The Licence of War (74 page)

“Thank you,” said Veech, and copied down the names of the dead clergymen in St. Saviour’s Church.

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.

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.

“Thank God,” Laurence murmured. “Is his heart beating?”

Draycott knelt and inserted a hand into Veech’s shirt. “Yes, and his eyes are wide. He can see me. But … what is he? Part woman?”

“Quick, show me the pages he wrote.” Draycott fetched them. Laurence wanted to read what Veech had recorded about Pembroke, yet his vision was so distorted that he could decipher not a word. “The quill,” he said to Draycott. Blood was oozing out in a puddle from beneath his wound, soiling the paper. He signed his name, and dropped the quill. “If you can, tell … Sarah, Barlow’s wife that … his death is avenged.”

“I shall.” Draycott shuffled the pages together and stuffed them into his doublet. “We did it! Now let me free you.”

“No. Fire his pistol, for Aston’s men.”

“First let me help you!”

“No, no, just do as we agreed,” Laurence implored, with the dregs of his strength. “You must get clean away.”

“Beaumont,” said Draycott, pleading, “
you’re
not about to die?”

Laurence saw Draycott’s face shrink, to the size of a walnut. And then it vanished.

Slouched over the table, Beaumont might have been sleeping or dead, so pacific was his expression. He was breathing regularly, however, and that gave Draycott hope. The sooner Aston’s men arrived, the better. Resisting an urge to pull out that ugly knife, Draycott ran back to Veech. He squatted to button Veech’s coat, trying to avoid the staring eyes, retrieved the pistol, pressed it into Veech’s clammy hand, aimed at the ceiling, and fired. He had to leap aside to dodge a hail of plaster; Beaumont did not move. Draycott flew into the kitchen shouting, “Hurry, hurry! Something is the matter with Mr. Veech!”

He, the landlord, and the two militiamen raced back to the taproom. They surrounded Veech, and the landlord bent and held his cupped hand to Veech’s nose and lips. “His breath is very faint. What happened, sir?”

“I can’t explain it,” said Draycott. “He … he clutched at his heart, grabbed his pistol, and then fired, though I don’t know why – and next he collapsed! He needs a physician.”

“There’s none in the village, sir! You’ll have to ride to High Wycombe.”

“Christ Almighty,” said one of the men, looking over at Beaumont. “Is he dead?”

“Let him be, and get help for Mr. Veech,” said Draycott.

The landlord sprang to open the door, and as if he had pulled the trigger on twenty pistols, a volley of shots rang out from the hills around the inn. “Who’s that?” he cried.

Draycott pretended terrified ignorance. He had perhaps five minutes to escape with his cache of papers before Aston’s men arrived. Loud yells broke out from the yard, and the girl hurtled shrieking from the kitchen and threw herself into her father’s arms.

Otis burst in, waving his carbine. “A raiding party, sir! They’re coming out of the hills. Must be hundreds of ’em!”

Draycott lunged for his pistol. “Get our horses – we’ll have to ride through their fire! Tend to Veech as best you can,” he barked at the landlord.

“And the other? The malignant?”

“Damn him,” said Draycott, and sped out.

Aston’s troops were pouring into the valley, their fire closer and closer. A few balls whizzed by, one clipping Draycott’s shoulder as he and Veech’s men mounted and galloped along the track towards the main road. Behind him he heard more explosions of shot, and the shatter of glass. Then abruptly, the shots ceased. He and the others slowed their pace to look back at the yard, where Aston’s men were reining in their horses.

“Why aren’t they giving us chase?” Otis panted.

“They can’t be after us,” said Draycott. “They must have come to arrest Beaumont, and with good reason: he was here to betray Lord Digby, the King’s Secretary of State.”

“ ‘Revenge is a kind of wild justice..’ ” Seward smiled down at Laurence, polishing his spectacles with the sleeve of his robe. “Thus wrote the late Baron Verulam, and thus Veech’s revenge backfired upon himself. How do you feel, Beaumont?”

Laurence was trying to recollect how he came to be lying on Seward’s bed. He had surfaced from unconsciousness, retching and
confused, shortly after Aston’s men had carried him there; on Isabella’s instruction, as Seward had told him, while feeding him a soothing mixture for his stomach. Once assured that Draycott had got safely away, he had given Seward a probably muddled account of their ordeal. Then he had slept. His head now throbbed no worse than after a night’s drinking with Wilmot; and though his right hand, encased in bandages, was extremely sore, the pain was a sign of life. “I feel wonderful, Seward – like Lazarus,” he said. “And I owe to the Governor’s men a most efficient rescue.”

“They might have had no one to rescue, had you not partaken of that stew.”

“I’ve got Veech to thank there: his suspicion of it saved me. I wonder how long he took to die.”

“His heart stopped at dawn this morning, according to Aston’s physician.” Laurence sat up, amazed. “Since he was breathing when the men arrived, they decided to bring him with you to Oxford, in case he recovered,” Seward explained. “Who knows how big a dose Draycott administered to him, but all the same, he must have had an iron constitution. I asked the physician to leave his corpse undisturbed, at the Governor’s house, so that I may view it before burial.”

“You
are
morbid. Why?”

“Because of what you said to me, as you were drifting off to sleep.”

“About his … breasts?”

Seward nodded excitedly. “I have never set eyes on a hermaphrodite, and at my age I may not have another chance – and nor may you. Will you be fit to venture out with me, towards afternoon, in my scientific quest?”

“I must admit, I am curious.”

“And as morbid as I am. What sort of voice had he, Beaumont?”

“Deep.” Laurence could still hear it in his ears. “Far deeper than yours or mine, and resonant. It would have been a lovely singing voice.”

——

Veech was laid out on a table in an empty room, his body covered by a blanket. Laurence shivered as Aston’s surgeon unveiled his face: his eyes glared up at them with no less intensity than in life.

“A striking countenance,” remarked Seward. He pried wide Veech’s mouth with his fingertips. “No ostensible discolouration of the gums or tongue. It is a cunning poison – he could well have suffered a natural failure of the heart.” He lowered the blanket to Veech’s thighs and unbuttoned his coat. “Have you a knife, sir?” he said to the surgeon, who supplied one; he seemed as intrigued as Seward and Laurence. Seward slit the shirt to Veech’s navel and exposed his chest. “They are paps, though not like a woman’s. They resemble those of a young girl, or a much fatter man.”

“And how light the hair grows on his chest and belly – as on his arms,” the surgeon noted, drawing up Veech’s sleeve to look at the skin beneath.

“Let us investigate further.” Seward unlaced the breeches, and he and the surgeon hefted up Veech’s hips to roll the garment down; Veech’s body was as stiff as the table. Then with the air of a magician, Seward raised the hem of his shirt. Laurence and the surgeon cringed. Where his testicles should have been was a neatly scarred gap, and his penis had been cut to a stub. Laurence recalled that sudden rage.
No more than you’d expect to find between a man’s legs
.

“Not a hermaphrodite – a eunuch,” Seward declared. “I am familiar with the snipping of boys’ cods to preserve their sweetness of voice. They remain smooth-skinned, and are reputed to acquire small breasts. But this must have been done to him when he was a full grown male, or he would have been more feminine in appearance, and had a higher voice.”