The Whispering Swarm (53 page)

Lifting his Gascon chin, D'Artagnan addressed Nixer. ‘Some would league me with your “traitors”, m'sieur, since many in my native land still call Charles their king. But, that aside, I would remind you, m'sieur, that we four are all French musketeers. We are gentlemen, well trained and seasoned in the field. Because of your station we have forgiven your first transgression. However, you will continue your threats at your peril.'

Seething with rage Nixer made an involuntary movement with his tromblon. He raised his fearsome blunderbuss slowly, almost without thinking, his eyes fixed on me for no obvious reason.

And then Porthos walked past me. He strode directly up to where the Intelligencer General stood in the shadow of his own men's pikes. He reached out his hand in its beautifully embroidered glove, grasped the ornate blunderbuss and yanked it from Jake Nixer's hands, snapping the thong by which it was attached and hurling the thing disdainfully into a nearby midden pile.

‘There is your cowardly instrument, m'sieur.' He pointed into the heap. ‘You shall threaten no one, I think, today!'

Now all my companions had drawn pistols and stood shoulder to shoulder. Nixer, maybe seeing me as his only unarmed opponent, darted a thin forefinger at me. ‘You have chosen your friends badly, young sir. We are the masters now! In scarce thirty-six hours your foolish king will be kneeling before the block. Any attempt at rescue will be anticipated. The best of our New Model Army is prepared. My intention was to arrest you this evening. Since that's denied me, for I do not care to risk so many good men, I look forward to any traitorous folly you intend. We shall be prepared for your attack.'

He strutted over to the midden and ordered two of his men to lift the gun out with their pikes. It was covered in dung and straw. Holding it by the stock, Nixer reached into his pocket and withdrew a voluminous neckerchief, cleaning off the worst of the dung.

‘Now there's a thought,' said Prince Rupert, laughing. ‘A plot to rescue a king. A king rules by God's will, not man's. And as one dies another king lives, so we sing out “The King is dead. God save the King!”'

‘That whelp shall never return to England and I have it on good authority he's unwelcome in France. Mazarin cannot afford a war with us. There is nowhere for young Stuart to hide. And you, Rupert of Rhineland, shall follow your uncle to the scaffold. Cromwell has signed the warrant. You shall be arrested and imprisoned as a rebel and a traitor's coconspirator! You shall be charged with murder.' Jake Nixer hissed with rage.

He was forcing himself not to challenge our unexpected firepower. I looked directly into his mad black eyes and laughed, wondering if it was possible to give him a heart attack just by being amused at those apoplectic features. He glared on, fingering his massive blunderbuss so obviously that I knew what Freud would have thought.

Then Jake wheeled around and led his men through the gate, our mirth beating against his back. I knew he would never forgive me. I had made a very dangerous enemy.

I started a little as Porthos's great hand fell on my shoulder. ‘He is not your friend, that one, I think.'

I nodded. Jake Nixer would kill me in a moment if he could.

Without really thinking I began to follow him. I wanted to shout some catcall at him, but I hadn't gone six paces before I felt Prince Rupert's hand on my arm. ‘Very dangerous,' he said. ‘Not the best moment to venture outside the Sanctuary.'

‘Dangerous? Nixer just led a whole detachment of Roundheads through those gates! I have come and gone a dozen times!'

‘Believe me. It is unwise of you, Master Moorcock. At present it's unsafe for any one of us to leave the Sanctuary by that gate.'

‘Surely we'll be leaving by it?' I said. ‘When we go to Whitehall?'

‘We do not go that way to Whitehall. Spies will expect it.'

‘There's another way?'

‘On that day? Yes. We'll go by the river gate at Whitefriars Old Stairs. Then it should be open for twelve hours or more.'

He could tell that I was worried. I had to see my children. ‘Fear not, lad. You'll be able to use the main gate soon enough.'

I was relieved to learn there was an alternative way into the Alsacia from the river, though I was familiar with the Thames. I couldn't remember any stairs down to it, as there were at Whitehall, say, or other parts along the embankment.

We agreed that Nixer was not going to receive his humiliation philosophically. He would not rest until he had killed us all.

I began to guess what real security the Sanctuary afforded its inhabitants. Did people think it impossible to die there? Did the inhabitants have an exceptionally long, even biblical life span? Did Prince Rupert hold me back from the main gate because he knew Nixer would be waiting to kill me once I crossed that threshold? Or was it something less readily definable? Something more dangerous? Possibly to do with the Second Aether, the dimensions in which the Sanctuary existed? If I went through the gate, would I find anything familiar on the other side?

It was dark by the time Prince Rupert judged it possible for me to leave through the gate. I found myself in Whitefriars Inn where lawyers and their staff came and went and the gas still warmed the grey, eighteenth-century stone. I hurried through the court and into Lower Temple Lane, cutting through the back ways until I got to Essex Street, finding a taxi almost as soon as I reached Aldwych.

There had been no time to phone Helena to tell her I was coming but I knew the kids would not be in bed for a while yet. I didn't think I'd be interrupting anything. It was a lovely, clear winter's evening. The stars could just be seen over the glare of my wonderful city. Again I wondered what on earth I was doing mixed up in a wild scheme, apparently three hundred years earlier, to rescue a king who, in my opinion, was guilty as charged. I knew what would happen to those who tried him. On the ascension of Charles II, those honest, conscientious men had been hanged, drawn and quartered, perhaps the cruelest, most painful and disgusting punishment ever devised, while Cromwell's body was dug up and his head displayed at Traitors' Gate. I was already behaving and thinking atypically and now I found it almost impossible to think in contemporary terms. I was caught up in the adventure. I had given my word and I was determined to go ahead with it.

I got out of the taxi in Ladbroke Grove. There was light in the windows of both floors. I rang the bell. I heard Helena's voice finishing some argument. She seemed pleased to see me when she opened the door, but she still said, ‘Oh, hello, Mike. I'm sorry. I don't want you in.'

‘I'm off on a job soon,' I told her. ‘I just popped in to have a word with Sally and Kitty before I left. Is that okay?'

‘They're at the pictures with my mum. They'll be here in an hour or two. What about this time tomorrow?' She seemed confused. Who was she with?

‘I'll hang around at the pub until they're back.'

‘Not tonight,' she said. She looked out of the door. ‘Is Molly with you?'

Helena's face wasn't easy to read.

‘Helena, I haven't seen Molly since that night. I really don't want to see her. I told her.'

‘Not on my behalf, I hope. Because, if so, you'd better get back together.'

Was she just trying to hurt? I couldn't blame her. I had betrayed her. I had been foolish to come. ‘Okay,' I said. ‘I'll phone in a day or so. But if I don't get the chance…'

‘Say hello to Mrs Melody,' Helena said, closing the door. Only then did I wonder if Molly's mother had paid Helena more than one visit recently. What had my wife been told? I had lied, of course, and understood her anger, but Mrs Melody could be adding fresh lies.

The night felt very cold as I crossed Ladbroke Grove and walked round to Elgin Crescent and the 15 stop. The voices of the Swarm grew in a kind of mocking crescendo. It became for a moment so intense I wanted to cover my ears and run screaming through the streets. I was lucky. A bus came along immediately. The Swarm subsided. I sat on top smoking and looking at the bright, electric streets. I would have to write to the kids. A letter would be best, anyway. I thought about where I'd be the morning after next when we made our attempt to rescue the king. I hardly noticed as we drove along Westbourne Grove, passed Paddington, drove the length of Praed Street with its sleazy hotels, porn bookstores and kinky knicker shops, down Edgware Road and Oxford Street, Regent Street, Strand, Aldwych, every stop with a memory. I began to wonder again if I was doing the right thing. I knew it wasn't the sane thing. But, if Helena was now stopping me seeing my kids, I didn't have much to live for. Should I get out of this thing, I'd spend all the time in the world making sure I saw them. We reached the Gothic revival towers of the Inns of Court.

My stop.

 

43

PREPARING

I disembarked and paused. The Whispering Swarm grew in sudden intensity. I could barely stand it. Yet I was still reluctant to return. It was fairly late but Fleet Street still had some offices working. I wondered if I shouldn't go up to Brookgate and talk to my mum. I decided against it. She would see my face and start asking questions and I didn't think I could bear the consequences.

I was hurting. A new kind of hurt. I hadn't done any second-guessing but I knew, if I continued feeling like this, life would be intolerable. I certainly didn't judge Helena. And poor Molly didn't know what she wanted. All those intense love letters! I couldn't think about them. They had stabbed like a knife. I understood how she felt but I wasn't going to be her anchor anymore. I still remembered that night I fell in love with her, when we had ridden out together to hold up the Hackney tram. The morning of 31 January 1649 would be the day I cauterised my emotions and took a fresh look at my life. I had a priority: after this one adventure I wouldn't allow any barrier between me and my children. I pulled myself together and took that familiar route down to Carmelite Inn Chambers, returning to the Alsacia, leaving my children and that terrible Swarm behind.

Brother Isidore came to see me in my cell. We had passed earlier in the corridor and I supposed he had noticed how I looked. ‘Are you well, Brother Michael?'

I told him I was fine. I was beginning to think Prince Rupert's plan might just possibly work. But what if the Alsacia were attacked while we were away? It had struck me as a possible strategy for Nixer or someone to conceive. All they had to do was get the people they wanted out of the Sanctuary and into the world where they could be seriously harmed. I put this to Isidore who was reassuring. ‘We are capable of defending the abbey or indeed the whole Sanctuary. We have done it before. It is not something we would volunteer to do, but if there was no recourse…'

‘I'm not sure you could stand against the power of Jake Nixer's tromblon, not to mention his musketeers and pikemen,' I said.

‘You must not concern yourself on our part, Michael. We follow the teachings of the great prophets. You will be risking much trying to help the king.'

‘You think he should be saved?' I asked out of curiosity.

‘Well, the man himself is perhaps not the most worthy to carry out God's will, while Oliver Cromwell is perhaps a better king…'

‘He'll never be king, Brother. You know that as well as I do. I'm certain he feels he is holding the position for another. Perhaps he plans to bring back Charles's eldest son?'

‘Not if he kills the lad's father. No, I feel the chance of compromise is gone. We now see a war between the old ways, in which I was brought up, and the new, which Cromwell himself can barely conceive.'

The birth pangs of democracy. ‘You fear the future?'

‘I welcome it.' He was emphatic. ‘After all, you and I have both existed there. I would never have met you, remember?' He smiled. I was beginning to understand that these men were not simple, unworldly monks. In fact, I now wondered how much power they did wield and how sophisticated they really were.

The next morning Prince Rupert called us all to meet at the Swan to go over the plans again. The king would be brought first to the Alsacia. ‘There, we shall wait at the abbey until the Treasure is ready. Then, together, we'll continue on with both king and Treasure to the river where we'll meet the boat sent by Sprye's brig.'

‘The Treasure is being taken from the abbey?' I imagined he referred to the Fish Chalice. ‘Do you know why?'

‘It is part of the same business, Michael. It is all I can tell you.'

I was about to ask why when the door into the bar opened and there was Molly.

 

44

THE SHADOW OF THE SCAFFOLD

Molly came in looking contrite and cute in a way she knew worked for her and which almost broke my heart again. I couldn't respond. Prince Rupert, perhaps on my behalf, was not pleasant.

‘We're glad you've arrived at last, Molly.' His sarcasm was a bit schoolmasterly. ‘Now here's our map. I want you to remind us what you do when you get to the old tunnel to St James's Palace.'

Her eyes went uncertainly from him to me. I wouldn't look at her.

She suspected she had lost us both. A familiar ending to a game playing both ends against the middle. Like many of us, I had once tried to keep two girls going without the other knowing. I wound up losing both. Long-term threesomes weren't much better. They usually ended with someone feeling left out or hurt.

She sat with Nick and Porthos between us but I could still recognise her perfume. I'd bought her a bottle big enough for a lifetime's supply, after all. Shalimar by Guerlain.

I knew why Prince Rupert's plan required four giants. It would also be useful when it came to handling the unsavoury Jessup, still happily legless in the basement. Until we became headsmen, surely our height would make us stand out like Christmas trees at Ramadan. Prince Rupert reassured me. There was some slight danger but we would be bent while carrying Jessup. Having no warning of the rescue attempt, the king would prepare for his execution in St James's Palace. He would get dressed there, no doubt praying and so on, and concluding any outstanding affairs. Most of those in the rooms would be his own staff. From there he would walk under guard to the scaffold erected outside the Banqueting House at the Palace of Whitehall. I actually knew the Banqueting House, with its marvellous Rubens murals. The only important part of old Whitehall to survive the fire.