The Last Protector

by Andrew Taylor

  To my horror, one of Buckingham’s boatmen was pointing in my direction. Ignoring the stitch in my side, I pushed myself to walk faster, praying that the boatmen would take me for a passing farmworker.

  The alehouse by the landing place was crowded with men who made their living on and from the river. Several of them turned to scowl at me as I blundered into the smoke-filled, low-ceilinged room. Wanswell was one of the men drinking at the long table by the window.

  ‘Come – we must go,’ I said.

  He raised his head. ‘Must we, master?’ He appealed to the company at large. ‘Must we, boys?’

  ‘No,’ someone said loudly. ‘You’re as free a man as any in London. Have a drink instead. Let’s all have a drink.’

  His fellows agreed with a clatter of mugs and bottles on the table.

  I brought my head down to the level of Wanswell’s. ‘Another five shillings if we go now,’ I said pleasantly. ‘Or I start walking to Putney, and you lose your return fare as well as your shilling-an-hour charge for waiting.’

  He accepted the offer, though for pride’s sake he took his time finishing his ale. I led the way outside, with the waterman staggering behind me. The delay had cost me five minutes, and that was too much. Roger Durrell, Mr Veal’s servant, was pounding down the lane towards the alehouse. Despite his bulk, he was capable of a surprising turn of speed. When he saw me, he stopped thirty yards away, his hand dropping to the hilt of his old cavalry sword.

  ‘God’s arse, if it ain’t Marwood,’ he said. He had a sonorous, phlegm-filled voice. ‘That will interest Mr Veal. So those web-footed watermen were right after all. You come along with me, sir, eh?’

  Wanswell staggered to my side. ‘Who you calling web-footed?’

  ‘Save your breath, numbskull.’

  ‘Me? A numbskull? I’ll rip your guts out for that, you fat bag of wind.’

  Durrell looked at the small squat man and burst out laughing. ‘Quite the little gamecock, ain’t you?’

  Wanswell held his gaze for a moment. Then he spat, shrugged and retreated to the alehouse, abandoning me to my fate.

  Durrell advanced slowly towards me. I backed away along the path to the river, with a half-baked idea in my head that I might leap into a boat and escape him that way.

  The alehouse door opened again, and Wanswell returned. He was carrying a staff shod with iron. Behind him came six or seven of his fellows. One of them had an axe over his shoulder. Another had a billhook with which he was slashing the air before him.

  ‘That’s him,’ Wanswell said, shaking his staff at Durrell. ‘That’s the poxy windfucker. He’s the one calling us web-footed fools. Fat whoreson.’

  The watermen advanced towards him in a solid, menacing phalanx. Durrell ripped out his sword. He stood there irresolutely. Then he turned tail and walked rapidly back the way he had come.

  The clock over the guardhouse stairs struck five.

  When Mr Undersecretary Williamson had dismissed his clerk Marwood, he allowed himself a moment to consider what he had learned, and the most advantageous way to present it to my Lord Arlington. Then he rose from his chair, put on his cloak and walked through Scotland Yard into Whitehall itself. Rain drifted from a dark sky heavy with clouds. Twilight was creeping through the palace. He made his way to Lord Arlington’s office overlooking the Privy Garden and requested the honour of an interview with his lordship.

  The clerk returned almost immediately and ushered him into the Secretary’s presence. The curtains were drawn and the candles lit. Arlington acknowledged Williamson’s greeting with a stately inclination of his head; he had spent four years representing the King in Spain, and he had brought back with him the manners of the Spanish court, as well as its language.

  ‘There’s news?’ he demanded.

  ‘Yes, my lord. I had a witness to the whole affair.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘They met in a close at Barn Elms. It did not turn out as we might have wished. Buckingham wounded my Lord Shrewsbury.’

  ‘Mortally?’

  ‘We don’t know yet. The blade went into the right side of his chest and came out at the shoulder. He fell to the ground. There was a good deal of blood. Apparently he was still conscious, but unable to stand.’

  ‘It’s most unfortunate,’ Arlington said. ‘I must tell the King at once.’ But he stayed in his chair, staring at the fire and showing no apparent signs of urgency. ‘I thought that Talbot and Howard would take care of matters, I really did. They hate Buckingham enough. Was anyone else hurt? Or killed?’

  ‘Jenkins. Once my lord was down, the Duke got in the way of Jenkins’ sword arm, and that’s when Howard ran him through.’ Williamson pursed his lips. ‘He’s dead.’

  Arlington considered the information. Williamson waited, accustomed to his superior’s silences and knowing better than to interrupt. The Secretary always wore a narrow strip of black plaster across his nose, which Williamson privately thought a ridiculous affectation. The plaster was supposed to cover the scar of a wound sustained when Arlington had fought for the King in one of the early battles of the Civil War. People said its only purpose was to remind the world of his loyalty to the crown in the late wars. But they didn’t say it to his face.

  ‘It’s a great misfortune.’ Arlington frowned and then brightened. ‘Though of course there is a silver lining: we have a dead man, after all, and Shrewsbury wounded, if not worse: it cannot bode well for the four that survived unharmed. They must go into hiding, even flee the country.’

  ‘It depends on how the King responds,’ Williamson said.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘My lord, you know as well as I do that the King needs Buckingham’s services at present. He can’t manage Parliament without him.’

  ‘But he can’t ignore what’s happened, either. Such a flagrant breaking of the law. It must be manslaughter at the very least, with Buckingham at the heart of it, even if he did not deal the fatal blow himself. Who was your witness, by the way? We may need his testimony.’

  ‘My clerk Marwood.’

  Arlington met Williamson’s eyes. ‘Ah. I know the name.’

  ‘I regret to say that one of Buckingham’s creatures saw him in the neighbourhood. A broken-down trooper from Cromwell’s horse. The rogue recognized him and tried to detain him. Marwood gave him the slip, but the fact he was there will get back to the Duke.’

  ‘That’s a pity. Do you trust him? Marwood, I mean.’

  ‘I believe so, my lord. He’s served us well in the past. He’s a careful man, and he knows the value of his place with me. His father was a Fifth Monarchist, but he himself has none of that dangerous nonsense about him.’ Williamson hesitated. ‘The King has employed him too, once or twice, through Mr Chiffinch, which I cannot say I like, though the King was much pleased with Marwood’s service. He gave him the clerkship of the Board of Red Cloth as a reward.’

  Arlington stared up at the fresco on the ceiling. It showed the Banquet of the Gods, with Jupiter bearing a marked resemblance to King Charles II. ‘I think you’re probably right about Buckingham – in the next week or two, there will be a great deal of fuss and then a royal pardon, at least for him. The King opens Parliament on the sixth of February, so he needs the Duke in harness by then. He has to be, if he is to carry out his promise and persuade the Commons to grant the King the money he needs for the navy.’

  ‘If …’ said Williamson.

  Arlington tapped his fingertips on the table before him, as if playing a flourish of notes on the keyboard of a clavichord. Probably a jig, Williamson thought sourly. The Secretary had a vulgar taste for them. Williamson himself sneered at jigs. His own tastes were more sophisticated. He loved the work of the new French and Italian composers, and particularly the unfairly beautiful harmonies of papist choral music.

  ‘Exactly,’ his lordship said at last. ‘You see the situation as I do.’

  He smiled. Williamson could not avoid smiling back. The Undersecretary distrusted charm ab
ove all things – in the last few years, its dangers had been amply demonstrated by the King himself, who could have charmed the angels out of heaven if he had set his mind to it, and then handed them in chains to the Devil if the Devil had been willing to pay the right price and keep his mouth shut about the transaction.

  ‘In time Buckingham will damn himself in the King’s eyes,’ Arlington went on. ‘He’s a firecracker, dangerous when he catches a spark because you can never tell which way he will jump. But give him a steady job of work to do and he will soon show his want of application, his inability to match deeds to word. He can no more manage the House of Commons for the King than my daughter could. In the meantime, though, we have another difficulty, don’t we?’

  Williamson said nothing. Arlington was always seeing difficulties, and for once he had no idea which one his lordship meant.

  Arlington lowered his voice. ‘My Lord Shrewsbury has been complaisant about his cuckold’s horns for nearly two years. Her ladyship and Buckingham have let the world know of their passion for one another, so Shrewsbury must have known about it from the first. Which means that Buckingham must be wondering, why now, why after all this time should my lord have challenged him? And in the French style, too, with three against three, which makes it so likely that a great deal of blood will be spilt. And with Talbot as one of his seconds, who is one of the Duke’s greatest enemies not just in Parliament but in the whole of London. And my supporter.’

  ‘You think, my lord, His Grace may suspect that …’

  ‘That we had a hand in it,’ Arlington said. ‘Yes. Not that it was a bad idea in itself.’

  He and Williamson had persuaded Talbot to work on the cuckold’s sense of grievance and issue the challenge to the Duke. If they had fought one against one, the smaller, older Shrewsbury would have been at a disadvantage against Buckingham. But a duel in the French style had offered the Earl a chance to tilt the odds in his favour. Obviously it had been a risky business from the outset but, had it come off, the rewards would have been immense. Arlington’s most powerful political rival would have been either disgraced or dead, and through a tragic train of circumstances that had no apparent connection to Arlington.

  ‘I always had my doubts that the plan would work,’ he continued. ‘Still …’

  Williamson clamped his lips together. The scheme had been Arlington’s from start to finish.

  ‘Buckingham already has no reason to like us,’ the Secretary went on. ‘This will make him hate us. And, if I’m any judge of character, it will also make him want to make fools of us.’ His fingers danced on the table; another damned jig, no doubt. ‘He will want his revenge. But how will he set about it?’

  CHAPTER THREE

  A Friend from the Country

  Friday, 17 – Sunday, 19 January 1668

  MASTER KICKS FERRUS awake. He has fallen asleep over his empty bowl. The bowl slipped from his hands. It’s upside down on the flagstones.

  Ferrus was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall by the door to the yard. The toe of Master’s boot lands just above Ferrus’s elbow. The impact pushes him over. He lies on the threshold, covering his face with his hands. He curls himself into a ball.

  Hedgepig, he thinks. He likes hedgepigs. Sometimes they come into the yard from the park, hoping for kitchen scraps. When Windy tried to kill one, the hedgepig rolled itself into a bundle of spikes and the spikes hurt Windy’s nose. In a while, Windy grew bored and left the hedgepig alone. Time passed. The hedgepig uncurled and crept away.

  Another kick lands, this one on Ferrus’s thigh. He cries out, because Master likes that, but the pain is bearable.

  Time passes.

  Ferrus is hedgepig.

  At ten o’clock in the morning on Friday, Mistress Hakesby was at Burton’s the instrument-maker’s shop at the sign of the Bear’s Head, which was a few doors along from the Devil Tavern in Fleet Street. She was attended by her maid, a thirteen-year-old girl named Jane Ash, who was more of a hindrance than a help. But Mr Hakesby did not think it proper for his wife to go about town by herself, and Jane was the price that Cat had to pay for a degree of independence.

  Mr Burton opened the box with a flourish. ‘There, mistress,’ he said with the air of a man giving a treat to a child, ‘this is what your husband ordered. Imported especially from France.’

  Cat lifted the brass instrument from the box. A magnetic compass was set within the semicircular arc, which was marked in degrees. Below it was an alidade capable of rotation around the semicircle. It was designed for the precise measurement of angles. She carried it to the doorway, where the light was better. She turned it over in her hands.

  ‘The French call it a graphometer,’ Mr Burton said. ‘But I prefer the good old English term of semicircle. Be that as it may, tell Mr Hakesby that he will find it improves the accuracy of his surveys a thousandfold. It may seem expensive but, at times like these, with so much building going on, so many measurements to be taken, he will find it a most valuable investment. One can do nothing without accurate angles.’

  ‘No,’ said Cat.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This won’t do, Mr Burton.’

  ‘Mistress Hakesby, I think we must let your husband be the best judge of that, and I’m quite sure he will agree with me—’

  ‘I said it won’t do.’ Cat came back into the shop and laid the graphometer on the counter. ‘Look, the alidade does not rotate as cleanly as it should. I’m not satisfied with the engraving of the degrees either. The workmanship is poor.’

  Mr Burton drew himself to his full height. He towered a good nine inches above Cat. ‘I can assure you that—’

  ‘I have seen better elsewhere, thank you. I wish you had sent to Antwerp for it, sir. Their instruments are infinitely superior.’

  ‘I – I shall write to Mr Hakesby about this. Or call on him. I think you—’

  ‘By all means, Mr Burton. Goodbye.’

  ‘Won’t master mind?’ Jane said timidly when they were outside again. ‘If Mr Burton goes to him and—’

  ‘Your master will agree with me,’ Cat said sharply. She glanced at Jane’s frightened face and went on more gently. ‘The instrument is not what it should be. He will know that better than I do.’

  ‘Catherine!’ A woman called. ‘Catherine Lovett!’

  Startled, Cat swung round. A hackney coach was drawn up by the line of posts that kept those on foot apart from the traffic on the roadway. A woman had pulled aside the leather curtain and was smiling tentatively at Cat.

  ‘It is Catherine Lovett, isn’t it?’

  ‘It was,’ Cat said, her voice wary. ‘I’m Catherine Hakesby now.’

  The woman was well dressed, indeed a little overdressed, though not in the height of fashion. She was very young, with plump, pink cheeks and small eyes. Something about the eager face was half-familiar.

  ‘Forgive me, I—’

  ‘You don’t know me?’ The woman looked mortified for a moment, but then the expression was smoothed away and the eagerness returned. ‘We’ve all changed, but you not so much as I perhaps. Shall I give you a clue?’ She beckoned Cat closer. ‘Cast your mind back ten years or so,’ she whispered. ‘Elizabeth.’ She hesitated. ‘Elizabeth from Whitehall. We used to play together.’

  It was her grandfather’s long, straight nose that gave Cat the clue she needed, that and the wide mouth. ‘Elizabeth,’ she said slowly, recognition dawning. ‘Elizabeth Cromwell.’

  ‘You were so kind,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Those endless games of shuttlecock. And you would tell me stories, and build me houses made of twigs.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cat said. ‘I remember. Where—?’

  ‘Am I living now? We’re down in Hampshire, at Hursley, my father’s house. But he can’t be with us there …’ Elizabeth broke off. The eagerness and the smiles had vanished. She looked unhappy. Then: ‘And you, too. I – I was sorry to hear about your father’s death, and your uncle’s.’ She grimaced. ‘So many changes, and not all for the
better. But you’re married, then – how wonderful that must be. Hakesby, did you say? Do you live in London?’

  ‘Yes. Mr Hakesby’s a surveyor. He designs and builds houses. Forgive me, but he’s waiting and I should go.’

  ‘But I can’t lose sight of my old playmate.’ Elizabeth pouted, summoning up the ghost of the child she had once been. ‘Not now, when I’ve just found you again. Where do you lodge? We can take you there.’

  ‘Henrietta Street by Covent Garden,’ Cat said. ‘I’ll be there faster if I walk.’ She could see another young woman in the hackney and an older man. ‘Besides, you won’t have room for both of us.’

  Elizabeth looked disconcerted. ‘But I cannot let you go like this. You must dine with us, and Mr Hakesby too. I’m staying at my godmother’s by Hatton Garden. You will, won’t you?’

  ‘It’s kind of you but—’

  ‘I shall write to you at the sign of the Rose this very afternoon, and name a day. I want to meet your husband. I’m sure he’s a most admirable gentleman.’

  Cat kept a smile on her face, but privately she writhed with embarrassment. ‘I can’t promise that we shall be able to come. He has not been well, and he does not go out a great deal, except in the way of business.’

  Without warning, Elizabeth lunged forward, steadying herself by holding the strap that retained the curtain. She tried to plant a kiss on Cat’s cheek. Instead she pushed the brim of her hat into Cat’s eye. Cat recoiled with a cry of mingled pain and surprise.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I was always so clumsy. Pray forgive me.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said, aware her eye was watering.

  The younger woman looked so miserable that Cat could not be cross with her. She remembered the clumsiness well enough: Elizabeth had been a child who was always spilling her milk and tripping over her skirts. She still was not much more than a child. She was younger than Cat, and could be no more than seventeen or eighteen.

  ‘And you’ll dine with us?’ Elizabeth said, her cheeks pinker than ever. ‘I haven’t put you off with my blundering? Catherine, please say you will.’