The Last Protector Read online

  ‘I understand your not wishing to confide in His Grace or myself about the Cockpit. It’s a private matter, is it not?’ The words were conciliatory but Veal’s voice was as hard as ever, and his face was as grim as a gravestone. ‘Nevertheless it explains something that has puzzled me from the start: why you were prepared to run the risk of coming to London.’

  ‘As you say, sir, it’s a private matter. Or at least it was. It’s scarcely private now. And I am ruined.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The Duke commands me to say there is no need to disturb yourself.’

  ‘Speak plain, for God’s sake.’

  ‘He will do all he can to accommodate you with your private matter, sir. You’re his friend. His ally.’

  Again, the words were soft and obliging, but Veal’s voice was abrasive, as if he were chiding a naughty child. The two men walked up and down the courtyard in silence.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Cromwell said when he could bear it no longer, ‘you would tell me what His Grace has in mind.’

  ‘Why, it’s perfectly simple: he expects you to spend Easter Monday with him, as arranged, and to meet his friends. In return, he will undertake to provide any assistance that Mr Hakesby needs on your behalf at the Cockpit. It’s to everyone’s advantage. You would hardly wish to crawl about in sewers yourself. And your personal safety must concern us all.’

  ‘That’s most obliging of him,’ Cromwell said. ‘You’re aware that Mr Hakesby himself is not—’

  ‘In the best of health? Yes. But everything is in hand. We ourselves can provide any other assistance Mr Hakesby requires on the day. We shall need full directions about where to find these valuables of yours.’

  ‘Of course,’ Cromwell reluctantly agreed.

  ‘I rejoice this is settled. The Duke assured me there would be no difficulty. He knows that there is a perfect understanding between you and him. Either I or my servant Durrell will accompany Mr Hakesby on the day, and I’ll confer with him about the details beforehand.’

  Veal paused. He waited, like a parent who had granted his child a favour and expected a seemly gratitude. Cromwell said nothing.

  ‘There’s one other matter to discuss before I go,’ Veal said after a moment. ‘Mistress Hakesby.’

  ‘Mistress—?’

  ‘Come, sir.’ Veal’s voice had lost its veneer of respect. ‘Let’s be plain with one another, you know perfectly well who I mean. The pretty young wife of the old man. I understand that she was the bosom friend of your daughter when they were barely out of leading strings.’ His tone had become openly sarcastic. ‘Pray correct me if I’m wrong, but did you not approach Hakesby through her?’

  ‘Yes. She’s of no significance apart from that.’

  ‘Really? She was your daughter’s friend when they were children, in the days when this country had a godly government. When there was a Cromwell in Whitehall. Why then, sir, you must know who Mistress Hakesby really is.’

  Cromwell shrugged. ‘I do. But we have all changed since then. She is merely the wife of—’

  ‘Catherine Lovett,’ Veal said. ‘That’s who she is, and she always will be. She’s the regicide’s daughter, sir. And His Grace has a powerful desire to meet her.’

  On the Wednesday before Easter, I rose early. Margaret and Stephen had already been up for several hours. Stephen brought my breakfast, and then Sam hobbled in with a letter.

  ‘When did this come?’

  ‘Pushed under the door, master.’

  ‘This morning?’

  ‘It wasn’t there last night.’

  I broke the seal. Inside was what looked like a poem. It was written in a clerkly hand that I didn’t recognize.

  My First is to ruin, which my Whole always Doth

  Whate’er it touches, from North to the South.

  My second’s a Serpent that crawls i’ the mire

  And draws Careless Mortals down to Hell Fire.

  My Parts once united, tho’ my Visage much scarred,

  I Squat like a Turd in old Scotland Yard.

  ‘What’s this?’ Sam said, peering over my shoulder. ‘A poem of love?’

  ‘No,’ I said, glad for once that he couldn’t read much more than his own name. ‘It’s a riddle of sorts.’

  ‘I like a riddle, master. Will you read it to me? See if I can guess the answer?’

  ‘Go away,’ I said. ‘Leave me in peace, for God’s sake.’

  Sam chuckled in a way he fondly imagined would sound lewd and knowing. He retreated before I could find something to throw at him.

  I pushed aside the newly baked roll. This was the second warning. Or insult. Or threat.

  Fear rose like bile in my belly. First, on Monday afternoon at Whitehall, had come the picture of a man with the letter M on his chest dangling from a gibbet. And then this: a riddle that even a child could solve. Ruin signified ‘mar’, and the serpent signified ‘worm’: and the whole was Marworm, as the Duke called me, Marworm with his scarred face and his place in Williamson’s office at Scotland Yard.

  The cook shop that Cat had mentioned was easy to find. It was on the east side of Bedford Street and advertised itself as much by the smells as by any outward display of what was on sale within. Next door, the newly gilded sign of the Fleece creaked over the heads of the passers-by.

  It wanted a few minutes to nine o’clock. The shop was full of housewives and maids, who were set on ordering their dinners and exchanging gossip while they waited. A man in a peruke, idling away the time in such a place, would stand out like a thistle in a bed of roses.

  There was a bookshop over the road, with its flap open to display some of its wares. I waited there, turning over the pages of a damp-stained sexto-decimo copy of Raleigh’s History of the World. A hackney was standing by a row of posts outside the shop, and it offered me some concealment.

  I waited long enough for the bookseller to start throwing me suspicious glances. He would have done more than this if my clothes had not been so obviously respectable. As I turned away, I saw Cat approaching from the direction of Henrietta Street. The Hakesbys’ little maid was scurrying beside her with a basket on her arm. They went into the cook shop.

  I beckoned the bookseller’s boy. ‘A lady wearing a blue cloak has just gone into the cook shop over there. She has her maid with her.’ I dropped three pennies into the boy’s waiting palm. ‘Tell her that the gentleman she saw on Sunday would speak to her.’

  The boy leered up at me; he could not have been more than eight or nine, but he considered himself wise in the ways of the world. He darted across the road and went into the cook shop. A moment later, he returned and gave me a wink. I learned nothing more from him because his employer chose that moment to emerge from behind his counter. He clouted the boy around the head and dragged him by the ear into the shop.

  I waited. A few minutes later, Cat emerged alone from the cook shop. She glanced over the road and saw me. She crossed the road and pretended to examine another book on the shelf.

  ‘I had to see you,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I found out about the dog and the bitch. It signifies Dog and Bitch Yard, by Drury Lane. I went to a bawdy house there—’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘Not for that reason. By accident. Durrell was chasing me. But it seems that Buckingham goes there regularly. Perhaps he even owns the place. I saw some papers written in his handwriting.’ My words tumbled out, falling over one another in my haste. ‘Since then he’s sent me two anonymous letters … one’s a drawing, in fact, the other’s a riddle. He’s trying to frighten me.’ I turned my head to avoid looking at Cat’s face. ‘To speak truth, he’s succeeded.’

  ‘We were frightened of him before,’ she said quietly. ‘Nothing’s changed.’

  ‘This is different.’

  I wanted to say that there was now something personal about Buckingham’s dislike of me: I had become more than a minor obstacle in his path, more than a
man he despised and disliked because of the masters I served: he hated me now; not what I stood for, but myself. But I held back. The intimacy that we had shared on Sunday seemed to have evaporated.

  ‘Interested in the History, sir?’

  It was that damned bookseller.

  ‘No,’ I snarled. ‘That is, perhaps. I am considering.’

  ‘Very fine copy, sir. Said to have belonged to Sir Walter’s poor wife. And the contents, sir – why, no one has written better of this world and its history, or knew more of it by his own experience. The volume’s so convenient as well – you can slip it in your pocket and take it anywhere.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Eighteen shillings. Bearing in mind the associations. I could get more in Paul’s Churchyard, if I had a mind.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Cat said. ‘It’s worth six: no more than that.’

  The bookseller hadn’t expected an attack from this quarter. ‘Twelve,’ he said, recoiling from her.

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Very well, mistress, I can’t deny you, though it’s bread from my poor family’s mouths. Eight if you must.’

  ‘Seven shillings, and no more. Take it away and wrap it for the gentleman.’

  He bowed low to her, and retreated with the book.

  ‘Cheap at the price,’ I said drily. ‘As it was once my Lady Raleigh’s.’

  To my surprise she laughed. I smiled at her. Then both of us grew serious.

  ‘Buck’s planning something for Easter Monday. Dog and Bitch Yard has something to do with it, though I don’t know what. It must involve Cromwell, too. I’m sorry, but I must tell Williamson.’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I must.’

  ‘You don’t understand. We’re part of it. Veal and my husband are the best of friends.’

  ‘Veal? Veal?’

  ‘He’s convinced poor Hakesby that Buckingham will be the nation’s saviour, with Cromwell at his side. The Duke has arranged a private meeting on Easter Monday, with gentlemen of like mind. No doubt they will discuss how they will do away with tyrannical bishops, and for all I know the King too, and how all men will worship as they please, except the papists of course. England will become an earthly paradise. That’s what my husband believes. He says we must all work to help the Duke.’

  ‘We? Not you, surely? Whatever folly Hakesby commits himself to, you needn’t be part of it. Let me tell Williamson that you came to me of your own accord, and—’

  ‘But I am part of it, Marwood, whether I will or no. They want me for who I am. Have you forgotten? I’m the regicide’s daughter.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No.’

  Cat stared up at me. Her face white with anger or perhaps fear. Or both. She wheeled round and left me standing alone and even more scared than I had been before. Not just for me. For her.

  ‘Seven shillings then, sir,’ said the bookseller.

  His boy was beside him, with my overpriced History wrapped in a paper parcel tied with string.

  I walked to Scotland Yard, with the History in my pocket.

  I couldn’t make up my mind. Should I talk to Williamson? Should I tell him the whole of what I knew about Buckingham’s plans, while somehow trying to minimize the part that Cat and Hakesby were playing? Or should I listen to Cat, and hold my peace? But if I did that, what would happen to the country on Easter Monday? Nearer home, what would Buckingham do to me?

  Williamson was with my Lord Arlington in his Privy Gallery apartments, and they remained secluded there for most of the morning. My desk in Scotland Yard was near the window. I did little work that day. I watched the court below while my thoughts went first one way then the other.

  Then suddenly, there was Mr Williamson. But not alone: Mr Weld of all people was with him, Mr Weld from Arundel House, and they were talking as they walked, their heads close together. I stood up when I heard their feet on the stairs and went to the door of the outer office, to greet them when they came in.

  ‘Sir,’ I said, without any other greeting when Williamson entered, ‘May I—’

  ‘Marwood, there you are,’ he interrupted. ‘In my room. Now.’

  Weld merely gave me a nod as he passed me, though usually he was as punctilious as a Spaniard in his greetings and farewells. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for a week. His eyes were swollen and red.

  I followed them into the private office.

  ‘Shut the door,’ Williamson snapped.

  Weld sank into a chair without being invited.

  ‘This will set the cat among the doves,’ Williamson said quietly. ‘My Lord Shrewsbury died today.’

  I looked from one grave face to the other. ‘But I saw him myself the other day. My lord was walking in the garden – he seemed all but himself again.’

  Weld cleared his throat. ‘A sudden fever took him. There was nothing we could do. Nothing anyone could do.’

  ‘And, because of this, Buckingham has disappeared again,’ Williamson said. ‘Because he fears a charge of murder.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Good Old Days

  Thursday, 19 – Easter Monday, 23 March 1668

  FERRUS STINKS.

  Master sent him into the old, old sewer. The shit and the piss pours in. For years and years and years. And everything else they put down their privies.

  You go down there, Master says, scour it well or I throw you in the river. Make you drown.

  Ferrus here before in this old sewer. Long long ago, in that other time.

  He digs and wriggles. Shovels and crawls. Scrapes and scratches. Ratty runs over his feet, over his arm.

  The roof down. Ferrus stuck. Master pulls him free.

  Poxy wretch, says Master. Clear that tomorrow, or I bury you there for the rats to have for dinner.

  Master puts Ferrus under the pump. Water makes him shiver. Ferrus squeals.

  Ferrus weeps cold tears.

  Pheebs watched Mistress Hakesby descending the last flight of stairs and admired the tantalizing glimpses of ankle and calf. Wasted on a dotard like her husband. Shocking. The thought of that trembling old man pawing at those pert bubbies made him feel ill. It was against nature.

  ‘Pheebs!’ she snapped, as she reached the hallway. ‘A word if you please.’

  He bowed, rubbing his hands together. ‘How may I serve you, mistress?’

  ‘Who brought that letter you sent up?’

  She was in a passion, he reckoned, which had brought a fetching colour to her cheeks. ‘The one that came this morning?’

  ‘Of course. What else could I mean?’

  Her tone angered him. He cuffed the boy, venting a little of his irritation, driving him back to the shadows by the stairs. He was tempted to lie to her. The fat man had paid him well when he gave Pheebs the letter on the understanding that he would say a strange servant had brought it. The trouble was, the boy had been there as an unwanted witness, and also the boy knew that the fat man and Pheebs had encountered each other on more than one occasion over the last few weeks, to their mutual profit. The boy was the next best thing to an idiot, which was useful in one way. But it also meant that he could not be trusted to keep his mouth shut.

  ‘He was a big fellow, mistress.’ Pheebs sketched a great belly in front of him. ‘I seen him about in the street a few times. Shall I send the lad out to look for him?’

  ‘No.’

  She wheeled around and ran up the stairs, giving him another glimpse of ankle and calf, though she was gone so quickly it was almost as if he had imagined it.

  Hakesby was in his closet, with the lid of his chest thrown open. He glanced wild-eyed over his shoulder at Cat. This morning’s letter had thrown him into a panic.

  ‘Where are they?’ he demanded. ‘Have you hidden them somewhere?’

  ‘Hidden what, sir?’

  ‘The Cockpit plans. You’re always taking my things away and hiding them somewhere. I believe you do it to mock me.’

  ‘You left the plans upstairs in the D
rawing Office,’ she said. ‘Shall I fetch them?’

  ‘What o’clock is it? We’ll be late if we don’t hurry.’

  ‘There is plenty of time, sir. Mr Cromwell sends the coach for us at three.’

  ‘I’m sure he sends it at two. Give me his letter, and I will make sure.’

  ‘At once, sir.’

  Cat left him delving in the chest to no purpose. She went upstairs. The portfolio with the plans was where Hakesby had left it, on the shelf by his chair. The letter that Durrell had brought was on his desk. She glanced through it. Cromwell had named three o’clock for the coach. It was important that they meet before Easter Monday, he had written, to discuss how they would proceed at the Cockpit. Now, thanks to Pheebs, she knew that Durrell was somehow involved as well.

  Until the letter arrived, she had hoped against hope that the expedition might be cancelled. My Lord Shrewsbury’s death and the new warrant for Buckingham’s arrest might have affected Cromwell’s plans. Apparently not. Buckingham’s involvement could only make the business more dangerous than it was already.

  Brennan, hunched over his slope and hard at work, looked up. ‘Trouble, mistress?’

  ‘Trouble enough,’ she said, turning away, not wanting to encourage a conversation.

  She went downstairs to the parlour. It took her most of the next hour to calm her husband and make him look presentable. He insisted they keep the parlour door open so they would be able to hear the knock on the street door below.

  They waited past three o’clock, and then past the half hour, with Hakesby growing increasingly anxious. ‘Perhaps there’s been an accident.’ He wrung his hands. ‘Perhaps Mr Cromwell’s enemies have tracked him down.’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do, sir,’ she said, not once but many times. ‘Except wait.’

  It was nearly four o’clock when they heard the sound of men’s voices below, followed by slow footsteps on the stairs. No one had knocked at the street door – Pheebs must have seen the visitor in the street and admitted him without ceremony.