Inside, all was darkness until he and Proctor went in with their torches. Seeker set his up in a bracket on the wall and surveyed the partially illuminated room. A typical gentleman’s hall with good oak dining table and chairs, and settles bedecked with embroidered silk cushions at either side of a recently quenched fire. The hangings on the wall were very old, if Seeker was any judge of arras. A dresser at the far wall held good pewter, and silver too. Near one end of the table was a large salt, and the evidence of an unfinished meal.
‘Someone left in a hurry, said Proctor.
‘I doubt it,’ said Seeker. Somewhere, he could hear someone trying not to move, someone trying to cover their own breathing. He stood stock-still a moment, listening, and then strode quickly to a door in the corner of the room, wrenching it open. Backed into the far corner of the kitchen, and brandishing a long-handled bird-roaster, whose lethal-looking red-hot tines had lately been planted in the embers of the cooking hearth, was an elderly woman. The expression on her face left Seeker in no doubt that should he come any closer, she would lance him like a joint of meat.
‘Easy, Grandmother,’ he said, holding up a cautious hand. ‘I’m not here for you. It’s your master I’m looking for. Where is he?’
The old woman said nothing, but merely scowled the more, and jabbed the tines of her roasting fork in his direction.
‘All right then,’ he said, calling one of Proctor’s men in to watch her. ‘I’ll find him myself.’ He was about to go back into the main body of the house when he noticed the old woman was not only brandishing her weapon, but backed up against a small door in the corner of the room. ‘Out of the way,’ he said, only provoking another thrust of her fork. Seeker sighed and reached for the handle of a broom set against the wall near him. He’d done this a hundred times, a thousand maybe, in drills. The disarming of the old woman took less time than the hefting of a bale of hay, though the process was noisier. She was still squawking when he broke the lock on the door she’d been so carefully guarding.
This room was larger even than Bushell’s hall. Like a barn, almost, but brought into other uses than had first been intended, the floor beaten but the walls dressed as if for the inside of the house. One wall was almost entirely lined with books, two others were covered in charts – not maps, but astronomical and scientific charts – and the fourth supported shelves stacked with more liquids, powders, plants and metals than would have filled John Drake’s apothecary five times over. A table ran down the centre of the room, and on it were all manner of stilling apparatuses, small stoves, spouted alembics, flasks and other vessels of peculiar shape and size. A larger stove was positioned at one end of the table, and at the far end of the room stood not one, but three brick furnaces, varying in size. A large stack of wood for burning dried near the furnaces. No doubt this was the place in which Bushell and his cronies conducted their experiments. Seeker put a hand out towards the nearest furnace and felt the warmth. ‘He’s about somewhere,’ he said.
It was in the attics that they finally found him, but when Proctor’s light began to illuminate the long room under the eaves of Bushell’s house, Seeker thought he had descended rather to Hades. It was a gallery, such as he had seen before in wealthy men’s houses, and at the same time was nothing like he had seen anywhere else. Black drapes were suspended from the rafters and hung in swags over the one small window, set in the far gable end. Beneath the window was a bed, also draped in black. Seeker went cautiously towards it. It was empty, but painted on the wall just above it, as if in fact lying on it, was a dead man, his bones almost poking through taut and luminous flesh. That the man was meant to have died in torment of the soul was very clear. Seeker looked at it longer than he should have done then turned away.
‘What’s up that end?’ he said.
‘What we’re looking for,’ said Proctor.
Seeker didn’t know what he was looking at to start with. His first thought was that someone had erected a tomb inside the room. A Gothic arch, intricately carved like something in a Romish chapel, and painted black, took up most of the opposing gable wall. The light from Proctor’s torch this time showed not a dead man, but a skeleton, and as Seeker became aware of it, he realised that there were death’s heads positioned all around the room. But he didn’t pay much attention to them, because beneath the archway was a couch, on which a man was sitting, watching them with an amused detachment. This man was very much alive. Seeker knew him from descriptions given by Thomas Faithly and John Drake: well made, about ten years older than he looks, ruddy of face with a nose like a hawk. ‘A hawk that would charm the birds from the trees, before devouring their nests,’ Drake had said. The man was looking at them as if considering whether or not to buy them.
‘Thomas Bushell,’ said Seeker.
‘I cannot deny it,’ said Bushell. ‘And you, I imagine – from the delicacy of your entry, and what I have heard of your, ahem, form – are Captain Seeker.’
‘Why are you hiding up here?’
Bushell raised his eyebrows as if extremely surprised by the question. ‘Captain, I can assure you, I am not hiding. I am sitting in my own house. Giving thanks for my many blessings, and contemplating my mortality, like any honest Englishman.’
Seeker jerked a thumb towards the image at the other end of the room. ‘What kind of honest Englishman has something like that on his wall, or has his housekeeper threaten the Lord Protector’s soldiers with heated roasting forks?’
‘Perhaps the kind who has encountered Cromwell’s soldiers before,’ said Bushell, the charm in his voice barely concealing the hostility underneath. ‘What are you doing in my house, Seeker?’
This was better. Seeker had no desire to be led through the dusky labyrinth of this man’s mind. Straight out with it was the best way. ‘First, you can tell me why you’ve been going about by the name of Mulberry.’
Seeker could see that this question surprised and somewhat displeased Bushell. ‘You refer to my visits to Mr Evelyn’s house, I think.’
‘Amongst other places,’ said Seeker.
Bushell didn’t much like that, either. ‘I hide my identity on certain occasions when I am not entirely certain of the company I’m in. I was on the late King’s side in the war, and many of your persuasion choose not to forget it. Despite being in the Lord Protector’s favour, I know I’m not trusted. I would not have the opprobrium attaching to me attach itself to friends who are innocent of any malice towards the state.’
Seeker gave a dismissive grunt. ‘Same could be said for half of England. We’ll leave Mr Evelyn aside for now. What were you doing at the dog-breeder’s out on the marsh three nights ago?’
Seeker could see that for all his bravado, Bushell had not expected this.
‘Breeder’s? I-I don’t know what—’
‘You were seen,’ cut in Seeker, ‘so don’t waste my time. The man breeds dogs for illegal fighting. You were seen arriving there, with a cart. What, exactly, were you doing there?’
Bushell’s mind was obviously working for an explanation that would satisfy, no doubt constructing a thing of brilliance with which to put off the unlettered soldier. Seeker decided a prompt was required. ‘Tell me what you know of the bear.’
Now the man’s ruddy face blanched. His eyes darted from side to side in one last attempt to extricate himself by obfuscation, but then Seeker saw the sinking of the chest, the lowering of the eyes, those gestures he had come to recognise as preceding someone deciding to tell the truth.
‘I never saw it,’ he said.
‘But you know of it,’ said Seeker.
Bushell nodded. ‘I had heard of it.’
‘Who from?’
Bushell shrugged. ‘Rumours had begun to circulate amongst my alchemical associates that one of the Bankside bears had escaped Colonel Pride’s firing squad, but no one knew where it was to be found.’
Seeker frowned. ‘But why sh
ould you care? What interests could alchemists have in an animal like that?’
Some of the confidence returned to Bushell. ‘Oh, there is little in this world that is not of interest to the man of science, and there is much that can be learned from the study and observation of an animal carcass. But as to bears, it is believed that their bile has many curative properties, and it is in this in particular that I was interested.’
‘Their bile?’ said Seeker, with some disgust. ‘And how did you propose to get hold of that?’
‘Well,’ said Bushell, becoming more animated by the minute, ‘it is, as you know, stored in the gall bladder. It can be obtained by the removal of the gall bladder from the animal’s carcass. However, I am very interested in the possibility that it might be milked from a living animal, you see . . .’
But Seeker held up a hand to stop him. ‘How did you propose to get hold of the beast?’
‘Ah, now that was the difficulty. It took several months of enquiry, in some very dark places, I might add, before I discovered that it was housed not a mile from me, with a breeder on the marsh.’
Seeker and Proctor exchanged looks. ‘The one you were seen arriving at the other night.’
Bushell nodded. ‘The breeder was very wary at first. He didn’t appear at all for our first arranged meeting, and on the second occasion I had to endure the spectacle of watching the poor beast tear some dogs to pieces before he was convinced that my interest was genuine. A good deal of money it cost me, just to attend those fights.’
‘He was baiting it?’
‘Yes. After the closing of the Bear Garden last year, that animal has become very valuable – there are plenty of people who will pay good money to watch it fight.’
‘So what happened, once he realised you weren’t there to report him?’
‘We made a bargain. I was to have access to the animal, for one week – at a quite scandalous price, I might add – in which to conduct my experiments. I was also to furnish him with sedative preparations for use when the beast was being transported. Afterwards I was to return the animal to the breeder’s property.’
‘And you did this?’
Bushell shook his head. ‘I was to have collected the animal from the place on the marsh that night – the one when I was evidently seen. But when I got there, the breeder told me not only that the animal had been moved elsewhere – somewhere north of the river, I believe – but that he had changed his mind. Another client had offered him a higher price.’
‘For what purpose?
‘I didn’t ask, but I doubt it was to further the ends of science. I was greatly disappointed and not a little angry, but there is not much you can do when the object of your anger has a pack of snarling mastiffs at his back. It was a great disappointment to my scientific friends. Several of them had lent me money to facilitate the bargain.’
Seeker had no interest in Bushell’s financial dealings, but he was interested in Bushell’s friends. ‘Sergeant Proctor, would you be good enough to go back down those stairs and fetch up some of the paper, pen and ink in that first bedchamber. Mr Bushell here’s going to write me down a list of those friends of his, the ones he told about that bear.’
*
It was nearing midnight when they finally left Bushell’s house, having made a thorough examination of grounds and outbuildings as well. They should have been tired, all six of them, but they weren’t. Proctor’s men were hand-picked, and they wouldn’t tire until he told them to. Seeker himself was invigorated: at last he was making some progress in the hunt for the evil individual who had left Joseph Grindle chained in a shed on Bankside, to be mauled to death by a tormented bear. Within an hour that dog-breeder would be his prisoner. Within two, the man would be telling him who he’d sold that bear to.
Bushell’s dark sentinel of a house receded into nothingness behind them. The mist on the marsh hadn’t cleared at all. Had Seeker not seen the place once or twice ablaze with flowers and alive with dragonflies and wildfowl on a bright summer’s day, he would wonder if the mist ever did lift. The horses placed their feet carefully as they worked their way across the paths towards the breeder’s compound. Their ears were pricked as carefully as were those of Seeker and Proctor. It was the kind of night and place where wickedness might take its chance and be away before dawn.
The first thing was a sudden alteration in the rhythm of Seeker’s horse beneath him, a stutter and then a soft whinny. The next was a huge shape leaping towards him out of the mist, only to come to a halt at his horse’s side and begin jumping and barking dementedly. One of Proctor’s men already had his horse-axe off his belt and was raising it into the air when another shouted, ‘Stop! It’s the captain’s dog.’
Seeker leapt down from his horse to try to calm the animal. He had a moment of confusion, in the darkness, before he knew the wetness beneath his hand as he smoothed the dog’s flank was not moisture from the air, but blood from the animal’s side. Its ear, too, was torn and bleeding profusely.
A deep groan went through Seeker. ‘What’s happened to you, boy?’ He looked around him as if expecting a response. ‘Who’s done this?’
Proctor too was now down off his horse and examining the agitated animal. ‘Dog fight,’ he said. He scanned a wound by the spread of his hand. ‘Mastiff.’
Seeker felt more anger than he thought he could control. He started to undo his riding cloak, but one of the other soldiers was already there, by the dog’s side, trying to put his own round it. The dog shook him off and continued to bark relentlessly at Seeker.
‘Lead my horse,’ said Seeker to the man with the cloak. ‘All right, boy, show me.’
The dog, a leg clearly injured, lurched ahead, and Seeker, his torch raised, jogged along to keep up with him. Proctor and the others followed with the horses, their torches sweeping the ground around them. It didn’t take long, ten minutes at most, and Seeker wasn’t even sure what direction they’d gone in, but suddenly the dog had disappeared off the path and run over squelching mud to stand and bark at the edge of a shallow pool. Seeker followed, the mud sucking at his boots in a way that took him back over ten years, to the bloody battlefields of Naseby and Marston Moor.
What he saw when he got past the dog, who at last ceased his barking, also took him back to what he had witnessed on those fields. Lawrence Ingolby was lying on his side, part-submerged in the shallow pool of water, blood mixed with mud streaked down the side of his face. The hair that Seeker had always thought half-chewed-looking and mud-coloured was dark and flat against the waxy skin of that face where it, too, was not also matted in mud and blood. The one arm of the jacket not submerged was shredded, and bloodied rags of linen from what had once been Ingolby’s shirt poked through into the night.
Seeker collapsed on to his knees at the pool’s side, the memory of a brother soldier who had died such a death all those years ago coming blindingly in to his mind. He felt inside him the silent howl, an echo of that old grief. Summoning a deep breath to overcome it, he reached out his hands to take the body by the shoulders and pull it from the pool. Lawrence’s head lolled to one side, and a small sound, like a groan, the last gasp of the soul leaving the body, escaped him. Seeker shifted the weight of the torso slightly to get a grip with his other arm beneath the legs. Another loll of the head, a breath, the flicker of an eye, opening only long enough to register his face.
‘Took your time, didn’t you,’ the young man murmured, before passing out again, cold.
Twenty-Two
Hyde Park
Cecil could feel himself shivering. The morning was cold enough as it was, but he’d slept less than two hours in the night and his body yearned for rest. He was getting too old for this. His eyes smarted as if they’d had gravel thrown in them, and his stomach was sick from fatigue. This was the worst of days to do it, after the night they had had, but Boyes was almost out of patience – especially after the business
of the dog. It was to be done today, or they would have no choice but to put into action their only other plan, and not one of them truly wished to do that.
Fish, though, had no reservations about how the day would unfold. ‘It will be done, and none but Cromwell suffer. So simple a thing, it is a wonder it was not done before.’
‘It has been tried,’ said Cecil. Tried, and failed, like every other attempt upon the charmed life of Oliver Cromwell.
‘Not by us,’ said Fish. Cecil made no response to this. That old Leveller certainty of Fish’s, that Puritan arrogance. How had he come to be mixed in this business?
‘Though he might have come,’ Fish added.
‘Who?’
‘Boyes – who else should I mean? An extra man on watch, or to provide a diversion, would more thoroughly ensure our success.’
‘He has other things to attend to this morning,’ said Cecil. ‘Besides, there would have been a greater risk of us being noticed, if he’d been here, upon a horse. His height alone would have attracted attention. I half-feared that he might demand to do the thing himself.’
The gate at which they had met was little used, being on the less fashionable side of the park, and one rarely used by Cromwell. It had been left open for them, as had been arranged.
‘Toope was as good as his word,’ said Fish, leading the way through it.
On this occasion, thought Cecil, remembering the debacle of Hammersmith, where Toope’s information had proved false to the extent they were almost taken by Damian Seeker. Instead of voicing his thoughts, he said, ‘The gate is open, granted. But will Cromwell come?’
‘He’ll come,’ said Fish. ‘And Damian Seeker will have other business on his hands today, I’d warrant.’
The Bear Pit Page 24
