The Whispering Swarm (52 page)

At this, Prince Rupert worked obsessively refining his plan. ‘I refuse to let the king throw away his life and his crown.' Cromwell, now Lord Protector, had not set out with any intention of destroying the monarchy. As with most revolutions, this one had begun with a relatively modest demand which, on being refused, inflamed the tempers of the petitioners. Charles's willingness to make war on his own subjects had outraged many Parliamentarians, most of whom had begun as royalists. The only atheist sitting at Westminster was imprisoned in the Tower for his sin! The king's stubborn folly had given a certain kind of inevitability to the trial. Now the verdict was issued. Charles Stuart, former king of England, Scotland and Ireland, had behaved with the arrogance of one who understood the court to be a farce. He, the king by right, ordained by God, was to die on the block at the end of the first month of 1649. No doubt some sort of witch hunt would follow as Charles's followers were tracked down or chose exile.

Prince Charles, the king's heir, was in France with the rest of his family. Prince Rupert, whose superb generalship might have saved the day, had lost his king's favour through the political scheming of corrupt courtiers. He had elected to stay behind, nonetheless. He was considered the most dangerous single enemy still at large. Rupert remained highly popular with the commons. He was the only man capable of rallying the people to the House of Stuart. What was more, Rupert was a devout Protestant who had refused more than one opportunity to convert to Catholicism while a prisoner in Bohemia. People even talked of his replacing Charles on the throne. Rupert himself had no such plans. He did not consider himself a particularly suitable candidate and he had sworn an oath of fealty to the king in God's name. A man of principle, he could never in conscience betray Charles. Indeed, he was driven to making plans to save Charles and persuade him to accept exile while he, Rupert, dealt with Cromwell. The Puritans, who increasingly controlled Parliament, were determined to see the end of kings and the setting up of a republic, the Commonwealth of England. The Church and the nation would both be ruled by sober consortia.

‘They can call England whatever they choose,' declared Prince Rupert that evening, ‘but she shall always be a kingdom under the rule of God and I intend to maintain that condition!' His plan to snatch King Charles from the scaffold and carry him away to France seemed insane to me, but then daring plans often did seem crazy until they were successful. There would be eight of us under his leadership, together with our prisoner.

For some time Rupert and his men had held captive a well-known corrupt thieftaker, Jeremiah Jessup. With his beard and hair cut right and a little discreet makeup to hide the worst of his ‘biber's bloom', he bore an uncanny resemblance to King Charles. Jessup had caused many unjust deaths and had preyed on the women and children whose spouses he had sent to their doom. The man had been drugged with drink and opium and persuaded that he was about to be crowned king of England on a special stage in Whitehall before the assembled folk of London. We would substitute Jessup for King Charles in the king's apartments in Whitehall, the only place the exchange could be made, because the guards at that point would be few. As well as the regular guard, its commander and a chaplain, the king would be flanked by four black-hooded executioners, so that none might know who struck off the king's head. Drawn from a foot regiment, the four executioners were all tall men, something over six feet. Now I knew the first reason for my recruitment.

While Jessup went to the scaffold, the king would be hurried back through old passageways known to a few members of the royal household. He would be smuggled down to the Whitehall steps and from there into a skiff waiting to take him to a Dutch brig commanded by the loyal royalist Captain Peter Sprye. I was promised I would not be chosen to swing the axe. We would disperse as soon as the deed was done and make our way back through an old passage to the river.

I felt Prince Rupert, if anyone, could pull the plan off. But now came another flaw which nobody had anticipated. Jemmy Hind returned from a scouting expedition with a dark look on his broad, usually cheerful cockney face. Big, amiable Nick Nevison brightened at his friend's appearance, but Jemmy brought bad news. After greeting his large friend affectionately, he turned to the rest of us.

‘The river,' he announced gloomily. ‘We can't get a boat in to Whitehall steps. 'Tis bitter cold out there. The watermen have given up trying to break the ice. She's freezing over.'

There was ice almost an inch thick all down the river from Lambeth to the Tower. Below London Bridge men were breaking it as it formed. ‘There are a few channels through which you can take a barge or a rowing boat. But they're getting harder to negotiate with every passing hour.'

‘The crowds will be too thick and we'll have no horses. We can't get all the way to Blackfriars by land,' Nick Nevison growled. He scratched his huge head. His hair was such a long tangle of curls that he could scarcely run his fingers through it.

Prince Rupert frowned. His eyes were almost closed as he considered this. ‘You say the ice is thickening rapidly?'

‘Almost faster than they can open it,' said Jemmy. ‘Another few hours or so of that and they'll be forced to give up. Oldsters say it hasn't been this cold for a generation.'

‘Then we'll have a clear road. Someone must get word to the brig. They must bring their longboat up to where the ice thins. Could that be Blackfriars Stairs?'

‘The river's slowing all the way to London Bridge.' Jemmy gave his news gloomily. ‘A day or two and even Blackfriars will be too thick. The brig's lying just below the Tower.'

The logistics were discussed at some length. Nick Nevison was considered a giant at six feet two inches. Being about his height, I was tall enough to help Porthos and Prince Rupert carry Jessup. He was currently living in the Swan's ruined cellar, waited on by his ‘subjects' keeping him happy with brandy and laudanum. Prince Rupert took me down there once, introducing me as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Jessup, a classic drunkard, with his red-veined face and bulbous nose, greeted me with a certain lordly hauteur. The Cosmolabe had been dismantled and was being reconstructed elsewhere.

My qualms about tricking a man into going to his own death were dismissed by the others. They all knew of women widowed and children orphaned and worse, all directly due to Jessup's murder of men bearing a passing likeness to someone wanted dead or alive. His bloody career in London had ended when the corrupt authorities were replaced by men appointed by Cromwell and directly answerable to the Protector. Privately I wondered if we were not simply using one murderer to save another, but I had learned to keep my republican mouth shut.

 

42

COCKE O' THE HEAP

I remained in the Sanctuary for several weeks, hardly going out except to see my mum and the children. They were all used to my retreat, so didn't notice much different. I had seen nothing of Molly but her letters still came. I had become mixed up in an adventure I might have invented for Meg Midnight herself. I didn't really want to go with the rest but I had given my word. The Whispering Swarm was gone. Instead, my head filled with sets of numbers, tarot hands, geometric shapes, silvery wires. Madness. I remembered a neighbour across the street, a mathematician, had a nervous breakdown quoting nothing but numbers and equations. When I told them, Father Grammaticus and Prince Rupert were agreed that it was important I remember the numbers. When I asked why, they said something about sturdy backs and strong wills.

Four of our number had yet to arrive from France. They were, of course, D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Claude Duval, Nick Nevison, Jemmy Hind, myself and Prince Rupert were the others involved. That made nine of us. The abbot had been adamant that nine was the appropriate number. I could only guess why certain numbers were better than others. Oddly, I had always nursed a good deal of superstition around numbers. Mum did, too. She was born on Friday the 13th.

The king was to be beheaded the morning after next. The execution had to be done in public. Cromwell knew that. The Protector believed he had given King Charles every opportunity to live. That old Stuart arrogance and disdain had fueled Charles's belief that he did not have to keep a word given under duress to a commoner. The king had made no attempt to defend himself against the charge of treason and had refused to accept the authority of the court. He had pushed all patience to the limit. The Stuarts seemed a fairly unintelligent clan with a strong will replacing any sense of strategy or, indeed, realism. At best they were amiable and at worst charmless, small-minded and vindictive. Charles believed God had chosen him to rule a united kingdom which cemented its bond in blood and treasure. Ironically, of course, Charles was the last absolute monarch. He caused two terrible civil wars. So many had died that even convinced monarchists thought he should be replaced while most Londoners supported Parliament. Yet there was little triumph among the winners and only lackluster resistance among the defeated.

I found it hard to grasp that within a few hours I'd be present when Charles prepared for his death. I would even witness an execution. Admittedly, the executed man would be the contemptible Jessup, but I still had a strong sense of history being made, even changed. Unless this world suffered huge alterations, I would soon be present at one of those moments when history changed forever.

Perhaps for this reason I decided to see my children again. If I were captured I had a fairly good idea that Cromwell would not be very forgiving. All my comrades in arms were far better trained and able to carry out Rupert's plan and probably had a good idea of the odds. Meanwhile I was still half dreaming, not entirely convinced anything was real.

I was about to inform Prince Rupert that I intended to go to Ladbroke Grove for a few hours when we heard a commotion outside and Nick Nevison came in, stooping under the doorway, his wide mouth open in a happy grin. ‘They are here, sire! They've cut it a little fine and are seeing to their horses now.'

I looked enquiringly at Claude Duval. The Frenchman jumped up and grabbed my arm, dragging me with him. ‘I think you already know who it is.'

We arrived in the inn's stable yard to find a man as tall and solid as Nevison giving minute instructions to the ostler. Since he spoke exquisite French and the ostler spoke none, the man merely stood there smiling and nodding. The Cavalier was dressed in all the finery of a seventeenth-century dandy, with many-coloured ribbons, beautifully worked lace, silks and fine linen, his boots and belts of soft, gleaming leather, a great basket-hilted sword at his side, two massive pistols in his sash and a hat heavy with brightly dyed feathers. He was about as tall as me but much heavier and his long hair was arranged in greying curls about his neck. He remembered me and clapped me on the back, asking after my health and that ‘mistress of yours'. M. Porthos du Vallon de Bracieux de Pierrefonds looked a little older than when I had last seen him but still radiated goodwill and conviviality. Emerging from the stables came three more Frenchmen, two of average height for those parts and another a good deal smaller. Against the rest of us D'Artagnan was virtually a midget, yet with a swagger, a definite air of self-regard and an indefinable elegance. Behind him came aquiline Athos, le Comte de la F
è
re, fastidiously aristocratic as ever and dressed with tasteful simplicity in black, and pale Aramis, Abb
é
d'Herblay, quietly amused, also in black but with the finest white lace at collar and cuff, a silver crucifix on his breast. An impressive display of several kinds of dandy and each one as brave a swordsman as ever lived.

Beside the musketeers, I, in particular, looked dowdy, even though I wore the finery associated with what they called the alternative society. I dressed, of course, in the style of my peers when we all had long hair and big hats. Scarves. Brocade, silk and velvet. Serious Frye boots. In contrast to both, Prince Rupert's clothes were well cut and of a more evidently military nature, from his red coat to his soft leather waistcoat worn, in the fashion of his time, almost to his knees, while Duval's dandyism was more restrained and practical. Nevison and Hind, though dressed well, wore more subdued clothes. All together, however, we made a pretty colourful crew.

We were so full of pleasure at seeing these old friends we paid no attention to the barking of Marjorie, Mr Toom's little fox terrier. I turned to see why the dog was making such a fuss and my heart sank. Jake Nixer stood there, just outside the courtyard, a detachment of Roundhead pikemen at his back, his weighty tromblon in his huge, scarred hands. He took a dark joy in the way he had surprised us.

‘Thank you, gentlemen.' He addressed the musketeers with a sarcastic sneer. ‘I am obliged to you for opening the gate and saving us the trouble of blowing it down.'

‘You have no right being here, Jake Nixer.' Claude Duval glowered. ‘This is the Sanctuary of the White Friars where no human creature may be arrested unless it be for murder. The Alsacia is deemed holy ground by God and king. Now, take your men and leave.' He smiled broadly. ‘Or I shall have the pleasure of trouncing you again.'

Nixer ignored the highwaymen and talked past us to the slightly bewildered musketeers. ‘We have no quarrel with France, gentlemen. You may pass out of here without hindrance. These traitors are under arrest.'

The four newcomers seemed so uncomprehending that the Intelligencer General of London chose to repeat himself in awful French.

They still seemed puzzled, but, shrugging, made for where their horses stood, still with their saddles on. Here, they began apparently complicated adjustments to girth straps and stirrups. Then the stable doors opened again and the four strode out. Each man carried a short pole with a brass attachment, curved like Spanish bulls' horns, at the top. And each held in his other hand a heavy flintlock. As Nixer watched, dumbfounded, the four took their muskets and laid them over the brass rests, pointing directly at the Roundheads.