The King's Evil Read online

  Copyright

  Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

  Copyright © Andrew Taylor 2019

  Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

  Cover illustrations © Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo and Shutterstock.com

  Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Prelims show image of Clarendon House © Antiqua Print Gallery/Alamy Stock Photo

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008119188

  Ebook Edition © April 2019 ISBN: 9780008119171

  Version: 2019-02-28

  Dedication

  For Caroline

  Epigraph

  To that soft Charm, that Spell, that Magick Bough,

  That high Enchantment I betake me now:

  And to that Hand (the Branch of Heavens faire Tree)

  I kneele for help: O! lay that hand on me,

  Adored Cesar! and my Faith is such,

  I shall be heal’d, if that my King but touch.

  The Evill is not Yours: my sorrow sings,

  Mine is the Evill, but the Cure, the KINGS.

  Robert Herrick, ‘To the King, to cure the Evill’

  (Hesperides, 1648)

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  The Main Characters

  The Royal Family

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Keep Reading …

  About the Author

  By the same Author

  About the Publisher

  THE MAIN CHARACTERS

  Infirmary Close, The Savoy

  James Marwood, clerk to Joseph Williamson, and to the Board of Red Cloth

  Margaret and Sam Witherdine, his servants

  The Drawing Office, Henrietta Street

  Simon Hakesby, surveyor and architect

  ‘Jane Hakesby’, his maid, formerly known as Catherine Lovett

  Brennan, his draughtsman

  Whitehall

  King Charles II

  James, Duke of York, his brother

  Joseph Williamson, Undersecretary of State to Lord Arlington

  William Chiffinch, Keeper of the King’s Private Closet

  George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham

  John Knight, the King’s Surgeon General

  Clarendon House

  Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, the former Lord Chancellor of England

  George Milcote, a gentleman of his household

  Matthew Gorse, a servant

  Others

  Olivia, Lady Quincy, formerly Mistress Alderley

  Stephen, her footboy

  Mr Turner, a lawyer, of Barnard’s Inn

  Mr Veal, of London

  Roger, his servant

  Rev Dr Burbrough, of Cambridge

  Rev Richard Warley, of Cambridge

  Mistress Warley, his grandmother

  Frances, a child

  Mr Mangot, of Woor Green

  Israel Halmore, a refugee

  THE ROYAL FAMILY

  CHAPTER ONE

  HE COULD NOT help himself. In one fluid movement, he stepped back, twisting to present his side to the enemy. His right leg was slightly bent at the knee, the foot pointing towards danger. In that instant, he was perfectly poised, as his fencing master had taught him, ready to thrust in tierce, ready to spit the devil before him like a fowl for the roasting.

  As he moved, he heard a sharp intake of breath, not his own. His right foot was on solid ground. But the left (‘at right angles to the body, monsieur, for stability and strength’) was floating in the air.

  ‘God’s—’

  In that same instant, he stared at the figure in front of him. Dusk was pouring through the grimy windows of the basement like a noxious vapour. He wanted to beg for help. No words came.

  He flung out his arms in front of him in a violent attempt to restore his balance. His fingers stretched, groping for a hand to pull him back. Steel clattered on stone.

  He fell with no more choice in the matter than a poleaxed ox. His head slammed against the coping. Pain dazzled him. He cried out. His arms and legs flailed as he fell. The damp, unyielding masonry grazed his fingers.

  Nothing to hold. Nothing to—

  His shoulder jarred against stone. The water hit him. The wintry chill cancelled all pain and drove the breath from his body. He opened his mouth to cry out, to breathe. The cold flooded his lungs. He choked.

  Fiery agonies stabbed his chest. He sank. He had always feared water, had never learned to swim. His hands scraped against unyielding stone. His boots filled, dragging his legs down.

  His head broke free. He gulped a mouthful of air. Far above him, he glimpsed the shadowy outline of a head and shoulders.

  ‘Help me,’ he cried. ‘For the—’

  But the words drowned as his body sank again and the water
sealed him into its embrace. The purest in London, that’s what her ladyship claimed. His fingernails scrabbled against the stone, trying to prise out the mortar to find handholds. His limbs were leaden. The pain in his chest grew worse and worse. It was impossible that such agony could exist.

  Despair paralysed him. Here was an eternity of suffering. Here at last was hell.

  The pain retreated. He was no longer cold, but pleasantly warm. Slowly, it seemed, every sensation vanished, leaving behind only a blessed sense of peace.

  So this, he thought, this is—

  CHAPTER TWO

  One Day Earlier

  ON FRIDAY, I was watching the King healing the sick in the Banqueting House at Whitehall.

  ‘Don’t look round,’ Lady Quincy said softly.

  At the sound of her voice, something twisted in my chest. I had met her last year, in the aftermath of the Great Fire, during an episode of my life I preferred not to dwell on, which had left her a widow. She was a few years older than me, and there was something about her that drew my eyes towards her. Before I could stop myself, I turned my head. She was staring at her gloved hands. Her hat had a wide brim and a veil concealed her face. She was standing beside me. She had brought someone with her, but I could not get a clear view. Someone small, though. A child? A dwarf?

  ‘Pretend it’s the ceremony that interests you,’ she murmured. ‘Not me. Or I shall have to go.’

  We were on the balcony, and the entire sweep of the hall was laid out before us. My eyes went back to the King. In this place, the largest and by far the grandest apartment in the palace of Whitehall, Charles II was seated on his throne below a canopy of state, with the royal arms above, flanked by crowds of courtiers and surpliced clergymen, including his personal confessor, the Clerk of the Closet. His face was calm and very serious. I wondered whether he could ever forget that his father had once stepped through the tall window halfway down the hall on to the scaffold outside, where a masked executioner had been waiting for him with his axe. As a child, I had been in the crowd that had watched as the old king’s head was struck from his body.

  ‘Say nothing,’ Lady Quincy said. ‘Listen.’

  The Yeomen of the Guard marshalled the crowds in the body of the hall, their scarlet uniforms bright among the duller colours worn by most of the sufferers and their attendants. Many of the courtiers held handkerchiefs to their noses, because ill people did not smell agreeable.

  ‘I’ve a warning,’ she went on. ‘Not for you. For someone we shan’t name.’

  I watched the sick. Most of them had visible swellings, great goitres that bulged from their necks or distorted their features. They suffered from scrofula, the disease which blighted so many lives, and which was popularly known as the King’s Evil, because the King’s healing hands had the power to cure it. There were at least two hundred sufferers in the hall below.

  ‘I had a visitor on Wednesday.’ Lady Quincy’s voice was even softer than before. The hairs lifted on the back of my neck. ‘My stepson, Edward Alderley.’

  One of the royal surgeons led them up, one by one, to kneel before the King. Some were lame, hobbling on crutches or carried by their friends. There were men, women and children. There were richly dressed gentlemen, tradesmen’s wives, peasants and artisans and beggars. All were equal in the sight of God.

  There was a reading going on below, something interminable from the Prayer Book; I couldn’t distinguish the words.

  ‘Edward was in good spirits,’ she went on. ‘Full of himself, almost as he used to be when his father was alive. Prosperous as well, or so he would have me believe.’ There was silence, apart from sounds of the shifting crowd below and the distant gabble of the reading. Then: ‘Do you still know where to find his cousin Catherine? Just nod or shake your head.’

  I nodded. The last time I had seen Edward Alderley, he had struck me as an arrogant boor, and I knew his cousin would not welcome his reappearance in her life.

  ‘Good. Will you take a message to her from me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘He told me that he knows where she is hiding. He said it was a great secret, and I would know everything soon.’ Lady Quincy paused. ‘When he has his revenge for what she did to him. He said that he and his friends would see Catherine Lovett dead and he would dance on her grave.’

  ‘His friends? What friends?’

  She shrugged and was silent.

  I was surprised that anyone might want to make a friend of Edward Alderley. He was a bully and a braggart, with a dead traitor for a father. After his father’s disgrace last year, Lady Quincy had lost no time in reverting to the name and title she had used when married to her first husband.

  In the hall below, the King was stroking the neck of the kneeling patient with his long fingers, while someone in the crowd was weeping and the clergyman was praying in an inaudible monotone. The King’s face was grave, and his heavy features gave him an air of melancholy. He was staring over the head of the kneeling woman. It seemed that he was looking up at me.

  ‘Do you think Alderley was telling the truth?’ I said.

  Lady Quincy stirred beside me, and her arm brushed mine, just for an instant. ‘He came to …’ There was a pause, as if she needed a moment to decide what to say. ‘He came in the hope of impressing me, perhaps. Or … Or to make me afraid of him.’

  ‘Afraid?’ I looked towards her again, but her face was still invisible. ‘You? Why should you be afraid of him?’

  ‘Warn Catherine for me,’ she said, ignoring the question. ‘Promise me you will, and as soon as you can. I don’t want her death on my conscience.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘I believe Edward would kill her himself if he could.’ She paused, and then abruptly changed the subject. ‘I shall listen to the sermon at St Olave’s on Sunday morning. Do you know it? In Hart Street, on the corner of Seething Lane.’

  I nodded. It was not far from the Tower, one of the few churches in the walled city that had survived the Great Fire.

  ‘Will you meet me there? Not in the church but afterwards – wait outside in a hackney. I wish to be discreet.’

  ‘Very well.’ I felt a stab of excitement. ‘May I ask why?’

  But she had already turned away. She slipped through the crowd towards the door, followed by her small attendant, who I now saw was a lad with dark hair, presumably her footboy though he wasn’t wearing her livery. He was wrapped in a high-collared cloak that was too big for him.

  Disappointment washed over me as Lady Quincy passed through the doorway to the stairs. The footboy followed his mistress. In the doorway he glanced back, and I saw that the lad was an African.

  After Lady Quincy and her attendant had gone, I waited for a few minutes to avoid the risk of our meeting by accident. I left the balcony and went down to the Pebbled Court behind the Banqueting House. The sky was grey and the cobbles were slick with rain.

  The public areas of the palace were packed, as they always were when the King was healing. The sufferers did not come alone: their family and friends came too, partly to support them and partly to see the miracle of the royal touch. It was unusual to have a big public healing ceremony in September, but the demand had been so great that the King had ordered it. Charles II was a shrewd man who knew the importance of reminding his subjects of the divine right of kings. What better way of demonstrating that God had anointed him to rule over them than by the miracle of the royal touch?

  I crossed to the opposite corner of the court, passed through a doorway and went up to the Privy Gallery. Mr Chiffinch was waiting in the room where the Board of Red Cloth held its quarterly meetings; I was clerk to the board, and he was one of the commissioners. He was alone, because the other commissioners had already gone to dinner. He was sitting by the window with a bottle of wine at his elbow. He was a well-fleshed man whose red face gave a misleading impression of good nature.

  In his quiet way, Chiffinch wielded more power than most men, for he was Keeper of the Kin
g’s Private Closet and the Page of the Backstairs, which meant that he controlled private access to the King. It was he who had told me to wait on the balcony in the Banqueting Hall until Lady Quincy approached me; he had said it was by the King’s order, and that the King relied on my discretion. He had also said that I was to do whatever her ladyship commanded.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘What did she want?’

  ‘I’m not permitted to say, sir.’

  He shrugged, irritated but clearly unsurprised by my answer. He disliked being in a state of ignorance; the King did not tell him everything. ‘You didn’t attract attention, I hope?’

  ‘I believe not, sir.’

  ‘I’ll tell you this, Marwood: if you put a foot wrong in this business, whatever it is, we shall make sure you regret it. The King does not care for those who fail him. And he’s not in a forgiving mood at present, as my Lord Clarendon is learning to his cost.’

  I bowed. A few weeks earlier, the King had removed Lord Clarendon, his oldest adviser, from the office of Lord Chancellor in one of the greatest political upheavals since the Restoration of the monarchy seven years before. But removing Clarendon from office had not made him politically insignificant. His daughter was married to Charles II’s own brother, the Duke of York. Since the King had no legitimate children, and Queen Catherine was unlikely to give him any, the Duke was his brother’s heir presumptive. Moreover, the next heirs in the line of succession were Clarendon’s grandchildren, the five-year-old Princess Mary and her infant sister, Anne. If the King were to die, then Clarendon might well become even more politically powerful than he had been before.

  ‘These are dangerous times,’ Chiffinch went on. ‘Great men rise and fall, and the little people are dragged up and down behind them. If my Lord Clarendon can fall, then anyone can. But of course a man can rise, as well as fall.’ He paused to refill his glass, and then went on in a softer voice: ‘The more I know, the better I can serve the King. It would be better for him, and for you, if you confided in me.’

  ‘Forgive me, sir. I cannot.’ I suspected that he was looking for a way to destroy the King’s trust in me.

  ‘It’s curious, though,’ Chiffinch went on, staring at the contents of his glass. ‘I wonder why my lady wanted to meet you in the Banqueting House of all places, at one of the healing ceremonies. She so rarely comes to Whitehall these days. Which is understandable enough. It takes more than a change of name to make people forget that she was once married to that bankrupt cheat Henry Alderley.’