Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Andrew Taylor 2019

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

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: 2019-12-12

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)

Praise for The King’s Evil

‘A masterclass in writing for the genre’

Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope series

‘An absolute treat from start to finish – a hugely engaging, atmospheric historical thriller’

Antonia Hodgson, author of The Devil in the Marshalsea

‘This is a novelist of consummate skill at the absolute peak of his power’

Manda Scott, author of A Treachery of Spies

‘Taylor’s mantelpiece already groans under awards … and this latest is as striking as anything he has written’

Financial Times, Crime Books of the Year

‘Few historical novelists write with more authority and a greater sense of authenticity than Andrew Taylor’

Sunday Times

‘This is historical crime fiction at its dazzling best’

Guardian

‘Vivid and compelling’

Observer

‘A novel filled with intrigue, duplicity, scandal and betrayal, whose author now vies with another master of the genre, C. J. Sansom’

Spectator

‘Glorious’

Sunday Express

‘Another fine outing from one of the best historical novelists around’

Sunday Times

Praise for Andrew Taylor

‘If you like C. J. Sansom, or Hilary Mantel, you’ll love Andrew Taylor’

Peter James

‘Effortlessly authentic … gripping … moving and believable. An excellent work’

C. J. Sansom

‘A breathtakingly ambitious picture of an era’

Financial Times

‘This is how historical crime should be written, with rich authenticity underpinning a twisting plot’

The Times

‘One of the most reliably enjoyable of historical novelists’

Sunday Times

‘Taylor brings the 17th century to life so vividly that one can almost smell it’

Guardian

‘Once again, Taylor combines his detailed research with a deviously twist-laden storyline’

Observer

‘This is terrific stuff: intelligent, engrossing and … wonderfully plausible’

Daily Telegraph

‘Thrilling … Gripping, fast-moving and credible’

Spectator

‘Finely wrought and solidly researched … The novel’s plot is fiendishly complex’

Sunday Telegraph

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Praise for The King’s Evil

Praise for Andrew Taylor

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 King’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.’

I said nothing. Edward Alderley’s father had committed a far worse crime than steal other people’s money, though few people other than the King and myself were aware of that. I had done the King good service at the time of Henry Alderley’s death, which was when I had also had dealings with Lady Quincy. I kept my mouth shut afterwards, which was why he trusted me now.

Chiffinch looked up, and I saw the flash of malice in his eyes. ‘Did Lady Quincy get a good look at you, Marwood? Did she see what’s happened to you since she last saw you?’ He turned his head and spat into the empty fireplace. ‘It must have come as quite a shock. You’re not such a pretty boy now, are you?’

CHAPTER THREE

LATE ON FRIDAY afternoon, the rain dashed against the big windows of the Drawing Office at the sign of the Rose in Henrietta Street. It had grown steadily heavier all day, whipped up by a stiff, westerly wind. If it grew much darker they would need to light the candles.

Apart from the rain, the only sounds were the scratching of Mr Hakesby’s pen and the occasional creak of a floorboard, when Brennan, the draughtsman, shifted his weight from one foot to another. He was working on the detailed elevations for the Dragon Yard development by Cheapside, which was the main commission that Mr Hakesby had in hand at present.

Catherine Lovett was standing at a slope placed at right angles to one of the windows. Her neck and shoulders ached. She had spent the last half-hour working on another job. She was inking in the quantities and materials in a panel at one side of the plan for one of the new warehouses by the docks.

The careful, mechanical lettering was dull work, and the warehouse was a plain, uninteresting building, but Cat was thinking of something quite different – the garden pavilion project at Clarendon House, where she and Mr Hakesby had been working this morning. Mr Milcote had visited them to discuss the basement partition. Milcote was acting for his lordship in the matter, and she could not help thinking that their lives would be much more pleasant if all their clients were as agreeable and straightforward as that gentleman.

She rubbed her eyes and stretched. As she was dipping the pen in the ink, there was a tap at the door. She laid the pen aside and went to answer the knock. That was another of her more tiresome duties, along with keeping the fire going, sweeping and scrubbing the floor, filling inkwells and sharpening pens.

Cat found the porter’s boy on the landing, holding out a letter. It was addressed to Mr Hakesby in an untidy scrawl. She took it over to him. He was sitting huddled over the fire, though it was not a cold day, with a board resting over the arms of his chair so he had a surface for writing and drawing, when his hands were steady enough.

Hakesby broke the seal and unfolded the letter. It trembled in his liver-spotted hands. There was another letter inside. He frowned and gave it to her. Her name – or rather the name she used in Henrietta Street, Mistress Jane Hakesby – was written on it in the same hand as the outer enclosure.

‘What is this?’ Hakesby said, his voice petulant. ‘There’s nothing for me here. Do you know anything of this?’

Brennan looked up. He had sharp hearing and sharp wits.

‘No, sir,’ she said in a low voice.

She concealed her irritation with Hakesby, for he was increasingly peremptory with her now that he had a double reason to expect her obedience. She opened the letter and scanned its contents.

I must see you. I shall be in the New Exchange tomorrow afternoon, at about six o’clock. Look for me at Mr Kneller’s, the lace merchant in the upper gallery. Destroy this.

The note was unsigned and undated. But there was only one person who could have written it. She dropped the paper into the glowing heart of the fire.

‘Jane!’ snapped Mr Hakesby. ‘Take it out at once. Who’s it from? Let me see.’

It was too late. The flames licked the corner of the paper and then danced along one side. The letter blackened. For an instant, Cat saw one word – ‘destroy’ – but then the paper crumpled and fluttered and settled among the embers.

CHAPTER FOUR

ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON, as chance would have it, I was kept later than I had expected at Whitehall. There was a crisis in the office. Much to Chiffinch’s irritation, I spent the majority of my time working under Mr Williamson, the Undersecretary to Lord Arlington, the Secretary of State for the South and one of the King’s most powerful ministers. Mr Williamson’s responsibilities included the publication of the London Gazette, the government’s newspaper. Under his direction, I shouldered much of the day-to-day burden of editing the material, seeing it through the press and ensuring it reached its readers.

In London, the Gazette’s distribution relied heavily on a group of women who carried the newspapers to the taverns and coffee houses of the city, and also delivered them to the carriers who took them the length and breadth of the kingdom. Over the last few weeks there had been problems of late delivery or even no delivery at all. These were probably due to the usual causes of death, disease, drunkenness and simple unreliability. There was also the fact that we paid the women a pittance, which was often weeks in arrears. But Lord Arlington wasn’t interested in the reasons. He blamed Williamson for the failure, and Williamson blamed me.

When at last I was able to leave the office, I took a boat from the public stairs at Whitehall – fortunately the tide was on the ebb – and went by water to Charing Cross. The sun was low in the sky, slanting through a gap in the clouds.

Outside the New Exchange, the Strand was packed with waiting coaches and sedan chairs, reducing the flow of traffic in both directions to fitful trickles. Aggrieved drivers struggled towards the City or upriver to Whitehall or past the Royal Mews towards Hyde Park. Those on foot were making better speed.

The clocks were already striking six as I entered the building. Since the lamentable fire last year, which had destroyed the shops of Cheapside, the old Royal Exchange in the City and so much else, the New Exchange was busier than ever. The world came here to buy and sell. Everything the heart could desire, the proud boast went, could be found under one roof. You could purchase all the luxuries of the globe without having to get your feet muddy, your clothes wet, or your ears assaulted by the vulgar cries of the street.

I forced myself to slow down – people sauntered in the New Exchange: to hurry was to draw attention. The shops were arranged in long lines that faced each other on two floors. I made my way to the stairs. The upper galleries were even busier than those on the ground floor.

Mr Kneller’s shop was larger than most and equipped with a wide mullioned window, the better to allow customers to inspect the wares for sale. Much of his stock was imported from France and the Low Countries.

I hesitated on the threshold. The last of the sunlight slanted through the panes in broad stripes that brought to life the silks and lace in its path. The shop was thronged with people, men and women; the air was heavy with perfume, and filled with the murmur of voices and the rustle of skirts. The proprietor’s wife, a pretty woman of about thirty, was showing a delicate spray of lace to a richly dressed gentleman with a face like a horse. The gentleman was more interested in her than in her lace. For an instant her eyes flickered towards me and then returned to her customer.

‘You like the look of her, don’t you?’

My head jerked to the left. Cat was at my elbow, looking up at me. She wore a light cloak and a hat that shaded most of her face.

‘Nonsense,’ I said, instantly defensive. ‘I was looking for you.’

‘You’re a liar, sir,’ she said. ‘Like all men.’

CHAPTER FIVE

CAT ALLOWED MARWOOD to lead her to a quieter corner, partly shielded from the rest of the shop by the projecting counter on which the apprentices were laying out the larger pieces of lace. She had last seen him three or four months ago. She glanced surreptitiously at him, and found he was doing the same to her.

He looked more prosperous than before, and somehow older. He was wearing a new periwig, finer and more luxuriant than his old one. His face was plumper – the last time she had seen him, pain and laudanum had sharpened his features.

It was important to be natural: they were a man and a woman idling away an hour in the New Exchange, enjoying the pleasures of shopping. She took up a piece of lace. ‘Is this Bohemian work, I wonder?’

‘I need to talk to you,’ he muttered. ‘It’s urgent.’

‘Yes. And while you do, we need to look as if we are here to look at lace.’

She glanced up at Marwood’s face, tilting her head to have a better view of the left side of his neck. To her surprise, he gave her a sardonic but not unfriendly look.

‘Well?’ he said. ‘How do you find me?’

‘Better. As far as I can see, that is. Your wig and your collar hide the worst of it.’

He shrugged, dismissing his disfigurement, dismissing the memory of what the fire had done to him. He said softly: ‘Your aunt talked to me about you.’

Cat’s eyes widened. She raised her voice. ‘Come to the window, sir, and let me see this piece properly.’

They stood in the embrasure. The lace spilled over her arm like a frosted spider’s web. She held it to the glass and pretended to examine it.

‘Lady Quincy?’ she said. ‘What does she want, after all this time? I’m surprised she still has an interest in me. She did nothing for me when she was married to my uncle, and when we lived under the same roof, nothing when I most needed help.’

‘She wants to help you now.’

‘I’m sure she told you that, sir.’ Cat felt irritation rising like bile inside her. ‘But then you would believe anything she says. You always had a – what shall we call it? A tenderness for her.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said coldly. He bent down, bringing his lips closer to her ear. ‘Your cousin Edward Alderley called on her,’ he said slowly. ‘He told her that he has discovered where you are hiding. He plans to have you brought to the gallows.’

‘Perhaps my cousin was lying,’ she said. Marwood was growing angry, she thought, which pleased her. ‘Edward never let truth get in his way.’

‘You can’t take that chance. She believed he was telling the truth. There’s still a warrant out for your arrest on a charge of treason, on the grounds that you aided and abetted your father, a Regicide. It’s never been withdrawn.’

‘But what could I do?’ she said. ‘He was my father, whatever he had done. Besides, I had as little to do with him as I could.’

‘Alderley also told Lady Quincy that he has powerful friends, and they will help him destroy you.’

‘I thought no one would give Edward the time of day after my uncle’s disgrace.’

‘It appears you were wrong,’ he said. ‘Lady Quincy believed him, and she wanted to warn you, from the goodness of her heart.’

‘Goodness? From my Aunt Quincy?’

‘You should leave Henrietta Street. At least for a time. It’s not safe.’

She flared up: ‘Why should I run away from Edward? I’ve had enough running.’

Marwood glanced at the nearest apprentice, who had heard this. He moved nearer to Cat, turning and shielding her. ‘For your safety.’

‘I’ll tell you something.’ She touched his sleeve. ‘Do you know what my cousin did to me?’

‘Yes, of course – he helped his father cheat you of your fortune, and he attacked you and—’

‘He raped me.’

‘What?’ Marwood stared aghast at her. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘What’s there to understand? In his father’s house, he came to my bedchamber by night. He took me by force. Is that plain enough for you, sir?’ She lowered her voice. ‘That’s why I took out his eye and ran away from Barnabas Place. I thought I had killed him when I stabbed him. I wish to God I had.’

The apprentice advanced and gave a little cough. ‘Sir – mistress – may I show you some more pieces? We have some particularly delicate work newly brought from Antwerp.’

‘Not now,’ Marwood said.

‘Sir, I can promise you—’

‘Leave us,’ Cat said, raising her voice. ‘Go.’

The sounds of the shop died away. Half the customers were staring openly at them. So was the shopkeeper’s pretty wife.

‘Later,’ Marwood said to the apprentice.

He took Cat’s arm and marched her out of the shop. So much for their attempts to be inconspicuous, Cat thought. She said nothing as he led her to the stairs and down to the ground floor. The movement made the curls of his periwig swing away from his face. For an instant she glimpsed what remained of his left ear.

When they reached the street, Marwood turned abruptly towards her.

‘Why didn’t you tell me what that damned knave did to you?’ he said.

‘Why should I have done? What’s it to you?’

He tightened his lips but said nothing. The last of the sun had gone. Grey clouds blanketed the city.

‘One day,’ Cat went on, in a dull voice as if mentioning a future event of no importance to her, ‘one day, I shall kill my cousin.’

‘Don’t be foolish. What would that achieve except bring you to the gallows, which is exactly what he wants?’

‘You forget yourself. You have no right to tell me what I may or may not do.’

Marwood looked away from her. ‘In any event, we must assume, for your own safety, that Alderley has found you again. That means you must leave Mr Hakesby, leave Henrietta Street. Even better, leave London for a while.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You must.’

She shook her head. ‘There’s too much work to do. Mr Hakesby depends on me. I have a meeting with one of our clients in less than an hour. I must go. Besides—’

‘If it’s a question of money, I can help. I’ve brought five pounds with me.’

That was generous, and the offer touched her.

‘You don’t understand, sir,’ she said, in a gentler voice. ‘If I need money, I shall ask Mr Hakesby. I’m betrothed to him. He will soon be my husband.’

After a good week at the Drawing Office, measured by the entries that Cat made into Mr Hakesby’s accounts, they had fallen into the habit of supping together on Saturday evening. Hakesby was careful with money but not ungenerous. There was plenty of work at present, as half of London had turned into a building site after the Fire.

Hakesby was a creature of habit, which was why he always entertained Cat and Brennan in a private room at the Lamb in Wych Street. The tavern was a shabby place, but the people of the house knew him: they valued his custom and treated his habitual ague, however bad it was, as nothing out of the way. Usually these were cheerful occasions when even Mr Hakesby allowed himself to take a glass or two of wine, though it tended to make his symptoms worse.

A few months ago, Cat would not have believed it possible that she would spend an evening in Brennan’s company. At the start of their acquaintance, she had disliked intensely both the fact that Brennan had dared to court her affections and the manner in which he had approached this impossible task. But she had dealt with that, and so had he, and she had come to respect his skill as a draughtsman, his reliability and his kindness to Mr Hakesby.

Brennan had come to Henrietta Street armed with a glowing letter of recommendation from Dr Wren, and time had justified the praise. Hakesby paid him a regular wage now, rather than using him as a piece worker. Someone, she suspected, was looking after him, perhaps the motherly young woman who worked in the pastry cook’s in Bedford Street.

On this evening, they supped later than usual, at nearer nine o’clock than eight. It was not a cold evening, but Cat was chilled to the bone. It was hard to concentrate on what the men were saying. The thought of her cousin Edward kept forcing itself into her mind. She wondered if she could ever be happy again.

At first, Hakesby and Brennan failed to notice her silence. Both of them were elated, partly from wine and partly because Hakesby had received an unexpected stage payment for the Clarendon House commission, which had allowed him to pay Brennan a bonus. Despite his political troubles, Lord Clarendon remained an influential client, the sort who led where others followed. Hakesby had been concerned about the work on the pavilion, as her ladyship, who had taken such a particular interest in it, had recently died. There was also the fact that his lordship was not only in disgrace at court but rumoured to be short of money. Nevertheless, the payment had been made. They probably had Mr Milcote to thank for that.

As the meal went on, however, Cat noticed that Hakesby was shooting worried glances at her. He was growing more and more dependent on her, she knew, and that could only increase as his ague worsened. Their marriage was fixed for the end of October; next month, they would start to call the bans. The marriage was to be a private affair in the new-built church in Covent Garden.

‘The building is a pure Inigo Jones design,’ Hakesby had said with satisfaction. ‘Not one of those crumbling medieval hotchpotches the Papists built.’

After supper, as they were going downstairs to the street, he touched Cat’s arm and said quietly, ‘Are you well? Are you sickening?’

‘No, sir. It is nothing, a woman’s matter.’

Hakesby shied away from her, turning to take Brennan’s arm. In the street, he said he would not take a chair back to his lodgings; he felt perfectly capable of walking. Brennan and Cat exchanged glances, silently accepting the necessity of accompanying him. The three of them walked slowly towards Three Cocks Yard off the Strand, where Hakesby lodged on the first floor of one of the new houses. Brennan took him into the yard and up to the house, while Cat herself lingered in the Strand.

Brennan was only gone for a moment or two. When he returned they walked back the way they had come. She would have been content to go by herself – in the past year, she had learned to cope with the streets. She always carried a knife, and was not afraid to show it. But it would make Hakesby unhappy if she walked alone after dark, so she accepted Brennan’s company. Walking back with her to Henrietta Street did not take him far out of his way.

‘What’s amiss?’ he said as they passed St Clement Danes. ‘You hardly said a word during supper.’

‘Nothing,’ she said automatically. Then she came to a sudden decision and changed her mind. ‘No. That’s not true. I – I have a difficulty. I need to go away for a while. And no one must know where I am. Even Mr Hakesby.’

‘Why?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Where will you go?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You can’t be so foolish,’ he said. ‘Is it something to do with that letter you had?’

She nodded. ‘It’s urgent. I must go, and the sooner the better.’

They walked past Somerset House. The Savoy, where Marwood lived, was not far away to the west and she pulled up her cloak to shield her face.

Brennan misinterpreted the action. ‘Do you think someone might be following you?’

‘Perhaps.’

A solitary woman always attracted attention, she thought, usually the wrong kind.

‘Would you – would you need comfort?’ Brennan said.

She stared at him, her anger flaring up. ‘What?’

‘If there were somewhere you could hide, I mean,’ he said hastily. ‘But somewhere the conditions were mean and poor, where they weren’t suitable for … you.’

‘Why?’

‘I know somewhere you could go for a week or two, longer maybe. It wouldn’t cost much.’

‘As long as I was safe, I wouldn’t need a featherbed. Or a maid to wait on me. If that’s what you mean.’

‘In that case,’ he said, ‘I have a notion that might help.’ He hesitated. ‘Though what I have in mind would hardly be fitting for one such as you. But no one would find you there. No one would even think to look there.’

‘Where is this?’

‘A few miles outside London. It’s a refugee camp, and it’s on my uncle’s land. He used to farm it, but everything’s gone to wrack and ruin since his son died.’

CHAPTER SIX

WHEN CAT AND I had gone our separate ways, I walked down the Strand to the Savoy. My house was here, in Infirmary Close, which lay deep in the warren of crumbling buildings that made up the former palace and its immediate surroundings. The Savoy was still owned by the Crown, though its precincts were given up to a variety of purposes. I was lucky to have even a small house to myself – lodgings of any sort were in short supply, especially since the destruction of so much of London in the Great Fire. My master Mr Williamson had spoken on my behalf to the clerk who handled these royal leases.

I was not in the best of tempers. When my manservant, Sam, let me into the house and took my cloak, I swore at him for his clumsiness, though in truth he was as graceful as a man with only one whole leg can be, and more nimble than many with two of them.

Margaret, his wife, brought me my supper. She lingered by the table as I began to eat. ‘Your pardon, sir, but is it the Gazette women that’s troubling you? My friend Dorcas says they’re all at sixes and sevens and she’s worked off her feet.’

I felt ashamed of my ill humour to the servants, who were hardly in a position to answer back if they wanted to keep their places. I said, in a gentler voice than before, ‘That and other things.’

‘It’s only that perhaps I could help. If you need someone to do a few rounds for a week or so, then I will, if you permit me. Or I could share Dorcas’s load. I’ve done it before.’

It was a kind offer. Margaret had been one of the newspaper’s distributors before she came to work for me, and she was still friendly with several of the women she had worked with. She knew the routine. I also knew that she had disliked the work intensely, for the younger, more comely women often attracted unwanted attentions.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But I need you here.’

I dismissed her. In a way it was useful that Margaret and Sam should think that I was out of sorts because of problems with the Gazette. Better that than the truth.

Afterwards I sat by the window, which looked out over roofs and walls. Slowly the daylight slipped away from the evening while I thought about Catherine Lovett and her ingratitude. Couldn’t the woman understand that I was trying to save her life? Why was she so headstrong? Why so foolish? Or was I the fool to put myself out on her behalf for no good reason whatsoever?

I worked myself up to a sullen rage and encouraged my sense of ill-usage to burn steadily within me. What had really upset me was the knowledge that Edward Alderley had raped Cat. And also the fact that she had betrothed herself to Simon Hakesby, a man old enough to be her father, possibly her grandfather.

I should have felt an abstract outrage that Alderley had forced himself on an unmarried cousin living under his father’s roof. As for the betrothal, I should have felt an equally abstract pleasure for Hakesby and Cat, for he would bring her security and she would bring him the vigour of a young woman.

But there was nothing abstract about my outrage. The very thought of these things made me feel inexplicably injured. So, desperate for a diversion, I fell to thinking of my Lady Quincy instead, though I found little consolation there. Tomorrow I would see her again, but I could not begin to understand why she wanted me to collect her from church in a hackney. Was it to do with her stepson, Edward Alderley, and the warning she had asked me to pass on to Cat? The possibility unsettled me. I wanted nothing further to do with Edward Alderley in this world or the next.

Something else unsettled me: the thought of seeing Lady Quincy again. Despite the difference in our stations, I had desired her once. It had been folly then, and it would be worse than folly now. Besides, as Chiffinch had reminded me, who could desire a man like me?

CHAPTER SEVEN

CAT MADE HER preparations. A strange calmness possessed her, a sense that her fate had already been decided and that nothing she could do would materially alter it.

In her closet she found the canvas bag she had brought with her when she came to Henrietta Street. She packed a spare shift and stockings. She would wear her old cloak. She took half a loaf that remained from breakfast. She wished she could take her Palladio, a dog-eared copy that Mr Hakesby had given her, but that was impractical: though the four books of I quattro libri dell’architettura were bound into one volume, it was a large and cumbersome folio that was hardly appropriate for a fugitive. As a consolation, she packed her notebook and a miniature travelling writing box that included a pen, ink, a ruler, a brass protractor and pencils. She had nearly thirty shillings in her purse so at least she wasn’t penniless.

Through the open window, she listened to the church clocks striking eleven. Her mouth was dry. She had spent too much of her life running away, and she did not want to do it again. She fastened the cloak over her shoulders, picked up the bag and looked around the Drawing Office. The candlelight made it insubstantial, a place of shadows and dreams. She had been happy here and she did not want to leave.

She snuffed all the candles. The only light came from the small lantern they used when they went up and down the stairs in the evening. On the landing, she locked the door behind her and slipped the key into her pocket under her skirt, where it knocked against the knife she always carried.

The light of the lantern preceded her down the stairs, swaying drunkenly from side to side. The porter had been dozing on his cot but he stirred as she reached the hallway.

‘Going out, mistress? At this hour?’

‘Didn’t I say?’ she said. ‘I’m to spend the night with an old friend. She and her father are waiting for me. Will you unbar the door?’

He shot back the bolts, one by one, and lifted up the bar. ‘It’s very late, mistress.’

‘Not really. They’ve been supping with friends and they’re waiting in Covent Garden for me.’ Cat found sixpence in her purse and gave it to him. ‘Would you do me the kindness of not mentioning to anyone that I’ve gone out? Especially Mr Hakesby. He’ll only worry, and there’s no need.’

‘Don’t you worry, mistress. Your secret’s safe with me.’ He smiled at her in a way she did not care for. ‘I’ll be silent as the grave.’

Late though it was, the arcades of Covent Garden were brightly lit and crowded with brightly dressed crowds of theatregoers, revellers and the better class of whores; among them, like lice in a head of hair, moved the thieves, the pedlars and beggars, plying their trades.

Cat had grown familiar with this world of pleasure-seekers in the last few months, and she navigated its perils with confidence. The small, forlorn figure of Brennan was waiting for her in the entrance court of the King’s Theatre in Brydges Street. He darted forward when he saw her. A link boy was beside him, the flame of his torch flaring and dancing in the breeze. By its light she saw that Brennan’s face was pale, and his sharp features were drawn with anxiety.

‘You’ve come – I wondered if you’d change your mind.’

‘Of course I’ve come,’ Cat said. ‘Were you successful?’

‘Yes. It’s all arranged. Have you got the money? If not, I can lend it—’

‘I’ve got the money.’

‘We’d better walk there.’ He hesitated. ‘Do you mind? Would you like to take my arm?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Can we manage without a link boy to light us?’

He nodded. ‘I know the way well enough.’

At first they had little need of a link, for their way took them up Bow Street and into Long Acre, which were almost as busy as Covent Garden itself. Up by St Giles’s Fields, though, it was a different story, with long, unlit stretches; it was muddy underfoot and there was the constant danger of stumbling into the gutter. But Brennan was as good as his word and guided her safely, though she grew increasingly irritated by his habit of enquiring regularly how she was managing or whether he was going too fast for her.

‘I do very well, thank you,’ she snapped at last. ‘I’m not made of glass. But I’d rather save my breath for walking.’

‘Would you like me to come with you tomorrow? It’s Sunday – I’m not needed at the Drawing Office. I could walk back afterwards, when I know you’re safely there.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s best I go alone. And what if Mr Hakesby finds me gone? He will send for you at once. You must be there to reassure him. Tell him you don’t know where I am but I’d said I was seeing a friend.’

The inn was a small, low building near the church of St Giles-in-the-Fields. They went through the central passageway to the yard, where there was a long range of stables.

‘Uncle Mangot doesn’t trust them,’ Brennan said in a whisper. ‘It’s not his horse, you see. It’s hired from a neighbour and he can’t afford to have it stolen. Anyway, it’s cheaper to sleep in the yard, and just as safe as inside after the gates are barred.’

They found Brennan’s uncle at the end. The horse was in its stall and the old man was in front of it, sitting in a small covered cart in the yard outside. It was difficult to see him clearly. A rushlight in an earthenware pot hung beside the cart, but his face was little more than a blur against the surrounding darkness.

Brennan hung back, touching Cat’s arm. ‘I almost forgot: if my uncle asks about me, it’s best not to mention that we’ve been working at Clarendon House.’

‘Why?’ Cat whispered.

There was a rustling of straw, and a man’s voice quavered, ‘Who’s that?’

‘Uncle Mangot,’ Brennan said. ‘It’s me. I’ve brought her.’

The man in the cart leaned towards them. ‘You’re late. Is this the girl? You’ll have to sleep here tonight, with me. We leave when it’s light.’

‘Very well,’ Cat said.

‘She’s my friend, Uncle,’ Brennan said. ‘You’ll treat her well, won’t you? You’ll let her sleep in the house? She can pay for everything.’

‘If you wish.’ The old voice sounded papery and uncertain, as if its owner rarely used it. ‘But there’s nothing to buy. She can work for her keep, eh? A long time since I had a servant.’

‘No one must know she’s with you,’ Brennan said. ‘Promise to keep her safe.’

Mangot spat over the side of the cart. ‘I won’t blab if she don’t and you don’t.’ There was a wordless sound in the darkness which might have been laughter. ‘She’ll be safe enough, Nephew. We don’t get many visitors. The refugees frighten away the ungodly.’

Cat came forward into the glow of the rushlight. ‘Five shillings,’ she said. ‘For one week. That’s what your nephew told me.’

‘And a room on her own,’ Brennan put in.

Mangot sniffed. ‘You didn’t mention that before. Seven shillings.’

Brennan tried to argue but the old man was obdurate. Cat put an end to it by taking out her purse and finding the money.

‘One more thing,’ Mangot said to her as he counted the coins in the palm of his hand. ‘You’ll have to share the cart on the way back.’

‘Who with?’ Cat said.

‘His name’s Israel Halmore. He used to be a glover. Before the Fire, he had a shop on Cheapside, and now he’s got nothing.’

Mangot’s Farm was a few miles outside London in the direction of St Albans. It was on the outskirts of a village called Woor Green.

True to his word, Mangot set out from the tavern at dawn. Cat had spent a chilly night, huddled in her cloak and half-buried beside a pile of sacks containing flour. She had shivered almost continuously, though that had not been solely because of the cold. Israel Halmore had arrived at some point in the early hours, waking her from a light sleep. He had been a long way from sober and he had fallen asleep almost at once.

As well as the flour, the cart was laden with rolls of canvas that smelled strongly of fish, and with bags of nails. Mangot was equipped with a pass signed by a magistrate, which permitted them to travel on a Sunday. The streets were quieter than usual and they made good time through the outskirts of London. Halmore woke up and insisted on their stopping so he could relieve himself against a tree. Afterwards, he sat up with Mangot and took the reins from the old man. In the daylight, he was revealed as a gaunt giant of a man, with strongly marked features and a shock of grey curls. His fingers were twisted and swollen with arthritis, which must have made it impossible for him to carry on his trade.

In the back of the cart, Cat pretended to doze while the two men talked together in low voices. Her mind was full of her own thoughts, which were bleak. Unless there were a miracle, she could not see how she could safely return to her old life in Henrietta Street. Once the hue and cry had died down, perhaps her best course would be to flee abroad, to Holland, perhaps, or even to America, where many of her father’s friends had found refuge.

She was distracted by Halmore saying, more loudly than before, ‘Well, I wasn’t going to say no, was I? Not when the Bishop was buying ale for anything on two legs.’ Mangot started to speak, but Halmore overrode him: ‘Clarendon’s a greedy rogue, master, and he’s in league with the Papists.’

‘May God damn him,’ Mangot said.

‘Aye. The Bishop’s doing God’s work in his way.’

‘But it was dangerous,’ Mangot said. ‘Notwithstanding the cause is just. You could have been arrested.’

‘No. Not me. When I was there, we were just standing outside Clarendon House and shouting and booing. I threw a few stones, but only when the light was going and no one could see who it was.’

‘Who’s this Bishop then?’ Mangot asked. ‘What’s his real name?’

‘I don’t know. But he carries a deep purse and he’s open-handed. That’s what matters.’ Halmore had a low, resonant voice that carried easily, even when he spoke quietly; a preacher’s voice. ‘We all had half a crown apiece, as well as the ale. Know what they’re saying? He’s the Duke of Buckingham’s man. That’s where the money comes from, and that’s why the Bishop said we don’t have to worry about being arrested. The Duke will see us right. He’s always been a friend of the people and a good hater of Papists. As for Clarendon, a pox on him. He deserves all we can give him. And I tell you one thing: he’s going to get a lot more before the Bishop’s done with him.’

Mangot glanced at him. ‘Meaning?’

Halmore shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Only that what they’re planning will strike him where it hurts.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

ST OLAVE’S WAS on the south side of Hart Street, not far from the sprawling buildings of Navy Office in Seething Lane. On Sunday morning, I waited outside the church in a hackney. It was a fine day, and I had pulled back the leather curtain so I could feel the sun on my face and watch the church door.

When the congregation emerged, I saw several men I recognized, mainly clerks from the Navy Office or the Tower. I stepped down from the coach and waited for Lady Quincy. The church was crowded, and she was one of the last to emerge from the porch. She was veiled, and flanked by her maid on one side and the footboy on the other. The maid was a prim-faced woman who avoided looking at me.

I bowed to her ladyship, and she nodded to me as she climbed into the coach and sat down, facing forwards. The boy scrambled after her, and she drew him down beside her. Despite the warmth of the day he wore the thick, high-collared cloak I had seen on Friday. I waited for the maid to follow her mistress but she walked away in the direction of Mark Lane.

‘Where to, madam?’ I asked.

‘Tell the coachman to go to Bishopsgate Street beyond the wall. I will give you further directions when we are there.’

I gave the man his instructions and joined her inside the hackney. The boy was huddled beside her. I faced them both, though I automatically turned my head a little to the right to conceal the disfigurement on the left side of my face. Lady Quincy moved aside her veil, and for the first time I saw her face clearly. I felt a pang of sadness, almost a physical pain.

Here was the reason I had put on my best suit of clothes this morning and had my periwig newly curled. Olivia, Lady Quincy, was a gentlewoman a few years older than myself; she had fine, dark eyes, a melodious voice and a full figure that her sober dress could not entirely conceal. But the living creature was not the same as the one who had played such a dramatic role in my mind for nigh on a year. She was well enough, I told myself, but one glimpsed a dozen like her every day at Whitehall, and many more beautiful.

The hackney jolted over the cobbles, and she winced. ‘Let the curtain fall,’ she commanded.

I obeyed, causing an artificial dusk to fill the interior of the coach. ‘I did what you asked me, madam. I passed on your warning to a certain young lady. But she was reluctant to flee from her cousin.’

‘She was always headstrong.’

I was tempted to tell Lady Quincy of Cat’s betrothal but I kept quiet. It was not my secret, any more than the fact that her cousin Edward had raped her.

‘Where is she? Is she somewhere safe?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

‘She’s a fool if she stays. Her cousin won’t leave her alone, you know. Edward nurses his hatreds as if they were his children.’

We sat in silence for a minute or two while we rattled through the noisy streets, listening to our coachman swearing at those who blocked his way.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

Lady Quincy looked up. ‘To see Mr Knight. He is one of the King’s Sergeant Surgeons.’

I looked sharply at her. ‘Mr John Knight? The Surgeon General himself?’

‘Do you know him?’

‘By reputation, yes.’

Knight was one of the King’s most favoured medical attendants; he had proved his loyalty during the civil war and afterwards when the court was in exile. Last year, he had corresponded frequently with Mr Williamson about the health of the Navy, which was how I had come across him. But Sunday morning was an unusual time for a consultation with a physician or surgeon, let alone one of Mr Knight’s eminence. It was yet another hint that the shadowy influence of the King was behind this.

‘Where are we meeting him?’ I asked. ‘I thought he lodged in Russell Street, not near Bishopsgate.’

‘He is visiting his wife’s cousin, and he has agreed to see us there before they dine.’

Lady Quincy took a purse from her pocket and handed it to me. ‘He will expect his fee afterwards – would you see to it for me? And the coachman will need his fare; you must ask him to wait for us while we are with Mr Knight. By the way, there’s no need to mention who I am, particularly in front of servants. You may introduce me as your cousin, Mistress Green. Our appointment is in your name, and you would oblige me if you give him the impression that Stephen is your servant.’

‘Mine?’ I stared at her. ‘Madam, it would help if I knew what we’re about.’

For a moment she said nothing. Then: ‘Pull aside the curtain.’

I did as she bid me. Light poured into the hackney.

‘Stephen? Show the gentleman what you are.’

The boy sat forward from the seat and pulled open his cloak. For the first time I saw him properly. He was richly dressed, as such African boys usually were when they served wealthy ladies; for they were kept as toys or pets as much as servants. He was handsome enough, in his way, with regular features and large eyes fringed with long lashes. But it was his neck that drew my gaze. If you kept a blackamoor as a personal attendant to serve you in public, it was fashionable to adorn the neck with a silver collar – a nod to the fact that he or she had been brought to England as a slave, and of course a sign of the owner’s wealth. This boy didn’t wear a collar, however. His neck was disfigured and bloated by swellings. He was suffering from the King’s Evil.

‘As you see, he has scrofula,’ Lady Quincy went on. ‘You must not be concerned – I believe there is no risk of infection. I took him to Whitehall to see the King touching the afflicted, to show him that there were others like himself.’ She glanced at the boy and added, ‘God has granted the King the ability to heal, as a token of his divinely ordained right to rule over us.’

‘How charitable,’ I said. I felt guilty for my earlier self-consciousness about my own blemishes, caused by a fire a few months before: if I compared them with this child’s neck, what had I to complain of?

In some small, cynical part of my mind, I thought that Stephen’s scrofula had provided perfect cover for our meeting when she had asked me to pass on the warning to Cat.

‘I wanted Stephen to see the ceremony of healing,’ she went on. ‘To reassure him. He is superstitious, you see, like all these savages, and he thought it might be a sort of witchcraft.’ She spoke as if the boy were not there.

‘And Mr Knight? Do you hope he will cure Stephen?’

Lady Quincy shook her head. ‘No – only the King can do that. But as Sergeant Surgeon he is qualified to issue certificates of scrofula, as well as the tickets for sufferers to attend the public healing ceremony. Besides, I wish to know more about the illness.’ She swallowed suddenly and her fingers made small, convulsive movements on her lap. ‘About its symptoms. And its causes.’

‘But my lady – why do you want me to escort you? Why is the appointment in my name? Why all this secrecy?’

‘Because I desire that my interest in scrofula should not be public knowledge, or not at present. That’s why I wore a veil when we met at the Banqueting House, and that’s why the appointment is in your name.’ Lady Quincy paused, and moistened her lips. ‘I have my reasons, and perhaps one day I shall confide in you. But, in the meantime, I know I may trust you to be discreet.’

The house was old and large, with many rooms and passages that seemed to have been acquired at random over the last three or four generations. It looked comfortable enough but everything was a little old-fashioned, a little shabby. There was a shop on the ground floor, though it was closed. Mr Knight’s cousin imported furs from Russia. He clearly prospered in his dealings but felt no need to advertise the fact to the world.

We were shown into a small parlour on the first floor. The servant offered us refreshments, which we declined. Mr Knight did not keep us waiting long. He brought with him a hint of wine on his breath, and the scent of cooking. The surgeon was a man who had lived much at court, and it showed in his stately manner. Though he was too polished to show impatience, I guessed that dinner was not far away and he did not want to prolong this interview any longer than he needed.

After we had introduced ourselves, I told Stephen to come forward and expose his neck.

‘So this is the boy,’ Mr Knight said. ‘How interesting. I believe I have never seen a blackamoor afflicted with the disease. I must make a note of it.’

He beckoned Stephen closer and examined him. His long, deft fingers were surprisingly gentle. Lady Quincy, her face veiled, leaned forward in her chair to watch.

‘Is it the King’s Evil?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes, mistress. There’s no doubt about that. And in an advanced state. The inflation is at present mainly in the neck, with the characteristic rosy colour. Tilt your head back, boy. Yes, I thought so. The hard tumours are propagating vigorously under the jaw and about the fauces …’

Knight straightened and turned towards us. ‘There will be no difficulty about providing you with a certificate stating that he has scrofula. And, in the circumstances’ – he gave a little bow, perhaps in respect of the King’s possible interest in the matter – ‘I will also write you a special ticket of admission for the next public healing ceremony. Otherwise the boy would have to present himself with his certificate at my house in Russell Street before the ticket can be issued. That can sometimes take months, because there is always such a crowd of sufferers.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ I said.

‘Tell me,’ Lady Quincy said. ‘How is the disease caused? What is its nature?’

He took a chair and leaned back, steepling his fingers. ‘These are most interesting questions. As Hippocrates observes, he who knows the nature of the disease can be at no great loss for the properest method of cure. But I regret to say we don’t fully understand scrofula, not completely. Generally it is characterized by an indolent tumour or – as in this case – several tumours.’ He prodded Stephen’s neck, and the boy recoiled. ‘Yes, the struma yields. This one – the one on the left here, under the jawbone – will probably degenerate into a stubborn ulcer within the month.’

‘And the causes, sir?’ she prompted, and again I saw the curious flutter of her fingers on her lap. I wondered at her agitation.

‘Well – let me enumerate some of them, or rather the conditions that may lead to the disease. We find it particularly in children descended from parents who also are disfigured by it. (What a pity we usually cannot examine them.) Or in those suckled by nurses who were themselves diseased. Or who have lived much in humid air.’ He poked Stephen again. ‘Africa is humid, is it not?’

The boy stared blankly at him, his eyes wide and fearful.

I guessed he didn’t understand the word. I said, ‘The gentleman means damp, Stephen. Was it damp where you lived before you were brought to England?’

He twitched his head like a nervous horse confronted by something he does not understand. Mr Knight took this as assent.

‘There you are,’ he said. ‘I’m not surprised. Another cause is undoubtedly diet – viscous, crude, farinaceous aliments, in particular, or unripe fruit. Or lack of healthful exercise. Or the possession of a frigid or phlegmatic temperament.’ He frowned. ‘The boy certainly looks phlegmatic. Is his bile inert, by the way?’

I’ve shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea.’

Knight hurried on, anxious to smooth over an awkwardness. ‘External injuries – luxations, for example, or strains – or even catarrhs and fevers may lead towards scrofula. Or drinking stagnant water. There are some physicians who hold that a mother who has looked much upon a scrofulous person may, as it were, imprint the disease on her own child.’

Lady Quincy made no comment. I said, ‘These are underlying causes, if I understand you correctly, sir. Are there factors that incite an outbreak of the disease in a person already predisposed towards it?’

‘Well, sir – here there is some debate in the profession. Most of us, I think, would agree that the proximate cause is probably the obstruction of the small vessels by a viscid, inert humour. There are some, however, who attribute it rather to a particular acidity of the blood, which causes it to coagulate and then harden.’

‘What is the best method of treatment, sir?’ Lady Quincy asked.

Mr Knight smiled condescendingly. ‘There is none of proven efficacy apart from His Majesty’s touch. By God’s mercy he has cured thousands of sufferers. Why, by my calculations, he must have stroked some thirty thousand of his subjects. No wonder the people love their King and venerate God. We are blessed indeed.’

‘Indeed,’ said Lady Quincy drily. ‘Thank you for your advice. I believe you and Mr Marwood have a little business to transact. I shall wait here while you do it.’

Mr Knight and I left her alone with Stephen. At my request, he ordered a servant to bring our hackney to the street door. He took me into a small room overlooking the street. It was furnished plainly as a counting house. There was a terrestrial globe in the corner. A map of Muscovy had been unrolled on the table, its corners held down with pebbles.

While the surgeon was writing Stephen’s certificate of scrofula and his ticket of admission for the next public ceremony, I stood at the window and stared idly down at the street. A tall and very thin man in a long brown coat was standing on the far side of the road. He was plainly dressed – he might have been a merchant in a small way. But what caught my attention was the fact that he wore a sword, as if he were a gentleman or a bully from the stews of Alsatia: yet he looked neither a rogue nor a man of birth.

He glanced up at the windows of the house. Perhaps he saw me, though he could not have made out more than a shadow on the other side of the lozenges of distorted glass. He strolled away. I forgot him for the moment as soon as Mr Knight spoke to me.

‘There, sir. The next ceremony will probably be at the Banqueting House, unless the King goes down to Windsor. If there is any difficulty, give my name to the Yeoman on duty at the door.’

I thanked him, and paid his fee. With great ceremony, he escorted us downstairs and handed Lady Quincy into the hackney, where the maid was already waiting. Stephen and I followed her.

Sitting in near darkness, with the leather curtain drawn across, we rattled down the street towards Bishopsgate. Lady Quincy’s perfume filled the confined space.

‘Thank you for your help, sir,’ she said. ‘You will not speak of this to anyone, I’m sure.’

‘You have my word, madam.’ I wondered whether she would ask me to accompany her to her house in Cradle Alley, and perhaps offer me some refreshment.

‘And I will not trespass further on your time. I shall put you down by the Wall.’

‘Of course,’ I said, telling myself firmly that the less I saw of her the better. ‘That would be most convenient.’

CHAPTER NINE

IT WAS RAINING again on Monday morning, and harder than before. I stood by a window in the Matted Gallery and looked down on the Privy Garden. The hedges and statues had a bedraggled air, and large puddles had formed on the gravel paths. Only two or three people were in sight, and they were in a hurry, using the garden as a shortcut.

The gallery ran on the first floor between the garden and the river. When I had first come to Whitehall, I had despaired of ever finding my way around such an ill-arranged and confused cluster of buildings. Gradually, though, I had realized that there was a certain logic to the place. At its core were the Royal Apartments, the King’s and Queen’s, both public and private. From these, two long ranges extended at right angles to each other, enclosing two sides of the Privy Garden. The old Privy Gallery ran westwards to the Banqueting Hall and the Holbein Gate. Here were many of the offices and chambers of government, such as the Council Chamber and Lord Arlington’s offices. The Stone Gallery, with the Matted Gallery above, ran south towards Westminster. The apartments of many favoured courtiers clustered about it. Those of the Duke of York were at the far end.

On this wet morning, the gallery was crowded with courtiers, officials and visitors. Gentlemen strolled up and down, and the air was full of whispered conversations and smothered laughter. It was a popular place of resort, a place to see and be seen, especially when the weather was bad. It had the added convenience of giving access to so many private apartments.

Today there was an air of suppressed excitement. The story was circulating that the Duke of Buckingham, one of Lord Clarendon’s greatest enemies, had been restored to his many offices yesterday and was once again riding high in the King’s favour. Buckingham was a hero to the common people and had wide support in Parliament. He had been the King’s intimate friend since childhood, having been brought up with the royal family, and he was extraordinarily rich. Nevertheless, until recently he had been held in the Tower: it had been alleged by his enemies that he had commissioned an astrologer to cast the King’s horoscope, which was a form of treason since predicting the King’s future inevitably imagined the possibility of his death.

I was waiting for Mr Chiffinch again. He had sent a note to the office this morning, summoning me to attend him here on the King’s business. Mr Williamson had let me go with reluctance, muttering that the Gazette would not publish itself. While I waited, I could not help thinking of Cat Lovett and Lady Quincy. They were not happy thoughts. They matched the weather.

There was a sudden stir by the entrance to the King’s private apartments. The doors were flung open. The guards straightened themselves, and the crowd fell silent. The Duke of York, the King’s brother, strode into the gallery, flanked by two of his advisers.

Ignoring the bows of courtiers, who bent towards him like corn in the wind, he marched towards his own apartments. The Duke was a fine-looking man, but today his face was red and his features were twisted with rage. When he left the gallery, the whispers began again, with an edge of excitement that they had previously lacked.

I moved from the window and instead examined a painting of a lady that hung nearby. She wore a richly embroidered silk black gown with ballooning sleeves and a gold chain around her neck. She stared past me, over my right shoulder, at something only she could see. The embroidery of the gown looked like writhing snakes. Behind her, a group of women were entering her suite of rooms through a distant doorway.

Ten or fifteen minutes slipped past before the King’s doors opened again. This time it was Chiffinch who emerged, pink-faced like a well-fed baby, nodding and smiling to those nearby whom he considered worth cultivating. He didn’t linger, however. He came over to me.

‘How interesting to find you here,’ he said, his eyes sliding past me to the painting.

‘I don’t understand, sir.’

‘That lady you were looking at. The widow in her black gown. She has a look of Lady Quincy, don’t you think?’

I shrugged. ‘Perhaps a little, sir. But her ladyship is not so sallow, I think.’

It disturbed me that Chiffinch had mentioned her. He had a genius for finding a man’s weak spots. I wondered if he had sensed my interest in Lady Quincy.

‘Her ladyship’s lips are fuller,’ Chiffinch said, pursing his own.

‘Who is it?’

‘I’ve no idea. Some long-dead Italian princess, probably. The Dutch gave it to the King at the Restoration.’ He turned away from the painting. ‘Come with me.’ He led me into the Privy Gallery and took me into a closet by the King’s laboratory, which overlooked the garden.

‘Close the door,’ he ordered. ‘Sit.’

He pointed at a chair by a small table underneath the window. He sat opposite me and leaned over the table, bringing our heads close together.

‘I’ve a commission for you, Marwood. Do you remember Edward Alderley?’

I was so surprised I couldn’t speak.

‘Alderley,’ Chiffinch said irritably. ‘For God’s sake, man, you can’t have forgotten. That affair you were mixed up in after the Fire with my Lady Quincy’s second husband. Edward Alderley was the son by his first wife. He used to be at court a great deal.’

‘Yes, sir. Of course I remember him.’

‘He’s dead.’ He paused, fiddling with the wart on his chin. ‘I daresay no one will shed many tears.’

I felt shock, swiftly followed by relief. What a stroke of luck for Cat. ‘How did he die?’

‘Drowned. But it’s not that he is dead that matters. It’s where his body was found.’ Chiffinch’s forefinger abandoned the wart and tapped the table between us. ‘In Lord Clarendon’s well.’

I began to understand why the Duke of York had been in such a rage. Lord Clarendon was the Duke’s father-in-law. ‘In my lord’s house?’

‘In his garden. Which comes to the same thing. But mark: this is a confidential matter. Breathe a word of it to anyone, and you will regret it. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir. But are you sure that I am the man best suited to a matter of such delicacy?’

‘You wouldn’t be my choice for the job, I can tell you that. It’s by the King’s command. I suppose he chose you because you know a little of the man and his family.’

Then there was no hope for me. ‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked.

‘Go to Clarendon House and look into the circumstances of Alderley’s death. The body is under lock and key. Lord Clarendon knows, of course, and so does one of his gentlemen, Mr Milcote. Alderley was discovered this morning by a servant, who has been sworn to secrecy. We don’t want the news made public yet. Not until we know more. That is essential.’

‘Was the death accidental, sir?’

Chiffinch flung up his arms. ‘How in God’s name would I know? That’s for you to find out. Report back to me as soon as you can.’

‘Mr Williamson—’

‘May go to the devil for all I care. But I shall see he’s informed that the King has given you a commission. He can hardly object.’ Chiffinch glanced piously in the direction of heaven. ‘After God, our duty is to serve the King. We would all agree on that, I hope.’

I nodded automatically. The more I thought about this, the less I liked it. I had been long enough at Whitehall to know that when the great ones of our world squabbled among themselves, it was the little ones who tended to be hurt.

Chiffinch drew a paper from his pocket. ‘Here’s your authority, with the King’s signature.’ He held the paper in his hand, but did not give it to me. ‘Remember. My Lord Clarendon is no longer Lord Chancellor, but he still has many friends who would like to see him restored to the King’s favour. And one of them is the Duke.’ He paused, which gave me time to reflect on the fact that the Duke of York was the King’s heir presumptive, and that the Duke’s daughters – Clarendon’s grandchildren – were next in line to the throne. ‘So for God’s sake, Marwood, go carefully. And if you see my lord himself, try not to anger him. He has had much to cope with lately. Bear in mind that his wife has hardly been a month in her grave.’

He sent me away. With my mind heavy with foreboding, I walked slowly through the public apartments, through the Guard Chamber and down into the Pebble Court. It was still raining, even more heavily than before.

I was to go immediately to Clarendon House, but on my way I had to call at the Gazette office in Scotland Yard to collect my cloak and my writing materials. I was tempted to scribble a note to Cat, care of Mr Hakesby, while I was there, to give her private warning of her cousin’s death. But I dared not ignore Mr Chiffinch’s prohibition until I knew more of the matter.

Besides—

A thought struck me like a blow in the middle of the court. I stopped abruptly. Rain dripped from the brim of my hat.

How could I have been so foolish? Not two days earlier, I had told Catherine Lovett that her cousin had found her out. And she had told me that he had raped her when she lived under her father’s roof, and that she meant to kill him for it.

From any other person, that might have been merely an extravagant way of speaking, a way of expressing hatred. But not from Cat. She was a literal-minded creature in many ways, and a woman of great spirit. I had seen what she was capable of. And now Edward Alderley was dead.

I faced the dreadful possibility that Cat had somehow contrived to kill her cousin. Worse still, that I had played a part in causing the murder, by warning her that her cousin had found her.

CHAPTER TEN

THE OFFICIAL NAME of the road was Portugal Street, in honour of our Queen, Catherine of Braganza, but everyone persisted in calling it Piccadilly. It was an old route west to Hyde Park and then towards Reading. Long ago, some of the land nearby had been owned by a man who had grown rich in the manufacture of those large old collars of cutwork lace named piccadills, and somehow the name had been transferred to the road. In recent years, the mansions of the rich had sprouted like monstrous mushrooms among the fields. The greatest of them all was Clarendon House.

It was a vast building of raw, unweathered stone surrounded by high walls and tall railings. It faced Piccadilly, looking south down the hill to St James’s Palace, which seemed diminished and even a little squalid in comparison with its magnificent new neighbour. I had heard Mr Williamson say that the King was not pleased that the house of a subject should so outshine his own palaces.

Most Londoners hated it, too. Here was Lord Clarendon in the splendour of his new house, while thousands of them had lost their own houses in the Fire. People called it Dunkirk House, for they said that the former Chancellor had profited hugely and corruptly from the government’s sale of that town, one of Cromwell’s conquests, to the French king.

Though it was broad daylight, the main gates were barred. The gateposts were still blackened in places. During the riots in June, the mob had lit bonfires here and burned the trees that used to line the street outside. They would have burned the house itself if they could.

The mob blamed him for all our ills, past and present, including the Queen’s failure to give the King an heir. They believed Clarendon had purposely found a barren wife for him so that his own grandchildren by the Duke of York would one day inherit the throne. They blamed him for our crushing defeat at the hands of the Dutch navy in the Battle of the Medway. They blamed him for everything. According to popular belief, no form of corruption was too large or too small for Lord Clarendon. It was even said that he had stolen the stone intended for rebuilding St Paul’s after the Fire and used it for his mansion.

It was a house in mourning – not for Alderley, of course, but for Lady Clarendon. Her funeral hatchment hung over the gateway. Two manservants, both carrying arms, waited inside the gates under a temporary shelter. I presented my credentials and asked to be taken to Mr Milcote. His name was enough to allow me into the forecourt. One of the servants escorted me to a side door in the west side of the house and brought me to an antechamber draped with black. It was so large you could have fitted the whole of Infirmary Close into it, from kitchen to attic. I was left to wait under the suspicious eye of a porter while yet another servant went to find Mr Milcote.

I heard his rapid footsteps before I saw him. He appeared in a doorway leading to a flight of stairs.

‘Mr Marwood – your servant, sir.’

We exchanged bows. He was a tall, quietly dressed man in his thirties. His periwig was fair, and his complexion suggested that the natural colour of his hair was not far removed from the wig’s. He too was in mourning.

‘I hope they haven’t kept you waiting. We have not been able to be as hospitable here as my lord would have liked, unfortunately.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Recent events, you understand.’

I nodded. There was an openness about Milcote that I liked at once, and also a sort of delicacy too, a sense of what was fitting for a situation. I said quietly, ‘I’m come on the King’s business.’

He glanced at the waiting servants, took my arm and led me outside. ‘You mustn’t think me rude but it will be better if we talk outside.’ He looked up at the grey sky. ‘At least the rain is slackening.’

We walked down the flagged path. The side of the house rose above us, austerely regular, blocking much of the light. We came to a gate of wrought iron, which Milcote unlocked to let us pass, and entered the garden at the back of the house.

‘I assume you have come about our … our recent discovery?’ he said.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘My lord has much to occupy himself,’ he went on. If he had noticed the scars that the fire had left on the side of my face and my neck, he was too well bred to show it. ‘He may not be able to see you today.’

‘He knows I’m here?’

‘Oh yes. The Duke sent word that someone would come.’

We paused at the corner of the house, looking out over the garden. It was on the same scale as the house – at least five or six acres, and surrounded by high walls. The paths had been laid out, and many shrubs had been planted. But there was an unfinished quality to it all: some areas were covered in old canvas sails, much patched and faded; and the paths were rutted and muddy. Oblivious to the weather, teams of gardeners were at work. Against the far wall were two pavilions, which were only partly built. One of them lacked a roof. Between them, a gap in the wall was blocked by a heavy wooden palisade.

‘It will be the greatest garden in London when it’s finished,’ Milcote said. ‘The designs are Mr Evelyn’s. It’s a pity that this … this accident should happen here.’

‘Where, exactly?’

He pointed to the left-hand pavilion, the one with a roof. ‘Shall we go there directly?’

Milcote guided me to a path running parallel to the side wall. Halfway down, he paused to command a gardener to keep himself and his fellows away from this part of the garden. I glanced back at the front of the house. I saw a white blur at the first-floor window nearest to the south-west corner. Someone was watching us, his face distorted and ghostly behind the glass. We walked on.

‘I’ve sent the builders away,’ Milcote said.

‘They arrived after the body was found?’

‘Yes. They could have continued on the other pavilion, but I thought it wiser that we should have as few strangers here as possible while we deal with this.’

‘Then who knows about it?’

‘Besides me, I believe only the servant who found the body, one Matthew Gorse, and Lord Clarendon himself.’

‘But the rest of the household must be curious?’

‘I put it about that we had discovered the roof to be unsafe, and nothing could be done there until new tiles arrived.’ Milcote frowned. ‘And I sent a message to the builders telling them not to come today. But we can’t keep everyone in ignorance for long.’

The pavilion was of two storeys above a basement, with a balustrade masking the roof. Though the wall facing the garden was of stone, dressed similarly to the stone of the mansion, the wall to the side was of crumbling, dirty red bricks, which looked out of place in this setting. Near the ground was a small mullioned window set in a stone frame and protected by iron bars.

Milcote climbed a shallow flight of steps and unlocked the double door. I turned to see if the face was still visible at the window.

‘We are not overlooked?’ Milcote said.

‘I think someone was watching us from the house.’

For an instant alarm flared in his eyes, but he suppressed it. ‘A window? Which one?’

‘At the end to the right, on the first floor.’

‘My lord’s private apartments are there.’ He smiled, adding with obvious affection, ‘He may be old, but he likes to know what’s what.’

He pushed open one leaf of the door just wide enough to let us pass. I found myself in a room with brick walls, to which islands of old plaster still clung. It was lit by two tall windows, one facing the mansion and the other, at right angles to it, facing the other pavilion at the opposite corner of the garden. The flagged floor was uneven and stained with age. In one corner was a pile of planks and newly cut stones. The air was very cold.

‘The body’s downstairs in the kitchen,’ Milcote said, closing the door behind us and throwing the bolt across. ‘Through there.’

In the wall to the left, a door led to a lobby containing a staircase with worn treads.

I glanced up. ‘Where does it go to?’

‘The main apartment. After that, to the viewing platform.’

I followed Milcote down to the basement. It was the same size as the room above, and much gloomier, for the two barred windows were small and set high in the wall. It had a large fireplace with two ovens beside it. There was no furniture of any sort apart from a wooden contraption tucked into a corner, with a pile of scaffolding poles beside it. It was almost as high as the barrel-vaulted ceiling.

‘There,’ Milcote said, pointing at the floor in front of the empty fireplace where a long shape lay like a vast boar hound across the brick-lined hearth. It was draped with a horse blanket.

I took a step towards it but he caught my arm to stop me.

‘Have a care. The well is there.’

Ahead of me, a yard or so in front of the wooden contraption, was a wooden disc about five or six feet in diameter. It was countersunk into the floor, which was why I hadn’t noticed it before.

‘I wouldn’t trust my weight on the cover,’ Milcote said. ‘Just in case.’

I skirted the well and knelt by the body. I pulled back the blanket. My stomach heaved. I had seen too many dead bodies in the last few years. During the Plague they had been piled in the streets. But I’d never grown used to them.

This was Edward Alderley: there was no doubt about it. His single eye stared up at me. The face was almost grey. The features were heavier than I remembered. His mouth was open, showing blackened teeth. He had lost his wig, and the dome of his skull was speckled with stubble. There were drops of moisture on his skin.

I drew back the blanket to the waist and then down to the knees. A drawn sword was lying on the floor beside the body. The tip of the blade winked in the light from the lantern. The sheath, which hung from the belt by two thin chains, had entangled itself with the legs. The leather was black from the water.

Death had made Alderley look ridiculous, as death is apt to do. Frowning, I touched his collar and then his coat.

‘He’s soaking wet.’

‘Didn’t they tell you?’ Milcote said. ‘The poor man fell in the well and was drowned.’

I glanced at the cover. ‘But how? The cover’s on.’

‘It wasn’t over the well this morning. It was leaning against the wall.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘It must have been after Saturday afternoon. That was when work stopped. So between then and first thing this morning when the servant came to unlock the pavilion.’

‘Perhaps he was here on Saturday with the builders,’ I suggested. ‘And they locked him in by accident.’

‘It’s possible.’ Milcote shrugged. ‘But unlikely. The surveyor in charge of the works is a sober man, very thorough. He was on site on Saturday – I saw him myself.’ He hesitated. ‘Between ourselves, there’s some doubt as to whether the work will continue. Mr Hakesby is understandably concerned, as he’s already retained the builders.’

I swallowed. ‘Did you say – Hakesby?’

‘Yes. The surveyor-architect. An experienced man, highly recommended.’ Milcote looked curiously at me, and I knew my face must have betrayed the shock I felt. ‘I’ll question him, of course, but I’m sure he would have ensured the well was covered up when he left, and the building secure. He has his own key.’

‘Yes,’ I began, ‘or I will talk to him myself.’ I tried to mask my confusion with a change of subject. ‘Who identified Alderley?’

‘I did. I was a little acquainted with the gentleman, and he’s visited Clarendon House in the past.’ Milcote hesitated. ‘But I had no idea he was here, or how he got into the pavilion.’

I was about to ask how he knew Alderley when there was a hammering above our heads. Both of us swung round as if surprised in a guilty act. The sound bounced off the walls, filling the empty spaces between them with dull echoes.

Milcote swore under his breath. He took the stairs, two at a time. I followed. He unbolted the door. I glimpsed a manservant through the crack.

‘It’s my lord, master. He wants to see you in his closet. And the other gentleman.’

The old man sat by the window wrapped in a quilted bedgown. His bandaged legs rested on a padded stool. Clarendon was a martyr to the gout, Milcote had told me on the way up here, so much so that even the staircases in the house had been designed with exceptionally shallow treads to make them as easy as possible for him to climb.

A brisk fire burned in the grate, and the room was uncomfortably warm. After the grandeur of the stairs and the outer rooms, I had not expected this closet to be small. It was full of colours and objects – paintings, sculptures, rugs, pieces of china, curiosities and books – always books, more and more books.

My warrant from the King lay on Clarendon’s lap. He had insisted on examining it himself, even holding it up to the light from the window, as if the very paper it was written on held secrets of its own.

‘Marwood,’ he said. He looked half as old as time, but his voice was clear and hard. ‘Marwood. Was there once a printer of that name? Dead now, I think.’

‘Yes, my lord. My father.’

Clarendon’s memory was legendary, as was his command of detail. His small eyes studied me, but to my relief he did not pursue the subject. ‘You’re from Whitehall, yes?’

‘I work for Mr Williamson on the Gazette.’

‘The Gazette?’ His face grew suspicious. ‘Does that mean that Lord Arlington has a finger in the pie, as he usually does?’

‘No, my lord.’ I heard a creak as Milcote shifted his weight beside me.

‘Did you see the King? Or the Duke?’

‘No – Mr Chiffinch gave me the warrant and sent me here.’

Lord Clarendon sniffed. ‘Does Chiffinch often give you errands, eh?’

‘Sometimes – I’m also clerk to the Board of Red Cloth, and he’s one of the commissioners.’

‘We know what that means,’ Clarendon said tartly. ‘The Board does nothing for the salaries it receives. Its commissioners oblige the King in less official ways. And therefore so does its clerk.’ He turned to Milcote. ‘Well, George. We must cooperate, of course, which means we must give Mr Marwood all the assistance in our power. Was Alderley murdered?’

Milcote shrugged. ‘We haven’t examined the body yet, my lord, but it’s hard to see how he could have fallen into the well of his own accord. If it was dark, he might have stumbled into it. But what was he doing there in the first place?’

‘How did you know him?’ Clarendon paused and glanced at Milcote; I had the sense that a silent message had passed between them.

Milcote cleared his throat. ‘I had some acquaintance with him years ago, my lord – in the years of his prosperity.’

‘Before his father’s downfall, you mean. A more treacherous rogue never existed.’

‘Whatever his father was, Edward Alderley was kind to me then.’ Milcote cleared his throat again. ‘When I met him a few months ago, his condition was sadly altered. I believe he had tried to improve what was left of his fortunes at the tables.’

‘A gambler.’ Clarendon’s voice was harsh. ‘The most stupid of all mankind.’

‘He was trying to change his ways. He wanted to improve his condition by wiser means – he asked for my help.’

‘So, like the fool you are, you lent him money, I suppose?’

‘Yes, my lord – a little – enough to pay his most pressing debts.’

‘You’re too soft-hearted, George. You’ve seen the last of that.’

Not just soft-hearted, I thought, but gullible enough to be taken in by a rogue like Edward Alderley.

‘He told me he was searching for some respectable form of employment,’ Milcote went on. ‘I promised to look around for him. I would have asked you, but I knew you would have no time for him.’

‘So you are not altogether a fool.’ Clarendon didn’t return the smile but there was a touch of warmth in his voice. ‘And what was he doing here? And in the pavilion?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘My lord,’ I said, growing a little impatient. ‘I understand that the only other person who knows of this man’s death is the servant who unlocked the pavilion this morning and found the body.’

Clarendon looked sharply at me. He did not take kindly to those who spoke before they were spoken to. ‘First things first. Have I your word that you will be discreet? I can’t afford a scandal at this time.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘If the news gets out, I shall know who to blame.’ He looked steadily at me. ‘You would not like to be my enemy.’

I refused to allow him to intimidate me. I had the King’s warrant. ‘May I have your permission to speak to the servant?’

‘Of course.’ Clarendon glanced at Milcote. ‘Who was it?’

‘Gorse, my lord.’

‘I don’t know him. Have him brought to me.’

‘Unfortunately he’s not here.’ Milcote lowered his voice. ‘The mourning rings.’

‘You may know,’ Clarendon said to me in a flat voice purged of emotion, ‘my wife died last month.’

‘Gorse is delivering mourning rings for my lady today,’ Milcote explained. ‘Mainly to former dependants and acquaintances. So he will be here and there all over London. He should be back after dinner. But I don’t know when.’

‘Is he trustworthy?’ Clarendon said.

‘I believe so, my lord – I knew him in his old place, and suggested him to the steward.’

‘I want this riddle solved,’ Clarendon said, still looking at me. ‘Do you understand? For my sake as well as the King’s. You may make what enquiries you need to in my house, but Milcote must accompany you at all times, inside and out.’

I nodded. ‘As you wish, my lord.’

‘My late wife was fond of that pavilion,’ he went on, his voice softening. ‘It was an old banqueting hall – she remembered it fondly from her youth. I wanted to tear it down and build it anew to match everything else. But she pleaded with me, and in the end I agreed to preserve at least part of it, though I insisted on its being remodelled to match the rest of my house and garden.’ He paused, staring at me. ‘Are you married, Mr Marwood?’

I shook my head.

‘No? If you ever are, you will find that it is a matter of perpetual compromise.’ His voice trailed away, and he turned his head to look out of the window.

‘Alderley’s body was found in the well, my lord,’ I said. ‘Was that part of the old building?’

‘Yes.’ He looked at me again, and his eyes were brighter than before. ‘Lady Clarendon was particularly attached to its water. She said it was always cold, even on the hottest day, and that the spring that feeds it is unusually pure. Indeed, she believed it to be the purest in London.’ His voice changed, and I knew without knowing how that he was furiously angry. ‘This body has sullied my wife’s well, Marwood. It has polluted the spring. Tell the King that I want this made clean for her sake.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

NOW CAME THE worst part, which I had been dreading from the start. Milcote and I returned to the pavilion to examine the body more closely. I postponed this unpleasant necessity by examining a wicket gate in the back wall of the garden. It was set in the temporary palisade that covered the place where the garden gates would eventually be installed. The wicket was locked and bolted. Milcote said it was rarely used, except occasionally by gardeners and the builders during the day.

Next I went up to inspect the main apartment on the first floor of the pavilion. The work was more advanced here than it was below. The windows were glazed and barred. At the top of the stairs was the door to the viewing platform. It too was locked and bolted.

At last I could no longer delay the inevitable. In the basement, Milcote and I stripped off Edward Alderley’s outer clothing. It was no easy matter, even with two of us, to manoeuvre his body. Alderley had always been a big, overweight man and, since I had last seen him, he had become even grosser.

Intimate contact with the dead, I thought, this prying into the consequences of death, should be growing easier for me since the events of the last twelve months. But custom had not yet formed a callus over my squeamishness; perhaps it never would.

‘How did Gorse know that someone was in the well?’ I asked as we were tugging Alderley’s arms from his sleeves.

‘The cover was off,’ Milcote said. ‘And he stumbled on Alderley’s hat, which was on the floor. He had the wit to look down the shaft.’

‘Why was he in the pavilion at all at that hour? Was that usual?’

‘No. But Mr Hakesby was expecting a delivery of lime, and he couldn’t get here himself until later. So I sent Gorse instead. He unlocked the garden door and then he came down to the basement to open the windows. The atmosphere is damp, and we try to keep the place aired. It was still dark down here, and he had a lantern.’

The body’s legs flopped on to the stone floor, and a long, lingering blast of wind erupted from the corpse’s belly.

‘God’s heart,’ Milcote said. ‘What a job is this. Does one ever get used to it?’

‘Probably not,’ I said curtly. How did he think I spent my days, I thought – laying out corpses?

I noted that the body was not in that phase of rigidity that corpses pass through after death. Perhaps the coldness of the well water had delayed its onset. If only, I thought, there were an exact way of measuring temporal gradations of decay, we should be able to deduce when Alderley had drowned, or at least to narrow down the time when it had happened. All we knew at present was that he had died between Saturday evening, when Hakesby and the builders had locked up, and this morning when Matthew Gorse had come to unlock the pavilion for the early delivery.

I suppressed the uncomfortable thought that there was another possibility: that Cat had been there with Hakesby on Saturday, and that Alderley had died before they had gone home for the night.

It took two of us to remove each of the boots because the leather was so saturated with water. Despite our labours, I was cold. The temperature in the basement seemed to drop lower and lower. The water chilled my hands and splashed over my clothes.

‘Who has a key?’ I said, panting, when Alderley’s feet were bare, exposing untrimmed nails like pale talons.

Milcote lobbed a boot into the corner. ‘Mr Hakesby. I have a set, too – I have all the household keys. My lord has another set, though those are never used and lie locked in his closet. Then there’s the steward’s – Gorse would have used the pavilion key from there.’

‘And the house and garden?’

‘Locked as tight as a drum. We take no chances, not after those attacks on my lord. During the night, the mastiffs are loose in the garden, and watchmen make an hourly circuit. There are two porters awake in the house, and lanterns in the forecourt.’

‘Then how did Alderley get here?’ I asked.

Milcote shrugged. ‘It’s a perfect mystery. Unless he came during the day, while the men were here. And he was already dead when they locked up.’

This was an echo of my own thoughts, and it led me back to Hakesby and Cat. I turned to Alderley and unstrapped his belt. The breeches were almost as hard to remove as the boots had been.

Death makes a man small as well as making him ridiculous. When we had stripped Alderley to his shirt, he looked shrunken and as vulnerable as a child. Milcote held up the lantern and I examined the body as best I could. There were grazes on the forearms and shoulders, and much broken skin on the fingers. They told their own grim story of a drowning man struggling in the water, enclosed by the sheer walls of the well. I felt the skull and found a bruise on the forehead.

Had he hit his head as he was falling down the well? Or had someone hit him beforehand?

Crouching, we rolled him on to his back again. Milcote watched closely as I turned my attention to the pockets. Alderley had been carrying a purse containing nearly thirty shillings in silver and two pounds in gold. That was a small fortune to most people; but poverty was a relative condition.

There were also two keys on a ring. One was made of blackened iron and had a long shank. The other was much smaller, and far more delicate: it appeared to be made of silver, and had a finely wrought ring at the top that contained what looked like a monogram. I held up the second key to the light of the window, but the letters were so entwined and so clogged with delicate arabesques that I could not even distinguish whether there were two or three of them.

Next, in an inner pocket, I found a sodden bundle of papers. I tried to separate the leaves from each other but the paper tore.

‘Have you a pouch or bag I could use?’ I asked.

‘What?’ Milcote dragged his eyes away from Alderley’s possessions. ‘A pouch?’

‘I’ll take these with me. I need something to put them in.’

He nodded. ‘Of course.’

He went away and came back with a small bag of coarse canvas, its top secured with a drawstring. ‘Will this do?’

‘Admirably.’

He opened the bag, shook out its contents, a dozen or so newly forged nails, on the floor, and passed it to me. I put the papers, the key and money into it.

‘He used to live in Barnabas Place in Holborn,’ I said. ‘A big place – you could house an army in it. Was he still there?’

‘No. He had to sell it and most of the contents to pay his own debts. But he retained an interest in another house nearby, and he was living there. In Fallow Street.’

‘Did you ever go there?’

Milcote shook his head. ‘We met at a tavern or he came here. He grumbled about how small his lodgings were. And it was mortgaged, too, and he’d had to let part of it to a carpenter.’ He gave me a rueful smile. ‘I think he was ashamed. He didn’t want me to see how mean his condition had become. In truth, I didn’t know him that well, but I felt sorry for him.’

I turned back to the body. Alderley’s mouth had fallen open. I took up the sword. It was a narrow blade of fine steel. Two silk ribbons, one red and one blue, had been knotted around the hilt. Perhaps some lady had given them to him to wear as her favour. A design had been engraved on the blade just below the hilt. I held the sword up to the light and recognized the form of a pelican eating its young, the Alderley crest.

‘It’s an old Clemens Horn,’ Milcote said. He stretched out his hand and touched the blade with lingering respect, as a man might touch the hand of a beautiful woman who did not belong to him. ‘German. Must be nigh on fifty years old, but you won’t find a better sword.’

‘I should like to see the well,’ I said.

It was a relief to move away from the body. Milcote and I lifted off the cover and laid it on the floor. It moved easily. A man could have removed it by himself, if necessary. Or, for that matter, a woman.

Milcote crouched on the edge and held the lantern over the void. I could see nothing beyond its light. At my request, he took a rope and attached it to the ring at the top of the lantern. He lowered the light into the well. It glistened on cleanly cut masonry – the shaft was lined with stone, not brick.

Another thought struck me – and again I kept it to myself. I liked what I had seen of Milcote but he and I served different masters.

The lantern twisted and turned as it descended. It seemed to take weeks for it to reach the water.

‘Mr Hakesby measured it,’ Milcote said. ‘It’s about forty feet to the water level. And the depth of the water is another twenty feet, more or less.’

I remembered the bruises and scrapes on Alderley’s body. Could he swim? I imagined him thrashing about in the well, desperately trying to find a handhold, a toehold, on that smooth, curved masonry. And all the time, the water drawing him down into its cold embrace.

I could not afford these thoughts, and I seized on a distraction. ‘How did you get the body out?’ It was such an obvious question that I was ashamed that it hadn’t occurred to me before.

‘Gorse and I used the hoist.’ Milcote waved his free hand in the direction of the wooden framework I had noticed in the corner of the cellar behind the well, beside a pile of scaffolding. ‘It’s the masons’. They used it when they were repointing the well. Gorse went down, and he got a couple of hooks in Alderley’s belt.’

‘He must be a capable man,’ I said. ‘Rather him than me.’

‘He’s seen worse, I daresay,’ Milcote said. ‘He told me he was once apprenticed to a butcher, though he and his master did not suit. But before he left his indentures, he must have moved his fair share of carcases.’

The lantern was swaying a few inches above the black and oily surface of the water.

‘Dear God,’ I cried. ‘What’s that?’

Something was moving on the water, something dark and glistening, something alive.

Milcote laughed. ‘It’s Alderley’s periwig, sir.’ He laughed again, and it seemed to me there was an edge of hysteria to his mirth. ‘What did you think it could be?’

‘I scarcely know.’

‘Shall I send Gorse or someone down again to fetch it?’

‘As far as I’m concerned, you can leave it there to rot.’

‘Someone will want it. It must be worth a few pounds.’

Milcote hauled up the lantern. ‘I wonder,’ he said, turning aside to drape the coil of rope over the hoist. ‘I believe that perhaps Alderley’s death was an accident after all.’ He faced me again and went on in a low, rapid tone, ‘Suppose he came here of his own accord during the day – bribed his way into the garden – and hid himself here, meaning to rob the house when all was quiet. And then in the dark, he stumbled …’

His voice trailed away. What of the mastiffs, I thought, the night-watchmen, the bolts, the bars, locks and all the other precautions that Clarendon took to keep his palace safe from intruders?

‘You must know, sir,’ Milcote went on with sudden urgency, ‘Lord Clarendon has many enemies. If someone like the Duke of Buckingham heard of this, he would find ways to use it against him – perhaps even accuse him of arranging Alderley’s murder. Surely it would be better for everyone – for the King and the Duke of York, as well as my lord – if the body weren’t here?’

‘What do you mean?’ I said, my voice cold.

‘Lord Clarendon is the last man to wish to stand in the way of justice, but Mr Alderley is dead, and we can’t change that, either by accident or by his own design.’ He gestured at the dead man, shrouded in his long shirt. ‘Couldn’t he be found somewhere else? It would be an innocent subterfuge, which would harm no one, least of all him. Indeed, it would protect Alderley’s reputation. Otherwise men might say that he intended some knavery by coming here.’

He held the lantern higher, trying to make out my expression, and waited for me to speak.

‘And it would protect Lord Clarendon, too, in this difficult time,’ he rushed on. ‘The poor man has enough troubles already without this. I wish to spare him the addition of this one. He is a good man, sir, and an honourable one, whatever his enemies say.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said.

‘All we would need do is move Alderley out of the garden and leave him in one of the market gardens near the Oxford road.’ Milcote followed me out of the basement. ‘Perhaps in a pond, to explain the water … Then it would look as if he had been robbed and murdered by thieves. No one could say any differently.’

I said nothing. We replaced the cover on the well and climbed the stairs in silence. At the door, I waited for Milcote to find the key.

He shook his head as if reproving himself. ‘Forgive me, sir. You must think my wits are astray. Pray forget what I said. I hardly know what I’m saying.’

After we had searched the body and examined the rest of the pavilion, I dined privately with Milcote in the steward’s quarters. He did not press me further with his arguments for moving the body. I had the impression that part of him was ashamed of having suggested it. Not that I condemned him – indeed, I honoured him for it in one way, because I realized that his loyalty to Lord Clarendon lay behind it.

I scarcely noticed what I ate, and we had little conversation. My mind was full of what I had learned in the last two hours. Our inspection of the pavilion had made it clear that the lower windows were barred and the upper ones were secure. The roof appeared intact. There was a viewing platform at the top, but the door to it, which was at the head of the staircase that had brought us down to the basement, was bolted and barred from the inside.

In other words, the door from the garden appeared to be the only point of access. And there were – as both Milcote and later the steward confirmed – only four keys to it: Lord Clarendon’s, the steward’s, Milcote’s – and Hakesby’s.

Before we left the pavilion, I had examined both the lock and Milcote’s copy of the key. I was no expert but I could see that it was a modern lock; the wards of the key were designed to turn four levers within the lock, and each was a different size from the others. To copy a key like this, I suspected, would require the services of a skilled locksmith. There was no sign of the mechanism having been forced.

To add to the mystery, the garden was full of people by day and overlooked from the house. No stranger could have passed through unobserved. By night, the garden gates were locked, the dogs let loose and the night watchmen patrolled at regular intervals.

True, I had solved another, lesser mystery to my private satisfaction, or at least discovered a plausible solution to it: if Hakesby had been here to work on the pavilion, then Cat might well have accompanied him at least some of the time. Alderley could have caught sight of her on one of his visits to Milcote.

Time was running out. The body could not be kept a secret for long, not in a world where the Duke of Buckingham and his allies were working so industriously against Lord Clarendon. The Duke of York was determined to avoid Alderley’s corpse becoming an embarrassment to his father-in-law, and therefore to himself. The King seemed equally determined, though as ever his motives were difficult to discern; perhaps he simply wanted to oblige his brother, or perhaps he had his own reasons for not wanting to lend ammunition to the enemies of Lord Clarendon, his former Lord Chancellor and his loyal companion and adviser during the long years of exile.

From Clarendon’s point of view, there were only two outcomes that would help him: the first was discovering how Alderley had died and bringing his killer, if there had been one, to justice in a way that completely absolved Clarendon himself; the other was far simpler – Milcote’s suggestion of moving the body elsewhere. If the King ordered the latter, it would be done. But not otherwise.

What worried me most was this: if, as seemed probable, Alderley had been murdered, then the most likely killer was Catherine Lovett. As I knew only too well, she was a woman who had few scruples when her passions were engaged, and Edward Alderley had given her every reason to hate him.

I would not betray her – or not willingly, for we had survived too much together for that. But if anyone else stumbled on the Clarendon House connection between her and Edward Alderley, then I would not give much for her chances – or indeed for my own, for I had already concealed what I knew of her.

If they hanged the daughter of a Regicide for Edward Alderley’s murder, would it not be convenient for everyone except Hakesby and myself? Moreover, I had given Cat forewarning that Alderley had somehow found her. Might that be construed as making me an accessory to his murder?

As the meal neared its end, I discussed at least some of this with George Milcote. He could not have been more helpful, though he was careful what he said when our conversation touched on anything that might affect the honour of Lord Clarendon. I liked his loyalty to his master, and I regretted that the circumstances obliged me to lie to him, at least by omission.

‘When did you last see Alderley?’ I asked.

‘Last week. We met at the Three Tuns at Charing Cross.’

‘He seemed as usual?’

‘Yes. He was in a good humour. We were discussing an investment of mine. I have a small share in a privateer, and he’d offered to buy it.’

I remembered the purse we had found. ‘He wasn’t that poor, then?’

‘No. I gathered that his affairs had taken a turn for the better.’ There was a ghost of a smile on Milcote’s face. ‘He paid for our wine.’

‘I must speak as soon as possible to the servant who found the body,’ I said. ‘Gorse, was it?’

‘Yes – Matthew Gorse. Will you come back here in the evening, or shall I send him to you?’

‘I shall need to come back here at some point,’ I said with more certainty than I felt. ‘Don’t let him leave until I’ve seen him.’

To maintain the fiction that I had never heard of Hakesby, I asked Milcote who he was, and whether he was to be trusted.

‘Mr Pratt vouched for him,’ he said. ‘In fact it was my lady – the late Lady Clarendon, that is – who suggested him.’

‘Pratt?’

‘Mr Roger Pratt – the architect. He designed the house for my lord, but he was unable to take on the pavilions.’

‘How did Lady Clarendon know of Mr Hakesby?’

‘I don’t think she ever mentioned it.’ Milcote shrugged. ‘No reason why she should have done, of course. The important thing is that Mr Pratt vouched for him. I understand that he has worked with both Dr Wren and Dr Hooke, and they speak highly of him too.’

‘Where can I find him?’

‘Henrietta Street – he has a Drawing Office at the sign of the Rose. He handles the overseeing of the builders as well as the surveying and designing. I own I was a little concerned when I first met him – he has a palsy or ague, poor man – but it seems not to affect the quality of his work. He has able people working under him. I know my lady valued his willingness to indulge her desire to retain so much of the old banqueting house in the new building. Will you go and see him now?’

‘Yes,’ I said, with intentional vagueness, ‘I must see Mr Hakesby. And as soon as possible.’

But I had other things to do first. There was no reason to mention that to Mr Milcote.

It was still raining. I decided to take a coach.

I walked along Piccadilly in search of a hackney, trying to avoid the spray from passing vehicles and horses. Perhaps it was because of the rain but I couldn’t find a coach for hire at the nearest stand. I went on, pulling my hat down and huddling into my cloak.

William Chiffinch had sent me to meet Lady Quincy. And it was also he who had sent me here. But he was the King’s creature in all he did, for there lay his best chance of advancing his own interest. Was the King behind both these commissions? Did that mean they were somehow connected?

Opposite the Royal Mews, liveried servants were opening the great gates of Wallingford House, where the Duke of Buckingham lived when he was in town. I stopped to watch. Outriders appeared, followed by an enormous coach, which was decorated with golden lions and peacocks and drawn by six matching horses. Afterwards came four running footmen, who held on to the straps behind the coach and splashed through the puddles, careless of the filth thrown up on their clothes.

Now that he had been freed from the Tower, the Duke had no intention of hiding his presence in London. The coach drew up outside the front door, which opened immediately. The Duke himself appeared at the head of the steps. He was a tall, florid gentleman in a blond periwig and a plumed hat. He was dressed in a silver coat and blue breeches, with the matching blue of the Garter ribbon across his chest, and the Garter star itself gleaming over his heart. He waved at the small crowd that had gathered, tossed them a handful of silver and climbed into the coach.

The crowd cheered him as he drove off towards Whitehall. I walked on in the direction of the hackney stand by Charing Cross.

The contrast between the Duke and Lord Clarendon could not have been more clearly illustrated – the one a hero to the common people of London, the other a villain. It seemed that even the King was throwing his weight behind Buckingham. But if His Majesty had decided to throw Clarendon to the wolves, to Buckingham and his enemies in Parliament, why had he sent me on a mission that seemed designed to protect Clarendon’s reputation? Was it the Duke of York’s influence? Or did he have some other, deeper motive?

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE COACHMAN DROPPED me by Holborn Bridge. ‘Phugh!’ he said, covering his nose with his sleeve. ‘Smells like a whore’s armpit.’

Fallow Street ran north–south on the east side of the bridge over the Fleet River. The river was choked with rubbish. There was a tannery nearby, and nothing made a neighbourhood stink worse than tanning leather.

The street was straight and narrow. The southern end had been destroyed by the Fire. The ruins had been cleared, but nothing had been rebuilt yet. People were living there, nevertheless, in makeshift shelters that looked as if a puff of wind would bring them down.

The southern end of the roadway had recently been partly blocked by the collapse of a long wall that had once marked the outer boundary of a building destroyed by the Fire. Someone on foot could work their way along, but the street was impassable to wheeled traffic.

I paid off the coachman and picked my way up the street. It was busy enough at the undamaged northern end. I found the carpenter’s shop by the sound of sawing and hammering that came from it. Since the Fire, there had been a great demand for carpenters and a chronic shortage of suitable timber.

The shutters were open. The master and his apprentice were erecting the frame of a simple bedstead, helped rather than hindered by a small boy of about ten or twelve, who was probably the carpenter’s son. The joints wouldn’t fit together properly – hence the hammering and the sawing and the palpable air of frustration.

I stood outside, sheltering from the rain and blocking some of their light, until the carpenter paused in his work and glanced up. His shoulders were hunched forward, and he had a big, narrow face and a very small forehead. He looked like a Barbary ape.

‘What is it?’ he said curtly. He belatedly assessed my clothes and my air of respectability, and added, ‘Sir.’

‘I’m looking for Mr Alderley’s lodgings,’ I said.

He pointed at the ceiling. ‘Up there. But he’s away.’

‘I know that. I have a key.’

The carpenter shrugged.

‘I also have a warrant that permits me to go inside.’ This was not strictly true. ‘You may have a sight of it.’

The carpenter came into the doorway and examined the paper I showed him.

‘That is the King’s signature,’ I said, pointing. ‘And that is his private seal.’

He squinted at the warrant and said, in a slightly uncertain voice: ‘It doesn’t say you can come into my house, does it?’

I lowered my voice, because there was nothing to be gained from shaming the man in front of his inferiors, and said, ‘It’s not your house. It’s Mr Alderley’s. I can come back with a magistrate and a couple of constables if you’d prefer, and I’ll also see you in court for obstructing the King’s justice. Or you can save yourself some trouble and show me where Alderley’s door is.’

He licked his lips. ‘Did you say you’ve got a key?’

‘Of course.’ I showed him the keyring with Alderley’s two keys. ‘And the warrant allows me to use it.’

‘All right. Hal – look sharp, take the gentleman round to Mr Alderley’s door.’

‘One moment. What’s your name?’

‘Thomas Bearwood.’

‘When did you last see Mr Alderley?’

‘I don’t know. Last week sometime? The wife might know.’ The small boy came out to join us, wiping the snot from his nostrils with the back of his sleeve. His father cuffed him. ‘I said look sharp.’

The boy let out a howl as a matter of form, though he seemed unharmed. He led me to a passage at the side of the shop that led to the main house. Behind us, the sawing resumed. Without a word, the lad indicated a door with his hand.

I pushed the larger key into the lock and twisted. The wards turned. The boy stared up at me, and I knew he was trying to get a better look at the scarring that the fire had left on my face. He caught my eye and ran off the way he had come. I glanced up and down the passage. No one was in sight. I opened the door and went inside.

There was a tiny lobby with a flight of stairs going up from it.

I shut and bolted the door. I climbed the stairs. They were steep and narrow and let out a creak at every step. At the top was a landing, with three closed doors. The air smelled powerfully of stale urine, which was unremarkable in a house so close to a tannery.

The nearest door led to a chamber almost entirely filled by a finely carved bedstead. The curtains were drawn back and the bed was unmade. Beyond it was a closet full of clothing, either hanging from pegs on the wall or spilling from a large press. I saw at a glance that these were a rich man’s clothes, a man who liked lace and ribbons and satin. Some showed signs of wear and dirt. But others were new. I touched the sleeve of a velvet suit and wondered how much it had cost Alderley.

One of the other doors from the landing led to another, much larger closet, this one stuffed with household goods, probably salvaged from Barnabas Place: rolls of tapestries, curtains and carpets; chairs and tables stacked one upon the other; and an iron-bound chest secured with two padlocks and three internal locks. Four swords hung from a wood peg which had been hammered into a crack in the wall – why would any man need more than one? Everything in this room was covered with a layer of dust.

The third door opened into a large square room at the back of the building, though it seemed smaller because it contained so much. The walls were panelled and hung with many pictures. Alderley had obviously used the chamber as his parlour or sitting room. On the table were the remains of a meal and two empty wine bottles.

I searched the place as well as I could among such a confusion of objects. What made it more difficult was that I had no idea what I was looking for, other than something that might explain why Alderley’s body had been discovered in the well of Lord Clarendon’s half-built pavilion. I kept my eyes open for boxes and cabinets and the like, but I found nothing with a lock that matched Alderley’s small silver key.

I paid particular attention to a large desk set in an alcove. The drawers were stuffed with papers – bills, notes of gambling debts and letters. Some of the letters were in a hand I took to be Alderley’s, for several memoranda of debts were in the same writing. These letters were drafts and copies, most of which concerned attempts to raise money by one means or the other. But, on the pile in the right-hand drawer, there was a note in a clerkly hand that stood out from the rest by its neatness. It was dated last Monday, exactly a week ago.

Sir

The deeds of your property in Fallow Street are ready for collection from my chambers at any reasonable hour convenient to both parties.

J. Turner

No. 5, Barnard’s Inn

Milcote had said the property was mortgaged. But this letter suggested the mortgage had been redeemed. I had no idea of the size of the loan that a house like this might command, but it might well be substantial; since the Fire, all the remaining property in London had increased in value. I made a note of Turner’s name and address and returned the letter to where I had found it.

I knew by the light outside that the afternoon was sliding towards evening. Nothing I had found in these overcrowded apartments hinted at a previous connection between Clarendon House and Alderley. Nor had I found any mention of Milcote. The only oddity was the unexpected signs of recent affluence – the new clothes, for example, and the letter from J. Turner of Barnard’s Inn.

As I was closing the drawer, a picture hanging on the wall above the desk snagged my attention like a rock in the current of a stream. I stopped and stared at it. I felt a momentary chill.

The painting was a small portrait of the head and shoulders of a gentlewoman in a plain but heavy frame. The woman was Catherine Lovett.

Except, of course, it wasn’t Cat at all. This woman belonged to another time, at least twenty or even thirty years ago. She wore a dark green gown with puffed sleeves and a necklace of pearls. Her hair tumbled in ringlets to her white neck.

In the background of the painting was a house whose outlines were familiar to me. It was called Coldridge, and I had visited it last year. It had once belonged to the family of Cat’s mother, and she had lived there with an aunt for several years when she was a child. It should have been hers but her uncle and Edward Alderley had cheated her out of it.

There was something wrong with the picture. I drew closer and stooped towards it. The eyes in the portrait were unnaturally large and blank. Then I saw why. Someone had gouged out the pupils of both eyes, probably with the point of a dagger.

A series of thunderous knocks sounded below.

I went back downstairs. ‘Who is it?’ I said.

‘Mistress Bearwood. Open up.’

I unbolted the door. The carpenter’s wife barely came up to my elbow but what she lacked in inches she more than made up with force of character. She pushed past me into Alderley’s lobby. She glared at me, her hands on her hips. To all intents and purposes, she felt herself mistress of the situation.

‘And who are you?’ she demanded. ‘What are you doing, poking around where you’ve no reason to be? Is there any reason I shouldn’t call the constable?’

I showed her my warrant, which she read attentively.

‘It doesn’t say in black and white that you can come into my house,’ she said grudgingly. ‘Not in so many words. But I suppose it’s all right. You’d think Bearwood was born yesterday. He’s as innocent as a newborn baby, and just as stupid. I’m sorry, master, but you could have been anyone.’

‘No bones broken, Mistress Bearwood.’

But she wouldn’t let it go. ‘I could have found you stripping the house bare, and him and the boy none the wiser. (Takes after his father, Hal does, more’s the pity.) He can’t even read properly, so your warrant made no more sense to him than Sunday’s sermon.’ She looked me up and down with an unflattering lack of interest, and then shifted her ground slightly to get a better view of the damage that the fire had done to my face. ‘And you don’t exactly look like a courtier, neither.’

‘That’s because I’m not,’ I said. ‘I’m a clerk at Whitehall. But I’m glad you’re here, mistress, because I want to ask you some questions.’

For a moment it hung in the balance: her anger – with me, with her husband, with the whole world, perhaps – struggled with the suspicion that it would be foolish to offend me if I was really who I said I was.

‘When did you last see Mr Alderley?’ I asked.

‘It’s not our place to blab about him.’

‘It’s not your place to disobey the King, either. And I promise you, on my honour, nothing you can tell me will in any way harm Mr Alderley.’

She stared up at me with black button eyes. ‘Saturday evening,’ she said. ‘He’d been home most of the day but he went out around eight o’clock.’

‘Was that usual?’

She shrugged. ‘He stays out all night sometimes, if he has a mind to. Or he lies abed all day. Or he’s up with the lark. Nothing to do with me. I’ve got work to do, sir, and—’

I cut her off with a wave of my hand. ‘Have you known him long?’ I asked.

‘Nigh on eighteen months. He rents out the shop and ground floor to us. He don’t have a servant, so I keep his apartments clean and send out the boy for his dinner or whatever he wants.’ She paused, and I had the sense that she was making lightning calculations behind those round black eyes. ‘Do you know him?’

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I knew him last year when he lived in Barnabas Place.’ Where he attacked Cat Lovett and raped her on her own bed. ‘Does he have any visitors?’

Mrs Bearwood shook her head. ‘Only the Bishop.’

‘The Bishop?’ Amazed, I stared at her. ‘The Bishop of London?’

‘No, sir.’ She looked pityingly at me. ‘It’s just a nickname. He’s one of Mr Alderley’s friends. If you’re such a friend of his too, you—’

‘I’m not a friend of Mr Alderley’s. I’m acquainted with him. When was this bishop last here?’

‘Friday,’ she said. ‘He brought Mr Alderley home.’ She sniffed. ‘Mr Alderley was in liquor again. He could hardly stand. He could talk all right, more or less, but his legs wouldn’t work. Bearwood and the Bishop had a terrible time getting him up the stairs.’

I threw in another question without much hope of an answer. ‘Do you know where this man lives?’

Mrs Bearwood was edging away from me, tired of my interrogation. ‘I don’t know. Watford, maybe?’

‘Watford? Outside London? Why do you think that?’

‘Because Mr Alderley opened the window and called down to the Bishop as he was leaving. He bellowed like a bull – I even heard him in the kitchen, and the window was shut – and he mentioned Watford. Maybe the Bishop was a preacher, though he didn’t look like one, not with a sword at his side.’

‘A preacher?’ I said, feeling as if I were drowning.

‘Well, perhaps. It’s just that Mr Alderley shouted something about “When you get to Watford, be sure to tell them about Jerusalem.”’

‘Jerusalem?’ I repeated.

‘Jerusalem. As I hope to be saved.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ON MY WAY to Whitehall, I was tempted to call at Henrietta Street and warn Cat Lovett of what had happened to her cousin. But prudence prevailed. I didn’t want to risk advertising the connection between us. Besides, I was in a hurry to make my report.

They were the excuses I made for myself. Really, though, I was mortally afraid that she might already know of Edward Alderley’s death, that she had known ever since the moment it happened. The words she had said two days ago in the New Exchange haunted my memory: ‘I wish I had killed him.’

I ran into Mr Williamson when I returned to Whitehall – almost literally, for he was coming out of the Court Gate into the street as I was going in. I had to jump aside to avoid colliding with him.

‘Marwood,’ he snapped. ‘When will you be back?’

‘I’m not sure, sir. When the King and Mr Chiffinch—’

‘How can I be expected to carry on the business of the Gazette without your assistance?’ Irritation had scraped away the polish that Oxford and London had given Williamson’s voice, revealing the uncompromising vowels of his northern upbringing. ‘I have my own responsibilities, as you know, without troubling myself with those damned women of yours.’

It took me a moment to realize that he meant the women who trudged the streets of London with bundles of the Gazette. I had pushed the problems with our distribution network so far into the back of my mind that I had almost forgotten they were there.

‘For reasons I don’t understand,’ he went on, warming himself at the fire of his own eloquence, ‘the day-to-day conduct of the newspaper seems impossible without you, as well as other routine tasks in my office. Why this should be, I cannot tell. It is insupportable that Mr Chiffinch should have you at his beck and call whenever he wishes, disrupting the work of my department. I shall take steps to remedy it. But, in the meantime, I require your presence in Scotland Yard as soon as possible.’

I bowed. ‘Yes, sir. Believe me, I wish it myself.’

He sniffed, gave me a curt nod and swept out into the street to hail a hackney.

I made my way to the Matted Gallery. There was a door from here that led to the King’s Backstairs, the province of Mr Chiffinch. I asked one of the guards to send word to him that I was here and hoped to speak to him.

While I waited, I studied the picture of the Italian widow again, and decided that she looked nothing like Lady Quincy. But I did not want to run the risk of Chiffinch finding me in front of the painting, so I walked up and down for a quarter of an hour until a servant approached me. He conducted me to the gloomy chamber off the Backstairs where Chiffinch and I had met once before, earlier in the year. The small window was barred and had a view of the river. The rain was beating against the glass and the room smelled of sewage. It was an uncomfortable place that in my limited experience of it existed solely for uncomfortable meetings.

Chiffinch was already there. It was not yet dark, but he had had the candles lit. He was sitting at the table with the window behind him and a pile of papers and the usual bottle of wine before him. He listened intently while I told him of what I had learned at Clarendon House and Fallow Street.

I described Alderley’s body, and the unresolved mystery of how he came to be in the locked pavilion in the garden, and the ambiguous circumstances of his death. I gave him an account of my conversation with Lord Clarendon, mentioning both my lord’s anger at this desecration of his late wife’s pavilion and his wish to avoid scandal. I added that his gentleman, Mr Milcote, had hinted that it might be to everyone’s benefit if the body could be moved elsewhere.

‘Ah,’ Chiffinch said. ‘Interesting.’ He waved his finger at me. ‘Proceed, Marwood.’

When I came to what had happened in Fallow Street, I told Chiffinch no lies but I rationed the truth. I mentioned the unexpected signs of recent affluence. I told him about the so-called Bishop, Alderley’s visitor on Friday evening, whom Alderley had advised to go to Watford to tell them about Jerusalem. But I omitted the painting of the woman whose eyes had been gouged out: the woman in old-fashioned clothes who looked like Cat Lovett.

Chiffinch said nothing while I talked, which was unlike him. When I finished, he still did not speak. He ran his finger around and around the rim of his wine glass. After a while, a high wavering whine filled the air, growing gradually louder.

I shifted in my chair. ‘Should I send to Watford tomorrow, sir, to enquire about newly arrived preachers? I could write directly to Mr Williamson’s correspondent there. And I myself could call on this Mr Turner at Barnard’s Inn about the mortgage. Also, I have arranged to go back to Clarendon House to question the servant who—’

Suddenly the whine stopped.

‘Hakesby,’ Chiffinch said.

I stared open-mouthed at him.

Chiffinch regarded me coldly. ‘Hakesby,’ he repeated, wrinkling his nose. ‘I know the name is familiar to you because you yourself mentioned the man to me not a year ago. The surveyor-architect who has an office near Covent Garden. Well respected by his peers, I understand. And, as you and I both know, a man who has previously been of interest to me.’

I recovered as quickly as I could. ‘Yes, sir, I remember him well.’ I was on dangerous ground for Chiffinch had helped to arrange my meeting in the Banqueting House with Lady Quincy. He might reasonably expect that it had jogged my memory about Hakesby as well as Cat. He had known that Cat had found a refuge with Hakesby at the end of last year.

‘Did you know that this man was the architect working on Lord Clarendon’s pavilion?’ Chiffinch said in a silken voice.

‘Yes, sir. Mr Milcote – Lord Clarendon’s gentleman – chanced to mention it this morning, but I thought it—’

‘Did it not occur to you that there might be a connection?’ Chiffinch’s tone was heavy with sarcasm. ‘We already knew the Lovett woman was working under an assumed name as Hakesby’s servant, and that the King was content it should be so as long as she didn’t make trouble. He is not a vengeful man. When Lady Quincy told him that Alderley was threatening Mistress Lovett again, he was even content that you should warn her of the fact. Some might think that he’s too tender-hearted, but it is not my place to question his decisions.’

I tried to put the matter in the best light I could: ‘I thought it unlikely Mr Hakesby would take a woman to a site where he was working.’

‘This woman is the daughter of a Regicide: and by all accounts, she’s a fanatic like her father – a madwoman who hates her cousin Alderley so much that she stabbed him in the eye. He was lucky to escape alive. And she tried to burn down the house about their ears as her uncle and aunt slept.’ For once in his life, Chiffinch sounded genuinely shocked. ‘That a woman should do so foul a thing to her family, to the cousins who sheltered her,’ he went on. ‘Why, it beggars belief and turns it out of doors. And her cousin Alderley is now found drowned, probably murdered, in the very place where Hakesby is working. Does it not strike you as significant?’

‘I grant it’s a curious coincidence, sir.’

‘A coincidence? Would you have me think you a fool or a traitor, Marwood? There’s only one possible conclusion.’ He opened the folder before him and took out a sheet of paper. ‘I received a letter this afternoon.’

He slid it across the desk to me. He watched me, sipping his wine, as I read it. There was neither date nor address.

Honoured Sir,

Mr Edward Alderley lies drowned in Lord Clarendon’s new Pavilion at Clarendon House. He was murdered by his Cousin, Catherine Lovett, the Regicidal Spawn and Monster of her Sex. You will find Her hiding in the House of Mr Hakesby in Henrietta Street, by Covent Garden. Mr Hakesby has often been at Clarendon House of late, and the She-Devil with Him. Hakesby holds the Keys to the Pavilion.

A Friend to His Majesty

The handwriting was clumsy but by no means illiterate, as if the writer had sought to disguise it, perhaps holding the pen in his left hand. I turned the letter over. There was nothing on it except Chiffinch’s name. The person who had written it had known to address the letter to him, not to a magistrate or some great man charged with public order. Outside Whitehall, few people knew of the importance of Chiffinch, the man who arranged the King’s private affairs. And fewer still could know that the King had charged him to look into the death of Edward Alderley.

‘It was handed in at the gate,’ Chiffinch said. ‘I have enquired, but no one knows who brought it.’

There was a ringing in my ears. ‘Is the woman Lovett in custody, sir?’

‘Unfortunately not,’ Chiffinch said. ‘Officers went to arrest her this afternoon, but she had gone. Her flight is as good as a confession of guilt.’

I nodded, as if in agreement. Dear God, I thought as the implications sunk in, this damnable letter taken together with her flight could bring her to the gallows.

‘They’ve brought in Hakesby,’ Chiffinch was saying. ‘But he’s not much use to us or to anyone else. Doddering old fool. We’ll find her, of course, and it won’t take long.’

From my point of view, the situation was growing worse by the moment. ‘Can we find out who wrote the letter?’ I asked.

‘How do I know?’ Chiffinch snapped. ‘But it doesn’t much matter. Once we lay hands on Catherine Lovett, we have the evidence to hang her. Perhaps Hakesby, too, as her accomplice. It’s possible that he arranged for her to disappear, or even had a hand in Alderley’s murder himself. After all, she must have needed help. She may be a she-devil but when all’s said and done she’s only a woman. She probably hired ruffians to do her dirty work for her.’

He didn’t know Catherine Lovett as I did. I bit back the retort that if all women were like her there would be some doubt as to which was the weaker sex.

Chiffinch refilled his glass and leaned closer across the table. ‘On the other hand, Marwood,’ he said in a lower voice, ‘there’s another side to this. The King desires that the matter should not cause a stir. Lord Clarendon’s future is much on his mind, and a scandal of this nature could upset a number of delicate negotiations he has in train. And there are people who would seek to make mischief if they could. It’s no secret that the Duke of Buckingham, for example, is no friend to Lord Clarendon, or to the Duke of York. He would use this scandal to further his own ambitions.’

He paused to drink. He set down his glass and stared at me. There was worse to come. His frankness was an ill omen.

‘So,’ he said, silkier than ever, ‘there are two things you must do to serve the King. One is to see to it that the Lovett woman is laid by the heels as soon as possible. And the other is to move Alderley’s body away from Clarendon House and its garden.’

I felt as if I were falling, with no more control over my destination than an unborn baby has. ‘But where to? How?’

‘Better if I leave that to you, and to Lord Clarendon’s gentleman. Milcote, I think you said. A capable man, I’m told, as I would expect – my lord doesn’t suffer fools gladly. I should encourage him to play the principal part, if I were you.’ He opened a drawer, took out a purse and tossed it to me. ‘Use that if you need money, though you must account for it afterwards.’

‘Sir, do I understand that you—’

‘Understand this, Marwood: move that body. It must not be an embarrassment to Lord Clarendon. Or to the King. Put it in some discreet spot where anyone could have gone. Mark you, the needs of justice will still be served, and the woman will still pay the price of the murder she has committed, either by her own hand or through hired instruments. It’s merely that we shall arrange the circumstances a little more conveniently for other people.’

‘But if Alderley’s body is moved elsewhere, what will connect it to Catherine Lovett?’ I said.

‘Come – you’re being obtuse. Someone must have killed him, eh? And, as I’ve already said, it’s well known that she hates him, and that she tried to kill him in his own house last year. And her flight is a tacit admission that she was responsible for his death. Besides, once the judge hears who her father was, there will be no difficulty in the court reaching the right verdict.’

Chiffinch gave me leave to go. But as I reached the door, he held up his hand.

‘One moment. You know the old proverb – “the more a turd is stirred, the more it stinks”? Take care not to stir this one too much. Or the stink will overwhelm us all.’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

TOWARDS THE END of her second day at Mangot’s Farm, Cat sat by the window of her chamber, looking out over the sloping fields behind the house. The light was fading, and the tents and cabins below were mercifully less obvious than they were in the daylight.

It was a chilly evening. No more than two or three fires were burning, though scores of people were living there, for firewood was scarce after all these months. It was quieter than it had been earlier in the day when, under Israel Halmore’s direction, the men of the camp had been building further shelters and strengthening the existing ones, using the nails and canvas that he and Mangot had brought from London. There had been ground frosts already, and the refugees realized that winter would soon be upon them.

Cat’s casement was open, and she heard the sound of singing from one side of the camp; some of the men gathered here in the evening and drank a raw grain spirit that they distilled in one of the ruined outhouses in the farmyard. The smell of smoke drifted towards her, mingling with the smells from the stream the refugees used for a latrine. Once upon a time, Mangot’s Farm had prospered, but that time was long gone.

This refugee camp was not like those that the authorities had established on the outskirts of London in the immediate aftermath of the Great Fire, such as Moorfields and Smithfield. These, almost all closed now, had been relatively well-administered affairs with makeshift streets neatly laid out and lined with temporary shops, and with access to markets and to the jobs that had sprung up as the city began to grow anew from its own ashes. This camp, by contrast, was small, isolated and chaotic. The only authorities its inhabitants recognized were Israel Halmore, who dominated the others by force of personality, and Mr Mangot, who let them use his land because he could no longer work it himself, and because he believed that God had commanded him in a vision to expiate his sins and those of his dead son by providing a home for the homeless.

It was warmer in the kitchen, but she preferred to be up here, alone in the little chamber under the eaves that had once belonged to the old man’s son. The door was solid, and she could bolt herself in. Besides, there was nothing to attract her in the rest of the house, which was gradually turning into a ruin, and only a fool would venture into the camp itself unless they had no choice in the matter.

She felt sleepy, and her mind drifted back to the commission at Clarendon House. Modernizing an old building like the pavilion was a tricky matter, as Mr Hakesby had pointed out to my lord; it would have been far simpler to pull it down altogether and rebuild it from scratch to match its near twin in the opposite corner of the garden. However well they did it, the result must be a mongrel building, particularly from the rear and side elevations, neither one thing nor the other. On the other hand, she thought, the mansion itself was a mongrel building, for all the money that had been spent on it. It was classical in its pediment and its symmetries but, in the native English manner, it lacked classical orders. Should they ever look down on it from heaven, Andrea Palladio would shake his head and Vitruvius would throw up his hands in disgust.

The pavilion was a matter of sentiment, Cat had understood, a gift from an old man to his ailing wife. At the start, they had occasionally seen her ladyship herself. Later, when her health worsened, Lord Clarendon, wincing at the pain from his gout, had sometimes shuffled down the garden on the arm of Mr Milcote to inspect the works. But then Lady Clarendon had died, and he had come no more. Mr Milcote, my lord’s gentleman, came in their place.

Cat’s mind shied away from Mr Milcote. She was increasingly worried by the conversation she had overheard in the cart yesterday morning, on their way to the farm. If Halmore had been right, the Duke of Buckingham was orchestrating the attacks on Clarendon House. Who was the Bishop, who was acting as the Duke’s agent? It had sounded as if he planned something else to harm Clarendon, something much worse. Perhaps he would incite the mob to break down the gates and set fire to the house itself. He might even attack Clarendon in person.

She had liked Lady Clarendon, and she respected the Earl; good clients, who took an informed interest in the work and paid Hakesby’s bills on time, were few and far between. The house itself might not be architecturally perfect, but she had no wish to see it damaged. She wished there were a way to warn them.

A woman screeched somewhere in the camp, reminding Cat that she could not stay here for ever – it was time for her to prepare the old man’s supper, if one could call the meal that. This was part of the price she paid for his hospitality.

She went slowly down the creaking stairs, avoiding the third tread from the bottom, which was rotten, and went into the kitchen. Mr Mangot was already there. He was reading his Bible by the faint, evil-smelling glow of a rushlight, running his finger slowly along the lines of words. He still wore his smock, which was made of unbleached linen and too large for him. He was painfully thin and always melancholy.

Cat made up the fire and set the pan of soup to warm. There seemed to be nothing else to eat here, apart from stale bread which they dipped in the soup to soften it. She had given Mr Mangot another five shillings this morning in the hope that he would buy more food.

Outside in the yard, one of the dogs barked. The other dog took it up. Then they fell silent.

‘Is someone coming here?’ she whispered, slipping her hand into her pocket, where the knife was.

‘The carrier, probably,’ he said, without looking up. His voice sounded creaky with disuse. ‘They bark differently if it’s a stranger. He’ll see Israel first, then he’ll come here. He calls for orders on Monday evenings. He’s a pedlar, too – always got something to sell.’

‘Food?’ Cat asked.

He shook his head, his finger still moving across the page.

‘Could he take a letter to London for me?’

Mangot raised his head from the book. His eyes were so filmy that she wondered he could read at all. ‘A letter? You can ask him. Who’s it to?’

‘Your nephew.’

He snorted. ‘Are you his sweetheart?’

‘No.’

‘Just as well.’

She glanced at the pot on the smouldering fire. The soup would take another quarter of an hour to heat through, at least. ‘I won’t be long.’

She took a rushlight upstairs to her chamber and wrote a few lines to Brennan.

Beg H to warn Ld C that the D of B bribes the mob outside CH, through a man they call the Bishop, who is their leader. The Bishop intends some future move against him that will cause C particular pain. H could write a letter, saying he’d heard tavern talk about it.

She left the note unsigned. She folded the paper, torn from her notebook, and wrote Brennan’s name on the outside. She had nothing to seal the paper with. She wondered if it would do any good, even if it reached Brennan: he would have to persuade Hakesby to take it seriously – no easy task – and Hakesby would have to warn Lord Clarendon. It might be better if he went instead to Mr Milcote. She hesitated, wondering whether to unfold the letter and add a postscript. Then she frowned. There was unfinished business with Milcote; wiser not to involve him.

There was a hammering on the door downstairs. She put the letter in her pocket and went down to the kitchen. The carrier was showing Mangot a packet of newly printed chapbooks, sermons and pamphlets. He looked up as she entered, revealing a wall eye, and appraised her swiftly, before turning back to the farmer.

While the men were talking, she wiped the table and set out the wooden platters and cups. She stirred the soup, willing it to heat up more quickly. Mangot bought a pamphlet about a Papist plot to murder the King with a poisoned dagger as he was going to his devotions in Whitehall.

When the carrier was packing up his stock, Cat asked him if he would take a letter to London for her. He agreed to deliver it to Henrietta Street in the morning. He charged her two shillings for the service, which they both knew was an extortionate price.

‘I want you to put it in the hands of a particular man, not a servant or anyone,’ she said. ‘He works for Mr Hakesby, at the sign of the Rose, and his name’s Brennan, and he has a thin face and ginger hair. He’s Mr Mangot’s nephew.’

The carrier smiled at her, revealing a toothless mouth, and spat into the fire, narrowly missing the pot with the soup. ‘Then that’ll be an extra shilling.’

She paid him reluctantly. As the carrier turned to go, the back door opened. A current of cold air swept into the kitchen, followed by the tall figure of Israel Halmore.

A rabbit dangled from his right hand. It was already skinned and gutted. He tossed it on to the table, where it lay, lolling, in a parody of ease. ‘For the pot, master.’

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