Death in St James's Park: 8 (Exploits of Thomas Chaloner)

by Gregory, Susanna

  Without knowing it, the Earl provided the perfect diversion by starting to ask another question, and in an entirely unnecessary burst of violence, Freer slapped him, knocking the wig from his head. Chaloner’s first dagger thudded with neat precision into Freer’s chest. The soldier gaped at it in disbelief before his knees buckled and he slumped to the floor.

  Chaloner’s second blade took Rea in the shoulder, and he had drawn his sword and raced towards Gardner almost before it had landed, aiming to incapacitate the clerk before he realised what was happening. But Gardner was no stranger to skirmishing. He met Chaloner’s attack confidently, although the force of it sent him staggering backwards.

  ‘Chaloner!’ cried the Earl in relief. ‘I knew these vile devils would never best you!’

  Chaloner found the remark touchingly encouraging, and he went after Gardner with renewed vigour, gratified when the clerk was forced to retreat, face white with alarm. He was on the verge of disabling the man permanently when the door opened and Oxenbridge entered.

  ‘Hah!’ Oxenbridge’s button-black eyes glittered triumphantly in the lamplight as he hauled his rapier from its sheath. ‘I am glad you are here. I have a score to settle with you.’

  Chaloner sagged, knowing that Oxenbridge’s arrival meant the end for him and the Earl. He could not fight him and Gardner together, not even if he had been fresh. Rea was lurching upright, too, and while he would not be joining a skirmish, he was still a threat. Oxenbridge swished his sword through the air, testing its balance, as Gardner advanced on Chaloner from the opposite direction.

  ‘Wait,’ said the Earl quickly, struggling to his feet. ‘I know you mean to kill us, but will you answer some questions first? You can call it a dying man’s last request.’

  He glanced at Chaloner, who understood what he was trying to do: give him time to devise a plan – or time to gather strength for a superhuman assault that would see him victorious. Neither was going to happen, of course. Chaloner had no ideas, and his body was numb with exhaustion. He looked at Oxenbridge, and had the peculiar thought that perhaps he had been right to have had nightmares about his sister’s doll as a child. It was about to be the agent of his death.

  ‘Answer questions?’ Rea regarded the Earl incredulously, hand to his injured shoulder. ‘But we are about to—’

  ‘Why not?’ interrupted Gardner. Oxenbridge said nothing, his dark eyes fixed unblinkingly on Chaloner; it was unsettling, and the spy wished he would look at someone else. ‘It will pass the time, and I doubt Chaloner will keep us entertained for long.’

  ‘Who started all this?’ asked the Earl, before the others could demur. ‘John Fry is dead. He cannot be your Messiah.’

  ‘You are right: he died eight years ago.’ Gardner laughed when he saw Chaloner’s surprise. ‘But we have reincarnated him as something far more magnificent than he ever was in life – more clever with words, more passionate, more cunning …’

  ‘Are you saying that someone has been using his identity?’ asked the Earl incredulously. ‘Who? Le Notre, because a weakened England suits France? Wood, because he is a lunatic? Isaac Dorislaus, because he is Dutch at heart? O’Neill, because his Post Office lies at the heart of—’

  ‘I can tell you who it is not,’ jibed Gardner, smirking at Chaloner. ‘Dorislaus.’

  ‘Dorislaus!’ spat Oxenbridge. ‘Have you killed him for us, Chaloner? We have certainly done our best to make you suspect him of treachery. And it serves him right – I cannot abide incorruptible men.’

  Chaloner was heartily glad he had not obliged.

  ‘So you were never friends with Fry,’ said the Earl quickly, when Oxenbridge took a step forward. ‘And you were not helping him to organise a rebellion. You were helping someone else.’

  Oxenbridge inclined his head, but his advance did not falter.

  ‘Copping,’ squeaked the Earl frantically. ‘Why did you kill him?’

  ‘Because he betrayed us.’ Oxenbridge smiled coldly at Chaloner, who could not escape the unnerving sense that it was Death leering at him. ‘Thank you for holding him in a position where dispatching him was so easy. Will you do the same for Clarendon? If so, I may let you go.’

  ‘But Copping gave you Knight’s letters.’ The Earl swallowed hard, as if he imagined Chaloner might be tempted by the offer.

  ‘Yes, thank God,’ said Gardner. ‘If they had been sent, our plans would have suffered a serious setback. The ones to Palmer, Buckingham and Wood were particularly revealing.’

  So Wood was not the mastermind, thought Chaloner numbly.

  ‘There was one to Bishop, too,’ said the Earl, as Oxenbridge took another step forward. He spoke flatly now, finally understanding that words could not prevent what was going to happen.

  ‘That was the nastiest stroke of all,’ scowled Gardner. ‘Bishop would have used it to destroy O’Neill, and we like having him in charge of the Post Office.’

  So was that the answer? O’Neill was the arch villain? Or was it just that he was too incompetent to notice what was unfolding under his nose? The Earl seemed to have run out of questions, and Gardner and Oxenbridge advanced on Chaloner in a pincer-like movement. To stall them a little longer, Chaloner asked one of his own.

  ‘Is that why you were helping Knight to escape, Gardner? To lay hold of his letters?’

  ‘What is wrong with your voice?’ asked Rea suspiciously.

  ‘Plague,’ replied Chaloner promptly. ‘So you had better not come near me or—’

  ‘I needed to find out where he had hidden them,’ explained Gardner. The lie about plague was contemptuously ignored. ‘Then Clarendon kindly issued warrants for our arrests, which was perfect – it threw Knight into my confidence.’

  ‘But surely he knew that you were one of the perpetrators,’ said the Earl weakly.

  ‘He knew about the plot, but not who was involved,’ explained Gardner smugly. ‘He would have guessed my role when I took the letters from him, though, after which I would have killed him. Chaloner’s arrival was a damned nuisance.’

  ‘What were you and Oxenbridge doing in White Hall last week?’ asked Chaloner quickly, as Gardner took a firmer grip on his sword, the memory obviously still rankling. Poor Knight, he thought, doomed no matter how the encounter had ended.

  ‘We went to kill you,’ said Oxenbridge, performing a series of fancy manoeuvres with his blade that told Chaloner he was about to be cut to pieces. ‘We lured you to a lonely part of the palace, but then it occurred to me that we could not risk Thurloe coming after us, so we let you go. It was a mistake – one we shall rectify today, as he no longer matters.’

  Chaloner’s blood ran cold. So he had been right to fear that something bad had happened to Thurloe.

  ‘We did not want you racing off to Buckinghamshire either,’ added Rea. He flexed his injured shoulder, and Chaloner saw his knife had done less damage than he had intended – Rea would still be a threat in the looming skirmish. ‘Where we would not know what you were doing, so Freer encouraged you to stay. You will pay for killing him, by the way. He was a good friend.’

  ‘He was,’ agreed Oxenbridge, black eyes bright with loathing. ‘So fight me, Chaloner, or I shall kill you where you stand. Gardner, step away. I can take him alone.’

  Chaloner only just managed to prevent himself from being run through in the first riposte. He pushed everything from his mind, concentrating entirely on his opponent and ignoring the aching weariness in his limbs. He fought with every ounce of his skill and strength, not the powerful, slashing style he had used against Harper, but the graceful fencing he had been taught as a youth.

  Oxenbridge matched him blow for blow, but he had not just learned that his only real friend ‘no longer mattered’ and so was not fuelled by deeply burning rage. His mouth formed a black circle of surprise when Chaloner scored a cut in his arm. He regarded the blood in astonishment, then fury replaced shock and he attacked in earnest.

  Chaloner met the challenge, fighting coldly and scientifically.
Oxenbridge yelped when Chaloner’s sword nicked first his shoulder and then his wrist. Chaloner continued to advance, driving Oxenbridge backwards, but before he could deliver the final blow, something hit him from behind, knocking him to the floor. Stunned, he was unable to resist as he was divested of his weapons and his hands were tied in front of him.

  ‘There was no need,’ cried Oxenbridge indignantly. ‘I was winning.’

  Gardner did not grace that claim with a reply, and Rea rolled his eyes.

  ‘I still do not understand,’ said the Earl. He sounded old, tired and defeated. ‘Why do you want to assassinate me?’

  ‘As Lord Chancellor, you are supposed to represent justice,’ replied Oxenbridge icily. ‘But you imprison innocent men and hold them without trial. Of course you must die.’

  And then Chaloner knew exactly who had master-minded the plot – a man who had been unjustly imprisoned himself, and who had not changed from the firebrand he had once been, but who had been acting a role, biding his time. The door opened, and he stood there, portly, triumphant and with the fanatical gleam in his eye that Chaloner remembered so well from Naseby.

  The Major strode into the Letter Hall. He oozed confidence, the diffident prisoner vanished, and the arrogance in his step showed that he thought victory was imminent. He was still very pale, though; his fatigue had not been feigned at least.

  ‘You!’ breathed the Earl, shocked beyond measure. ‘But how …’

  ‘I have been planning this ever since you put me in the Tower,’ replied the Major coldly. ‘And you have been putty in my hands. You and Gery have done everything I – via Freer – suggested.’

  ‘My son,’ said the Earl in an agonised voice. ‘It was you who wrote …’

  The Major’s eyes flashed. ‘Yes, and I am glad it cut you so deeply. You have deprived me of my family these last eighteen months, so you deserve to suffer, too.’

  ‘You said you feared the assassin would kill you,’ whispered the Earl, as all became clear. ‘But it was a ruse, to deflect suspicion. You were never a target. And if you are purporting to be John Fry, then you do not advocate peaceful political change either. You are a violent lunatic, and I was right to shut you in a place where you could do no harm.’

  With weary resignation, Chaloner saw a dribble of purple sealing wax on the Major’s sleeve. No wonder he was exhausted – he had penned all the missives that had so ignited London! With disgust, Chaloner knew he should have guessed sooner – Prynne had said the Major spent all his time writing in his cell, and it should have been obvious that he had been doing more than begging information from a few Post Office friends.

  ‘I had better make a start,’ said Oxenbridge, his pallid face forming what was almost a smile, although not a very nice one. ‘We want it done properly.’

  ‘Want what done properly?’ squeaked the Earl.

  ‘A fire,’ replied the Major. ‘You will be incinerated, along with the bodies of my yeomen.’

  ‘Your yeomen?’ cried the Earl. ‘But they liked you, treated you with kindness.’

  ‘Yes,’ sighed the Major. ‘But sacrifices must be made in the great fight for freedom.’

  He turned abruptly and led the way to the Sorting Room. Gardner and Rea followed, dragging Chaloner between them, while Oxenbridge brought up the rear with the Earl. It was an excellent place for a blaze, given that it was so well supplied with paper.

  ‘You will burn me alive?’ gulped the Earl when he saw letters already arranged in a pile.

  ‘I shall offer you a choice,’ said the Major stonily. ‘Which is more than you gave me. Oxenbridge has a poison that kills quickly. You may drink it, or you may perish in the flames. I recommend the former. It will be far less painful.’

  ‘The substance that killed Mary Wood and the birds?’ asked the Earl in a small voice. ‘Surgeon Wiseman said it is unusually potent.’

  ‘It is,’ said Oxenbridge, pleased. ‘I am an apothecary by trade, and I have devised a special process of distillation that concentrates toxins. My potions will be in gifts sent to the King and members of the Privy Council soon – assuming they do not run away to France first, of course.’

  The Earl gave a strangled moan, but Oxenbridge ended the discussion by dousing the piled papers in oil. There was a low roar as he applied a flame. Smoke billowed, and he added more documents, along with wood from the hearth. Chaloner coughed.

  ‘You thought I had forgotten you,’ spat the Major, rounding on him suddenly. ‘The insolent brat who took issue with my speech before Naseby. I knew you would be trouble the moment I heard you were Clarendon’s spy. But I bested you with ease, and now I shall have my revenge. I never forget an insult, and you made me look stupid that day.’

  Chaloner could think of nothing to say to such a ridiculously exaggerated sense of vengeance. He hacked again as the smoke seared his damaged throat.

  ‘Bishop was your friend,’ said the Earl unsteadily, stunned by the depth of the Major’s enmity. ‘Yet you encouraged him to plot against O’Neill, leading him down a dark—’

  ‘I have one friend and that is Oxenbridge,’ stated the Major. ‘Bishop – and Palmer, too – let me rot in prison without raising a finger to save me. But Bishop is arrested and Palmer will soon be assassinated. My revenge on them is complete.’

  ‘Oxenbridge is no friend to you,’ rasped Chaloner. ‘It was he who hired the mob to throw stones when you were in Palmer’s house.’

  The Major regarded him pityingly. ‘He acted on my orders, to make everyone think I was a victim of fanatics. And if a missile had injured you, Bishop or Palmer, then so much the better.’

  ‘But you spied for me in the Crown and the Antwerp,’ said the Earl, shaking his head in hopeless bewilderment. ‘You wrote reports naming the most dangerous villains, yet these will be your foot-soldiers. Why did you betray them?’

  ‘To protect himself.’ Chaloner did not bother to conceal his distaste. ‘And to ensure it would never cross your mind that he might be the real leader.’

  The Major shrugged. ‘It worked. And they are unimportant cogs in the wheels I have set in motion. In fact, everything I have done has worked – neither of you guessed that I only pretended to be afraid of Gery. You made it so easy, dragging me to White Hall, giving me leave to write any letters I chose – letters you assumed were for your benefit. Fools!’

  ‘And the information you provided?’ asked the Earl in a small voice. ‘You mentioned corrupt clerks, but the intelligence about the Devill’s Worke was so wild as to be unbelievable.’

  ‘Quite,’ gloated the Major. ‘I confided my real designs in such outlandish terms that you would naturally disregard them.’ He smirked at Chaloner. ‘And I told you how concerned I was about it, but the reality is that it was exactly what I intended.’

  ‘You aimed to use him,’ said the Earl softly, ‘by priming him to think that I ignored vital warnings.’

  ‘Which you did,’ said the Major. ‘I am sorry he followed you here, because it would have been delightful to watch him betray you.’

  ‘You would have been waiting a long time,’ muttered Chaloner.

  ‘Being dragged to White Hall suited me in other ways, too,’ the Major went on, unable to help himself. ‘It generated public sympathy for my plight, and it allowed me to learn when the King planned to hold noisy soirées, so that I would know when to send my poisoners to the park.’

  Oxenbridge’s blaze was now a bonfire, with flames licking towards the ceiling. He tossed more wood on to it, but some was damp, so it produced a thick white haze. The far side of the Sorting Room was already lost to sight, and it was becoming difficult to breathe. Chaloner’s eyes smarted and he tried to move away, but Gardner and Rea were holding him too tightly.

  ‘But why destroy the Post Office?’ asked the Earl. He struggled to control the wobble in his voice, unwilling for them to see the extent of his terror. ‘It has never harmed you.’

  ‘No, but O’Neill has – his lies saw me incarcerated. However,
even if my rebellion fails and he survives Bishop’s allegations, he will be blamed for this fire. He will not escape retribution.’

  The smoke was growing thicker, and Chaloner coughed again.

  ‘But my uprising will succeed today because the regime you support is guided by Satan,’ the Major ranted on, his voice growing high-pitched and fervent, just as it had been before Naseby. ‘I intend to install a republic – a proper one, not the apology we had under Cromwell.’

  ‘You will not have it,’ warned the Earl bravely. ‘The best chance was the Commonwealth, and that failed. Now the monarchy is restored, the opportunity is lost for ever.’

  ‘No! The King will flee when London rises against him, and I shall seize White Hall from his debauched followers. Then we shall have a democracy that will be the envy of the world.’

  Chaloner coughed harder, then let himself sag, so that Rea and Gardner were obliged either to hold him up or drop him. They struggled for a moment, but then let him go. Everyone’s attention was on the Major, so no one noticed when he palmed a metal pen that had fallen on the floor. It was not much of a weapon, but its nib was sharp.

  There was a sudden roar, and the fire took on a newer, fiercer intensity. The Major took a step towards the exit as three large sacks began to blaze.

  ‘It seems we must hurry,’ he said. ‘Poison Clarendon and let us be on our way.’

  ‘Why not just stab him?’ asked Rea, fingering a knife. ‘Poison is a coward’s weapon.’

  ‘We cannot have suspicious holes in his corpse,’ snapped the Major. ‘It will interfere with my plan to have him accused of helping O’Neill to burn down the Post Office. Now feed him the toxin.’

  ‘Let me,’ said Oxenbridge. He withdrew a phial from his pocket, eyes glittering evilly in the dancing firelight. ‘I will make him pay for imprisoning you.’