The Licence of War (26 page)

Price stopped to buy a pamphlet, and as he read, his heart began to somersault in his chest. “Violet,” he whispered. “I must warn Violet.” He ran to Cheapside and the narrow close near St. Mary le Bow where Violet kept shop; the goldsmith had dutifully paid his taxes and was living above the premises, thus far unbothered by the authorities. Today, militiamen swarmed at Violet’s door. Another fascinated crowd filled the street, and people were craning from upstairs casements. “Open, on order of Parliament,” an officer yelled. The men pounded on the door with wooden staves, and eventually it splintered on its hinges. They barged inside, and Price watched haplessly as Violet was hauled forth. A hush fell among the spectators as the officer read out the charge: “Thomas Violet, you are under arrest for seditious practices, and conspiring with known Jesuits and papists to sow division between Parliament and the worthy aldermen of the City of London. I am hereby authorized to convey you to the Tower, where you will await examination by both Houses.”

“I am innocent of all these crimes,” protested Violet.

Soldiers wrestled him away, and as the crowd’s murmurs swelled to a hubbub, Price elbowed a path out, and hurried trembling and sweating towards the main thoroughfare of Cheapside. What if Violet broke under examination and gave his name? Calm, calm, he told himself, or Veech would be onto him quicker than a fox upon a rabbit.

Veech and Draycott had occupied a corner table in the taproom. Veech was lavishly seasoning his breakfast of fried collops and eggs; Draycott had only a mug of ale in front of him. Veech nodded at Price, while Draycott’s nervous eyes shifted from one to the other.

“Good day to you, gentlemen,” said Price, and slid onto the bench next to Draycott. He had been hungry earlier, but as Veech stabbed an
egg yolk with the point of his knife and yellow liquid oozed out like blood from a wound, his appetite deserted him. “What’s all the to-do in the streets?” he inquired, pretending mild concern.

“People are rioting to show their disgust, because the King has tried to stir up more trouble within the City,” Draycott replied. “It wasn’t to be an armed revolt, this time – instead, he attempted to woo the Lord Mayor and Members of the City Corporation. He invited them to his version of a parliament that he’s to call in Oxford later this month, where they would swear an oath declaring illegitimate our Parliament at Westminster. His letter to the Lord Mayor is to be published, as will other evidence of the conspiracy. Those most involved are Catholics.”

“Praise God it’s been thwarted,” said Price.

Veech licked a smear of yolk from his lips, his attitude reflective. “I forgot to ask you, Mr. Price: what brought you to Winchester House on the day you encountered Mr. Draycott there?”

“I’d been to visit a prisoner, a cousin of mine,” answered Price, wary at the change of subject.

“Hmm … Do you know the keeper, Mr. Devenish?”

“We’ve a slight acquaintance, sir.”

“I have strong reason to believe he’s a closet Royalist.”

Price let himself appear astonished, rather than appalled, as he was: how could Veech have found out about Devenish’s true sympathies? “Had he a role in the plot?”

“Oh, I doubt
that
. Intelligence suggests he may be mixed up in a quite different intrigue of the King’s. I’m laying a trap for him, but I won’t spring it just yet. So if you go visiting your cousin there, you be careful to give nothing away to Devenish.”

“I shall, Mr. Veech.”

Veech sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “So, what information have you for us about Mr. Beaumont?”

Price resorted to Beaumont’s advice: combine lies with the truth. “As promised, I went to Oxford – to Lord Digby’s offices. I claimed to be a friend of Mr. Beaumont’s from London.”

“Very bold of you,” said Veech, in a tone neither complimentary nor critical.

“I’d made sure beforehand that his lordship was out of town for the holiday, as was Mr. Beaumont. A servant of Lord Digby’s by the name of Quayle fell to talking with me. He hinted that I might soon see Mr. Beaumont in London again,” Price lied.

Veech glanced at Draycott, who was looking down fixedly at the remains of Veech’s breakfast, and then said to Price, “I’d like you to return to Oxford. I must know when Beaumont might be travelling here.”

“I’ll need funds, sir.”

Veech dipped a hand into his coat pocket. As he pulled it out, his sleeve rolled up a few inches. Price could not tear away his eyes: Veech’s forearm was even whiter than his hand and almost naked of hair, like a woman’s, in bizarre contrast to his weather-beaten face and thick brows. With a quick, instinctive gesture, Veech straightened his sleeve. “This should do you,” he said, counting out a pile of crowns.

“Thank you, Mr. Veech,” said Price, shovelling them into his own pocket. As always, the possession of money miraculously restored his self-confidence. He would tell Sue he was going to Oxford to collect his wages from Beaumont; and in Oxford, he would tell Beaumont of Violet’s arrest and Veech’s suspicions about Mr. Devenish. It was too late to help Violet, but Beaumont had taught him the art of concealing messages. He would send Sue round to Winchester House with a gift of a pie for Mr. Devenish.

“What else could you expect, Beaumont,” Wilmot had said, of Isabella’s marriage. “She’s Digby’s puppet and dances to his tune. But why should
you
? He’s fucking you in the arse and he won’t stop unless you challenge him.”

“Not to a duel,” Laurence had said. “My paltry skills are no match for his.”

“True enough, they aren’t. So use your brains. Think of a way to quit his service for mine.”

As before, Wilmot tried to console Laurence by plying him with liquor and introductions to other women. He found himself strangely uninterested in the women, and in the case of liquor, he began to worry about the increasingly slanderous statements that flew from Wilmot’s mouth while they drank together at his quarters. “You ought to be more discreet,” he warned his friend, but Wilmot would not listen.

Every morning Laurence rode from Abingdon into Oxford, to call again at Digby’s offices, and at Merton for Seward. At last, on the ninth of January, he saw lights in his lordship’s windows, and Quayle answered to him, glum-faced. “His lordship has bad news, sir.”

Digby greeted Laurence by thrusting a newssheet at him. He had not finished reading when his lordship burst out, “
You
are responsible for Violet’s arrest. If you had followed my orders in October, instead of making yourself so conspicuous to Parliament, he would not have been left stranded, forced to work alone in his addresses to the City Councillors.”

“My lord,” said Laurence, annoyed by this revision of the facts, “I told you Violet was in danger of arrest. And your orders to us in October were to investigate that list of Radcliff’s, and Albright’s fate. You didn’t tell me about His Majesty’s
addresses
until some time after I returned to Oxford. And if I might remind you, I never approved of them.”

“We can only pray Violet is not tortured by that cruel spymaster, and that Mr. Price has eluded capture,” Digby ranted on, as though he would hold Laurence to blame for all this, also.

“Violet may be sharp enough to hold his tongue, but I’d have to concur about Price: if he’s arrested, he’ll talk about his visit to Winchester House, and the whole point of Major Ogle’s felicitous escape to Oxford will come out in Parliament.”

“Might
I
remind
you
that you agreed to send him to Mr. Devenish.”

“Yes, and it was a mistake. But you would have sent him, anyway, over my objections.”

They glared at each other across Digby’s desk. Then Digby said,
in a malevolent voice, “I believe you and Lord Wilmot are jealous of the prestige that will accrue to my father, to me,
and
to Prince Rupert, when Aylesbury and Windsor are handed to the King.”

“I don’t give a damn about prestige, nor do I see why you should accuse Lord Wilmot of such pettiness.”

“Oh no? In your moments of drunken fellowship with him, has he not confided in you how much he loathes me, and resents my trusted status with the King? How he yearns to discredit that
unlicked cub
, Prince Rupert, his main rival in our Council of War?”

Laurence felt a tightening in his stomach. “I must have been too inebriated to recollect, my lord.”

“He is a sot, an ambitious wretch who would sell his own mother to enhance his reputation,” shouted Digby, and slammed his hands on the desk.

“He’s an officer of great courage and talent who is loved by his men.”

Digby’s cheeks coloured an apoplectic red. “Why do
you
love him?”

“Love is not the term I would choose.”

“Why do you
respect
him, if you prefer.”

“My lord, I respect anyone who can drink me under the table.”

Digby’s expression altered with unnerving speed, and he started to laugh. “I do enjoy your sense of humour, sir. Oh, by the bye, I have decided to terminate my lease of that house off the Woodstock Road, as it seems you are not living in it.”

“I didn’t consider it mine but Isabella’s. I haven’t spent a night there since we parted.”

“Do you still have your key?”

Laurence hunted in his pocket and placed the key on Digby’s desk. “Will that be all, my lord?”

Digby picked it up and examined it thoughtfully. “Why have you not asked me about her? Do you not want to hear about the work she is undertaking for the King?”

“No, my lord, to be honest I don’t.”

“Nonetheless,” said Digby, “I must insist on telling you.”

——

“Thank Christ you were home, Seward, or I might have stormed back to his offices and punched him in the jaw. So, talk to me,” Laurence begged, as he stretched out his legs to the hearth. “I want your opinion: has he gone completely mad?”

Seward filled his pipe and lit it with a spill from the fire. “He definitely put Mistress Savage at risk when he gave her those bags of sulphur and saltpetre to smuggle into London.”

“A minimal risk compared to the quantities that he plans to ship in next, in her husband’s wine barrels, to await a Royalist march on London. He’s dreaming if he believes they’ll be spared from search because of Sir Montague’s friendly relations with Parliament.”

“He did tell you that Sir Montague has continued to sell wines to whoever will buy them, and has not changed his practice of exporting full barrels to Oxford and receiving them again empty. It is possible they might avoid detection.”

“After the exposure of this late plot, all cargo from Royalist territory will be inspected with a fine-toothed comb. And if it’s not discovered by Parliament, the powder may well spoil long before the King can attempt to retake the capital. Digby told me everything on purpose. He knew I’d be alarmed. Wilmot’s right about him: he
is
fucking me in the arse.”

“Or rather, he would like to but he can’t,” said Seward, with his crusty chuckle. “He is envious of your friendship with Wilmot and your passion for her.”

“I suppose you mean that if not for her dubious paternity and the horrible episode in her youth, he might have married her,” Laurence said, although he could not picture Isabella and Digby as husband and wife.

Seward laughed so hard that he choked out a cloud of smoke. “My eyesight may be dim, but sometimes you are as blind as a bat. He does not love her in that way. He is in love with
you
.”

Laurence blinked at Seward. “Are you suggesting that he shares
your proclivities? He’s a contented married man, with children.”

“Pah, what does that signify. He loves you and he is testing you: as to whether you will remain obediently in Oxford, or venture upon a suicidal errand.”

“To fetch her out before the barrels arrive?” Seward nodded, puffing on his pipe. “If he’s so enamoured of me, why send me to my death?”

“Where
his
passion in concerned, he is like a selfish child: if he cannot have what he desires, he cannot bear for anyone else to have it. He would rather see it destroyed. It takes a man such as I am to recognise these feelings. Sorry to shock you, Beaumont,” Seward added.

Laurence patted him on the knee. “I’ve never been shocked by you, Seward, even when I was a boy of fifteen and you gave me that first sultry appraisal in my father’s library. I am a bit surprised at Digby, however.”

Seward regarded him more gravely. “Then do not go to London. I can tell by the look on your face that you are considering it.”

“I’ve already decided to go.”

“My dear boy, you suspect Lord Digby of madness, but
that
would be sheer insanity.”

“My insanity once saved your life.”

“So it did,” Seward acknowledged.

“Now,” said Laurence, “I may be about to dice with
mine
, but not with my Arab stallion or my French flintlocks. I’m leaving them here. Should something happen to me, Ingram can have them, as a belated wedding gift.”

“They sound like hounds baying for blood,” Antonio said to Don Alonso; they were peering down at the rioters in the street below the Envoy’s window.

“They will judge every Catholic in London a traitor, and every foreigner a priest or a spy, if not both,” Don Alonso murmured,
as a clump of hardened dung smacked against the windowpane.

“The army should disperse them.”

“Oh no, sir: they are enjoying one of the few entertainments not proscribed by the authorities. We should step back. They often aim more dangerous projectiles at my house, though they will tire by the hour of curfew.” Antonio went and threw himself into an armchair; he was equally tired of the Envoy, and the Envoy’s house. “It is a pity for you that the plot should be blown open now,” Don Alonso said next.

“Please explain,” said Antonio.

“A friend of mine in the House of Lords told me that a Lord James Beaumont sat in the House during the King’s Parliaments, prior to the war. He and his wife, Lady Elena, have two sons and two daughters. Their estate lies in Gloucestershire, some thirty or forty miles from Oxford.” The Envoy hesitated, eyeing Antonio. “Around the middle of December, I addressed a letter to her ladyship on your behalf. I have had no reply.”