The Black Friar

by S. G. MacLean

  Seeker said he’d ask around the next time he was down at Deptford.

  The rose was well rooted and the ground hard, but Seeker enjoyed the labour.

  ‘You’re a man’s done plenty digging, Captain, I’d say.’

  Earthworks, trenches, pits, graves: sometimes it felt like he’d dug up half of England in the war. And fertilised the ground with blood.

  With a final heave and groan, the rose at last came away. Seeker let out a long breath and pressed his hands to his back, feeling the pleasure of hard work done. He handed the shovel back to the gardener. ‘Tell the masters again you need someone. Tell them Mr Thurloe said so.’

  Nine

  Nathaniel

  Seeker wanted to get Nathaniel away from Gethsemane, to talk to him where the sharp shadow of Elizabeth Crowe did not fall, where his father’s disappointment and his sister’s malice did not permeate the air. He had thought at first to take him walking with the hound out across the fields to Islington, to take their supper perhaps at the King’s Head, but he was finished his other business too late, and it was already darkening by the time he walked up Woodruffe Lane towards the almshouses of the Fifth Monarchists. It was growing colder, too, promising a bitter night that he would not enforce on dog or boy.

  ‘He’ll be back here before the curfew,’ was his response to Elizabeth Crowe’s protests that Nathaniel should not be out in the town.

  ‘You have not the authority,’ she said, as her husband watched them quietly from the door of his loom shed.

  Seeker could feel his patience ebbing away. ‘The lad is twenty-two years old. He can make his own judgements.’ Then he leaned a little closer to the preacher-woman. ‘And besides, I have all the authority I need. Every time I step in through that archway, or you step beyond it. You would do well to remember that.’

  Nathaniel didn’t ask where they were going, but talked incessantly as he kept pace with Seeker, the dog loping ahead. The boy clearly relished being out in the night, and his eyes darted from side to side, taking in everything, commenting on anything new to him, and anything that had changed. The defect of speech which crippled him under his mother’s tirades and admonishments was all but gone.

  It didn’t take them long, going by Fenchurch Street and onto Lombard Street, to come to Birchin Lane, and at the top, the door to Kent’s. Here, as the dog settled himself across Cornhill, Nathaniel froze.

  Seeker stopped in the act of pushing open the door of the coffee house. ‘What’s the matter?’

  The stammer was back. ‘I – I am not a-allowed to go into those places. They are t-temples of d-depravity.’

  ‘It is not a tavern, Nathaniel, it’s a coffee house.’

  Nathaniel nodded. ‘I kn-know. It’s the milk of Hades, b-black and noxious. It makes men mad.’

  Seeker smiled. ‘I think some of them are mad already, but a good man, an old soldier I know, keeps this house – there is no drunkenness or lewdness here. You are right though, the beverage is black and foul, but there are other things to be had here. Come, it will be warm and we can talk freely.’

  There was an unconcealed hiatus in the coffee house talk when Seeker followed the young weaver into the coffee room. Seeker was glad, for Nathaniel’s sake, to see that the place was not so busy as usual, not so glad to see the Massachusetts schoolmaster, Shadrach Jones, seated there, taking his pipe with Maria’s brother. He slid a look quickly over them and turned away to usher a bewildered-looking Nathaniel towards the private booth. As he beckoned Samuel over to them, a low murmur set up and conversations began to build again.

  ‘What can I do for you, Captain?’ said Samuel, nodding briefly to Nathaniel as he did so.

  ‘I will take a jug of your bracket, and my friend here a bowl of your chocolate. After that we would like to be undisturbed.’

  Samuel nodded and hobbled away, calling instructions to Grace and Gabriel about the hot spiced and honeyed ale, the chocolate and the captain’s pipe. Gabriel appeared with tobacco and flint and Seeker observed Nathaniel closely. When the boy had gone back to the counter, Seeker said to Nathaniel, ‘You know him.’

  Nathaniel nodded. ‘I’ve seen him go into the house with the green door, on Crutched Friars. He doesn’t go in by the front, but by a side passageway down into the garden. He often has a package with him.’

  Seeker had not realised before quite how observant Nathaniel was.

  ‘And have you ever been into that house, with the green door?’

  Nathaniel shook his head.

  ‘Or Gideon? Did he ever go there?’

  ‘I saw him look at it sometimes, just when we were passing, but I never saw him stop or go in.’

  A thought struck Seeker. ‘Do you know anyone else in here?’

  Nathaniel looked over at the serving table and carefully studied each of the men seated at it. ‘That is Elias Ellingworth,’ he said. ‘He came to a meeting at Gethsemane once, but left before Mother had finished preaching. I don’t think he liked it, and Mother was greatly offended.’

  Seeker stored the image away for future amusement. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘That merchant, with the loud voice . . .’

  ‘George Tavener?’

  ‘I think that’s his name. He came to Gethsemane once, to order some bolts of cloth, but Mother asked too much for them, and so he left.’ Nathaniel made a tired face. ‘I don’t know the names of any of the rest, although I have seen that physician about, and the carpenter too, I think.’

  By the carpenter, he seemed to mean Shadrach Jones. ‘No,’ corrected Seeker, ‘he’s a schoolteacher, although he claims to take an interest in mechanics and the like, it is true.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Nathaniel, colouring.

  ‘All right,’ said Seeker, taking a drink of his bracket, and leaving his hands warming around the pewter cup that Samuel always kept for him. ‘What I really want you to tell me about are the places you went to with Gideon, tell me about the people you saw him meet and speak to, what you know about where he went when you weren’t with him.’

  Nathaniel looked uncomfortable, and Seeker thought he knew why. ‘You cannot keep Gideon Fell’s secrets for him now, Nathaniel. You have to tell me what you know. No harm can come to him in this world worse than has already come.’

  And so Nathaniel began to talk, and Seeker had to slow him a little sometimes. Gideon had always made sure to attend Elizabeth Crowe’s preachings when Major-General Harrison was expected. Nathaniel thought Gideon must want to get to know the major, because he always seemed as close by him as he could get while Elizabeth preached. He’d never noticed Gideon say much to the major, although he’d attended carefully any time the major spoke, which was strange, because Nathaniel didn’t think Gideon had really liked the major.

  No, thought Seeker, Carter Blyth would not have liked Thomas Harrison. Carter Blyth, as he recalled him, had been an honest, decent soldier, clear that he fought for the good of the people, taken into Thurloe’s service because his courage and loyalty were beyond doubt. Thomas Harrison brandished his Bible and brayed what he called his honesty even in Cromwell’s face, vaunted himself on speaking truth to power, but Seeker knew, as did half the army, that Harrison, the son of a Staffordshire butcher, had made several fortunes from the sequestered lands of beaten Royalists. Nothing was said of it, though, by Cromwell’s Council of State, for so many of them had done the same.

  Seeker returned his attention to what Nathaniel was saying. Goodwill Crowe kept his son busy most days in the weaving shed, but sometimes he’d let Nathaniel away for an hour or so, when he was having meetings with the major and others. There had been a lot of meetings lately, and talking over pamphlets, although Nathaniel could not tell what the pamphlets said. At first, Gideon had taken an interest in those meetings, but after a while less so, until about two weeks before he’d disappeared, he had stopped attending, and then, on those occasions, he would come and find Nathaniel and they would go out walking through the town, and Gideon had shown him places Nat
haniel had never seen before. He’d taken him out by Ludgate and to the Inns of Court. ‘I thought they would be frightening, those Inns. My father says that those in them keep honest men from justice, and practise to tie our rights up in words we cannot understand.’

  In his heart Seeker didn’t think so differently from Goodwill Crowe on the matter, but he kept his own views to himself: Parliament had dragged its feet and would not reform the law as the army wanted it to.

  ‘But you didn’t find them frightening, the Inns of Court?’ asked Seeker, curious.

  Daniel shook his head. ‘Gideon left me with two gardeners, an old man and a boy; they showed me about the plants and the lawns, and the boy told me of the Lord Protector’s new ship.’

  Some of the dirt from his struggle with the old rose was still on Seeker’s boots. ‘This boy was called Jed?’

  Nathaniel looked briefly amazed, and then recalled what the children on the lane said, what Patience said: the Seeker knew everything.

  ‘Did he tell you he wanted to join the ship? To go to sea?’

  ‘When he was older, he said. But he wanted to learn about ships first, about the stars, and mathematics and navigation. He was going to go and hear the lectures at Gresham College. When he was older.’

  Nathaniel had never seen Jed again, never been back to Lincoln’s, after that one time. ‘I hoped I might see him again when we went out to practise archery at Conduit Fields. There were lots of other boys there, but I didn’t see Jed.’

  ‘Conduit Fields is a long way out from Gethsemane. What took you up there?’

  ‘Gideon had business up at Holborn – we had our dinner at an inn called the Red Lion at Long Acre – I liked the sign, it was very fierce. Gideon said it would do me good to get out into the open spaces, away from the damp of the loom shed and . . .’ He stared, realising what he had been about to say, and took a long drink of his chocolate.

  Seeker could have said it for him. ‘Away from your father and mother.’ He wondered whom Carter Blyth might have had business with at Long Acre – the place had been a favourite of Cromwell when he had still lived amongst ordinary men, before the demands of the state had forced him to Whitehall, and his family with him. It was still a favourite of many officers who didn’t have to live within the confines of the Palace, and preferred not to be walled in in the city itself.

  ‘Do you know what Gideon’s business was, or who it was with?’ Seeker asked, but again, Nathaniel did not. He had been left to sport with other young men in Conduit Fields while Carter Blyth had done whatever it was he had gone up to Holborn to do.

  Seeker wondered what Blyth’s purpose could have been, in taking the boy with him on those occasions – whether it was out of genuine affection, or a means by which to disguise himself better. He had clearly taken care that Nathaniel should not become party to knowledge and identities that might endanger him. As well to leave the hound with him at Gethsemane, all the same.

  ‘When you were out on these trips with Gideon, did you ever think he seemed to be afraid of anyone?’

  Nathaniel grinned, as if he thought Seeker to be in jest, but then his expression changed, and he set down his bowl of chocolate.

  Seeker watched him. ‘Well?’

  The boy wrinkled his brow, was troubled. Then he looked up at Seeker, convinced. ‘A woman. Gideon was afraid of a woman.’

  ‘Tell me about her,’ said Seeker quietly.

  Nathaniel was concentrating. ‘She had red hair, tied up beneath her cap but with lengths straggling. She is older than me, not as old as you though, or my mother.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘She is tall, with broad shoulders and strong hands, and her face seems happy, but I think she is only pretending.’ Nathaniel sat back, glad to have said his piece and to have got nothing wrong.

  Seeker knew he had to be patient, to play out his questions carefully.

  ‘Do you know this woman’s name? Did Gideon tell you?’

  Nathaniel shook his head. ‘I asked him, when we were leaving, but he said he didn’t know.’ He glanced at Seeker, worried again. ‘I think he might have been lying.’

  Seeker sought to reassure him. ‘All right. That’s all right. He may have had good reason. But tell me, where was it you were leaving, that you had seen her?’

  Nathaniel’s face brightened. ‘It was the Black Fox Tavern, up Broad Street on the way to Gresham College. Gideon had wanted to go up there and see what lectures they were advertising at the college, but he was hungry – Patience had cooked the dinner that day and we could hardly eat it – so he said we should go into the Black Fox and get our supper. And we sat down, and he ordered us two dishes of rabbit stew, which is my favourite. But when the boy went through to the kitchen, and the landlady came out as if to see us, Gideon suddenly got up and said he had brought no money with him, and we could not have our supper there after all.’

  ‘He didn’t speak to this woman at all? Nor she him?’

  ‘No. But they looked at each other, and I don’t think she was glad to see him at all, nor he her.’

  Seeker realised it was getting late, and they would need to leave soon if he were to get Nathaniel back to Gethsemane before the curfew. No nightwatchman would dare to question him, regardless of what time of night he prowled the streets or who he was with, but he knew, hound or no, Elizabeth Crowe would find it an excuse to chastise the boy once he was gone, and he was determined she should not have it.

  They finished their drinks and Seeker bade a quiet goodnight to Samuel Kent. There was silence as they passed the serving table again on their way out. Once they were on the lane, the door to Kent’s closed behind them, Nathaniel said, ‘Why are they so scared of you?’

  Seeker finished putting on his gauntlets, straightened his shoulders. ‘Because it suits me that they should be so.’

  Nathaniel didn’t pursue the matter and they fell into a silent stride back towards Aldgate, the dog at their heels. Seeker was aware that the boy was troubled by something, but left him to ponder it until he was ready. Then, as they were passing the Clothworkers’ Hall at the top of Minchin Lane, Nathaniel suddenly stopped.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Seeker.

  ‘I am not afraid of you.’

  ‘I don’t wish you to be.’

  Nathaniel looked down and started to work at the buckle of the bag he always carried with him when he went out of Gethsemane, ‘for interesting things,’ he had said. From it he pulled a slim volume, in quarto, and handed it to Seeker. ‘I think you should have this.’

  Seeker turned the volume over in his hands. It was a cheaply bound ledger of some sort, with a symbol embossed on the front that he could not make out in the lamplight of the street. ‘What is it?’

  Nathaniel shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I found it amongst Gideon’s things after he went away. I knew my father was coming to search his room, and I worried he would destroy it, because they do not like books that aren’t about the Bible, and it was Gideon’s book.’

  Seeker flicked through the leaves of the ledger, but could only see enough to know that it was handwritten and not printed. He could not believe that an agent as experienced as Carter Blyth would have left a record of his activities in the very place in which he had embedded himself. ‘You’re certain it’s his?’

  Nathaniel nodded. ‘I saw him place it in the recess he’d made by loosening two bricks behind his bed. I think he kept things there that he didn’t wish others to find.’ He looked away a moment. ‘Patience, and my mother, come in searching sometimes.’

  ‘For what?’

  Again Nathaniel shrugged. ‘Anything they think I shouldn’t have.’

  That seemed likely enough. ‘And what else did you see Gideon put there?’

  Even in the darkness, Seeker would have sworn the boy coloured, looked at his feet.

  ‘You cannot get Gideon into any trouble now,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Nathaniel. ‘But you will think badly of him, and I’m sure he didn’t steal i
t.’

  ‘Steal what?’ asked Seeker carefully.

  ‘It was a jug, or candlestick or something like that. It was made of silver.’

  ‘Did you ask him about it?’

  ‘No,’ said Nathaniel. ‘Gideon told me what he thought I should know, but there were other things he said he couldn’t tell me, so I didn’t ask.’

  A thought came to Seeker, a possibility that he had not yet found a connection for. ‘Could it have been a salt?’

  Nathaniel looked bewildered. ‘Mother keeps the salt in a small wooden bowl with a lid; it was nothing like that.’

  ‘All right,’ said Seeker. The boy was tiring, and it was clear that being asked things he had no answer for upset him. ‘Just one more question and then we will get you home.’

  Nathaniel waited.

  ‘What happened to this silver thing you saw?’

  There was a pause. ‘I never saw it after Gideon went.’

  *

  An hour later, Seeker was in his chamber at the back of the house on Knight Ryder Street. His landlady had set the fire and put fresh water in a glazed earthenware ewer and set it by the bowl beneath the old mottled-looking glass he would shave by in the morning – it had been three days since he had had the time to visit the barber at his barracks, and he preferred his jaw clean. Fresh candles had been set in the wooden candlesticks on the mantelshelf. He paid the extra for good wax – he had never liked the greasy mutton stench of tallow.

  He lit a candle at his table and sat down with the book in front of him. It was a cheap thing, quarto in size and nothing of quality. On the front cover, written in a fine secretary hand, were the words Register of Scholars, and beneath the words an inexpertly embossed symbol. It looked something like three nails, crossing each other. A vague, troubling recognition began to seep from Seeker’s memory and he pulled open the book. There, on the first page of the volume, written in the same secretary hand, was Rhys Evans, at the sign of the Three Nails, Holborn.

  Something cold went through Damian Seeker and his fingers pressed harder on the volume under them. He had first come across the name of this place on Holborn only the night before. The man Shadrach Jones, whom he had come upon in the Ellingworths’ garret in Dove Court, had claimed to have crossed the ocean, come all the way from Massachusetts, to take up a post at this Rhys Evans’s school. He felt anger rising in him that he didn’t fully understand, the same anger that had taken hold of him when first he had come across the man, alone with Maria. He breathed deep and waited for it to subside, then turned the first page of the register.