The Licence of War (18 page)

St. John looked to Veech a pompous fellow, with his curled hair and fancy clothes; he had been the King’s Solicitor-General, a position stripped from him before the war by His Majesty for political reasons. “This is a copy of a letter from a Major Ogle, prisoner at Winchester House, to the Earl of Bristol,” St. John said, handing Veech the paper.
“The original letter was forwarded to the Earl through our commander in the Aylesbury garrison, Lieutenant-Colonel Mosley. Major Ogle is a sincere yet misguided gentleman who believes he can find common ground between the King and Members of our Parliament disaffected by our alliance with the Scots. He has outlined the terms upon which they might support the King, and, moreover, has stated that as proof of good faith, our garrison at Aylesbury might be surrendered to the Royalists in January.”

“How can Major Ogle make such a claim from a gaol cell?” Veech asked incredulously, eyeing the letter. The chain of involvement fascinated him, however: if Bristol was a part of the King’s scheme, so was Lord Digby, and so must be Laurence Beaumont.

“Because Lieutenant-Colonel Mosely has encouraged him in that expectation.”

“In which he is deceived?”

“Entirely deceived, and he is equally deceived into thinking that the keeper of Winchester House, Mr. Devenish, is his friend and accomplice.”

“It is a most scurrilous affair,” said Pym, his sunken eyes half closed. “The King can have no true desire for a reform of the English Church, or he would have acceded to Parliament’s demands on that count during last year’s peace talks. Oliver, you must forewarn the Members of Parliament, but let us keep this business quiet. With God’s blessing, our treaty with the Scots Commissioners will be concluded in the next few days. It is imperative that we show them a united front. Mr. Veech, have you any tidings for us?”

“I continue to search cargo,” said Veech, “but no arms or powder have been discovered, as yet. I heard, however, that His Majesty’s agent Mr. Violet was here not long ago, and visited with important folk in the City, some of them Catholics.”

“You should have brought Violet in for questioning, Mr. Veech,” said St. John.

“That would be to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, Mr. St. John. I’ll take him, when the time is right.”

Pym frowned at Veech. “Clement, I had report of Hector Albright. Someone who saw his body told me it had been … mutilated, by
you
.”

“He did not die from having his ears clipped,” Veech responded obliquely.

“That was not all you did to him,” murmured Pym, in a sickened tone.

To judge by the expression on St. John’s face, he could not give a damn, so Veech let the comment pass.

“Your Majesty’s profile was admirably captured,” Digby said to the King, of the new medals struck to award his soldiers for gallantry in the field. They were leaving the mint at New Inn Hall, where quantities of College plate were being melted down and turned into coin for the war effort. “In the next issue, however, might I suggest an equestrian portrait? It would convey a martial tone in keeping with the medals’ purpose.”

“I shall bear that in mind,” said the King. “Has Violet set forth yet with … what is his name …?”

“Mr. Price, Your Majesty. Yes, three days ago. They may be in London by now.”

“I am sorry that Mr. Beaumont d-disapproved of our plans.”

“Were he so very averse, he would have come and told you.”

“Yes, I think he would.”

“And it is, shall we say, a
deformity
of his profession to see flaws in every plan. Experience has taught him to trust nothing and no one.”

The King hesitated at the door to his coach. “I hope you are not on bad terms with him, because of his opinions?”

“We parted on the best of terms, after I granted him a week’s leave to call upon his father, who has been asking him to visit for some time.”

Assisted by an equerry, the King lifted his fur-lined cloak to ascend the muddied stair. Then he beckoned Digby to the window.
“Prince Rupert comes tonight into town, to sup with us at Christ Church.”

“He must be fresh from harassing the Earl of Essex’s regiments,” Digby observed, concealing irritation; inevitably Rupert would attend their meeting of His Majesty’s Council later, and throw his weight around.

“Her Majesty wishes for you and Jermyn to leaven the atmosphere at table,” the King said, with a twinkle in his eye. “My nephew can sometimes discourse too long on military manoeuvres for her taste.”

“She may depend upon us for lighter fare,” said Digby, and bade the King goodbye.

How to exploit this evening to his own advantage, Digby ruminated, on the way back to his quarters: he and the Queen both viewed Rupert as their main rival for influence over her husband, and they could not resist poking fun at the humourless young man, who missed even the most blatant of jokes. Jermyn was more cordial towards the Prince, yet Digby often managed to eke a smile out of him with some veiled witticism at Rupert’s expense.

“My lord, you have visitors from London,” Quayle said, as Digby bustled in out of the cold. “Two – er –
ladies
, who are in search of Mr. Beaumont. They are in your antechamber. I took the liberty of serving them wine.”

Digby handed Quayle his cloak and hat, and smoothed down his hair, before entering the room. The women had drawn up chairs at the fireplace, and were sipping from their glasses and teasing Isabella’s cat with a ribbon; Beaumont had consigned the animal to Digby’s care on his departure. The prettiest, a blonde with dimples at either corner of her mouth, was pregnant, Digby noted. Although both wore high-cut frocks of sober colour, as they rose and curtseyed he had to agree with Quayle: there was something unladylike about them.

“My Lord Digby, we thank you for receiving us,” the blonde said, in an accent of mixed gentility and common London twang. “May I
introduce Mistress Perdita Hughes.” Her companion was a redhead, with pillow lips. “And I am Madam Cordelia Weston. We are friends of Mr. Beaumont.”

“Merely friends, my lord – we know that he is soon to be married,” said Mistress Hughes, reassuringly. “We come with sad news for him, from the capital.”

“Oh?” said Digby. Whores, he realised: expensive whores; and they were taking the measure of him, as expertly as he was them.

“A lady very close to his heart has passed on,” said Madam Weston.

“That is tragic!”

“Mistress Edwards was sixty-two in April, my lord,” Mistress Hughes said. “A fair age, but it was still a blow to us.”

“Was she your … mother?”

“No, my lord,” said Madam Weston. “She might have been, such was the attention she doted on us. We were lodgers at her house.”

“Paying lodgers,” Mistress Hughes added.

“Please be seated, ladies,” he said, and availed himself of a chair.

“Where might we find Mr. Beaumont, my lord?” Madam Weston asked, without further ado.

“I am afraid that he went out of town yesterday, to his family in Gloucestershire.”

“When might he return?”

“In a week, or perhaps more.”

“You won’t be sending him into London again, will you, my lord?”

“Not after his most recent, arduous sojourn,” replied Digby; by her attitude, she had more than friendly feelings for Beaumont.

“To be honest, our Mistress Edwards aided in his escape. He was hiding in her house, during his stay.”

“What a service to His Majesty, and to myself! Were you ladies also of assistance to him?”

“We did our share.”

“Cordelia, you did more than that,” asserted Mistress Hughes, and to Digby, “She drove him through the defences in a donkey cart.
He was lying in the back, got up as a sick old woman. If it wasn’t for Cordelia being in her delicate state, the militia would have searched the cart and found him.”

“Then Mr. Beaumont is in debt to you for his life, Madam Weston,” said Digby, impressed.

“He has done us many a good turn over the years.”

“Why, how long have you known him?”

“Since thirty-five or six, before he went to fight in the Low Countries,” said Mistress Hughes. “We were just girls then, weren’t we, Cordelia, and new to the house. He is a sweet-tempered gentleman, and so respectful of the fair sex!”

“Who is he to wed, my lord?” Madam Weston inquired.

“A young maiden, from a neighbouring county.”

“Oh – I’d pictured a woman. And Mistress Edwards said they’d been lovers for months. As a matter of fact, he bought her a necklace off the Mistress.”

A bawd’s necklace for his darling Isabella, thought Digby. “
That
passion has ended.”

“Well, well, and I thought he was so taken with her as to refuse all others!”

Mistress Hughes nudged her friend’s elbow. “He didn’t refuse
you
, on his final night in London.”

“Ladies,” Digby said, as though to steer the conversation away from Mr. Beaumont’s romantic affairs, “might you be acquainted with another of his London friends – Mr. Edward Price?”

“Ned Price?” said Mistress Hughes. “It was at Mistress Edwards’ house that Mr. Beaumont met him, only last month.”

Madam Weston expressed similar astonishment. “How might
you
be acquainted with him, my lord?”

“He, too, came to Oxford in search of Mr. Beaumont. He seems a fine young gentleman.”

The women looked at each other once more. “He does like to be seen as such, my lord,” said Madam Weston.

“I had considered employing him in some way or other, but … as His Majesty’s Secretary of State, I must be assured of his probity.”

“What’s probity, my lord?” queried Mistress Hughes, with endearing innocence.

Digby surveyed them beneficently. “Tell me first about Mr. Price.”

Laurence stirred, between sheets scented with Lady Beaumont’s select combination of bay and rosewater, and opened his eyes to the hangings of his bed. He wished he could remain there indefinitely, cocooned in this womblike space, familiar to him since childhood.

He had trudged home in the dark through Lord Beaumont’s park, leading his Arab stallion; over the final mile from the gatehouse, a stone had nicked its front right fetlock, and he had not wanted to aggravate the injury. Jacob, his lordship’s venerable Master of Horse, had greeted him in the courtyard, promising the Arab a thorough rubbing down, a salve for its wound, and a supper fit for a king. Lord Beaumont’s valet, Geoffrey, stood on the front steps to usher Laurence in and take his sodden cloak; and in the luxury of the Hall, Laurence had enjoyed as warm a welcome from Lord and Lady Beaumont, his sisters Elizabeth and Anne, and Tom’s wife Mary.

As soon as he saw his father, Laurence decided to keep to himself his own problems with Digby and the King; there was a new stiffness to his movements, anxiety in his blue eyes, and more white in his beard and moustache. In contrast, Lady Beaumont’s uncharacteristically amiable demeanour suggested to Laurence that she viewed his visit as a step towards reconciliation, and the betrothal. Anne was full of news about Ingram, and of thanks to his Aunt Musgrave, whom she had yet to meet; it went unsaid, Laurence remarked, that had Madam Musgrave not made Ingram heir to her substantial property in Faringdon, the match might have encountered some parental opposition. Normally so vivacious, Elizabeth struck Laurence as understandably dejected. This time last year, she was anticipating her own wedding day and a long
future with John Ormiston, who had died in June at Chalgrove Field in the arms of his brother-in-law and best friend, Tom. Mary, meanwhile, looked to Laurence happier and less intimidated by the Beaumont household, and rather self-absorbed.

Burrowing deep into the soft feather mattress, Laurence closed his eyes, wondering for how long he could postpone the questions he had avoided last night. But a polite knock sounded at the bedchamber door and Geoffrey’s voice called, “Master Laurence, his lordship asks you to join him in a ride about the estate, once you have broken your fast.”

Jacob had saddled one of Lord Beaumont’s horses for Laurence. “Your Arab will be right as rain in a day or so,” he said, as he put out his hands for Lord Beaumont to step up and mount.

Laurence thanked Jacob and set off at a canter with Lord Beaumont, whose stiffness did not appear to affect him in the saddle. Leaving the gravel drive, they rode across fields spangled with frost towards the river, where Laurence had taught himself to swim as a boy, and where he still liked to bathe in the summertime. Snow was drifting from the sky, and a crisp breeze from the Cotswold Hills ruffled their cloaks, and the manes and tails of their horses. Near the riverbank they pulled in, and Lord Beaumont gazed over to the far side, his eyes tearing; from the cold, Laurence hoped.

“These days I am feeling my age, Laurence,” he said, “and I have no need to remind you that the station into which we were born comes with as many duties as privileges. If, God willing, Mary brings her babe to term—”

“Mary is pregnant again?” interrupted Laurence. “That
is
good news, for her and for Tom.”

“Yes, but she is less than three months’ gone, and could suffer another miscarriage. And even should she bear a male child, Thomas is not my eldest son. You are, and I want to see your children before I die.”

“I’ve always thought Tom might be more suited, as your heir,” Laurence ventured.

“He cannot be master of this estate while you live,” declared Lord Beaumont, with surprising force. “I have studied your natures, and it is his that worries me most. He has his mother’s swift temper, and he clings on to his resentments until they fester in his mind. You are more akin to me, though you were a sight more wayward as a youth, and you have still a wild streak in your character that I both love and fear, and which perhaps has led you to doubt yourself in my role. When my father died, I had my doubts, and less experience of life than you. But doubt can be a healthy thing, if it causes us to reflect and act cautiously. And I am certain that you will defend the Beaumont estate with a noble spirit, and attend justly and fairly to the welfare of those whose livelihood depends on us. I pray, also,” he went on, studying Laurence, “that you and Thomas will put an end to your old quarrels. You will have to be the peacemaker, because he cannot be the first to forgive – he wrongly considers it a sign of weakness. I believe he loves you, as I know you love him, and if you are patient with him and do not provoke him as you are wont to do, you will be rewarded by strong affection. He is as shy with such feelings as his mother, but they are there.”