The Last Protector Read online

  He led me through the doorway and up a private stair to the floor above. Here, I guessed, were the apartments occupied by the Howards and their intimates, where the public were not usually admitted. He took me through room after room furnished with paintings, tapestries and with the battered marbles of antiquity. He showed me into a bedchamber, a vast but stuffy room. The air was cold.

  My eyes went at once towards the bed, which was set in an alcove beneath a gilded arch that bore the arms of the Howards. The curtains were drawn back. Lord Shrewsbury lay with his eyes closed. He was propped against the pillows, and his body seemed reduced to the size of a child’s beneath the heap of bedclothes.

  A papist priest knelt beside the bed at a prie-dieu, muttering his prayers and telling his rosary, while a maidservant was tiptoeing away, carrying a bedpan. Two physicians were conferring in low voices by the window, their robes drawn tightly about them against the cold. A great fire burned in the hearth but most of its heat went upwards and warmed the chimney and the sky above.

  A gentleman approached me and introduced himself as Francis Weld, a member of Lord Shrewsbury’s household. ‘It’s kind of Lord Arlington to send you,’ he said in a dry, uninflected voice that made it impossible to detect if there was an element of irony behind the words. ‘Pray don’t stay long – Mr Chiffinch’s visit has tired my master.’

  ‘How is he today?’

  ‘He rallied astonishingly yesterday morning, which is why we took the risk of bringing him here from Chelsea. He seemed to suffer no ill effects from the journey during the evening – he made a good supper and talked for nearly an hour with Mr Howard. But this morning he was weak and feverish again. The wound’s infected. They’ve bled him, but it seems not to have helped.’ Weld nodded towards the doctors. ‘They are talking of applying a brace of pigeons if he grows much worse. Possibly more.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ I said. ‘Is he really that ill?’

  ‘Not yet, I hope. And he would not hear of it when they mentioned the idea to him. But if he grows worse in the night …’

  This was alarming news. Dead pigeons were considered one of the last remedies at a doctor’s disposal. They were often used in cases of plague and other noxious fevers. Live birds were brought into the sickroom. Their necks were wrung and, while they were still warm, their breasts were slit open and applied to the patient’s skin, usually to the soles of the feet. In this case, perhaps, they would apply them directly to the infected wound. It was a messy business, I had heard, and often unsuccessful.

  ‘I’ve a private message from Lord Arlington.’ I turned towards the figure on the bed. ‘May I try to speak to him?’

  Weld pursed his lips. ‘Let me find out if he’s awake.’

  He crossed the room to the bed. I followed, a pace or two behind. The priest fell silent as Weld bent over the figure on the bed and whispered a few words.

  Lord Shrewsbury’s eyelids fluttered, and he said in a low, distinct voice, ‘If I must.’

  His pale hand twitched on the coverlet. He lifted a finger and beckoned me to approach. Weld introduced me.

  I bowed. ‘I’m sorry to see your lordship so ill.’

  His face was thin, the pale skin stretched tightly over the bony ridges and hollows of the skull. Drops of sweat caught the light. His chin was black with stubble.

  ‘You come from my Lord Arlington?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, my lord. I have a letter from him.’ I came closer. ‘And a message.’

  A burst of energy transformed him. ‘Leave us a moment,’ he said to Weld. He turned his head towards the priest. ‘As for you, stop your damned mumbling and pray for me somewhere else.’ He pointed his finger at me. ‘The letter.’

  I gave it to him. He broke the seal and unfolded it. I could not read the contents but I saw there were only a few lines. He crumpled it up and pushed it aside; it fell to the floor.

  ‘My head hurts,’ he said. ‘I’m thirsty … what’s this message?’

  I brought my head closer to his. ‘My lord says he stands in your debt, and he assures you that the Duke of Buckingham will pay for the injuries he has done you. In the meantime, he begs you to be discreet.’

  ‘Discreet? When the fever is upon me, they say I prattle like a child. If I do, I know not what I say.’ He was growing excited, and talking had brought an unhealthy flush to his cheeks. ‘And my head hurts. I wish the Duke was in his grave, and dishonoured as well as dead. And my wife with him.’

  I felt an unexpected pity. There was a cup containing a brown liquid on the bed table. I held it to his lips and he took a few sips. Some of the liquid ran down his chin.

  ‘Where’s he now?’ he said, pushing aside the cup.

  I dabbed his face with a napkin. ‘Who, my lord?’

  ‘That devil Buckingham, of course.’

  ‘No one knows. He is in hiding.’

  ‘Probably with my bitch of a wife.’

  I was aware that Weld was approaching the bed on the far side, so his master would not see him. He was making gestures, urging me to cut short the conversation.

  Shrewsbury’s voice was rising. ‘I heard the rogue talking to that man of his, the long, thin one, when I was on the ground. He must have made his plans already. The dog going to the bitch, the whoreson dog lying with the punkish bitch, rutting in their foulness in their yard. The dog, the bitch, the dog and the bitch, the—’

  ‘My lord,’ Weld said, moving forward and laying his hand on his master’s arm, ‘my lord, you must not overtire yourself.’ He lifted his head and mouthed at me across the bed: ‘Go. Go now.’

  The physicians had abandoned their conference and were staring at us. I had no choice but to withdraw. I bowed to the man on the bed and walked away.

  ‘The dog and the bitch,’ Shrewsbury said behind me, his voice faint but urgent. ‘Dog and bitch.’

  After the fetid atmosphere of the bedchamber, it was a relief to be in the open air again. I crossed the courtyard, making for the north gate. My mind was busy with the implications of my interview. Two points stood out: my lord was in great anguish of mind, and the infected wound lessened his chance of making a recovery.

  The court was busy, even on a Sunday afternoon. A coach was unloading its passengers, and a knot of servants were squabbling in one corner. Three boys were urging on a fight between a pair of mismatched dogs, one a mastiff bitch, the other some sort of terrier, who was desperately trying to compensate with its agility for its lack of strength. I knew how the terrier felt.

  My mind still full of the wounded man, I stopped to watch the fight. The two snarling dogs set me thinking about Shrewsbury’s rambling remarks as I was leaving. Clearly his fever had been rising, and he might not have known what he was saying. Veal had been in attendance on the Duke at the duel, and the long, thin man the Earl had mentioned could have been him. Then what were these plans? Did the whoreson dog and the punkish bitch refer to Buckingham and Lady Shrewsbury, or had there been some other meaning? Or was Shrewsbury’s mind so disordered that the words had been no more than meaningless fragments thrown out by his feverish imaginings?

  The dog and bitch, I muttered under my breath, the dog and bitch. I remembered the duel last Thursday all too clearly. The dog and the bitch. I’d thought that Buckingham had said those words to Veal: dog, bitch. But I wasn’t any more sure of that now than I had been then. I had had other things on my mind at the time: the two men lying on the ground in their blood-soaked shirts; and above all my desperate need to put as much distance as possible between Barn Elms and myself. I had been on the verge of panic. I couldn’t trust my own memory.

  The snarling and snapping intensified. The terrier broke away and ran between my legs, nearly oversetting me. The mastiff was slow off the mark, which gave the terrier time to reach an open window of a store at the end of the stables. It scrabbled over the stone sill and vanished inside. The mastiff gave chase but was brought up short outside the window frame, which was too small for it to pass through. It put i
ts front paws on the sill and sniffed it, whining all the while. The little dog had got away scot-free.

  I walked through the gateway and made my way slowly up to the Strand. I glimpsed a big, broad fellow at the top of the lane, with the sheath of a heavy sword swinging by his side. He had his back to me, and other people hindered my view. I hastily stepped into a doorway. Was it Roger Durrell, the man who had tried to detain me by force as I left Barn Elms after the duel? I wondered if he had seen me entering Arundel House.

  I looked out, shading my face with my hat. I was just in time to see him going into an alehouse on the other side of the Strand.

  I lingered in the lane for a moment longer. It was perfectly possible that Buckingham had set a watch on the house. He had good reason to. If Shrewsbury died, he could be arrested for murder. If it had been Durrell going into the alehouse, his master Veal might be in there too, the man they called the Bishop. I knew Mr Williamson and Lord Arlington would be interested, and perhaps they would decide to set their own watchers to watch Buckingham’s.

  But I didn’t intend to test the truth of the theory myself. This was cowardice partly disguised as prudence. Veal could be ruthless if his conscience encouraged him, as it often seemed to do, but he was a clergyman of sorts, albeit one who had been ejected from his living. I was more afraid of his servant, Roger Durrell. I seriously doubted that Durrell was troubled by anything resembling a conscience.

  I walked the short distance back to the Savoy, which was separated from Arundel House only by the sprawling courtyards of Somerset House. My lodging, a small house with a yard, was off a narrow lane called Infirmary Close. It suited me well enough, though in the warmer weather the Savoy’s overfull graveyard, which lay behind the house, was not a pleasant neighbour.

  My servant Sam Witherdine answered the door to my knock. He was a pensioned-off sailor who had lost his right leg below the knee; but he was miraculously agile, despite this. He had proved his loyalty to me more than once, though he had a weakness for strong ale and sometimes let his tongue run away with him.

  He took my cloak and hat. ‘Do you go out again, master?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I went into the parlour where there was a fire. ‘Fetch Stephen, will you? I want to speak to both of you.’

  He knuckled his forehead in the way sailors did and went away, leaving me to warm my hands. The dog and the bitch, I thought, the dog and the bitch. I couldn’t rid myself of the feeling that the words meant something significant, that they were more than the desperate insults that a cuckold applied to his tormentors.

  The servants clattered up the stairs from the kitchen – Stephen at a run, and Sam’s heavier, hirpling steps. The boy waited in the hall, letting Sam precede him into the parlour. Stephen followed warily.

  ‘I’ve a task for you both,’ I said. ‘Go to the alehouse by the lane to Arundel House.’ I glanced at Sam. ‘You know the one I mean?’

  ‘Sign of the Silver Crescent, sir,’ he said promptly. ‘Mr Fawley has it, though in truth it’s Mrs Fawley who runs the place. High prices, and she waters the ale after you’ve had a few.’

  ‘I take it they know you in there?’

  Sam smiled, almost coyly. ‘Well, sir, you might be right there, or you might be wrong, but I doubt it’s the latter.’

  ‘Very well. Stephen – come here where I can see you.’

  The boy, who had been standing behind Sam, came forward and stood before me. We did not know his age but I put him at about eleven years old. He had lived in my household since last autumn, when his previous owner, my Lady Quincy, had given him to me. Stephen was an African who had served great ladies as a page until he lost his childish beauty and grew too old and too diseased for them. In theory, I supposed, I owned him as I did any other of my chattels, for he was a slave whose ownership had been transferred to me. But I did not much like the idea of possessing another human being so I treated him as I would have done any boy who had come to my house to serve me.

  When I had first known him, Stephen had been afflicted with the King’s Evil; the disease, known as scrofula, had covered his face and neck with angry, painful swellings. Since the King had touched him in a private healing ceremony two months ago, however, the swellings had gradually diminished, and there was now hardly any trace of them. The efficacy of the royal touch in curing scrofula was, we were told, a sure and certain proof that our sovereign had been appointed by God Himself to rule over us. I was not a man who had much taste for miracles and other wonders contrary to nature. I did not know what to think of the improvement to Stephen’s condition, but I was glad of it, for his sake.

  ‘Do you remember when we first met, we were in the Fens beyond Cambridge?’

  ‘Aye, master.’

  ‘And one night, you were in the garden, and a bad man took you away in a boat and left you on an island.’

  He began to tremble.

  ‘And I came to find you on the island, and all was well again,’ I reminded him.

  He nodded.

  ‘I know it was dark, but do you remember there were two men there – the one who took you from the garden, and the one he brought you to, who ordered the first man to leave you on the island? Would you recognize their voices if you heard them again?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. Perhaps.’

  ‘The man who took you is a big, fat, greasy fellow. He’s called Roger Durrell. He wears a sword. His master’s a tall, thin man. He usually wears a sword, too, and the last time I saw him he had a long brown coat. His name’s Veal. Sometimes they call him the Bishop.’ I turned to Sam. ‘You’ve met Durrell before. He waylaid me as I was coming home one evening in September, and you came to meet me in the nick of time. Do you remember?’

  ‘That fellow? Aye. I didn’t get a good look at him, but I heard him well enough – he sounded like he had a mouth full of snot.’

  ‘That’s the one. And his master’s a northerner, a Yorkshireman, and you can hear it in his voice. I want the pair of you to go to the sign of the Silver Crescent to fetch me a jug of ale.’ I gave Sam a shilling. ‘Stephen goes with you to carry it. Don’t linger, but keep your eyes and ears open. If there’s anyone like those two men in there, I want to know. But don’t run any risks.’

  Shortly afterwards, I heard them leaving the house. The light was fading from the afternoon. I lit candles and tried to read. But I could not concentrate. The words danced in front of my eyes. I read and reread sentences, forgetting their beginnings before I reached their ends. As time crawled past, I began to wish that I had not sent Sam and Stephen, but had gone myself instead. My decision now seemed more cowardly than prudent. It was possible that Durrell had recognized Sam or Stephen, I thought, though as far as I knew he had seen neither of them by daylight. I clung to the fact that Stephen was much changed since joining my household. His swellings had subsided and Margaret’s food had filled him out. He dressed differently too, more plainly than when he had worn his mistress’s livery. But I could not suppress the niggling worry that I was wrong.

  In the end, I gave up and called for my cloak. It was nearly an hour since the pair of them had left the house. I took my heaviest stick, which was tipped with iron, and went up to the Strand. It took me only a moment to reach the alehouse.

  As soon as I opened the door I heard Sam. His voice rolled over me, along with the warm, ale-flavoured fug. He was singing one of the interminable ballads he had learned at sea. As I entered, the verse gave way to the chorus, and half the customers in the house joined in, banging their mugs on the table to mark time.

  Stephen was crouching in the corner nearest the door and furthest from the fire. He was almost invisible in the gloom. He was the only one who noticed me. I dropped the latch and bent down so he could speak in my ear.

  ‘They were there when we came, master,’ he said, ‘those two men. Talking with Mr Fawley. They left a few minutes later, while Sam was getting the ale.’

  ‘They didn’t mark you coming in? They took no notice of either of yo
u?’

  He shook his head. I was too relieved to be angry with Sam. It didn’t take much imagination to see that he had decided to take some refreshment while the jug was being filled, and that the refreshment had bred an appetite for further refreshment, with the usual result.

  But Stephen hadn’t finished. ‘They were with another man. In a doctor’s robe … And as they were leaving, he took out his purse and threw Mr Fawley a piece of gold. He said there was to be ale for all the company, and they cheered him as he left.’

  The song was coming to its raucous end. I was about to send Stephen over to Sam when the boy touched my sleeve. I bent down again.

  ‘I’ve seen him before, master,’ he said.

  ‘The doctor?’

  ‘When I was at her ladyship’s. He wasn’t a doctor then. He was a great lord, like a prince, with a nose like a beak and golden peruke.’

  A jolt went through me. I should have guessed at the mention of the flamboyant gesture with the gold. I said, ‘The Duke of Buckingham?’

  I wasn’t able to report to Mr Williamson until the following morning. He came over to Scotland Yard and saw me in his private room. I told him how Lord Shrewsbury had been, and about the presence of Buckingham and his servants in an alehouse within a stone’s throw of Arundel House.

  ‘The barefaced impudence,’ Williamson said, tight-lipped with disdain. ‘And disguised as a doctor, too. He has no sense of the dignity due to his own station. The man’s no better than a mountebank.’

  ‘Do you want me to do anything, sir?’ I asked.

  Williamson did not usually allow himself to betray his emotions, or at least not to me. He calmed himself with a visible effort. ‘No, not you – he knows who you are. No, we’ll put a watch on the sign of the Silver Crescent, and pray he comes back. There’s not much else we can do.’

  The days passed. Buckingham was too clever to reappear. Almost certainly, he was still somewhere in London, for he had many friends and sympathizers to shelter him, as well as gold enough to smooth his way and to shut mouths that might be tempted to blab.