The Licence of War (27 page)

“You knew since the middle of …” Antonio battled rage. “Your letter may have been lost. This time, I shall write to her myself.”

“I cannot permit you. If I worried earlier that correspondence dispatched from my house would be intercepted by Parliament’s spies, it is now a certainty. And the name Beaumont will attract immediate suspicion. Lady Elena’s eldest son is Lord Digby’s chief agent, and a wanted man in London. So you are a captive here, Don Antonio, unless you wish to face the baying hounds,” Don Alonso said, looking as gloomy at the prospect as Antonio felt.

The hounds did slink off at curfew, and he and Antonio ate their supper undisturbed. When a messenger came with a diplomatic packet, Don Alonso bade Antonio goodnight and disappeared to work in his chamber. Antonio retired to his, to digest the revelation: this eldest son, the gypsy’s lover, the reprobate, the deserter, the coward, was also a spy.

Diego was as yet unaware of Juana’s existence on God’s earth, so Antonio simply repeated to him what the Envoy had said. “Don Alonso
was miserly with the facts, Diego. We have been at his house for a month, and he probably knew from the day we arrived where Lord James has his estate. That dishonesty cancels my debt of gratitude – and my promises. I will not stay another night. We shall head to Oxford.”

“
Qué locura,”
exclaimed Diego. “We’ll be captured by the militia before we ever get out of London. I implore you, Don Antonio, have some sense.”

“Oh shut up, you craven fool, and pack our bags.”

“How will we find Oxford? We have no map.”

“We’ll ask directions, in our marvellous English. You’ve spent enough time chattering with the servants. What’s our best way to escape from the house?”

“You may escape and go to your death,” said Diego stubbornly, “but I’m staying.”

Antonio hauled him up with both hands around his neck, and started to squeeze. Diego flushed beet-red, gulping for breath. “Either you come, Diego,” Antonio said, “or I leave behind your strangled corpse. I ask you once more: how do we escape?” He relaxed his grip a little.

“By … by two or three of the clock, all his servants will be abed,” Diego stammered. “The easiest way is through the kitchens, but the servants’ quarters are in the same wing. The slightest noise and we shall be undone.”

“Have faith in God, and in my Toledo blade, which I will put through your guts if you betray me.”

At the appointed hour they stole out, carrying their boots. Diego went in front, loaded down with their baggage, and with Antonio clinging to the hood of his cloak. They tiptoed past the Envoy’s reception room into the servants’ domain; there was no noise, save for the scuttling of mice, and the kitchen flagstones were icy beneath Antonio’s stockinged feet. He felt exhilarated to be in charge again, and worthy of the name he had acquired in battle:
El Valoroso
.

Diego whispered, “We’re at the door.”

Quietly they put on their boots, then Diego shot back the bolt with a hideous grating squeal.

“Open and run,” hissed Antonio, and they tumbled out into the back lane and sprinted away like a pair of thieves.

The streets seemed to belong to a city abandoned. Moon and stars were obscured by cloud, and a wet snow drifted down. Antonio could not tell north from south, or east from west; and Diego was staggering and panting from the weight of their bags.

“We’ll stop a moment,” said Antonio, and they sheltered in a doorway. “We can’t be far from the river.”

“Houses and more houses, Don Antonio, and not a soul abroad,” Diego moaned. “I should have let you strangle me.”

“Hush.” A rider was approaching. As the clip clop of hooves grew louder, Antonio unsheathed his sword. “When I step out, seize the horse’s bridle.”

The man was alone, trotting his mount steadily in their direction. Antonio saw the dull glimmer of a breastplate on his chest. Leaping from the shadows, Antonio slashed deep into the flesh of his thigh, and next into his sword arm. The man screeched and put spurs to his horse, but Diego had a firm grip on the bridle. Unable to go forward, the horse reared, and when it plunged back onto all fours, the man lost his balance. Antonio grappled for his wounded arm and leg, and dragged him to the ground. He wore no helmet, and Antonio heard the crack of bone as his head hit the cobblestones, where he lay splayed and immobile.

“Hurry,” urged Diego; he had soothed the agitated beast, and was slinging their bags over its saddle. Antonio was about to drive the point of his sword into the man’s exposed neck. “Don Antonio, we must fly.”

Antonio sheathed his weapon and sprang into the saddle. He pulled Diego up behind him, and they set off at a gallop, the wind tearing at their cloaks. The moon had begun to glide from amid a dense mass of cloud, and ahead, Antonio saw rippling water. The
Thames, he thought jubilantly. “God is with us,” he shouted back to Diego.

Laurence had bought a brace of pistols to replace his flintlocks, and a sturdy, thick-pelted nag that would carry him about fifteen miles a day. The armies were still regrouping after Christmastide, and as he had expected, few travellers had braved the appalling cold. On the fourth morning of his journey, he set the nag loose near the village of Acton; a gift horse for whoever might pass by. He continued east on foot. By the edge of Shepherd’s Bush Green, a regular stop for agricultural traffic into the City, a carter had left his wagon full of hay unattended outside an alehouse. Laurence wriggled in among the tightly packed bales, grateful for the warmth and shelter. At the fortifications near Tyburn Road, the carter drew up his wagon to exchange pleasantries with the guards; he was on his way to Smithfield Market, and they let him through unsearched. As he paused again at St. Giles in the Fields to breathe the oxen, Laurence extricated himself from the hay and jumped off the cart. He drew the hood of his cloak over his face, slung his saddlebag over his shoulder, and walked south along St. Martin’s Lane to the Strand, swerving left at Long Acre Street to avoid the busy Covent Garden Piazza, and then down Bow Street.

Everywhere was evidence of the anti-papist riots: a litter of debris on the ground, broken windows, burnt-out shops, and parties of militia, one of them blocking Laurence’s route to the Strand. He sneaked into the small laneways, and emerged at Temple Bar, near the top of the Strand; soldiers and armed servants in livery were on guard in the street, to protect the mansions of the rich from looters. When he inquired of a lady and her maid where he might find Sir Montague Hallam’s house, they pointed to a brick edifice and hurried away as if he had the plague. Since he could not stroll up the steps to the house and bang at the door, he moved on, lightheaded from hunger and fatigue, towards Fleet Street, and on to Ludgate Hill.

At one side of the street was a baker’s shop, and opposite, a tavern. Recklessly he chose the tavern. But at the threshold, he halted: why was the name familiar to him? Then he remembered.

The taproom was full of custom. He pushed through until he found a serving girl, and grabbed her sleeve. “Is Mistress Sprye here today?”

She shook him off with an indignant air. “Who are you to ask?”

“I’m Ned Price’s brother – tell Sue I’ve brought the money I owe her,” he said, imitating Price’s accent. “Go on, then. I haven’t got all day.”

While waiting, he picked up a crumpled pamphlet from the floor. The papist conspiracy was now called Brooke’s plot, he read, after Sir Basil Brooke, one of the Catholics who had secretly approached the Lord Mayor and Members of the City Corporation. These officials had informed Parliament directly of His Majesty’s overtures. And this past Thursday, the eleventh of January, the author of the pamphlet declared in bombastic style, City Councillors, both Houses of Parliament, Scottish Commissioners, Independent divines, army commanders, and even a few Dutch ambassadors had dined together at the Merchants’ Hall in a public show of thanksgiving and unity, as citizens had built a bonfire in Cheapside to burn idolatrous trinkets and images, and rejoice at their delivery from evil. Out of the long list of dignitaries who had participated at the thanksgiving feast, two names caught Laurence’s eye: that of his old enemy, the Earl of Pembroke, and that of Sir Montague Hallam of the Vintners’ Company.

He felt a tap on his shoulder, and looked round.

“I am Mistress Sprye, and who are you, sir?” She confronted him, hands on her hips. “You ain’t any kin of Ned’s, that I’d swear.”

“No, but I
am
bringing you money. Where is he?”

“He’s gone out of town. Who
are
you? You’re not … you can’t be … 
Mr. Beaumont
?” she mouthed. Laurence nodded shortly. “He went to Oxford, sir, to see
you
.”

Laurence swore. “When?”

“Five days ago.”

“Did he have news for me?”

“If he did, he didn’t tell
me
. Sir,” she said, glancing around, “we can’t talk here. I’ll get my cloak, and then you follow me out.”

She returned in seconds, and left the taproom at a brisk pace. Laurence pursued her, as she wove her way from the main thoroughfare of Ludgate into smaller streets, and then into alley upon alley, parallel to the river. He smelt rotten fish in the air, and the buildings around grew more and more wretched and dilapidated. Finally she slowed and crossed a muddy yard where a pack of children armed with sticks were beating a ragged youth twice their size. “Kill the priest! Kill the priest!” they shrieked. He was struggling to fend them off, saliva trailing down his chin; and in his face, Laurence saw a pathetic innocence.

“You little bastards, leave him alone,” yelled Laurence, brandishing a pistol, at which they dropped their sticks and fled. The youth watched them incuriously, and proceeded to wet himself, with no apparent sign of awareness.

“Mr. Beaumont!” Mistress Sprye signalled Laurence over to a passage in a decayed tenement, and pushed open a door. “Our lodgings, sir,” she said, visibly ashamed; at once stuffy and cold, the room was about the size of the bed that occupied it.

Laurence sat down on the bed. Something clunked against his foot: a bottle of wine. “May I?” He unplugged it and drank. “So Price and I just missed each other.”

“Yes, sir.” She sat down also, leaving a careful space between herself and Laurence, and wrinkled her brow at him. “Ned described you as very black, sir, but I thought you would be older, and … and much grander.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Laurence said, laughing.

“Oh, sir, what will he do when he doesn’t find you? I hope he hurries home. We’re to be wed.” She blushed. “We’ve a child coming.”

“My congratulations. He must be pleased,” Laurence remarked, disingenuously.

“He wasn’t when I told him. To be honest, sir, I’m not as sure of his affections as I’d like to be. Oh forgive me, sir – here you are, an important nobleman, and I’m blabbing out my woes to you. I wouldn’t, if you hadn’t shown the kindness to chase those brats away from that poor simple boy. They’ll be the death of him one day.”

She started to cry. For both herself and her unborn child, Laurence suspected, annoyed with Price, though his own past in that regard was far from irreproachable. He took a purse out of his saddlebag and pressed it into her hands. “You should find better lodgings, or this place will be the death of
you
.”

“Thank you, sir.” She sniffed, and tucked it into her skirt pocket. “There’s something you should know. That day I told Ned about the babe, he left in the morning, and got home later excited, as if he had a fever. He’d money from a man who owed him, and he asked me to buy him a handsome meat pie. So I did, sir. But when I came back from the Saracen’s Head round curfew, Ned hadn’t touched a crumb. Turns out he’d bought it for a friend. And he asked me to take it over, sir, the next day.”

“Where to?”

“Winchester House. It was for the keeper, a Mr. Devenish.”

“Oh,” said Laurence, as if this meant nothing to him. “Was Mr. Devenish grateful?”

“No, sir, he didn’t say a thing to me. Ned hung about a whole day – he couldn’t sit still. He said he was expecting a message of thanks. When none arrived, he set off for Oxford. Sir,” she went on, after a brief silence, “you don’t look much like most people, and the militia will be watching for strangers. You could stay here, sir, if you have to. Though it’s not fit for a man such as yourself, at least you’d be safe.”

A convenient refuge, Laurence thought; he had hidden in far worse. But it would be unfair on Sue. Although she did not know it, she had already dipped a toe into the shark-infested waters of espionage. “I can’t. Thank you, all the same,” he said. “I must leave you now.”

“Where will you go, sir?”

How many times Laurence had been posed that question, and had no real answer. Yet the pamphlet was giving him an idea so outrageous that the more he considered it, the more attractive it became.

The equerry escorted Laurence through a hall hung with pictures as impressive as those in Lord Beaumont’s collection, and into a carpeted reception room. In a robe trimmed with ermine, the Earl of Pembroke sat in an armchair, his walking cane beside him. As in Laurence’s dream, he resembled an ancient bird of prey, with his wrinkled, desiccated face and prominent nose; the thin fringe on his forehead could not disguise incipient baldness. Was it guilt that had eaten away at him, Laurence wondered, or life in the constant dread of being unmasked as a would-be regicide?

Quivering at the sight of Laurence, he dismissed the equerry. “God’s blood,” he exploded, “what in hell are you doing here?”

Laurence bowed politely to him. “You’ve changed quarters, my lord. I had to ask for your whereabouts at your other house, which brought back such memories to me, of the night I called there on you and Radcliff – the night of his death, and nearly of mine.”

Pembroke leant back in his chair, and recovered a trace of his hauteur. “These are more modest apartments than any of my houses, but at least now I am in the heart of Whitehall.”

“The Cockpit,” said Laurence. “I’m surprised it should retain its old name, when the sport is forbidden by Parliament.”