. You’re wasting your time, and mine.”
“Yes, and yours may be running out.” Veech scratched some lines on the page. “Where is Lady Hallam?”
“In Exeter, preparing to sail for France, where I’m … to join her.”
Veech snorted, as though this were unlikely. “And Sir Montague?”
“In The Hague.”
“Operating for Digby?”
“Of course not. He can’t be trusted, after the bargain he struck with your Committee.”
“Who has replaced him in London?”
“Why, have you more packages in mind, Mr. Veech?”
“Yes, I do.” Veech smiled reflectively. “Your friend Barlow scarcely budged when my knife cut through his wrist. I thought his punishment fitting, for a thief. There’s a fitting punishment for every man and woman. Lady Hallam escaped hers, I’m sorry to say, but you shall not escape. I might send her those parts of you she cherished most, as a memento mori.” Laurence bit down on his lip; the spasms were worsening, as was his panic. “Dear God,” Veech exclaimed, over the rattling and banging of Laurence’s chair. “I am tired of the noise, and his jumping about.” He picked up Laurence’s knife, and then, as if on a second thought, set it down again. Reaching into his coat pocket, he produced a different knife, a good two or three inches longer and much thicker in the blade. “How well this has served me, in the past. Mr. Draycott,” he said, holding it out, “take it and pin his right hand to the table. Let’s see if it quietens him.” Draycott blanched. “You cowardly hypocrite – you’ve dispatched men to the gallows for their crimes, and yet you can’t shed a traitor’s blood. Go on and do it, or I’ll do it myself.”
Through a floating haze, Laurence saw Draycott take the knife. He shut his eyes, and felt Draycott’s reluctant hand grip his, to flatten it upon the surface of the table. “You are a coward – you haven’t the strength to defy him,” he hissed at Draycott.
“Why would I bother, for a traitor such as you,” Draycott retorted.
Laurence screamed as the blade stabbed into his flesh. He opened his eyes; and there was his hand, pinned below the knuckle of his second finger. Blood bubbled around the puncture and less than an inch of steel showed above his skin. Miraculously it cured him of the twitching, and of his headache. He was conscious solely of the pain travelling up his arm, and the desperate need to stay lucid and talk to keep Veech’s interest until they ate, before that knife could be put to other use.
Draycott had his own right hand clapped to his mouth.
“Mr. Draycott,” said Veech, “go to the kitchen and tell the landlord to bring us food.” Draycott stumbled out. “I want the names of Digby’s London agents, Mr. Beaumont.”
An hour, Laurence thought: the monkshood would strike in an hour. “Victor Jeffrey, Antony Burton, James Pritchard, and … Christopher Harris,” he confessed abjectly.
“Thank you,” said Veech, and copied down the names of the dead clergymen in St. Saviour’s Church.
IV.
The landlord’s daughter was stirring a cauldron of stew at the range, supervised by two of Veech’s men who had been ordered to stay there. “Someone cried out, sir,” she said to Draycott, in a frightened voice.
The landlord was tapping a cask, his hands shaking as he held a jug to the spigot, spilling the ale. “What business are you conducting here?” he demanded. “I’m not a man of violence, sir, and I don’t appreciate my custom being driven away.”
Draycott’s nausea disappeared. If he could stick a knife through the hand of a friend, he could murder his enemy. “We’re examining a malignant, and you are not to interfere,” he said. The landlord quailed; he might not favour Parliament, Draycott realised, hence the two men on guard. “Mr. Veech has had to employ some rough measures,” Draycott told them, in a lower voice. “To spare this girl the sight of blood, I’ll bring Mr. Veech and Otis their meal, and you can attend to yourselves and the boys outside.”
“Aye, sir,” they said.
Draycott took from his pocket the marked bags: one of salt mixed with ground pepper and various other spices, and one of powdered monkshood. He would have to act openly, contrary to the original plan. “Mr. Veech likes his dishes well seasoned,” he told the girl. “He gave me these to add.” He offered her the bags, in full view of Veech’s men, praying she would not accept them.
“You do it for me, sir – I wouldn’t know how.” She pointed to a stack of wooden trenchers near the range. While the militiamen were busy refilling their mugs, Draycott spooned out a generous amount of stew for Veech, sprinkled it liberally with the contents of both bags, blended them in, and stuck the contaminated spoon in the same serving. A separate portion, for Otis, he sprinkled with salt and spices.
V.
Laurence kept his eyes averted as Draycott gave Veech and Otis their trenchers.
“Not eating, Mr. Draycott?” asked Veech.
“You deprived me of my appetite, sir,” Draycott said. “Should I feed Mr. Beaumont?”
Veech made no reply. When Laurence looked up at him, he was studying Draycott intently.
The landlord came with a tray bearing ale, tankards, and a platter of bread. He boggled at Laurence’s skewered hand as he set the tray on the table, and he left hastily. Eat, eat, Laurence urged Veech; the pain of his wound was lessening and he sensed himself nearing oblivion. Purposely he jerked at his right hand to reawaken the pain. “May … I … have some ale?” he begged, his tongue thick in his mouth.
“Why not,” said Veech. “In fact, you should try a bit of my stew.” He shoved his trencher across the table to Laurence, his eyes still on Draycott. “Taste it for me.”
Laurence might preserve his life, if one poison cancelled the other, only to die a yet nastier death, but to deceive Veech he had to eat. He scooped a heaped spoonful of the stew, gulped it down, and burst into a fit of coughing. “Hot,” he gasped.
“That it is,” spluttered Otis, grabbing for his ale.
Laurence jammed in more, and forced himself to swallow. “Enough, enough,” said Veech with an edge of annoyance. “I know your game – to line your stomach in the vain hope it will save you from the poison.” He gestured for Laurence to return his trencher, and tasted the sauce. “As hot as an Oriental dish – the landlord is profligate with his spices.”
“It was as you wanted,” Draycott said, in a servile tone.
“Don’t mistake me: I find it most palatable.” Veech dug out a piece of rabbit, devoured it, and
soaked up his sauce with bread, evidently enjoying his meal. When he pushed away his spotless trencher, his cheeks and forehead were beaded with sweat. He pressed his thumb to his lips, and nibbled tentatively at them with his teeth. The numbness; Laurence could feel it on his own lips. Veech loosened his collar and fumbled open the upper buttons on his coat. “I’ll step out for air. Stay,” he said to Otis and Draycott.
Otis was mopping his streaming face on his cuff. “Mr. Draycott, sir, is there any more in that jug?” he asked, when Veech had gone.
“No,” said Draycott, his pistol aimed at Laurence. “Have it refilled.”
“Mr. Veech’s orders were to stay,” Otis said, unhappily.
They sat listening to Veech’s uneven tread outside. Laurence peeked at Draycott, who signalled encouragement with a flicker of his lids; and Laurence responded with an infinitesimal flicker of his, to signal his despair.
Veech walked in paler and sweatier, limped more laboriously to his chair, and dropped into it. “So, Mr. Beaumont, what is my Lord Digby concocting next, for London?” His speech was slurred.
“He’s to send in muskets, concealed in … in coffins, for a revolt this autumn,” Laurence invented feebly.
“When and how will they arrive?”
Laurence heard himself drone on, as if his voice belonged to some other being over whom he had no agency; he had no idea of what he was saying. And Veech was pausing to frame his questions, and as he recorded Laurence’s answers, the ink blotted on the page. Laurence battled a great desire to sleep, and jerked his hand once more, but felt nothing.
“Mr. Veech,” interjected Otis, “may I go out to piss?”
“Go, and tell the others that we’re almost done here – Mr. Beaumont is fading fast.” Veech drank from his tankard, setting it down with a bang. “Sour as vinegar.” He winced, and rubbed his belly. “And all that spice was a disguise for rotten meat.” He plucked up his quill clumsily. “Carry on Mr. Beaumont. You were saying that … that Digby has … bribed … a …” Veech yawned, the quill dangling over the page. “Why is it so … warm?” He gripped the edge of the table in an attempt to stand, his heels scraping on the flagstones. He sighed as if worried, and shivered; he was fighting to inhale. Ripping at the buttons on his coat, he tore it open. Laurence blinked awake and stared; was he hallucinating, or did the rounded shapes beneath Veech’s shirt resemble breasts? Draycott was also staring. Veech slumped deeper in his seat. “What have I eaten?” he moaned. His skin had acquired a pasty greenish hue, though his eyes were bright and intelligent. “I am … p-poisoned! How did you …?” he mouthed, at Laurence. The truth registered, and he glared round at Draycott. “Ah, it was you, you miserable worm – you turned on me! Then I’m taking you with me, to hell.” He scrabbled for his pistol and cocked it, but as he tried to raise it, both of his arms slackened to his sides, and the pistol fell from his grip. He slid from the chair and thumped to the floor, striking his head.
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