The Last Protector Read online

  The woman fills his head. Saw her yesterday. And he ran away.

  Master comes early. Here, Ferrus, he says and throws him a roll. White roll. Scraps of bread that Ferrus gets are almost always brown, coarse stuff. Hard bits hurt teeth and gums.

  White roll tastes of heaven. Food of angels. Food of God.

  From my Lady Castlemaine’s kitchen, master says. Her very own fingers might have touched it. Think of it. Ah, Ferrus, think where them fingers have been. Master scratches himself between the legs. Oh, just think of it.

  The sun comes out like a blessing. Master stands in the doorway to the kitchen. Watches Ferrus eat. Smokes pipe.

  Holiday, today, says master. Blows out smoke. Grey feathers, grey sky. But not for us, lad, not for us.

  Mr Williamson had made it clear that his clerks should attend the office on Monday, despite its being a holiday. I walked down to Scotland Yard. I was in an ill humour.

  Easter Monday at last. It was still early, and there was no sign of the rumoured unrest. But London in a holiday mood was liable to be unpredictable. The usual rules were suspended. The City became drunk on its brief liberty. I had a disagreeable sense that this was the lull before the storm – for all of us: me and Cat, for Buckingham and the Cromwells, and even for the country as a whole.

  At Scotland Yard, I went up to the office. The door to Williamson’s room was open and he saw me come in. I hadn’t seen him since Saturday morning. He beckoned me inside and told me to shut the door. I had come to dislike these private conferences. They usually meant bad news.

  ‘You’ve heard, I take it?’

  ‘About the examination of Lord Shrewsbury’s corpse?’

  ‘Aye. It’s the most cursed luck imaginable. My Lord Arlington is furious.’

  ‘Are the physicians sure?’

  ‘Of course they’re sure. Do you think we’d let Buckingham and his party draw the wool over our eyes? No, one physician was chosen by Lord Shrewsbury’s own kin, and another by me. It was a putrid fever that killed him. Believe me, if they could have found a way to blame Buckingham for my lord’s death, they would have done so.’

  Williamson ran out of words and stared angrily at me instead.

  I stared back. ‘And the Duke, sir?’

  ‘He’s as free as air.’ He rubbed his forehead, dislodging a shower of flaking skin on to the letter he had been reading when I came in. ‘He’s up to mischief, I know he is. If you hear anything – the slightest whisper – I must know at once.’

  Williamson dismissed me and I went about my duties. A little before midday, he decided in a rare moment of self-indulgence that he had had enough of work for one day. He went off to dine, saying he would not be back, and the rest of us should continue in our allotted tasks.

  That suited me well enough. I had an appointment with our printer, Mr Newcomb, whose shop was close by my lodgings. I saw him and then dined at an ordinary in the Strand. I propped open Raleigh’s History in front of me to discourage casual conversation.

  Rather than return to Scotland Yard in the afternoon, I decided I might more conveniently work at home. I walked back to Infirmary Close. I gave orders that I should not be disturbed and had my papers brought to the parlour. Work was a distraction, albeit a tedious one that was only partially successful. I checked the proofs for the next Gazette, and afterwards sent them by my boy Stephen to Mr Newcomb. I then set to making notes of suitable items for Mr Williamson’s next newsletter.

  The only sound was the scratching of my pen. While I worked, part of my mind was fruitlessly revolving my difficulties. Gradually, I became aware of a knocking downstairs, and of voices in the kitchen. Then came footsteps, which approached the parlour door, followed by a gentle tapping on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ I shouted, not best pleased to be disturbed.

  My servant Margaret entered, her face red from the kitchen fire. ‘Your pardon, master, but I thought you should hear this. But if I’ve done wrong, I’m sure I—’

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘It’s Dorcas, sir.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘She delivers the Gazette. You remember – Mistress Hakesby lodged with her for a week or so last year.’

  I remembered her then. I’d even seen the woman once – small and brown, like a dusty sparrow; she had looked seventy but was probably no more than forty.

  ‘Her son’s home on leave, master, her son that’s a sailor. He told her there’s trouble brewing down Poplar way.’

  I laid down the pen. ‘What sort of trouble?’

  ‘Crowds gathering, and apprentices coming down from the City. And strong ale. There was a lot of talk last night.’ She paused. ‘About the bawdy houses by the river.’

  ‘They mean to attack them?’

  ‘Yes, sir – and Dorcas’s son heard they go to Moorfields next.’

  There was nothing more. I sent Margaret away with sixpence for Dorcas in return for her trouble. Suddenly restless, I stood up and walked about the room.

  A little violence, according to Mr Williamson, even a little riot, was not necessarily a bad thing. It was like applying leeches, he said – letting blood was an infallible way to bring down a fever and cleanse the toxic humours from the body. The official response was usually to contain such outbreaks rather than crush them, and afterwards to treat the unrest as public disorder, a matter that could be resolved with fines and short terms of imprisonment for one or two ringleaders.

  But this story, if it was true, was unusual, and for several reasons. Poplar was not in the City or even in the immediate suburbs – it was a straggling hamlet on the Thames downstream from the Tower, a good five miles away from the Savoy. Why would the trouble start there, and why so early in the day?

  Then there was the mention of the bawdy houses. In the old days, before the Great Rebellion, there had been a tradition in the City that on Shrove Tuesday the apprentices would band together and attack the brothels. I remembered my father telling me about this with evident nostalgia; he portrayed such riots as occasions for smiting sin in the persons of these fallen women, but even then I had sensed that his nostalgia drew its force from other sources as well. For young and lusty apprentices, the opportunity to do God’s work by abusing the whores and tearing down their houses must have had a particular appeal.

  But Shrove Tuesday was at the very start of Lent. Easter Monday was six weeks later, so on the face of it this attack could not be an attempt to revive the tradition.

  I glanced out of the window. The day was fine, and I was tired of being cooped up. Perhaps here was an opportunity to give myself a holiday. I suspected that this unrest was a tale that had grown in the telling. Perhaps a handful of disgruntled sailors and drunken apprentices had been making much ado about nothing. But there would be no harm in going down to Poplar and finding out.

  If Williamson later questioned me about how I had spent the day, I would justify the excursion by reminding him of the rumours of trouble that we had heard. In the circumstances, I would say, it had seemed prudent to assess the situation myself. After all, I could not refer the matter to him, as he himself was away from Scotland Yard.

  I called for my cloak. The tide was on the ebb. It would be good to put the fumes of the city behind me for an hour or two. On my return I might even look in at a theatre.

  An excursion, I thought, even a mild adventure, followed by an evening of pleasure. The whole world was on holiday. Why not I?

  I went by water to Old Swan stairs in the shadow of London Bridge. The tide was churning so violently under the arches that I refused to let Wanswell take me through. There were the usual holidaymakers pouring over the London Bridge from the Southwark side. People seemed cheerful, looking for amusement rather than riot.

  On the downstream side of the bridge, I took another boat past the grey bulk of the Tower, and had myself rowed to Limehouse, where I landed. The sun was out, and it was growing warmer. I went on by foot towards Poplar, with the marshy lands near the river on my right.
/>   I grew content as I walked, breathing the fresh, salty air blowing off the river. Long stretches of rope were drying by the road and, even on a holiday the sailmakers were at work. In this place, everything had to do with the sea and the Thames. Before the Great Rebellion, the East India Company’s docks at Blackwall had begun its transformation, which was now proceeding apace. But, for all that, it was still quite distinct from London and in places quite rural.

  I came almost imperceptibly into Poplar itself. It was hardly a town, yet barely a village – a long, single street with lanes running off it, especially to the south, where they sloped down to the river and to the pastures of the Isle of Dogs. The houses were chiefly of wood, many of them single-storey hovels with weather-boarded walls. Scattered among them, however, especially on the north side of the street, were more substantial buildings, including an almshouse and a chapel. Their new red bricks made a brave show in the sunshine.

  The taverns and alehouses were packed with sailors, apprentices and artisans up from Blackwall, which lay beyond Poplar. Further along the street, a crowd was moving eastwards, by fits and starts. As I drew nearer, the mood of the day changed. There were fewer families here. Men lingered in knots of three or four, talking among themselves. Some carried staffs and staves.

  As I passed one group, I heard the name ‘Damaris’. One youth detached himself from the others and walked ahead towards another group of apprentices.

  ‘A poxy bawd,’ he said to them. ‘That’s what she is. Lying doxy. Cheated our boys of their money, didn’t she? Then she sold them like slaves.’

  He gave me a sharp glance and fell silent. I had heard enough. Most of London knew who Damaris was: Mistress Damaris Page, who had grown steadily richer from the profits of her bawdy houses since before the Civil War. Like her colleague, Madam Cresswell, she had invested her earnings in property. The heart of her empire was east of the Tower and along the river, an area that attracted a shifting, constantly refreshed population of sailors, desperate for the company of women after weeks or months at sea. There were rumours that she not only cheated some of her customers but sold them to the press gang, making a handsome double profit. The navy was always hungry for men, especially those who already knew one end of a rope from another.

  The further east I went, the more sullen the crowds became. I stood out in this part of Poplar, and I attracted hostile looks. Dressed as I was, as one of the prosperous middling sort who could afford a peruke and a respectable suit of clothes, I did not belong here on a holiday, let alone a holiday that was assuming the character that this one was.

  Men had gathered outside a large house which stood gable end to the road. They spilled across the street, blocking the traffic. As I watched, reinforcements swelled the crowd, including a party of middle-aged men who came striding up from the direction of the river with an almost military sense of purpose.

  Two of these were wheeling a barrow containing a long canvas bundle. Another was carrying a staff that was quite ten feet long. He lowered it, and his friends clustered around him. A moment later, they raised the staff again. Attached to the end was a piece of green cloth, a makeshift flag. The men gave a ragged cheer, which spread like sparks from a fire to the apprentices and sailors outside the house.

  Dear God, I thought, here’s trouble. These men and their flag were evidence that this riot had gone beyond the usual mischief that apprentices made on a holiday. The green flag was the emblem of the Levellers, those dangerous radicals who had flourished during the Rebellion. They believed such nonsense that the franchise should be extended to everyone (apart from servants and women), and that all men should enjoy liberty as a natural right. The Levellers had gathered substantial support in the New Model Army and in London before Cromwell and his allies had tightened their grip on the country and put an end to their folly.

  The doors of the house were closed, and the windows were shuttered. Someone must have warned the people within that trouble was on the way. The building looked solid, but only the chimney stacks were of brick, and the walls were merely weather-boarded.

  One of the newcomers approached the apprentices. He gestured towards the house. A youth picked up a stone and threw it at the nearest door. A cheer went up.

  As if this had been a signal, the attack began in earnest. Two men unfolded the canvas bundle on the barrow. They handed out crowbars and two heavy mauls. Another man came out of a nearby yard with a pitch-soaked torch sputtering and sparking in either hand.

  ‘Come on, boys,’ bellowed a deep voice behind me. ‘Reformation and liberty!’

  There was a burst of cheering. I swung round, looking for the source of that deep, thick voice. But the people behind me blocked my view. Someone shouldered me aside so violently I almost fell in the gutter.

  A red-headed giant of a man lifted one of the mauls and carried it across the road to the house. He swung the maul above his head with an easy grace and brought it down with a crash on the centre of the door. The wood split with a crack like gunfire.

  For a second the crowd was silent. Then the cheering began again.

  A burly apprentice set to levering off a ground-floor shutter with a crowbar. The giant tugged the head of the maul free from the remains of the door and raised it above his head. I turned aside and retreated as discreetly as I could.

  Behind me, the maul smashed into the door for a second time.

  ‘Down with the Red Coats!’ shouted the same voice. It had a liquid quality, as though the man was shouting through a mouthful of phlegm. I turned towards the sound. Roger Durrell was standing half-hidden in a shallow porch on the other side of the road, his body obscuring the door behind him.

  He pointed at me. Two of the men peeled away from the group near the barrow and moved towards me. I had left my departure too late. In the last few minutes, the immediate neighbourhood had emptied of everyone except the rioters and myself. I was alone and, apart from my stick, unarmed.

  I broke into a run. Footsteps pounded behind me. I dared not look over my shoulder for fear of losing ground. The almshouse was ahead of me on the right-hand side, looking reassuringly respectable. I ran towards it – someone would help me there; it was my only hope. My heart and lungs felt as if they would burst.

  To my horror, the gates of the almshouse were closed. I had no time to knock and wait. The railings on either side were too formidable a barrier to climb. I ran on, for I had no other choice. An alley opened up on my right, following the blank western wall of the almshouse. I turned into it, my shoes slipping and sliding on the paving.

  There might be a side gate. Or someone of sufficient authority to—

  The footsteps were still pursuing me. Two or three men, by the sound of it. They were nearer now. The sobbing of their breath mingled with my own.

  The alley led to a chapel surrounded by freshly made graves among green turf. There was an orchard beyond.

  I saw no way out of the enclosure so I made for the chapel itself. It was a plain modern building with a belfry at one end. The path brought me to a door at the south-west corner. It was ajar. I burst inside, praying there would be a congregation, or anyone who might protect me from my pursuers.

  But the chapel was empty. It was a whitewashed place with a flattened vault held up by pillars. I tried to shut the door behind me, but I was too late. I ran down the nave. The men behind me entered the chapel. Their footsteps slowed to a walk. I stopped, for there was no longer any purpose in running.

  Before I could turn to face them, something hit my back immediately below the shoulders. The blow landed with such force that it flung me forward on to the ground. The impact drove the breath from my body. My hat and peruke fell off.

  I rolled on to my side and drew up my legs to protect myself as far as I could. Two men stared down at me: not apprentices: they looked some years older than myself; they were dressed as working men in plain, serviceable clothes.

  ‘Sirs,’ I gabbled, ‘pray consider what you do, and who I am. Let me stand
your friend and—’

  One of them kicked my shoulder. I cried out with the pain. The force of the kick pushed me on to my back.

  I lay there, feeling the hard stones beneath me. My limbs throbbed with pain, and I panted for breath like an overheated dog. Strangely, I felt almost peaceful. I was powerless to do anything. I stared up at the white ceiling. Directly above me was a splash of vivid colour: a painted boss at the centre of the vault.

  The two men stood on either side of me, looking down. The door creaked on its hinges. It slammed shut. A third set of footsteps walked slowly down the nave.

  The roof boss bore the arms of the East India Company. Two red roses and, between them, the quartered lions and lilies, the old royal arms of the Tudors. And below, at the bottom of the shield, three golden ships sailed serenely from left to right: bearing cargoes from the East Indies, I thought, my mind desperate for any distraction whatsoever, cargoes that would line the pockets of the Company’s investors with gold. I wondered whether they would be the last things I saw in this world.

  The footsteps stopped. ‘Devil take you.’ The words bubbled like hot tar from Roger Durrell’s throat. ‘It would have to be you, wouldn’t it?’

  I dragged my eyes away from the three golden ships and looked at him. I couldn’t see his face. His belly was in the way. He pulled back his leg. From this angle, it looked as thick as one of those pillars holding up the roof. He kicked me in the side of the head, and the world stopped.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jollyboy, Flurry and Dido

  Easter Monday, 23 March 1668

  NO WORDS.

  She comes across the Park. Young lady at Fulton’s on Saturday. Lady who spoke to him. In very God’s own truth she spoke to him. And what did Ferrus do? He ran and ran.

  Master gave Ferrus a beating later for doing wrong, though he is not quite sure which wrong.