The Black Friar

by S. G. MacLean

  It looked like nothing more than a list of boys’ names, little over a dozen, attending the school from Michaelmas until the beginning of December of the year just past, the period just before Shadrach Jones said he had arrived in England. Seeker read through the dates, the names, any marks by them again and again. Cryptography held some interest for him, but if the information on these pages were some code it would be for Dr Wallis and his assistants to unravel.

  He closed the book, considering what cause Carter Blyth might have had for having it, how it might relate to Blyth’s investigations. Certainly, there must have been a connection between Blyth’s visit with Nathaniel to Holborn, and his possession of this book. Carter Blyth had had this book and now Carter Blyth was dead.

  Seeker snuffed out the candle and lay down on his bed. He had not pulled to the shutter on his window, and the clear blue light of the moon filled the room. He closed his eyes against it, but knew it would be many hours until he slept. Word was tomorrow would be Parliament’s last day, and if that were the case, it might be long enough before he could continue his quest in the fading footprints of Thurloe’s dead agent.

  Ten

  The School at the Sign of the Three Nails

  Shadrach Jones opened the shutters of his small room at the back of the Three Nails and looked out over the gardens to Conduit Fields. The sight gladdened his heart. Had he looked out to the front, he would have seen the steady creep of the city of London, which, having burst its bounds, was advancing inexorably north and west. The houses that faced the Three Nails just across High Holborn could scarcely contain the surge behind them, around Lincoln’s Inn Fields and up Drury Lane, straggling eventually up to St Giles in the Fields.

  Shadrach had only been in England a few weeks, but from his very first sight of it he had loved London; it had drawn him in as belonging. Out in the streets, at the markets and in the taverns and coffee houses, he heard endless complaints about the never-ending growth of the city, the overcrowding, the ceaseless building upon building in the face of all laws to the contrary, the difficulties of travel, the bad water. King, Commons, Parliament, Protector, the filth on the streets was all the same. But those complaints were as music to Shadrach’s ears, for in London was the means to answer them: the knowledge in the free lectures, open to all – tradesmen, mechanics, labourers and lawyers – given at Gresham College on mathematics, navigation, the possibilities of architecture and engineering – and Shadrach would be the man to do it. When people asked him why he had come to London, he would mumble something appropriate about England’s godly revolution, the rights of the people, freedom of religion. That usually did it, one way or the other, so that they forgot any curiosity they might have had in him.

  Freedom from religion, he should have said; freedom from the narrow constraints, the suspicion of learning of his own parents; freedom from the suffocating puritanism of Harvard. When the business that had called him to England was finally finished, Shadrach was determined, from his small room at the back of the Three Nails on High Holborn, that he would shape London, and that London would make him. The only pity was that George Downing was here too, but Downing was so risen in the world, and he himself not risen at all, that their paths that had crossed at Harvard were unlikely to do so for a long time, if ever, here.

  Damian Seeker, though, that was something different. Damian Seeker he would do his utmost to avoid. The closing down of Parliament by Cromwell, four days since, had been like one of those gifts of Providence such as the Protector himself was so fond of speaking of. For in the coming weeks, if those who knew of such things were to be believed, Seeker would be too much busied leading raiding parties on printers’ workshops and hunting down dissidents to trouble himself over a Holborn schoolmaster.

  *

  The work of the previous few days had borne Seeker and his troop on a wave of adrenalin, but the city and its liberties had taken the news of Parliament’s closure much more calmly than it had been feared they might. Thurloe, still ensconced in his sickroom at Lincoln’s Inn, remained vigilant. ‘The most dangerous elements will be the ones we can’t see. There might not be apprentices rioting on the streets of Walbrook or Cripplegate, but who’s scribbling away at pamphlets to send out across the country, to stir up dissent? Who’s whispering mutiny in the ears of likely army men? Don’t lose sight of Carter Blyth, Seeker. Don’t lose sight of Carter Blyth.’

  Their last raid had finished in the early hours of the morning, and Seeker had taken a few hours’ sleep in the barracks at Whitehall, but he had woken before daylight, anxious to investigate the school at the Three Nails. Four nights and four days since Nathaniel had given him that book, and not a moment since to pursue it, because Cromwell had finally had enough of Parliament. Today, at last, with all calm, he could allow himself a few hours to see to Thurloe’s secret business. The young men of the Secretariat were also less hurried today – he passed Andrew Marvell and Marcus Bridlington in animated conversation as they turned into a cookhouse opposite Axe Yard, evidently intent on an early breakfast. The walk up to Holborn invigorated him. Even at this hour, carts and travellers and traders on foot and horseback were making their way towards the city from villages to the north and west, Hampstead and Uxbridge, and further afield, their concerns for the rights of Parliament a secondary matter at best to their concern for commerce. The country was at peace, stable under the Lord Protector, and those who had to earn their living by the sweat of their own brow understood that.

  The trees and bushes of the gardens were stark and bare, and even the snowdrops had not yet broken through the earth, but the birds were busy already and there was a freshness in the air that grew the further from the river he walked. Seeker liked Holborn: there had been good times here, when the King had still been a fugitive and not a martyr, and the army leaders had met at the Red Lion, or in Cromwell’s own house on Drury Lane, and all had seemed possible, all that they had fought for had almost been within their grasp. And they had grasped it – Cromwell, Fairfax, Ireton and the rest. Ireton was dead now, Fairfax retreated to Yorkshire and his gardens and his books, and Cromwell was left, with lesser men to guide him. But that hardly mattered; the Protector would hold firm, for England had nothing else.

  The Three Nails was not difficult to find – a ramshackle collection of buildings on the north side of High Holborn, next to the neglected and swiftly deteriorating house of a Royalist who had lost almost all in the cause of Charles Stuart. Another place that needed pulling down. A haberdasher’s fronted the building at the sign of the Three Nails, and Seeker went down the narrow alleyway at its side to the small courtyard, two of whose sides were occupied by Rhys Evans’s school.

  Off to the side, a dull aroma of porridge infused the air, contending with the more pungent smells coming from the midden at whose edges a roped pig was snuffling. Chickens scattered noisily across the yard at Seeker’s approach. Through a doorway he could hear the practised chorus of a grace being offered in young and toneless voices. He waited until they had finished and then pushed open the door. Little light traversed the panes of the room’s only two, grimy windows. A dozen boys, aged perhaps between nine and twelve years, were ranged on benches set either side of a long table. They were bent, murmuring to one another, over bowls of a grey and unappetising porridge. At the top of the table sat an elderly, unkempt man with rheumy eyes, whose clothing suggested he might once have known better times. Rhys Evans. Seeker knew, because he had made it his business to know before coming here, that Evans had been a Fellow of long-standing but little distinction in a Cambridge college a good while before the war. A Laudian, he had soon been ejected in favour of a Puritan rival. And so now, he kept this school. His file had not taken Seeker long to peruse – Evans had evinced no particular royalist sympathies and had made himself amenable enough to the new regime to not fall foul of its several proclamations against teachers trained in the old state-established church. Evans scarcely seemed to notice Seeker’s arrival, and only raised his h
ead from his contemplation of the contents of his bowl at the sudden descending silence that enveloped the table. A vague recognition stirred in the eyes before they returned to the contemplation of his bowl.

  ‘Captain Seeker.’

  The voice came from the other end of the room. Shadrach Jones was standing some way behind Seeker, by a large pot suspended over the fire.

  Seeker swallowed down his reaction to the sight of the American and said, ‘I’d have a word, if you please.’ He surveyed the awestruck boys. ‘In private.’

  Jones nodded. He called up one of the boys. ‘See it doesn’t burn, William. The rest of you, hold your tongues and do not disturb Dr Evans. Consider your reflections on last night’s task.’ He indicated a door behind where the senile master sat, and Seeker followed him through it, into the schoolroom.

  ‘You do all the teaching then?’ said Seeker, jerking his head towards the door of the dining parlour.

  ‘Mr Evans is not fit for it. Has not been some time. God alone knows how long the boys have been covering up for him – months, I think. The older ones have done their best, but some of the younger were scarcely lettered when I came.’

  ‘Hmm. Have you not told their parents?’

  Jones sighed. ‘It has come on gradually; he has worsened even in the time that I have been here. To begin with, there was occasional lucidity. I doubt it will be long before he is wholly insensible.’

  ‘And then?’

  Jones frowned. ‘I will keep the school on, and for Dr Evans? He has no family that we know of, is a member of no craft that will look after him, has lost any college connections he might once have had, has no patron. I would not put him to Bedlam. We will just keep him here, and tend to him as we are able.’

  Seeker nodded. Many would fare a lot worse.

  ‘Evans adhered to Laud’s church and methods.’

  ‘I know little of that,’ said Jones. ‘My family fled Laud’s England.’

  Seeker would have liked to know more of Jones’s background, but this was not the occasion. ‘In his more sensible times, did Evans ever show any sign to you of royalist leanings?’

  Again Jones considered, before giving an emphatic ‘No. I have heard him mutter once or twice, “Finished, they’re all finished”, whenever the name of the Stuarts is raised.’

  ‘And is that often?’ said Seeker quietly.

  Jones looked startled. ‘What? No. Hardly ever.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘What is your allegiance?’

  Jones blinked, stuttered. ‘Well, to the Protector, to the Commonwealth, of course.’

  Seeker grunted, unconvinced. ‘In my experience, there is seldom an “of course”. He rubbed a hand over his chin and walked around the room. It was a poor-looking place, as most schoolrooms were, and only a little better lit than the parlour the boys ate in, so much of the light being obscured by the other buildings around the courtyard. Nevertheless, it was well-enough ordered, he would grant Jones that. Three benches were ranged before the schoolmaster’s desk, slates and notebooks stacked beneath them. The set fire at one end and brazier at another both waited to be lit. At the teacher’s lectern was a book of simple arithmetic, and on a shelf by the door sat a wooden model of some sort of lifting device. ‘Yours?’ he enquired.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jones, coming over to him. ‘It’s a model for a new water-pump.’

  Seeker took a moment to examine the machine, turning it carefully to observe it from different angles. The design was ingenious and the thing well made. Seeker would have liked to see the working model. He resolved to mention it to the Master of Works at Deptford. He returned the machine to its shelf, and as he did so, said, ‘Tell me what you know of a man named Gideon Fell.’

  Jones looked momentarily startled, before registering his puzzlement at the sudden change in direction of their conversation. He looked at Seeker warily. ‘I have never heard that name.’

  ‘What about Carter Blyth?’

  Jones shook his head. ‘No. I don’t know him either.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Seeker. ‘And have you ever been to a place called Gethsemane?’

  ‘Gethsemane?’ Jones appeared to be genuinely confused. ‘Gethsemane? From the Bible? The Holy Land?’

  ‘It’s home to a sect of Fifth Monarchists in Aldgate. Are you going to tell me next that you don’t know what the Fifth Monarchists are?’

  ‘Of course I know, but why should I . . .?’

  ‘But you have never met a weaver by the name of Gideon Fell?’

  Jones sat down, his head in his hands. ‘I don’t know any of these people or the place you are talking about. I scarcely know anyone in London. I am a schoolmaster.’

  Seeker, who had been looming slightly over Shadrach, stood straight. He’d seen people lie brazenly, and people lie out of fear, but he’d also seen people frightened and confused because they didn’t know even the beginnings of the answers to the questions he was asking them. He was convinced Shadrach Jones didn’t know anything of what he was talking to him about. He changed his tack.

  ‘And what of Dr Evans, does he wander the town? Does he ever speak of the Fifth Monarchy men?’ He thought of the woman Nathaniel had told him Blyth was afraid of. ‘Does he ever talk of going to the lectures at Gresham, take his supper in the Black Fox?’

  Something he’d said had caught Jones’s interest, but it passed and the schoolmaster sighed heavily. ‘Dr Evans speaks of wonders and horrors that only his mind’s eye can see, and his days of attending lectures are long past. Since I came here, he has never, to my knowledge, wandered beyond Holborn Bar or the top of Drury Lane. The shopkeepers keep a lookout for him for us, and the innkeeper of the White Hart, who occasionally returns him to us.’

  ‘I see. Then you will have no idea how this item came to be in the place known as Gethsemane?’ From his leather bag Seeker produced the register of the school given to him by Nathaniel Crowe, and held it out towards Shadrach Jones.

  Jones looked at the book, examined the lettering, the wording on the front. He opened it, and again a frown spread over his face. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘What do you not understand?’ asked Seeker.

  ‘This isn’t our register.’

  ‘How so? It bears the name of this school on the front.’

  ‘As does this,’ said Jones, opening the lid of his desk and holding up to Seeker’s view an identical-looking register. ‘From the Martinmas term until now. It was here when I arrived, and I have been making notes and entries in it ever since.’

  ‘And the names? Are the boys named in this pupils here?’ Seeker asked, indicating the register found at Gethsemane.

  Jones laid the books down side by side and scanned the names. ‘Yes,’ he began slowly, ‘I think . . .’ and then he stopped. ‘All but this one.’

  He turned the book towards Seeker.

  ‘Edward Yuill?’

  Jones nodded. ‘There is no Edward Yuill in this school.’

  Seeker turned through the pages of the book Nathaniel had given him. ‘According to this there was: an Edward Yuill is marked among the pupils from the end of September until the twelfth of December, the last day this book was marked up.’

  Shadrach Jones’s eyes moved, troubled, from one book to the other. Eventually, he gave off looking at the book he had taken from his own desk, and gave all his attention instead to that Seeker had brought with him. At last he looked up, his face pale. ‘The hand, in your copy of the register, it is Dr Evans’s. I know it from some old accounts and books he keeps – it is an old secretary hand, not so much practised now. It becomes very shaky towards the end, as you see, but that is definitely Dr Evans’s hand, and it must have been he who wrote Edward Yuill’s name in that register, and marked his charges paid.’

  ‘And whose hand wrote out the names and notes on this?’ said Seeker, indicating the copy without Edward Yuill’s name in it.

  Jones shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It is certainly not mi
ne, nor Dr Evans’s, nor yet any of the boys, for I know all their hands.’

  Seeker plucked a pen from its holder on the master’s desk, dipped it in the inkwell and held it out to Jones. ‘Show me.’

  Jones stuttered.

  ‘Your hand,’ said Seeker, pushing a piece of paper underneath it. ‘Show me.’

  Still Jones hesitated. ‘What would you have me write?’

  Seeker lost patience. ‘The first thing that comes into your head, man.’

  Jones bent over the paper, and Seeker watched the pen move across it: the movement seemed natural, flowing, and not contrived for disguise, but Seeker would take it to the postal office for examination anyway.

  He glanced over the words.

  For man (alas) is but the heaven’s sport;

  And art indeed is long, but life is short.

  ‘Fine sentiments for a New England Puritan,’ he said dismissively, setting the paper aside to dry, ready to take back to Whitehall with him. ‘And this book was already here and in use when you arrived?’

  ‘What?’ said Jones, still looking at the paper on which he had just written.

  Seeker began to wonder if the fellow’s mind was wandered as much as the old master’s. He held up the copy of the register Jones had taken from his desk. ‘This. It was here and in use when you arrived?’

  Jones nodded.

  ‘Call in the youngest boy.’

  ‘The youngest? Surely the oldest would know more.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Seeker, ‘but the youngest will be less practised in lying. Call him in.’