The Whispering Swarm (58 page)

The third man was plainly their leader. Though the Whispering Swarm still gabbled in my head, I heard my own gasp clearly enough. I fell back from the window, unable to speak. I doubted any judgment I ever possessed. I experienced feelings of sickening betrayal. How could it be true? The man was none other than that sympathetic and brave friend I first met at the inn. Whom I thought had saved my life! A play actor. Worse!

Captain St Claire turned in his saddle to call instructions to a trooper who ran up behind him. ‘We're to St James's for further orders. Look for men dressed as soldiers. Three or four very tall. They'll have a woman with them, maybe. Search both yards and the house if necessary. I'd guess they've horses and took the road. They're not the only traitors who plot to save the king! They'll try to get away overland. Follow us to St James's when you're done. Send men to stand guard at all roads into the Alsacia.'

He
commanded
those bullies! Fresh fury filled me and I wanted nothing more than to confront St Claire. Of course that would have been folly and would endanger us all. I remembered all our friendly conversations, my confidences. I do not believe I had been especially indiscreet but clearly he had some clue to our whereabouts. I tried hard to recall what I had said. I knew for certain I had never made any direct reference to saving the king or indeed to our plans, which had not then involved Scotland Yard. Drinking at The Swan With Two Necks, the spy must have picked up a little information here, a little there, and passed it on to his masters. They had no doubt commissioned him to find and capture us. Prince Rupert would be a prize almost as valuable as the queen and young prince.

My anger threatened to choke me. St Claire, a spy! He had seemed so noble. So genuine. His own man. I had trusted him and liked him and confided in him. Some atavistic impulse overwhelmed me. I took my pistol from my sash. I prepared to fire it into the air to get his attention. I wanted to challenge him, fight him to the death. Then I felt a heavy, gloved hand on my right arm. A slight movement of his head, his eyes staring urgently into mine, and common sense prevailed. I heard St Claire give orders to search the area and to meet back there in a quarter of an hour. From their response he was a man of some authority in their ranks. I heard one of the others address him as ‘Captain Marvell'. The spy had not even given me his real name. Ironically, ‘Captain Marvel' had been my favourite US comic book hero when I was a boy! We had divided passionately into Superman and Captain Marvel fans. I had always been in the minority.

‘I know that name!' Prince Rupert signed for me to replace the pistol. ‘Would that we'd known the face. That man Marvell is incorruptible.' We crept back downstairs. Prince Rupert took a key from its hook and locked the door. ‘That will delay the troopers for a little while. We'll leave by the back. Quickly, there's little time now.'

 

48

A DEATH

The air was growing colder as we emerged cautiously into the courtyard. Elegant Athos remarked on it, drawing his hooded cloak around him. ‘The birds must be falling frozen from the branches.'

‘The oracles predict the end of the world when King Charles dies,' said Jemmy Hind drolly. ‘The Lord promised us no further destruction by water. So, mayhap it's His intention to freeze us and Hell at the same time? That's what my sweetheart, Judy, thinks…'

His words faded as we heard horses' hooves. In my confusion I had hardly listened. Had Marvell, Clitch and Love returned? Then my heart sank, as riding round the corner, at a controlled canter, came a tightly grouped squad of cavalrymen in the full uniform of Cromwell's famous crack troopers. Troopers, known and feared for their godliness as much as their expert bravery in the field. They carried their helmets on their saddle pommels. All had very short hair. A Puritan zealot makes an excellent soldier. They're the men with very short haircuts. Those of us who wear our hair long haven't got a chance against them. Romans, Normans, Huns, Puritans, Iroquois, Zulu and no doubt many others never felt they could properly deal righteous death until sure of their short-back-and-sides. It's something about soldiering that makes you want to be certain you can, like buzzards, clean the blood off fast.

Prince Rupert saluted them, touching his hand to the brim of the wide hat shading his face. ‘Go you with God, good soldiers,' he said, in that West Country accent of his.

‘And may you do the same, sir,' the leading trooper returned the salute. He was only moderately suspicious. No doubt he had been told to look for us in New Model Army uniforms.

‘Is Charles Stuart not yet gone to meet his maker?' Rupert enquired. ‘Are we too late to witness that blessed event?'

‘There's a delay, we're told. No executioner can now be found to do the deed. Some fear for their eternal souls. Others demand a higher fee! But I heard one had been found amongst the papists, whose souls are already damned.' The troopers behind him laughed at this. They were seasoned militia and familiar with death. They enjoyed a good black joke.

‘May the necessary blow be struck soon,' said Nevison. They warmed to us then.

‘Now, now,' said the captain, grinning.

‘Go you to the City?' asked one of the horsemen.

‘We go to look at the sights, sir. Thames River, so we've heard, is frozen solid,' said Rupert. ‘Do you go that way?'

I feared for a second they would offer to escort us. But we were lucky. ‘We go to strengthen the garrison,' the officer told us. ‘Do you go by Thames River?'

We said that we did. ‘Is there something we should know?' asked Prince Rupert.

‘Only that the most ungodly merriment is practised there,' the leading trooper replied, ‘with hucksters, mummers, bear-baiting, whores and every kind of frivolous temptation defying the edicts of the Lord. Vanity Fair, indeed! Night falls early and Satan rules it, methinks.'

‘As he rules so much,' returned Rupert, which I thought was a reckless remark in those circumstances. ‘For the last time.'

‘You speak truth, brother,' said one of the other troopers. ‘But the Lord of the Flies shall be banished from England from this day on, now that his servant in England goes to justice at last.'

‘Thanks to our blessed general, I'm sure,' said Nick Nevison, ‘and brave men like yourselves.'

‘We do God's work, 'tis all,' said a thickset trooper at the rear. He spoke a little belligerently, a man wishing to reassure himself. ‘As His will be done forever from this moment on.'

‘God speed you, Captain,' declared Jemmy Hind in a moment of irony. ‘May we soon restore the New Jerusalem in England. We'll hurry on to the execution in the hope we do not miss it.'

We all touched our hat brims as he rode past. Soon he was sure to run into Marvell and his men and exchange notes. We needed to get to the Thames and mingle with the crowds. With a parting courtesy the nearest trooper called out: ‘If you venture on the ice be careful, brothers. She's mighty treacherous and London still abounds with rogues taking advantage of this noble day.'

We did not relax until the troopers turned the corner of a tall brick building and disappeared. A minute later I heard them talking to the trooper at the front door. However, they apparently did not stop. We hurried in the opposite direction and were relieved when we encountered no other soldiers. We were still in the palace grounds, passing every type of outbuilding. I began to smell something familiar and could not immediately place it. Then, entering a gate standing half-open, we saw stacked planks and heaps of golden sawdust. A woodyard. Rich as a forest. Were we at last out of the palace grounds? I asked Prince Rupert. He shook his head. His smile was nostalgic. ‘That yard is there to serve the palace,' he said. ‘It was what I sought, for that's our route to Scotland Dock. And we must hope Mrs Chiffinch is no longer in residence.'

‘Mrs Chiffinch?'

‘I recall this timber yard is separated from the good woman's back door by a stand of willows. She was the king's nurse and confidante and so came by a grace and favour house when a relatively young woman. Mrs Chiffinch taught me all the secrets of the palace I did not discover for myself—'

‘And about the king, too, no doubt,' said Porthos in a rare lapse of taste, and he blushed. Everyone overlooked this and soon we entered a neatly ordered collection of racks containing planks, arranged according to length and width. The building was open on three sides. A wide variety of carpenter's tools was arranged on one wall. Everything was ordered by type and size. It was one of the neatest work spaces I had ever seen.

‘It is said the king laboured here himself in happier times,' Prince Rupert told us.

There were no carpenters there that day. As with almost everywhere else in Whitehall the normal occupants had disappeared. We did not go into the yard but took a narrow path around the building, walking on an incline covered in frozen snow. At the bottom of the incline a stand of willow trees, their bowed, leafless branches intertwined, was outlined against the warm bricks of a good-sized building. A red sun hanging in the slate blue sky behind the house told us it was past noon. For some reason the king was still alive. No bells had rung all day.

‘This is all Mrs Chiffinch's?' I peered down through the trees. ‘A pretty good set of rooms.'

‘She has a large family.' Prince Rupert led us forward. ‘Now we'll see if the regicides have frightened them off.'

Slipping and sliding he began a descent of the slope towards the willows and the half-timbered house beyond.

Wrapping my cloak tightly around my chilling body, I followed him. The others scrambled behind me, running and sliding down the slope to the relative shelter of the willows. Anyone in the house who happened to glance in our direction would see nine suspicious-looking fellows in wide-brimmed countrymen's hats slithering and jumping down a snowy bank. We wore still a motley of robes underneath which were parts of Cromwellian uniforms. Roundheads would probably take us for deserters or spies. We had to hope the house was still occupied by royalists.

When we came close enough we saw that a note had been nailed to the varnished oak door. Dusting the snow from his clothes, Prince Rupert tore the paper off, reading it while we dug lumps of ice from our boots, knocked it off our backsides, and waited rather urgently for the door to be opened. I thought my own legs would snap clean off. When he had finished, Rupert passed the note to Nevison who gave it to me, knowing I could read:

‘
Mr Coveney, We are visiting our aunt in the country. We shall be there for quite a while we do believe. Your svnt. Mrs Chuffingfinch.'

‘Chuffingfinch?'

‘That's how she spells it. A harmless affectation. So, she's not here.' Prince Rupert frowned. Then he reached to turn the door handle. It opened at once. The prince hurried us into the house and closed the door behind us. The house was cold but had a pleasant atmosphere.

‘As I'd hoped.' Prince Rupert smiled reminiscently. ‘I don't think she locked a door in all her life, sweet lady.' He paused and took a deep breath. ‘Nor would she see the need. She's fled for fear of the anarchy. Now we have a chance to catch breath before we go another step. Here, follow me into this withdrawing room. See? Through the shutters. Look!'

We bent to peer at a vegetable garden under deep snow, a low wall, also thick with snow, and a stretch of cobblestones on which the snow had melted, having been in sunshine for part of the day. Beyond them lay a half-timbered three-storey building of dark red brick.

‘That's the king's storehouse. Old Henry built it. It's not been filled since King James's time and Elizabeth was the last to make full use of it. Her pirate captains stacked it high for her. Beyond it is the Scotland Dock. Not guarded, by the look of it. Usually it would be impossible for us to get out that way. But of course with the river frozen over we can get down to it on foot.'

‘Shouldn't we divide our ranks, sir?' Duval spoke with the experience of an old highwayman. ‘Aren't we too many travelling together to be rural sightseers or visiting merchants? We all know where we go, I assume.'

‘Back to the Alsacia I hope.' Jemmy had not lost his sense of humour. He winked.

‘Aye.' Rupert agreed. ‘My plan was to get us to Scotland Dock and then break up into two parties led by men who know the roads. Myself and the musketeers make one party, Duval and the rest, the other. But first let's go over to the warehouse. From there you can see Scotland Dock. We should find at least one wooden ladder set in the brickwork down to the ice. We'll use the warehouse as cover and go two by two until it's reached.'

From somewhere in the distance behind us came what sounded like a roll of thunder.

‘Drums,' said Prince Rupert snatching off his hat, ‘they're taking him to the scaffold at last.'

There was talk of a king's twin. Jessup's sudden appearance and his resemblance to the king had frightened off the men who had originally volunteered as headsmen. They saw it as some sort of sign.

‘As soon as His Grace is executed there'll be a thousand more soldiers free to pursue us. We should make haste.' Duval prepared himself, wrapping his cloak about him. He wrenched open the door and ran for it.

‘You'll follow, lad,' Prince Rupert murmured to me. ‘Go now!'

I ran and slid over the treacherous snow and ice. I had no choice. I knew I was making a trail any pursuer could easily follow. But it was growing dark at last. Twilight softened the edges of the day. When I reached the comparative safety of the warehouse wall Duval peered cautiously down at the dock. ‘Nothing there but fresh snow,' he said in relief. Within moments we were joined by Nevison and Hind. ‘We're the first four. Let's make speed.'

‘Should I blame my imagination or is it dangerously thin there?' I asked.